Shakerism never appealed to me a whole lot. I’ve visited a few historic Shaker compounds over the years, and found that it must not have appealed to many other folks either – for they’re all empty (of live people, that is).
Following is a teaser from a very interesting article by Peter Bronson that was published in the March 15, 2009 edition of Cincinnati.com.
There’s a little picket-fenced cemetery on Oxford Road just north of Newhaven, northwest of Cincinnati.
The spongy ground is littered with rotting hickory nuts. Some of the lichen-crusted markers are so worn even the headstones can’t remember their names. They crowd into a shy huddle in a far corner, as far from the road as possible.
I guess they were expecting more company. But this cemetery was for one of Ohio’s early settlements of Shakers – a genealogical dead-end road.
A marker in the middle of the graveyard explains it in a way that makes you read it twice: “An order of celibate Christian communists,” it declares. “1827-1916.”
Celibate Christian communists? In Crosby Township?
