Hancock Shaker Village

Hancock Shaker Village occupies roughly 1,000 acres on the Hancock and Pittsfield line in western Massachusetts. It preserves the Church Family core of a Shaker community organized in 1790-92 and dissolved in 1960. Nineteen original buildings survive, among them the 1830 Brick Dwelling that housed 100 members, the Brethren's Shop, the Sisters Shop, the Tan House and a 1793 meeting house moved from Shirley in 1962. The best-known structure is the Round Stone Barn, a fieldstone cylinder 95 feet across, rebuilt inside after a fire in 1864 and believed to be the first round barn in the country. The community peaked in the four decades after 1820, reaching about 300 members, then declined after the Civil War. A nonprofit corporation bought the buildings, furnishings and land in 1960, restored fourteen buildings and assembled a large collection of Shaker furniture. The district also includes a cemetery, a reservoir and water system remnants, a mountain used for feast day gatherings, and archaeological remains of two other family complexes.