Watervliet: America's First Shaker Community
Near Albany, New York
Near this stretch of the highway lies the birthplace of American Shakerism. Ann Lee, a Manchester factory worker who led a small dissenting religious sect, arrived in New York from England in seventeen seventy-four. Two years later she and her followers established a community at Watervliet in Albany County, the first Shaker settlement on American soil.
Ann Lee died here in seventeen eighty-four. From this founding village the Shakers spread across the northeast and midwest, eventually forming about eighteen major communities at their peak. Among their legacies from the Watervliet site: the flat broom and the commercial garden-seed packet.
The historic district is now a National Historic Landmark and home to the Shaker Heritage Society.
