10 publishers · first seen Tue, 03 Nov 2026 17:46 UTC · updated Wed, 04 Nov 2026 00:16 UTC
Sister June Carpenter, one of the last members of the Shaker religious movement, died on Tuesday at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine. She was 88. She had been struggling with health problems and limited mobility. She was one of three practicing Shakers at the village, which was founded in 1783. The Shakers are a celibate Christian movement and an offshoot of the Quakers. They were founded in the late 1700s by Mother Ann Lee, a visionary immigrant from England. By the early 1800s, thousands of adherents lived in Shaker communities across multiple states. As with many early American utopian communities, their ranks diminished after the Civil War, but a small band of Shakers has persisted at Sabbathday to this day. A trained librarian, Carpenter was credited with organizing and cataloging the village’s extensive collections of history, writings and other records, making them more accessible to researchers.
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