Mount Lebanon Shaker Society
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Mount Lebanon Shaker Society
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Main dwelling circa July 2008
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| Location | New Lebanon, New York |
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| Coordinates | 42°27′9.18″N 73°22′50.37″W / 42.4525500°N 73.3806583°WCoordinates: 42°27′9.18″N 73°22′50.37″W / 42.4525500°N 73.3806583°W |
| Built | 1785 |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000511 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL | June 23, 1965 |
Mount Lebanon Shaker Society, also known as Old Lebanon Shaker Society, was a communal settlement of Shakers in New Lebanon, New York. The early Shaker Ministry, including Joseph Meacham and Lucy Wright, the architects of Shakers' gender-balanced government, lived there.
Isaac N. Youngs, the society's scribe, chronicled the life of that Shaker village for almost half a century. Youngs also designed the schoolhouse built there in 1839.
In the 1940s, due to declining membership, the Shakers sold the site to Darrow School. Throughout the subsequent years, the site has been managed by several different owners. Darrow owns what remains of the Church and Center Families, while Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon manages preservation and operates tours of the North Family; the rest of the buildings of remaining Families are privately owned.
Holy Mount, where Shaker services were held, has a spur ridge which has been called Mount Lebanon.
Mount Lebanon's main building became a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Although the first of the Shaker settlements in the U.S. was in the Watervliet Shaker Historic District, Mount Lebanon became the leading Shaker society, and was the first to have a building used exclusively for religious purposes. Benson Lossing documented that meetinghouse and a few other buildings when he visited the Shakers in 1856.
Mount Lebanon is located where Shaker Rd. merges with Darrow Rd. off US 20 in New Lebanon, New York. The North Family buildings are preserved as the Shaker Museum.
State historical marker in front of Meetinghouse
Oblique view of Meetinghouse
Side view of main dwelling
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