Hancock Shaker Village is a former Shaker commune in Hancock and Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It emerged in the towns of Hancock, Pittsfield, and Richmond in the 1780s, organized in 1790, and was active until 1960. It was the third of nineteen major Shaker villages established between 1774 and 1836 in New York, New England, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. From 1790 until 1893, Hancock was the seat of the Hancock Bishopric, which oversaw two additional Shaker communes in Tyringham, Massachusetts, and Enfield, Connecticut.
The Round Barn
Brother Ricardo Belden making oval boxes in a workshop at Hancock in 1935
The round barn and farm fields
1830 dormitory building.
The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, are a millenarian restorationist Christian sect founded c. 1747 in England and then organized in the United States in the 1780s. They were initially known as "Shaking Quakers" because of their ecstatic behavior during worship services.
Life of the Diligent Shaker, Shaker Historical Society
The Ritual Dance of the Shakers, Shaker Historical Society
The Shakers Harvesting Their Famous Herbs
Historical Marker at the Niskayuna Community Cemetery in modern-day Colonie, New York, where Mother Ann Lee is buried