Qualla: Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village: The Last Believers

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village: The Last Believers: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Pierce, CC BY-SA 3.0. Three people hold an entire religion together. At Sabbathday Lake, tucked between the towns of New Gloucester and Poland in central Maine, the world's last active Shaker community rises each morning to the sound of the Great Bell on the Dwelling House. The bell rings at 7:30 am, just as it has for over two centuries, calling the faithful to breakfast, then to prayer, then to work. The Shakers who built 19 communal villages across America, who attracted some 17,000 converts, who peaked at 6,000 members in 1840 - all of that history has narrowed to this single place, these few hands, this quiet persistence beside a lake in Maine.

Image: Tim Pierce | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village: The Last Believers: A Faith That Arrived by Ship

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit (WT-shared) SHC 05 November 2006, CC BY-SA 2.5. The Shakers crossed the Atlantic in 1774, fleeing England for Colonial America in pursuit of religious freedom. They were formally known as the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, but everyone called them Shakers for their ecstatic, trembling worship. They b...

Image: (WT-shared) SHC 05 November 2006 | CC BY-SA 2.5

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village: The Last Believers: Thompson's Pond Plantation

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shakers, Public domain. Shaker missionaries arrived at what was then called Thompson's Pond Plantation in 1782. The first converts came from Gorham, Maine, and within a year the community had swelled to over two hundred members. By 1850, the village had grown to encompass 26 large buildings, including t...

Image: Shakers | Public domain

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village: The Last Believers: The Covenant in the Safe

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aurelia Gay Mace, Public domain. In 1988, Eldress Bertha Lindsay made a striking declaration about membership: 'To become a Shaker you have to sign a legal document taking the necessary vows and that document, the official covenant, is locked up in our safe. Membership is closed forever.' She was speaking from t...

Image: Aurelia Gay Mace | Public domain

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village: The Last Believers: Days Measured by Bells and Prayer

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Pierce, CC BY-SA 3.0. The daily rhythm at Sabbathday Lake has the quality of ritual refined by centuries. Breakfast follows the Great Bell at 7:30. Morning prayers begin at 8:00 - two Psalms, Bible readings, communal and silent prayer, and a Shaker hymn. Work starts at 8:30 and pauses at 11:30 for mid...

Image: Tim Pierce | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village: The Last Believers: Preserving What Remains

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paul VanDerWerf from Brunswick, Maine, USA, CC BY 2.0. The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Museum holds 13,000 artifacts - furniture, oval boxes, woodenware, metalwork, textiles, visual arts, herbal and medicinal products - representing every Shaker community known to have existed. The collection places special emphasis on Maine's Shaker heri...

Image: Paul VanDerWerf from Brunswick, Maine, USA | CC BY 2.0