Grant helps Shaker Village preserve historic East House

CANTERBURY — The Canterbury Shaker Village has again received a grant from the Land & Community Heritage Investment Program of the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, and staff will use the funding to ensure the preservation of a historic building on their sprawling campus south of Belmont.

For a quarter-century, the LCHIP has worked to support the preservation of natural, cultural and historic resources across NH through a grant program. Over 25 years, grants have infused over $68 million into Granite State communities, including Canterbury. This year, 19 historic resources received LCHIP funding.

“We’re stoked to have this partnership, and to be able to have them help us do what we need to do, to help preserve and interpret the legacy of the Shakers that used to live here,” Garrett Bethmann, manager of communications and engagement, said. “Providing a place where we can learn about them, reflect about them and see what we can take into the New Year.”

The LCHIP grant application was submitted with the intention of shoring-up the East House. The East House is located in the eastern corner of the village, near the garden, and is historically significant — not only is it one of the oldest, built originally during the time of the Madison administration and later relocated, but was used at one point as housing and dormitory for school children.

The award is for $250,000, and will be used primarily for roof repairs, adding Alaskan cedar shingles, making chimney repairs, repairing the building’s foundation, upgrades regarding the fire alarm and detection system, the gutters and other general structural repairs.

The Shakers were active largely in an era before American public welfare existed to any meaningful extent, and that group prided itself on taking care of orphaned children. It was a communal and egalitarian society known for its enthusiastic and charismatic practice of Christianity and for its members' celibacy, among other traits.

The East House, constructed in 1810, is a 2.5-story clapboard structure measuring 28 by 38 feet, and was moved to its present location east of the road in 1831 or 1833, according to historical records. For a period in the mid-19th century, the basement was used to spin wool while garden seeds were sorted, papered and packed in the loft. Later, the whole building was used as a dwelling for orphaned girls. Today, it’s used as a staff residence.

The Canterbury Shaker Village has received LCHIP grants in the past, and they’ve been used to conduct building assessments, and in 2023 they put a new roof onto the dwelling house. In 2018, they helped to preserve their turning mill pond. Mill ponds contributed to the Shakers' ability to produce lumber and create other products for use by the "outside world."

“Our dwelling house is one of our cornerstone buildings and one of the most-used buildings by the Shakers,” Bethmann said. 

Staff are hoping the East House project will kick off sometime in the summer of 2026, and continue into 2027.

“I think what’s important about them is that they’ve always tried to find ways to innovate and to continue to grow,” Bethmann said of the Shakers. “I think that’s what I’ve always found inspiring.”

“The Shakers believed in continuing on in the world, and finding ways to make it work for them,” he said. “They had a very industrious mindset.” 

Among their many hopes and goals is a simple one: spread information about the Canterbury Shakers to as many members of the public as possible, to share the lively history of that community. 

And that history is catching on.

Staff of Canterbury Shaker Village are working with Red River Theaters in Concord to interpret a new movie, "The Testament of Ann Lee," starring Amanda Seyfried. They’ll run special screenings at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 31, and at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 1, where patrons can watch the movie and then participate in a 45-minute, in-person discussion with staff from the Shaker village.

“Just have a cool discussion about, how does this movie fit into what we know about the Shakers? What is it about this movie that people found interesting, how can we make ties to our Canterbury Shakers?” Bethmann said. “What are the ways in which the movie is true to history? What are the ways in which it’s not true to history?

“We’re really excited about it.”