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Page 57 text:
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1936 The Peg Board on a stone foundation. The joists under the main floor are flattened tree trunks. All the frame- work that carries this floor, on which the dancing and marching prominent in the Shaker ritual took place, is exceedingly strong. At the south entrance are three doors. The one in the middle was used by the Ministry, the one on the right by the Shaker women, and the one on the left by the Shaker men. The women's door leads into the women's cloakroom, the men's door into the men's cloakroom. Around the walls of both, as in many Shaker rooms, run triple rows of peg boards. The world's people, as those not belonging to Shaker orders were called, entered by doors on the east side of the building , Above the cloakrooms are the quarters occupied by the Ministry until 1875, when the brick Ministry House was built. The Ministry was composed of two elders and two eldresses. The two elders shared a study and a bedroom on the second floor, directly over the cloakrooms, while the two eldresses shared a similar study and bedroom on the third Hoor, directly above. The Ministry did not attend those services at which the world's people were present, but there were latticed windows on the second floor through which the elders could look on, and narrow slots through the walls at the third floor for the use of the eldresses. The auditorium is eighty feet in length, and sixty-five feet in width. The lightly constructed segmental ceiling twenty-five feet above the floor stretches across the room in one clear span. Most interesting is that which is above this segmental ceiling and hidden by it. Seven two-ply laminated beams form lintels spanning the distance between the posts to which are fixed the lateral walls of the building. The segmental ceiling is hung from and the roof supported by these massive beams. The ceiling has a radius greater than the roof. To maintain the relation be- tween these elements, and to offer support to them, sixteen radiating prince posts are mortised into the laminated beams. The ends of these prince posts are anchored by pegs into the ceiling rafters and principal roof rafters respectively. In the central portion of the building where the ceiling almost touches the cross beams, the prince posts ,are kept firmly in place by diagonal braces. Between the two vertical central prince posts runs a boardwalk, the full length of the building. Further particulars in the structural elements of the Meeting House are shown more plainly in the blue print reproduced by the kind permission of Messers A. K. Mosley and D. C. Stoll. We are also indebted to Professor Karl Weston of Williams College for his analysis of the functions of the various parts of the building. Perhaps more interesting than the material description of the Meeting House would be a description of the use for which it was erected. An article from the July 1857 issue of Harper? Magazine written by an eye witness provides a vivid account of a meeting : Opposite my lodgings was the house for public worship, a spacious frame building, painted white, with an arched roof. At its southern end is a smaller building, which they call the Porch, in which the chief ministers, two men and two women, reside. This edifice, built about thirty years ago, is a few yards from the first Shaker meeting-house erected in new Lebanon, and which is yet standing. The hour for the commencement of worship was half past ten. Half an hour earlier a long wagon arrived, in which were two brethren and several sisters from the East Family, who reside partly over the mountain. At the same time vehicles came with visitors from Lebanon Springs, and soon the seats between the entrance doors, called the lobby were filled by The Gentiles, the sexes being separated, the men on the left of the women. The floor, made of white pine, was as clean as a dining table. On the side of the room opposite the seats of the strangers were rows of movable benches, and upon them the sisters who came from a distance began to gather, after hanging their bonnets upon wooden pegs provided for the purpose. In the ante-rooms on the left, the brethren and sisters of the village were assembled, the sexes being separated. At the appointed hour they all came in in couples, stood a moment in silence, and then sat down, the men and women facing each other. Adults and children were dressed precisely alike. With the ex- ception of the resident elders and some visiting brethren, the men were in their shirt sleeves. 49
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Page 58 text:
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TI i5fPOE?BO6B fd A 19 3 6 Photograph by Winthrop B. Coffin, '36 Photograph by Winthrop B. Coffin, '36 BOARD WALK AND DIAGONAL BRACING THE CEILING SEEN BETNVEEN TIE BEAMS F- 4:5 K 5 ,...o.1..N.,.L. W. -sig - A-nl! IQLDIQRS' WINDOXV FOUNDATION AND PIERS ,.. l uv' Photograph by Winthrop B. Coffin, '36 Photograph by Winthrop B. Coffin, '36 PRINCE POST AND ROOF THE FORET
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