Carillon Historical Park: A Shaker building (photo diary)

by Ojibwa for Museums

Community

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Monday, Aug. 08, 2022 Monday, Aug. 08, 2022 at 8:22:46am PDT

One of the buildings in the Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio is the Watervliet Shaker Building. Build about 1819, this is the final surviving remnant of the Watervliet Shaker community. The community existed from 1806 until 1900. At its height, this religious utopian community was home to more than 100 people. Formally known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, the basic tenets of Shaker religion included communal living, celibacy, equality of gender and race, pacifism, confession of sin, and separation from the world. Members were gained through conversion and the adoption of orphans.

According to the display:

“The Shakers came to America from England in 1774. A communal religious sect, they established 19 villages in the United States, four of which were in Ohio. The Watervliet Shakers ran a print shop, woolen mill and gristmill. They sold their goods at the market in downtown Dayton. Shakers were known for their furniture making and for being the first to sell garden seeds in paper packets.”