The essential sources for establishing the timing and sequence of events were contemporaneous documents—the minutes of the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation and of its Shakertown Committee, the minutes of the Board of Trustees of Shakertown at Pleasant Hill, Inc., and the minutes of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. These, together with reports, memoranda, letters, budgets, and other such documents of the time, provided the thread of the narrative. This material came from the Department of Special Collections of the University of Kentucky Libraries, from several large boxes stored at Shakertown, and from the files of the late Robert F. Houlihan, attorney for the Shakertown board. Also important were narratives written by Earl Wallace: “Shakertown at Pleasant Hill,” “The Shakertown Roundtable,” and an untitled typescript of accounts of events during the restoration of the Shaker Village.
As quotations throughout the book show, much important information, with many insights and details, came from interviews and more informal conversations with persons who had various kinds of involvement with the Shaker Village and its restoration. The list includes Hilary J. Boone Jr., Jimmie Campbell, Thomas D. Clark, Richard DeCamp, Joseph C. Graves Jr., Carolyn Hammer, Susan Jackson Keig, the late Clay Lancaster, Vivian Landrum, Bettye Lee Mastin, Dixie Moore, Betty W. Morris, the late Louie B. Nunn, Evalina Settles, Robert F. Sexton, Al Smith, the late Betty Tenney, James C. Thomas, Bob Warren, the late William T. Young, and one person who wishes to remain anonymous. Also valuable were two video productions, Kentucky Educational Television’s tribute to Earl Wallace in the Distinguished Kentuckian series and Shakertown’s own Shaker Images production, “James Lowry Cogar: A Living Tribute,” and an audiotape from Shakertown files of an interview with Cogar.
Fortunately, the restoration of the Shaker Village received extensive continuing coverage in area newspapers. I drew on the Courier-Journal, the Harrodsburg Herald, and the Lexington Herald (later the Lexington Herald-Leader) for a number of descriptive details that would have been long lost without their careful attention.
With reference to the Shaker background as given in chapter 2 and chapter 3: Some of this information came from research material prepared at Shakertown early in the restoration project. In addition, of the many books that have been written about the Shakers, I found the following especially useful: Maps of the Shaker West: A Journey of Discovery, by Martha Boice, Dale Covington, and Richard Spence (Dayton, Ohio: Knot Garden Press, 1997); Pleasant Hill and Its Shakers, by Thomas D. Clark and F. Gerald Ham (Pleasant Hill, Ky.: Shakertown Press, 1968); Noble But Plain, by Jerry V. Grant (Old Chatham, N.Y.: Shaker Museum and Library, 1994); Old Shakertown and the Shakers, by Daniel Mac-Hir Hutton (Harrodsburg, Ky.: Harrodsburg Herald Press, 1936); A Walking Tour of Shakertown, by Bettye Lee Mastin, with illustrations by Patricia S. DeCamp (Lexington, Ky.: Richard S. DeCamp, 1969); The Shakers and the World’s People, by Flo Morse (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1987 [reissue of 1980 Dodd, Mead, and Company edition]); The Story of the Shakers, by Flo Morse (Woodstock, Vt.: The Countryman Press, 1986); The Kentucky Shakers, by Julia Neal (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1977); The Simple Spirit, compiled by Samuel W. Thomas and James C. Thomas (Pleasant Hill, Ky.: Pleasant Hill Press, 1973); Education and Recreation of the Shakers, by Sister Miriam Wall (East Canterbury, N.H.: Canterbury Shakers, n.d.). The Shakers and the World’s People, from which I drew several comments, is a particularly valuable anthology of material about the Shakers and was well described by one reviewer as “an indispensable storehouse.” I also received useful material from my friend Theodore Levitt, editor emeritus of the Harvard Business Review. In addition to the books mentioned here, those interested in further reading might also wish to take a look at The Shaker Experience in America, by Stephen J. Stein (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992).
For the discussion of the evolution of historic preservation in the United States and differing points of view concerning it, I drew—aside from conversations with James Thomas, Betty Morris, and others—on a number of books, including Antebellum Houses of the Bluegrass, by Clay Lancaster (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1961); Changing Places, by Richard Moe and Carter Wilkie (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997); Keeping Time, by William J. Murtagh (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997); 1929: America before the Crash, by Warren Sloat (New York: Macmillan, 1979); and Presenting the Past, an anthology edited by Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986). Also, an interested reader might enjoy Cabell Phillips’s portrait of Colonial Williamsburg, “The Town That Stopped the Clock,” in American Heritage (February 1960). Other useful material included an unpublished paper, “The Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation Backgrounder,” by Greg Rinhart (provided by the Blue Grass Trust).
Earl Wallace’s personal narratives had special value in providing sidelights on his complex financial dealings on behalf of Shakertown, as described in chapters 8 and 10. Those wishing to look further into the workings of the bond market might consult a most interesting book, The Life and Times of Dillon Read, by Robert Sobel (New York: Truman Talley Books/Dutton, 1991).
For making books, clippings, and other materials available to me, I am grateful to Joseph C. Graves Jr.; Donna Moore, of Kentucky Educational Television; the late Betty Tenney, daughter of Earl Wallace; and Marnie Gregory Walters, then director of the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation. I also owe a considerable debt to staff members of the Special Collections and Digital Programs of the University of Kentucky Libraries and the Mercer County Public Library. For aesthetic advice concerning the Shakers and their achievements, I thank Professor Nancy Coleman Wolsk of Transylvania University.
All of the documentary, newspaper, audio, and video material used in the preparation of the book has been placed in the library at Pleasant Hill, where anyone who wishes to consult it may do so.