Editing Harvard, Massachusetts (section)

===The Shakers===

{{main|Harvard Shaker Village Historic District}}
One part of town is the site of [[Harvard Shaker Village]], where a [[utopia]]n religious community was established. During a period of religious dissent, a number of Harvard residents, led by [[Shadrack Ireland]], abandoned the Protestant church in Harvard. In 1769, they built a house that later became known as the Square House. Not long after Ireland's death in 1778, the Shaker Founder [[Mother Ann Lee]] met with this group in 1781 and the group joined her [[Shakers|United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing]], or Shakers.<ref name = "NPS-Harvard-Shaker-Village">{{cite web | website = [[National Park Service]] | title = Harvard Shaker Village Historic District | date = n.d. | url = http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/shaker/har.htm | access-date = June 14, 2013 | archive-date = September 26, 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130926225303/http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/shaker/har.htm | url-status = live }}</ref>
[[File:Harvard, MA Shaker Village.jpg|thumb|left|[[Harvard Shaker Village]] {{circa|1905}}]]
It was the first [[Shakers|Shaker]] settlement in Massachusetts and the second settlement in the United States. The Harvard Shaker Village Historic District is located in the vicinity of Shaker Road, South Shaker Road, and Maple Lane. At its largest, the Shakers owned about 2,000 acres of land in Harvard. By 1890, the Harvard community had dwindled to less than 40, from a peak of about 200 in the 1850s. In 1917 the Harvard Shaker Village was closed and sold. Only one Shaker building is open to the public, at [[Fruitlands Museum]]; the remaining surviving buildings are in private ownership.<ref name = "NPS-Harvard-Shaker-Village"/>
[[File:Old Stone Barn, Harvard Shakers.jpg|thumb|Old Stone Barn ({{circa|1915}}), in [[Harvard Shaker Village]]]]
Nationally, 19 Shaker communities had been established in the 1700s and 1800s, mostly in northeastern United States. Community locations ranged from [[Maine]] to [[Kentucky]] and [[Indiana]]. The Shakers were renowned for plain architecture and furniture, and reached its national peak membership in the 1840s and 1850s. The Shaker community's practice of celibacy meant that to maintain its population, it was always necessary to have new outsiders join. The improving employment opportunities provided by the [[Industrial Revolution]] would over the middle decades of the 1800s diminish the attractions of joining the Shaker community. Today, only one church "society" remains open, run by the last Shakers at [[Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village]] in [[New Gloucester, Maine]].