Enfield Shakers Historic District (Connecticut)

Enfield Shakers Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
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Location	Shaker, Taylor and Cybulski Rds., Enfield, Connecticut
Coordinates	42°0′42″N 72°30′57″W / 42.01167°N 72.51583°W / 42.01167; -72.51583
Area	110 acres (45 ha)
Built	1827; 197 years ago (1827)
NRHP reference No.	79002663[1]
Added to NRHP	May 21, 1979

Shakers

Topics
Chronology of Shakers Era of Manifestations Shaker communities Shaker families Shaker furniture Shaker inventions "Simple Gifts" Works based on "Simple Gifts" Anti-Shaker
Notable people
Founders Jane and James Wardley Ann Lee William Lee James Whittaker Joseph Meacham Lucy Wright Other members Shaker members
v t e

The Enfield Shakers Historic District encompasses some of the surviving remnants of a former Shaker community in Enfield, Connecticut. Founded in the 1780s, the Enfield Shaker community remained active until 1917. The surviving buildings of their once large community complexes are located in and around Taylor Road in northeastern Enfield, and were listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The listing included 15 contributing buildings and one contributing site.^[1]

The Enfield Shaker community was the only Shaker settlement in Connecticut (others were in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky) and was significant for its garden-seed business. The Enfield settlement, was founded in the 1780s, and lasted until 1917. There were three distinct centers of development, called "families" by the Shakers.^[3] In 1930, 1600 acres of the former settlement were purchased by the State of Connecticut to establish a new prison farm[3]; eventually becoming the state's largest prison complex.

The district included all 15 buildings that survive, out of about six times as many existing in 1917. In 1978, the surviving buildings include a meetinghouse, a large brick residence, an ice house, five barns, a sawmill, a slaughterhouse, a laundry, and several workshops, in three village-like clusters. Most of these buildings date to the period 1830–60, when the community was at its height. These buildings, as well as a portion of Shaker-developed landscape are located mainly on the west side of Taylor Road between Moody Road in the south and Sandhill Road to the north. A few buildings are on Cybulski Road north of Moody, nearly surrounded by modern development.^[3]

• 
  Enfield community, c. 1910

• Shaker Seed Company
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Hartford County, Connecticut

^[1]