Location of Outdoor Worship Area Discovered at Pleasant Hill Shaker
Village
The Pleasant Hill Shaker village in central Kentucky, like most Shaker villages, contained an outdoor worship area that was used only on special occasions in the 1840s and 1850s. Knowledge of the location of this site died with the last Shaker in 1923. But in April, 1997 its location was dramatically rediscovered.
Aerial Photograph of Outdoor
Woarship Area: pieplates mark locations of posts.
Archaeologists and other researchers had hypothesized various locations of the site for the past thirty years without success. A breakthrough came in spring 1996, when University of Kentucky architect Philippe Chavance, who had spent several years studying Pleasant Hill, proposed a new hypothetical location. Relying on a 1847 Shaker journal and other documents he argued that the outdoor worship site was located on a flat area about 1/4 mile southeast of the main village. He also suggested that it had been enclosed with an oval plank fence in the mid 1840s.
In the Summer of 1996 Kentucky Archaeological Survey archaeologists conducted a preliminary survey. During the course of their investigations they found three 19th century nails and a small metal wedge. Although these few artifacts were not much to look at, they were more than had been found in other hypothesized locations. Archaeologists and Shakertown at Pleasant Hill, Inc., who was funding the work, decided to gamble on a more intensive investigations of the area.
After three days of removing the plowed topsoil from selected areas, the remains of a wooden post was found on the fourth day of work. This was quickly followed by the discover of additional post stains. By noon of the fifth day, as each newly discovered fence post stain curved to form a gentle arc, it became clear that the location of the Shaker outdoor worship area at Shakertown had been rediscovered.
An especially exciting aspect of this study is is that Shakertown at Pleasant Hill, Inc. plans to use the archaeological information to reconstruct the site to its 19th century appearance. This information will also be incorporated into an archaeology exhibit to be installed at Pleasant Hill in the fall of 1997.