There & Then: ‘Zion on Clapboard Hill’—The New Canaan Shakers, 1810-1812

‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli, Dawn Sterner and Pam Stutz.

Two-hundred-and-fifteen years ago, a pioneering Shaker community was erected on present-day Clapboard Hill. Two years later, it was gone. What happened?

New Canaan was once home to the experimental Fairfield County colony of the communal-living, celibacy-practicing Shakers (United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing), whose namesake derives from their ecstatic forms of worship. Though this ‘family’ spanned just over two calendar years, they left an enduring mark. Twenty-five years following their departure, Captain Stephen Hoyt II purchased “Shaker Farm,” later Hoyt Nurseries, and over 100 years later, when a new road was mapped out through nursery property, it was aptly deemed ‘Shaker Road.’ The lore of the little family of Believers lives on.

Shaker interest in New Canaan originated in the 1809 visit of Stephen Finch (b. 1767) to the Shaker Village at New Lebanon, N.Y. A prosperous landowner from an old and prominent New Canaan family, Fitch had acquired a degree of notoriety when his wife, Charlotte Selleck Fitch, successfully petitioned the General Assembly of the state of Connecticut for a legislative separation, alleging that he “beat her in a most cruel manner, and threatened to take away her life and… so terrified her that she [was] afraid to live with him and… she had fled from his house for protection.” Fitch presented himself to the Believers as a former Quaker and recent Shaker convert; he was in turn perceived “as a kind of Joseph to lead us to great improvement.”

In fact, Fitch was more motivated by public and private crises than by genuine religious conversion. In addition to the demise of his reputation, Fitch was reeling from monetary and caregiving obligations to his ex-wife, aging mother, and three young sons. His property was even encumbered by a lien to ensure regular spousal support, an action of the General Assembly. Undeterred, Fitch pitched his New Canaan property as an ideal place for Believer settlement. Successful in his efforts, he turned over to Elder Ebenezer Bishop 130 acres of land for $7,000 via a note, which was not to bear interest until called, and “when demanded giving [the Shakers] the Reasonable time of one or two years to pay it.” Strategically, the Shakers were also known to offer decent homes to children and enlightened care for the aged. Had Mr. Fitch found his fix?

By early 1811, while satisfied with the care provided to his family members, including full support payments to his wife, Fitch grew disenchanted with life in communal society. He had no intention to participate in the community of resources. Fitch demanded payment in full of his note, which, when coupled with his abrupt departure from the Society, threw the venture into question. Weighing heavily on the Shakers were the rising enterprise cost and suspicion of intentions on the part of Fitch.

Though few New Canaan residents were drawn to their religious testimony, the Believers, as they labored to make their farm productive, ‘were much respected by their neighbors.’ The Fairfield County colony totaled about 14 permanent residents, and they hosted no fewer than 85 visiting sisters and brethren during their two-year stay in town. A bright spot in the mission, John and Martha Mantle of New Haven, arrived for a visit and proceeded to “set out in the faith.” The Mantles relocated to New Lebanon, where they spent the remainder of their years in consecrated service to the cause. In addition, a few New Canaan residents, notably William and Elizabeth Seeley, were introduced to the Shaker religion by Fairfield County colonists. Despite the relative productivity of the Colony, by March, 1812, the Believers chose to accept an offer to buy their property from Jacob Selleck of New Canaan.

Fitch, for his faults, provided an opportunity for the expansion of Shakerism in a town increasingly religiously heterodox against a traditionally Congregationalist backdrop. However, one Shaker historian, looking back at the experiment, suggested that “Fitch’s ill conduct” created an “unbearable nuisance for the Believers, and was the direct cause of its failure.” Reflecting on their brief-lived Zion on Clapboard Hill, Shaker Elder Calvin Green was later to write, “I have no doubt it would have been quite a gathering place had it been continued.”