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Online Resources

Content for the Curious

The late 18th century was a time of tremendous change. The transition from farms to factories, war, widespread religious persecution and development of the New World fed an explosion of experimental expressions of spirituality and social order. The Shaker movement arose out of this climate.

The importance of the Watervliet site cannot be overstated. It influenced American history in the areas of religious development, the history of technology and agriculture, women’s role in society, decorative arts and design, African American history and legal history. Today, the site retains much of its rural character and historic landscape despite heavy development in the surrounding area. The area of historic significance includes the Ann Lee Pond Nature Preserve and bike paths that connect to trails along the Mohawk River. Located adjacent to Albany International Airport and several major transportation corridors, the site is an important and unique gateway to the Capital District and the Adirondack region.

Recapturing Wisdom's Valley

Updated Version of Recapturing Wisdom’s Valley

The Watervliet Shaker Heritage, 1775 – 1975

When Recapturing Wisdom’s Valley was published in 1975, the Church Family site was in use as the Ann Lee Home complex, Albany County’s nursing home.  Author Dorothy Filley noted that the property was off limits and visible only from a distance, and that the Shaker Cemetery was the only Shaker site that was publicly accessible.  Today, as the location of the Shaker Heritage Society (SHS), the Church Family site is open to the public from dawn to dusk year round.  The property is still owned by Albany County and is leased by SHS.  It is rare for a day to go by without visitors taking advantage of the site to walk a dog, sit and read, enjoy a tour, engage in a program, or attend a special event.

 

We are very grateful to New York State Assembly Member Phil Steck, who provided a Legislative Initiative grant to support the project to update the content and produce a digital version of the publication.  Revisions were undertaken by Lorraine E. Weiss, previous Shaker Heritage Society Education Coordinator, with assistance from Jim Mazcek, Ann Sayers, and Angelica Trzepacz.  Thank you to Fort Orange Press, whose team worked to scan the original book and incorporate revised and new material in the final publication; Lee Dixon, who produced the layout and graphic design for the new foreword; and copy editor J. Daniel Beaudry.

UPCOMING
Heritage Cooking book

Shaker Heritage Cookbook – Available at our Online Store!

Food and cooking are wonderful ways to discover the unique heritage of the Shakers, and our hope in compiling this cookbook is that it will likewise capture a slice of our present-day community.

 

Featuring nearly eighty recipes from over fifty contributors, the creativity and abundance between these covers showcases both a sense of connection from generation to generation and the mélange of experience that enriches our lives and fills our bellies! Food is a way we build communities, and from those communities come our heritage. By creating traditions around food we keep our heritage thriving and alive for generations to come.

A is for Apple

The Shakers at Watervliet, N. Y. (also known as the Niskayuna Shakers or Wisdom’s Valley) had extensive orchards, as did other Shaker communities. Part of the orchard planted by the Church Family still exists off of Heritage Lane near the Ann Lee Pond Nature Preserve. In 1986, the Shaker Heritage Society published a booklet on the Shaker Orchard with descriptions and history of the apple varieties and a collection of recipes. You can download a revised version of the booklet by clicking on the button below.

Note that this online version contains a selection of the recipes. A full, printed version will be available via our online store for National Pollinator Week (June 22-28, 2020).

DOWNLOAD THE BOOKLET

3D Virtual Tour of the Church Family

Explore the extant buildings and lands of America’s First Shaker Settlement.  The virtual tour presents 3D models of the Church Family grounds created by Google in an interactive 3D interface. Follow a preset tour or browse the virtual map at your own pace. Click on the icons to  learn more about the surviving structures and landscapes and zoom or pan around the virtual site.

LAUNCH THE 3D EARTH TOUR

History of the Shakers

The Shakers were a religious group that fled to the American colonies in 1774 to escape persecution in England, and to establish a Utopian society. The group’s leader was Ann Lee. Find out about the rich history behind the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing and how they lived.

LEARN ABOUT THE SHAKERS

Biographies

Shakerpedia hosts the Watervliet Cemetery Records with related Journal Entries, with supplemental documents and images in the Memoirs database.

WATERVLIET RECORDS

History of Watervliet

In 1776 the Shakers settled in Albany County, where now is the Town of Colonie. The area was called Niskayuna by the local Native Americans, and Watervliet by the descendants of the Dutch settlers. In the 1850s, there were approximately 230 shakers at the Watervliet site.

LEARN ABOUT WATERVLIET

Virtual Watervliet

Explore this pioneer interpretation prototype centered on the digital reconstruction of the first Shaker settlement in America, and the multiple web-based and mobile technologies that compose this award-winning project.

VIRTUAL WATERVLIET

Glimpses

of the Shaker life

“A slip of paper in my father’s handwriting as follows, ‘leaves from an elm tree at Harvard under which `{`Ann Lee`}` hitched her horse. The fragments are contained in an old snuff box. The Central Ministry presented one of these boxes with the mementos of Mother Ann to each Shaker Society about 1830. This specimen given to the Groveland Society’.”
Sister Jennie Wells
a well-known 20th century Shaker
“No beasts belonging to the people of God may be left to suffer with hunger, thirst, or cold, in consequence of neglect on the part of those who have care of such beats; but all should be kept in their proper places, and be properly attended to according to their needs . . . No beasts, or any living thing, may be wantonly pained, injured, or tortured. And no living thing should be corrected or chastened in a passion.”
The Millennial Laws
``The Earth is our mother and the fullness thereof,
Her streets, her slums, as well as stars above.
Salvation is here where we laugh, where we cry,
Where we seek and love, where we live and die.``
Simple Gifts
by Joseph Brackett (alternative verse)
“A runaway slave comes from Indiana to find a hiding place.”
South Family Journal
June 29, 1848

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