News: Shakers Down to 4 Remaining Members of the Faith

Shaker Dancing

From Boston.COM:

The Last Ones Standing

Only four Shakers are left in the world, all living in southern Maine. But if they can’t attract converts to their celibate lifestyle and this really is the end for them, they have a plan to ensure that their legacy lives on forever.

THE FOUR ARE CONSPICUOUS in their plain Sunday best. The two men, both in their 40s, wear black or gray pants, white shirts, and houndstooth-check vests with the waist button undone. The two women, old enough to be their mothers, have on long, modest dresses in solid blue or green with wide shoulder yokes. Sitting on spare wooden benches, the women face the men, separated by a center aisle.

They and more than a dozen guests have gathered this Sunday morning in the unadorned chapel inside the 1883 Dwelling House at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in rural southern Maine.

(more here)

I remember studying the Shakers in college,  even then they were down to less than a dozen or so members, I had lost track of them and wasn’t even sure they still existed.

I guess it’s hard to keep a religion going when all the members are celebate, but at its peak they did have over 5,000 members.


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