Shaker Office

The Shaker experience in Harvard and Shirley began in June of 1781 when Ann Lee and a group of early Shaker leaders visited the area. They were on an extended proselytizing journey from the first community in Watervliet, NY. Many of the first Shakers in Harvard and Shirley came from farming communities of New Light Baptists. Local people invited the Shaker missionaries to Harvard and Shirley. Shaker villages relied on local people to provide the land, labor, and loyalty to sustain a village through its early years.

At their height in about 1850, the Harvard Shakers had 150 members. Other Shaker communities existed in communities in New York, elsewhere in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. The sole remaining Shaker community today, Sabbathday Lake, is located in Poland Spring, Maine. Harvard was considered the spiritual center of the Shaker world.

The Shaker Office at Fruitlands was originally constructed in the Harvard Shaker Village in 1796 as an office. Miss Sears moved it to Fruitlands Museums in 1920 after the Harvard Shaker village closed.