NRHP Reference # 79002663 Year built 1827 | Area 44 ha Added to NRHP 21 May 1979 | |
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Location Shaker, Taylor and Cybulski Rds., Enfield, Connecticut | ||
The Enfield Shakers Historic District in Enfield, Connecticut has significance dating to 1827. It was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The listing included 15 contributing buildings and one contributing site.
It is significant for its association with the Shakers who lived there and for the architecture reflecting their social values and Utopian community lifestyle. The Enfield Shaker community was the only Shaker settlement in Connecticut (others were in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky) and was significant for its garden-seed business. The Enfield settlement lasted until 1917 when the Shakers departed. The district included all 15 buildings that survive, out of about six times as many existing in 1917. In 1978, the surviving buildings include a meetinghouse, a large brick residence, an ice house, five barns, a sawmill, a slaughterhouse, a laundry, and several workshops, in three village-like clusters.
Some or all of the location has since become the Enfield Correctional Institute, a prison.