Laundry and Machine Shop, Hancock, Massachusetts (2)

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The Laundry and Machine Shop at Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts, in 1939. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The building in 2023:

These two photos show the same building as the ones in the previous post, but from the opposite side of the building. This is probably the oldest surviving building at Hancock Shaker Village, dating back to about 1790, around the same time that the Shaker community was established here. It had a variety of uses over the years, but it was primarily a machine shop on the east side (in the foreground in this scene), and a laundry on the west side. These workspaces, like other aspects of Shaker society, were segregated by gender. As a result, while the two facilities shared the same building and water source, the men worked only in the machine shop, and the women in the laundry.

The Shaker community was still active when the first photo was taken in 1939, although its numbers were much smaller than they had been a century earlier. The community eventually closed in 1960, and in 1961 the property became Hancock Shaker Village, an open-air museum featuring many historic buildings, including this. Aside from a different paint color and the open area on the ground floor in the foreground, this building has not changed much in appearance since the first photo was taken.

Laundry and Machine Shop, Hancock, Massachusetts

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The Laundry and Machine Shop at Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts, in 1939. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The building in 2023:

This building is probably the oldest surviving building here at the Hancock Shaker Village. The earliest portion of the building, here in the foreground on the northwestern side, is said to date back to about 1790, around the same time that the Shaker community was established here. It may have originally been used as a dwelling, but it has seen a number of alterations and changes in use over the years. By the 1830s the east side of the ground floor, on the left side of the building from this angle, was a machine shop, which was powered by an overshot water wheel. This was later improved with the installation of a water turbine, and at some point in the 19th century the west side of the building was used for laundry.

Shaker communities were segregated by gender, and this included not only separate living areas but also separate workspaces. In this case, both men and women worked in this building, where the machine shop and laundry equipment were both powered by the same water power source. However, these two facilities were otherwise separate, with men working in the machine shop and women in the laundry.

When the first photo was taken in 1939, this site was still an active Shaker community, although its numbers had seen significant decline since its peak of around 300 members in the 1840s. The photo was taken as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), a federal program that began during the Great Depression as a way of providing work for unemployed people while also documenting historic properties around the country. According to the written documentation that accompanied the photo, the machine shop on the east side was not restored, but that the west side was in the process of being restored to its use as a laundry facility. The survey also included line drawings, which indicate that the ground floor of the west side was used for washing laundry, while the two upper floors were for drying.

The Shaker community here ultimately closed in 1960, and a year later the site became Hancock Shaker Village, an open-air museum that has preserved many of the historic buildings on the property. Today, the laundry and machine shop building is still standing here, and the only significant difference is the paint color. It was white in the first photo, but it is now painted a more traditional red color, which was commonly used by Shakers during their heyday in the 19th century.

Shaker Meetinghouse, Hancock, Massachusetts

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The Meetinghouse at Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts, in June 1962. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The building in 2023:

This meetinghouse is part of Hancock Shaker Village, an open-air museum on the site of a former Shaker community. The Shakers first moved to this area in the 1780s and formally established the community here in 1790. It remained active until 1960, when it finally closed amid declining members, and it was subsequently preserved as a museum.

Most of the buildings here are original to this place, but the meetinghouse is one of the few exceptions. It was built in 1793 for a similar Shaker community in Shirley, Massachusetts, but it was moved to Hancock in 1962. The first photo shows the building soon after its move, when it was still in the process of being reassembled on its current site.

Here in Hancock, this meetinghouse from Shirley replaced one that had been demolished in 1938. That meetinghouse had been built in 1786 by Moses Johnson, the same builder who later built the Shirley one. Both buildings had similar designs, although the original Hancock one was later altered with a full second floor, while the Shirley one retained its gambrel roof.

The layout of both buildings included a large room on the ground floor. This is where the Shakers held their worship services, which included their distinctive group dancing. These meetings included both men and women, but they stayed in separate groups during the dancing and did not intermingle. Men and women even entered and exited the meetinghouse through separate doors, which is why there are two doors at the front of the building.

Today, the meetinghouse stands as one of the many historic buildings that have been preserved here at Hancock Shaker Village. Most of the village is on the south side of Route 20, but the meetinghouse is across the street on the north side, where it stands alongside several other buildings, including the Ministry Shop, which is visible in the distance on the right side of both photos.

Round Stone Barn, Hancock, Massachusetts (2)

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The Round Stone Barn at Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts, in June 1962. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The scene in 2023:

These two photos show a view that is similar to the ones in the previous post, just from a little further away from the barn. As explained in more detail in that post, this barn was built in 1826 for the Shaker community that lived here in Hancock and in nearby Pittsfield. The community was established in 1790, and it remained active until 1960, when the property was sold amid declining numbers of Shakers.

In 1961, Hancock Shaker Village acquired this property and preserved it as an open-air museum. However, by this point the distinctive round stone barn was in poor condition. As shown in the first photo, its walls were badly cracked and had to be supported with wooden braces The barn was ultimately restored in 1968 by dismantling the exterior stone walls, repairing the foundation, and then reconstructing the walls using the original stones. Today, the barn remains in good condition, and it is probably the most recognizable landmark here at Hancock Shaker Village.

Round Stone Barn, Hancock, Massachusetts

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The Round Stone Barn at Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts, in June 1962. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The barn in 2023:

This barn is one of the most distinctive architectural landmarks in Berkshire County, and it forms the centerpiece of the Hancock Shaker Village, an open-air museum on the site of a former Shaker community. The Shakers were originally from England, but they came to America in the second half of the 18th century. They subsequently established a number of communities in the northeast and elsewhere in the United States, including this one, which was established in 1790 in the western Berkshires, on the border of Pittsfield and Hancock.

The Hancock Shaker community steadily grew during the first half of the 19th century, and in 1826 they built this large circular stone barn. It was designed for efficiency, with an interior layout that featured a series of concentric rings on the ground floor. At the center of the barn was a ventilation shaft, and the area around it was for hay storage. The outer ring was where the milk cows were kept, and they were separated from the hay by a circular walkway that allowed the Shakers to easily take hay from the center and feed the cows.

The upper floor was mostly open, except for a circular gallery that was accessible via a ramp on the other side of the building. Hay wagons could enter the barn, deposit hay into the central area of the barn, and then continue around the gallery to exit, without having to back up. The efficient design of the barn even extended to manure disposal. The outer ring of the ground floor had trap doors where manure could be shoveled. It would fall into the basement, where it could be collected with wagons via a ramp that descended into the basement from ground level on the outside of the barn.

The Shakers here in Hancock reached their peak by the mid-19th century, with about 300 members on 3,000 acres of land. However, their numbers steadily dwindled over the next century, before eventually closing in 1960. A year later, the property was preserved as the Hancock Shaker Village museum. By that point, however, the iconic barn was in poor condition, as shown in the first photo. The barn had been largely reconstructed after being heavily damaged by a fire in 1864, but by the 1960s it was again in need of major repairs. There were large cracks in the masonry walls, which had to be supported with wooden bracing.

The barn was ultimately restored in 1968. This project involved removing the masonry exterior walls, repairing the foundation, and then reconstructing the walls using the original stone. Now, more than 50 years after the restoration was completed, the barn is still standing. It looks far better than it did when the first photo was taken, and it remains an important part of the preserved Shaker village.

Groton Monument, Groton, Connecticut

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The Groton Monument, seen from the southwest around 1900. Image from The Battle of Groton Heights (1903).

The monument in 2022:

These two photos show the Groton Monument, a 135-foot obelisk that memorializes the American soldiers who died at nearby Fort Griswold during the Battle of Groton Heights. It resembles the more famous Bunker Hill Monument, and these two monuments were actually built around the same time. The cornerstone for Bunker Hill was laid several months earlier, but the Groton Monument was completed in 1830, 13 years before Bunker Hill was completed.

Aside from similar designs, the two monuments also commemorate similar battles that, in many ways, bookend the American Revolution in New England. Bunker Hill was the first major battle of the war in the region, and Groton Heights was the last. Both involved relatively small numbers of Americans fighting from an elevated position against a much larger British force, and both ultimately ended as British victories, but not before the Americans inflicted heavy casualties on them. And, both were essentially pyrrhic victories; the British took substantial losses, and were unable to exploit any real strategic advantages from the battles.

In the end, about 85 American soldiers were killed here at the Battle of Groton Heights, and about 48 British soldiers. In addition, about 35 Americans were wounded, and about 145 British, and many of these wounded men on both sides subsequently died of their injuries. Making this battle particularly controversial was the fact that, according to many American accounts of the battle, most of the American losses occurred after they attempted to surrender once the British breached the walls of the fort. There are different theories about exactly what led to this, including the possibility that the British had mistakenly interpreted a flag being shot down in the midst of the battle as a signal of surrender, which then made them wary of the actual surrender later in the battle. Either way, the 160 American defenders suffered extremely high casualty rates. As a result, the battle is also sometimes referred to as the Fort Griswold Massacre.

This battle would prove to be one of the last major land battles of the war. Less than a month and a half later, the combined forces of George Washington and Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau forced the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, which effectively ended the war. As a result, Fort Griswold had essentially no bearing on the outcome of the war, and it was soon overshadowed by Yorktown, which might explain why it is not as well-known as some of the other major battles that occurred in New England during the war.

For many years after the war, there were very few monuments of any kind at any of the battlefields. However, this started to change somewhat by the 1820s, around the time that the surviving veterans of the war were reaching advanced ages. Over the next few decades, a handful of monuments were dedicated, ranging from relatively modest ones like the obelisk at the site of Old North Bridge in Concord, to far more ambitious ones like the 221-foot Bunker Hill Monument.

Here in Groton, there was a similar desire to memorialize the defenders of Fort Griswold. On September 6, 1825, on the 44th anniversary of the battle, the cornerstone was laid for this monument. The ceremony drew a crowd of an estimated 8,000-10,000 people, and the guests of honor included 18 survivors of the battle. One of them wore the same vest that he had worn during the battle, which still had two bullet holes in it.

The keynote speaker for the ceremony was William F. Brainard, a New London lawyer. His address, as described in the New London Gazette, “was at once patriotic, vehement, animated, original and in short most eloquent.” He covered a range of topics, including highlighting the many ways in which European powers have harmed the Americans before transitioning into discussing the specifics of this battle. Along the way, he also emphasized the many wrongs that had been committed—and were still being committed—against Native Americans. He identified it as a sin committed by their forefathers, and he also criticized Americans of his own time period for their hypocrisy in supporting missionary work in faraway places, rather than using their money to help support Native Americans here in this country.

To emphasize this last point, Brainard noted the irony of “sending to a distant land, small and pitiful donations, the spare change from the produce of farms, all of which were wrested from Indians, and some of which are cultivated by slaves.” Brainard then acknowledged that, while the topic was only partially related to his address on the American Revolution, he believed that it was important to mention the memory of the Pequots, “whose land we occupy.”

Brainard then spent the second half of his speech describing the events of the battle, and he concluded on a confident note, believing that the monument would have a long future ahead of it. He declared:

In such hands, whatever structure may be here raised, the keeping of it will be safe. The relatives and decendants of the dead may be presumed to inherit a portion of their spirit, and will defend the sepulchres of their fathers.

Never again, it may be fairly predicted, never again will this spot be invaded with success. We owe this assurance to the dead defenders of this place.

Yonder are their graves—peace to their memories!

Following the ceremony, some newspapers noted that some critics had derided the monument as merely being a copy of the Bunker Hill Monument, which had likewise just begun construction. However, as noted earlier, the Groton Monument would be completed much sooner than Bunker Hill. It was finished in 1830, although its appearance was different from these two photos. It originally stood 127 feet high, and it was topped by a cupola.

The monument would have that design throughout most of the 19th century, but in 1881 the upper part was reconstructed, with a pyramidion replacing the original cupola. As part of this project, the height of the monument was raised eight feet, bringing it to its present-day height of 135 feet.

The 1881 alterations coincided with the centennial of the battle, which was celebrated on September 6, 1881. This event was well attended, with various estimates ranging from 30,000 to 100,000 people here. It featured a reenactment of the battle, along with a speech by Senator Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut. Prominent guests included General William T. Sherman, along with Chief Justice Morrison Waite, who was a Connecticut native.

Sherman gave a short speech at the request of the audience, and he somehow ended up talking about Native Americans, just as Brainard had almost 60 years ago. However, Sherman was not as progressive in his views as Brainard had been. He began his speech by praising the people of Connecticut, and he noted that his ancestors came from the state. However, as the Springfield Republican noted in its coverage, “[t]hen Sherman took occasion to advocate the extermination of the Indians.” He spent most of the remainder of his speech defending this reasoning, while also reminding Connecticut residents who might sympathize with the western Indians that it was Connecticut that had set this precedent by killing the Pequots early in the colonial era. This tirade does not seem to have had much direct connection to the subject at hand, although Sherman did make an attempt to compare the massacre of the fort’s defenders to the deaths of George Custer and his men at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

After Sherman, the next speaker was Congressman John T. Wait, the cousin of the Chief Justice. He was followed by the Rev. Leonard W. Bacon, who recited a poem, “The Lay of Groton Height,” that he had composed about the battle. Next was a military parade on State Street in New London, and then the day’s festivities were concluded with an elaborate fireworks display in the evening.

The first photo was taken only about 20 years after this centennial celebration, and the scene still looks largely the same as it did in the first photo, aside from more trees in the landscape today. The monument itself has not seen any significant exterior changes since then, and it is still open to the public seasonally, for those who are willing to climb the narrow 166-foot spiral staircase to the top. It is part of the Fort Griswold State Park, which also includes a small museum in the old caretaker’s house to the right, along with the preserved fort itself.