The Shakers in Dayton

The Shakers were a religious sect that left England in 1774 for religious freedom in America, settling in Watervliet, New York. They practiced living by Jesus’ examples. They had 4 tenants of their religion; confession, celibacy, community property and withdraw from the world. Since the Shakers practiced celibacy they did not condone marriage or children and used conversion or adoption to gain followers. They were known as Shakers because they were known to shake their bodies during religious ceremonies.

            The Watervliet Shaker community began near Dayton, when in 1806 two Shaker preachers visited the Beulah Presbyterian Church in Beavercreek. Due to their visit many of the congregation converted to Shakers and began a community that reached 100 people is size at its peak. In 1813, the community owned 800 acres of land in Montgomery County and Greene County a good size settlement. That same year they renamed their property the Watervliet Village in honor of the first American Shaker settlement in New York. The village was self-sufficient producing their own crops and selling them at market in Dayton. The village lasted until about 1900, when only 55 members were left. When the village disbanded the remaining members joined the Shaker community in Lebanon, known as Union Village.

Today, the Shakers property is owned by the Miami Valley Research Foundation and Mount Saint John, Bergamo. Near the Research Park in Kettering there is a hill with a lone headstone atop it. It marks the spot where a burial ground for the Shakers was found. In the mid- nineteen-eighties Research Park was considering expanding and looked to the hill to grow. When they began digging they found burial sites that contained the Watervliet Shakers. They were left to rest and now the small hill stands as a lasting remembrance of the Shaker community that once thrived in Dayton.

http://www.remarkableohio.org/HistoricalMarker.aspx?historicalMarkerId=817&fileId=125631

http://content.daytonmetrolibrary.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/finding/id/834/show/831/rec/2