Chosen Vale Inc Enfield Shaker Museum

Preservation: The Museum is actively restoring, preserving, and maintaining the remaining built environment of the original Shaker village, established in 1793 along the shore of Mascoma Lake. This national historic site contains nine original buildings (the earliest dating to 1813) built by the Shakers of Enfield, a mill pond and related water technology, two cemeteries, and a historic garden featuring Shaker heirloom plant varieties situated within a larger historic built environment surrounded by state-protected lands (on which is the unique Shaker Feast Ground atop of Mount Assurance, which the Museum also maintains). The Museum preserves its building collection through rigorous research and adherence to Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. The site's domestic, agricultural, and industrial buildings document 150 years of the Shakers' creation and occupation of the site. All have been recorded through professional architectural renderings, archaeological excavations and surveys, and documentary historical research. These buildings not only tell the story of the Shakers who lived, worked, and worshipped here; these buildings also document the 150 years of American building technology.

Events: From Shaker Day in late April/early May through December's Festival of Trees the Museum is open to visitors, overnight guests, students, and volunteers who participate in large educational, celebratory, and fundraising events that build and strengthen community and increase knowledge. Shaker Day is the Museum's opening day, full of tours and activities geared to members, children, and Enfield residents (who always enjoy free admission). In late April the prestigious Spring Shaker Forum, a national recognized venue for Shaker scholarship, occurs. Every year the Forum increases in speakers and in participants. During the summer months the Museum is home to the Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale, which offers its students a variety of musical experiences and training. September's annual Harvest Festival is geared to families and children, offering craft activities and demonstrations, farm animals, musicians and entertainers, and other activities related to agriculture and food. The Museum's Cider and Cheese Festival acknowledges and interprets the Shakers' excellence in growing and using apples and in making cheese by featuring New England cheesemongers and cideries against the spectacular autumn backdrop of this historic site. The Museum's annual gala and auction takes place in November and is one of the institution's biggest fundraisers. Last, the Museum's annual Festival of Trees brings visitors to the Great Stone Dwelling in a year-end celebration of community.

Education: Education is the heart of Enfield Shaker Museum's mission. Through the Museum's historic buildings and built environment, artifactual collections, archaeological collections, archives, and library, professional staff members, skilled craftspeople, scholars, and volunteers provide to a diverse and growing public a variety of programs and exhibitions with which to learn about and learn from the Shakers of Enfield, New Hampshire. Trained interpreters and staff educators provide general and topical tours and site interpretation geared to visitor-initiated questions. Visitors may also take self-guided tours of the historic site. Throughout the year visitors may learn history, Shaker trades and industries, and sustainability through doing historic crafts, foodways, and activities provided through demonstrations and hands-on workshops (oval boxes, knives, brooms, spinning, weaving, textile dyeing, gardening, timber-framing, for example). Talks, lectures, and tours explore the Shakers within their historical context and raise questions about communalism, racial and gender equality, pacifism, and tolerance today. The Museum, with local universities, hosts on-site excavations, laboratory analysis, and digital documentation of our site's artifacts.The Museum is dedicated to supporting local primary, secondary, and higher education. Our History Alive field trip program allows New Hampshire and Vermont students to explore local history and the Enfield Shakers' legacy through history-based hands-on activities. In fiscal year 2020, over 300 students and teachers participated in this program. As part of our ongoing commitment to making these field trips as accessible as possible, the Museum provides free admission to students in the Mascoma Valley Regional School District. We award transportation grants to several local schools that otherwise would not have been able to attend the program. Each summer junior and senior high school students enroll in our field ecology school, learning the history of the Shakers' land use and the interconnection between human activity and the environment. Funds were given to provide full scholarships to local students in need, to pay an instructor's salary, and for general supplies.