Virtual Watervliet

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The Virtual Watervliet project allows Shaker Heritage Society (SHS) to achieve its mission to cultivate an interest in Shaker history while increasing awareness of the historic site of America’s first Shaker settlement and support for its preservation.

Virtual Watervliet includes multiple online opportunities to interact and learn from historical images, photos, and Shaker music. With a couple mouse clicks, the evolution of the historic site becomes visually accessible to people who participate in the Society’s education programs, to local residents and to virtual visitors around the world. Users can explore this resource at will, gaining a deeper understanding of the historic site and greater perspective on its part in history.

Learn the Stories! Tour the Site! See the Buildings!

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The Virtual Watervliet portal includes a digital reconstruction of the publicly accessible portion of the Watervliet Shaker National Historic District, which is known as the Church Family. The virtual settlement reproduces the historical Buckingham Map, drawn in 1838 by Brother David A. Buckingham as an inventory and map of the Church Family structures. Named “A Delineation or View of the Village called the Church Family”, the drawing portrays landscape features, pathways, and around 56 buildings from shops and dwelling houses to minor structures. The details include the foundations, picket fences, apple trees, and even small features such as a lightning rod in the Main Dwelling House. The map served as the key resource for the digital models of the demolished buildings for Virtual Watervliet.

The groundbreaking approach of Virtual Watervliet received four national awards in 2013, recognizing the innovative application of web and mobile technologies for site interpretation, including the prestigious HIP (History in Progress) award granted by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH). In 2016, Virtual Watervliet was selected for the discussion round of Digital Public History on the Doing Digital History 2016 summer institute sponsored by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM).