THE SHAKERS ARE CLOSER to finding a new home here. Not the actual Shakers who lived in northern Columbia County. They’re long gone. It’s the people who preserve and share the Shaker legacy of skill, community and devotion who are closing in on a place of their own in the Village of Chatham.
The Shaker Museum used to be housed in a barn in Old Chatham, an inadequate home for what the museum’s website describes as “the world’s most comprehensive collection of Shaker objects, archives, and books.” The museum also “stewards” the Mount Lebanon site, the founding community of the Shakers.
The late Judy Grunberg first suggested to the executive director of the museum, Lacy Schutz, that there was a building in the Village of Chatham that would be an ideal home for the Shaker artifacts and records. Read more…