The Tyringham Shaker Settlement Historic District was a historic

Shaker Shaker or Shakers may refer to: Religious groups * Shakers, a historically significant Christian sect * Indian Shakers, a smaller Christian denomination Objects and instruments * Shaker (musical instrument), an indirect struck idiophone * Cock ...

village on Jerusalem Road in

Tyringham, Massachusetts Tyringham is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 427 at the 2020 census. History Founded as Housatonic Township Number 1, the land which becam ...

. Among the buildings in the village were mills and workshops. There was a reduction in members prior to the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

and in the 1870s the remaining "believers" moved to

Hancock Shaker Village Hancock Shaker Village is a former Shaker commune in Hancock and Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It emerged in the towns of Hancock, Pittsfield, and Richmond in the 1780s, organized in 1790, and was active until 1960. It was the third of nineteen majo ...

in Massachusetts and Enfield Shakers Village in Connecticut. In 1874 the Shakers traded the property to a New York City doctor, Joseph Jones, for property in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Dr. Jones open a summer retreat and boardinghouse called "Fernside". In 1889 the property was sold to the Tyringham Forest Club. It is now farmland. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1987.

Shaker settlement

The Shaker community was established in 1792, and flourished, acquiring more than in Tyringham and adjacent towns at the height of the movement's popularity. The farmstead of William Clark on Jerusalem Road was the site of the main settlement, with a satellite settlement about further north. In addition to their communal living and worship spaces, the Shakers built a number of mill buildings, workshops, and even a furnace. The population of the settlement began to shrink in the years before the

, and its demise was hastened by the departure in 1858 of 23 individuals. In the 1870s the remaining Tyringham Shakers moved to other settlements (in

Hancock, Massachusetts Hancock is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 757 at the 2020 census. History Hancock was first settled in 1762 as the Plantat ...

and

Enfield, Connecticut Enfield is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, first settled by John and Robert Pease of Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony. The population was 42,141 at the 2020 census. It is bordered by Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and East Longm ...

). Shaker settlement 1, Tyringham MA.jpg, Shaker settlement, Tyringham, Massachusetts

Subsequent uses

In 1874 the Shakers executed a property exchange with a New York City doctor, Joseph Jones, who owned a property in

in which they were interested. Dr. Jones used the property as a summer retreat they called "Fernside", and eventually operated it as a summer boarding house. He sold the property to other New York interests in 1889, which organized it as the Tyringham Forest Club. This enterprise was only briefly successful, and the property was sold at auction a few years later. Since then, the property has seen a variety of owners, and is once again a farmstead.

National Register of Historic Places

The district features

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

, and

Federal style Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...

architecture. It was added to the

in 1987.

References

External links

* {{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Historic American Engineering Record in Massachusetts Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Berkshire County, Massachusetts Shaker communities or museums Tyringham, Massachusetts

Shaker settlement

Subsequent uses

National Register of Historic Places

See also

References

Further reading

External links