MEETINGHOUSE OF THE MOUNT LEBANON SHAKER COMMUNITY BUILDING IN THREE PARTS
PART I | BUILDING AS SHELTER
COAL
IRON
LIME
SILICA
CALCIUM CA R B O N AT E
TREES
LO CAL FOREST BRICK MFG
SUN
FIRE ( H E AT )
GLASS MFG
CONSTRUCTION WROUGHT HARDWARE M E TA L SMITH
FOOD & MEAL P R E PA R AT I O N
SHAKER MEETINGHOUSE
WAT E R WROUGHT TOOLS LIVING & WORSHIP ACTIVITIES
WOOD MILL COMMUNITY LABOR
WIND
HEWN LUMBER
CROP PRODUCTION
WASTE (CUTOFFS)
SHAKER FURNITURE & CRAFTS
FIRE ( H E AT )
SEED
M T. L E B A N O N SHAKER COMMUNITY
SHAKER BROTHERS & SISTERS
MOUNT LEBANON The community of The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing Established in 1787 by James Whittaker and Joseph Mecham following the death of Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee three years prior, Mount Lebanon was the first official community organized by the Shakers and was the leader in administrative and spiritual matters for all the Shaker communities that emerged throughout New England and south and west into Kentucky, Ohio, and Florida. Its community planning, architecture, commercial and industrial endeavors, as well as its spiritual practices, became models for the other Shaker villages. The “Center of Union,’ “ “Central Ministry,‘ “ or “Holy Mount” for the united society of believers in Christ’s second appearing. This was the largest shaker society of the nineteen villages in the United States, comprising about 600 people, 100 buildings, and 6,000 acres. the village, a national historic landmark since 1965, includes many contributing buildings and other cultural landscape characteristics and features preserved as a comprehensive example representing the shaker’s domestic, agricultural, and industrial ideals. The north family was the novitiate order within the society and the link between the shaker church and the outside world, sitting both literally and symbolically at “the gate” into the village. family members were innovative architects, engineers, inventors, farmers, and craftsmen. The large stone barn is an icon of the shaker industry and prosperity. The north family site, better than any other, preserves the history of the shaker hybridization of agriculture and significant water-powered workshops. today it is home to the shaker museum and library and part of the Darrow School, whose main campus is located at the neighboring church family.
materials, such as stone, brick, and wood. Father Joseph Meacham developed the Mount Lebanon community and in effect standardized plans for subsequent communities. there were no standard blueprints, the landscape evolved through trial and error over long periods, and ideas were transmitted by oral tradition. The only landscape plan known to exist is for the creation of the holy feast grounds on nearby mountain peaks. Mount Lebanon shaker village grew to five families (north, church, center, second, and south families) and two peripheral families (east and west families) arranged in a north to south line around the church family along a one and onethird mile section of the Albany to Pittsfield post road. Each family had its own fields, dwelling houses, barns, ancillary buildings, millstream, and workshops. Each family also had specific assigned crafts and duties, regulated by gender, so family workshops were customized for its own particular pursuits. Agriculture and workshop manufacturing were the principal industries of the Mount Lebanon shakers. the two activities were often intertwined, as with the seed and medicinal herbal business. The shakers cultivated medicinal herbs in “physic gardens’ ‘ and gathered renewable natural herbal resources from all parts of the landscape between the mountain heights and lowland swamps, with some natural sources considered superior to cultivated sources. springs were tapped, and pipes were run down the mountain to supply the workshops with pure mountain water. leaves, seeds, roots, flowers, and bark were processed in workshops, where they were ground into medicinal powders, distilled into extracts, bottled, and distributed as herbal remedies.
The shaker cultural landscape is characterized by functionalism and simplicity of form adapted for agricultural, milling, and workshop industries. buildings are finely constructed of traditional
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DAIRY BARN
FARM SHED WORKSHOP
DWELLING
TANNERY
SITE PLAN 1” = 10’
SE AXONOMETRIC 1” = 10’
Section 1
Section 2
Section 2
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
Section 1
1/8” = 1’
WEST ELEVATION 1/8” = 1’
SOUTH ELEVATION 1/8” = 1’
SECTION 1 1/8” = 1’
Section 2
Section 2
SECTION PERSPECTIVE NTS
ENERGY ANALYSIS
PART II | BUILDING AS SETTING
IRON
COAL
LIME
CALCIUM CA R B O N AT E
SILICA
TREES LO CAL FOREST BRICK MFG
SUN
GLASS MFG
CONSTRUCTION M E TA L SMITH
FORGED TOOLS
CHURCH FA M I LY SETTLEMENT CHURCH FA M I LY WORKSHOPS
SHAKER MEETINGHOUSE
WAT E R
CRAFTS
FURNITURE
TEXTILES
MINISTERS’ S PAC ES
SPIRITUAL STU DY
LIVING
WORSHIP SERVICES
COMMUNAL LABOR
WIND
P R AY E R & DANCE
WOOD MILL CHURCH FA M I LY DWELLING
CROP PRODUCTION
LIVING B AT H I N G E AT I N G
CHURCH FA M I LY MEMBERS
SEED
FIRE ( H E AT )
M T. L E B A N O N SHAKER COMMUNITY
FIRE ( H E AT ) SHAKER BROTHERS & SISTERS
DANCE AND DESIGN Spatial Considerations The principal design objective of the Shaker meetinghouse is a large, singular floor space to accommodate dynamic communal dancing during worship. The second meetinghouse design, started at Mount Lebanon in the fall of 1824, had several distinctive elements, including an unobstructed ground-floor space, a heavy timber frame, a sturdy wood-plank floor, double facade doors for separate male and female entry, leadership apartments above with private door and stairs, carefully gendered spaces throughout, and a barrel vault roof. The open groundfloor space was enabled by a timber-frame technology of colonial Dutch-American origin that featured closely spaced bents of ceiling beams connecting large sidewall posts. Framing was connected by mortise-and-tenon joinery. The double tie beams connecting a double bowstring truss are concealed by a curved plaster ceiling, Spanning significant interior space without intermediate supports.
repeated. This dance was performed at all Shaker villages for decades. Interestingly, an undated eighteenth-century manuscript attributed to Joseph Meacham discusses Shaker beliefs and concludes with what appears to be an extended argument against free-wheeling ecstatic dance. Recounting the biblical prophet Elijah’s unsuccessful search for God in the great appearance of wind, earthquake, and fire, then finding him in the “still small voice,” Meacham emphasized Christ’s “calm and peaceable spirit.” It seems that Meacham recognized the critical need to channel Shaker centrifugal energies into a defined and manageable order if Shakerism was to survive. He stated clearly that with “travel” to spiritual maturity, outward appearances diminished to “the calm and still kingdom.”
Shaker Worship Services In his detailed narratives, Shaker scribe Isaac Youngs emphasized that, “previous to the building of the Meeting house at Lebanon, the Believers had no regular manner of holding meetings.” He stated “not much order or regularity” was observed. But, Youngs wrote, the new meetinghouse attracted Believers throughout the region for worship, and “the exercise became more uniform and regular” as the “assembly was arranged in regular ranks, male and female facing.” Youngs repeatedly equated the change to more-organized dancing with the construction of the meetinghouse at Mount Lebanon. In late 1787, as the new Shaker leader Joseph Meacham initiated the first formal gathering of the church at Mount Lebanon, he “introduced a regular form of exercise ... called the square order shuffle,” in which the assembly moved “in rank and file.” It was an intricate back-and-forth movement with males and females separate that involved counted steps, turning, and a shuffling doublestep or “tip tap,” all ex-ecuted in unison and
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2
WEST ELEVATION FRAMING 1/8” = 1’
WORSHIP SPACE STRUCTURAL AXONOMETRIC 1” = 1O’
AXONOMETRIC ROOF STRUCTURE 1” = 20’
CO1 : SW+ SDL + SNOW Materials 1: Red Maple, 2“-4“ Thick, 2“ and Wider, Select Structural | ANSI/AWC NDS-2018
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CO1 : SW+ SDL + SNOW Support Reactions[kip] Global Deformations |u| [in] 0.086 0.078 0.071 0.063 0.055 0.047 0.039 0.031 0.024 0.016 0.008
0.086
0.000 Max: Min :
0.086 0.000
6.085
Factor of deformations: 1000.00 Max P-X': 0.000, Min P-X': 0.000 kip Max P-Z': -6.085, Min P-Z': -6.085 kip Max u: 0.086, Min u: 0.000 in 1 2 D e c e m b e r 2 0 2 0
6.085
CO1 : SW+ SDL + SNOW Local Deformations u-z Support Reactions[kip] Local Deformations u z [in]
0.078 0.069 0.060 0.051 0.042 0.032 0.023 0.014 0.005 -0.004 -0.014 -0.023 Max: Min :
0.078 -0.023
0.078
-0.023 6.085
Max u-z: 0.078, Min u-z: -0.023 [in] Max P-X': 0.000, Min P-X': 0.000 kip Max P-Z': -6.085, Min P-Z': -6.085 kip 1 2 D e c e m b e r 2 0 2 0
6.085
CO1 : SW+ SDL + SNOW Internal Forces N Support Reactions[kip] Internal forces N [kip] 5.665 4.487 3.309 2.131 0.953 -0.226 -1.404 -2.582
-7.295
-3.760 -4.938 -6.116 -7.295 Max: Min :
5.665 -7.295
5.665
6.085
Max N: 5.665, Min N: -7.295 [kip] Max P-X': 0.000, Min P-X': 0.000 kip Max P-Z': -6.085, Min P-Z': -6.085 kip 1 2 D e c e m b e r 2 0 2 0
5.665
6.085
PART III | BUILDING AS SITE
COAL
IRON
LIME
CALCIUM CA R B O N AT E
SILICA
TREES LO CAL FOREST BRICK MFG
WOOD MILL
SUN
M E TA L SMITH
CROP PRODUCTION
COMMUNAL LABOR
GLASS MFG
CONSTRUCTION
FORGED TOOLS
WAT E R
CHURCH FA M I LY SETTLEMENT
WIND
N O R T H FA M I LY SETTLEMENT
S O U T H FA M I LY SETTLEMENT
SOUTH FA M I LY WORKSHOPS
SOUTH FA M I LY DWELLING
SOUTH FA M I LY MEMBERS
SOUTH FA M I LY COMERCE
CHURCH FA M I LY WORKSHOPS
CHRCH FA M I LY DWELLING
CHURCH FA M I LY MEMBERS
SEED
M T. L E B A N O N SHAKER COMMUNITY
CHURCH FA M I LY COMERCE
SHAKER MEETINGHOUSE
NORTH FA M I LY WORKSHOPS
NORTH FA M I LY DWELLING
NORTH FA M I LY MEMBERS
NORTH FA M I LY COMERCE
AN ORDER OF ORGANIZATION The desire for order became overwhelmingly important and pervaded the numerous decisions made by early Shaker leaders. In 1792, Joseph Meacham and Lucy Wright (his female counterpart) divided the New Lebanon community into three families-First, Second, and Third. Family = Order They organized the families by age and by the different levels of commitment to Shakerism that the members professed. They also emphasized that families were not to interact. The most committed were not to be tainted by less fervent members. The First Family, or First Order, represented those who had made the greatest commitment to the Shaker faith. Members officially exhibited their commitment by signing the covenant, a practice that was established in December 1795. The covenant served as a legal document in which the signer relinquished all private property to the community. It was devised to protect the Shaker church from lawsuits brought by apostates for back wages and property given to the society. The Second Order was made up of the elderly; to the Third Order belonged the youth, or novices. Each family had a set of elders and eldresses, trustees, and deacons and deaconesses. The elders served as the spiritual leaders of the family; the trustees handled the affairs of the world; and the deacons were the temporal leaders. Trustees and deacons lived separately from the main body of members so they could perform their duties without bringing into the community worldly influences that could corrupt the rest of the brothers and sisters. Whereas the Shakers did not always follow these strict divisions in practice, the existence of such policies attests to the leaders’ desire to shield members from the world and exert influence over them.
new rules they were developing. The creation of families in New Lebanon and all the other Shaker villages also served to replace the natural families of converts. Shaker leaders instructed members to consider the elders and eldresses as their fathers and mothers, their compatriots as brothers and sisters. They would live together as a spiritual and temporal family more potent than those of the world. In New Lebanon, the original three families would eventually evolve into eight, based on their geographic location relative to the meetinghouse and the First Family-also known as the Church Family in the East-and on the level of commitment of family members. A similar arrangement occurred at Shaker communities in the West (Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana), where the Church, or Center, Family served as the nucleus around which other families and the village developed. Another important change was the creation of a ministry and bishoprics. The ministry consisted of a select group of two elders and two eldresses who oversaw a bishopric made up of three or four adjacent communities. At the top of the hierarchy stood New Lebanon, which became the lead ministry for all of Shakerdom. The rest of the officers, the other ministry elders, family elders, trustees, and deacons reported back to the New Lebanon ministry.
Family = Family? By dividing the members into three families each with their own leaders, Meacham and Wright could better disseminate and enforce the
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WORKS CITED Andrews, Edward Deming, and Faith Andrews. “The People Called Shakers.” The Yale University Library Gazette, vol. 31, no. 4, 1957, pp. 154–162. Emlen, Robert P. “Picturing the Shakers in the Popular Illustrated Press: Daily Life at Mount Lebanon in the Winter of 1869–70.” Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 50, no. 4, 2016, pp. 249–287., doi:10.1086/692359. Mclendon, Arthur E. “‘Leap and Shout, Ye Living Building!’: Ritual Performance and Architectural Collaboration in Early Shaker Meetinghouses.” Buildings & Landscapes, vol. 20, no. 2, 2013, pp. 48–76., doi:10.5749/ buildland.20.2.0048. Nicoletta, Julie. “The Architecture of Control: Shaker Dwelling Houses and the Reform Movement in Early-Nineteenth-Century America.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 62, no. 3, 2003, pp. 352–387., doi:10.2307/3592519. Nicoletta, Julie. “The Gendering of Order and Disorder: Mother Ann Lee and Shaker Architecture.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 74, no. 2, 2001, pp. 303–316., doi:10.2307/3185480.
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