Anita Sanchez grew up on Shaker Road in nearby Watervliet, N.Y. But the significance of the name bypassed her until her research for her first book, "The Teeth of the Lion: The Story of the Beloved and Despised Dandelion."
"I grew up in Shaker country, but I didn't know anything about them," said Sanchez, an author and environmental educator with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
As she began her dandelion research, she found there were a number of cultures who used the dandelion for medicinal purposes, the most interesting of which, she said, were the Shakers. During a visit to Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield to learn more about the Shaker culture, Sanchez came across the journal entries of Henry Blinn, a Shaker from Canterbury Village, N.H. The entries chronicled the time after Blinn found out he had been drafted into the Civil War.
"When he recounted the episode when he was drafted in the Civil War ... he went into such depth and such detail," Sanchez said.
And the more she read and the more she learned about the Shaker culture, "the more I thought, 'Wow, there's some interesting stories here,'" Sanchez recalled.
After publishing a historical fiction novel for young adults titled "Invasion of Sandy Bay" in 2008, Sanchez turned her attention to the Shakers. The result is her latest publication, "Mr. Lincoln's Chair: The Shakers and their Quest for Peace." Sanchez will talk
Sanchez's book provides a nonfiction account of the Shaker community and its attempt to maintain a peaceful existence during the most turbulent time in American history - the Civil War.
"As a writer, I am always looking for situations where there is a strong contrast," Sanchez said during a recent phone interview. "That incredibly bloody war and the Shakers who are trying to live such peaceful lives, I thought there was such a contrast there."
"Mr. Lincoln's Chair" tells the story of Blinn and the Shakers' struggle to make sense of the war, the violence and their role as pacifists in such a tumultuous conflict. In an attempt to remain true to their beliefs, the Shakers protested their involvement in the war by going directly to Lincoln.
According to Sanchez, when the Shakers brought these concerns to the president, he leaned back in his chair and said, "You ought to be made to fight, as we need regiments of just such men as you."
"Their confrontation with the president became a legend among the Shakers, a favorite story often related by the elders," Sanchez says on her Web site, anitasanchez.webs.com. "And in appreciation for Lincoln's cooperation and courtesy, the Shakers created a magnificent handcrafted chair. Lincoln sent them a thank-you note, remarking that it was 'a very comfortable chair.'"
Through her research, Sanchez said, she was interested to learn about the Shakers' way of life, but she was also very impressed by what she learned about Lincoln, his sense of humanity and his tremendous respect for others, including the Shakers, whose beliefs differed so much from his own.
"Lincoln treated everyone with respect and humanity," Sanchez said.
Sanchez also discovered that just weeks before Lincoln's assassination, the Shakers had extended him an invitation to come stay with them for a period of time.
"Right at the end of his life, he was very exhausted ... and not in good physical health. The Shakers sent him an invitation to their site in New Lebanon to rest," Sanchez said.
Lincoln never went. Instead, he paid a visit to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his troops, and a few weeks later planned to spend a relaxing evening at Ford's Theatre.
"What if he had gone to spend a month with the Shakers? What would have happened?" Sanchez wondered.
Besides the subject of the Civil War, true to her environmentalist roots, Sanchez plans on incorporating the topic of the Shakers as early environmentalists into her lecture. Sanchez said it "wasn't a huge leap" for her as an environmental educator to become interested in a culture like that of the Shakers.
The Shakers may not have been environmentalists in the modern sense, Sanchez said, but they were ahead of their time in terms of preserving resources ("They didn't waste things.") and their concept of improving air quality (they installed pipes in their buildings in some villages to remove soot from the air).
"It was such a modern concept. The Shakers were onto this long before the rest of the world," Sanchez said.
Sanchez also hopes to emphasize the importance of journaling during her lecture, because it "gives us a sense of the past as something that is still very much alive."
"We tend to think of history as dead and gone. Once we delve into the past, we find it is still very much alive today," Sanchez said. "Because (the Shakers) wrote it down, we can re-create history and bring it alive."
Anita Sanchez's lecture and book signing is scheduled for Saturday, July 11, at 2 p.m. in the Visitors Center at Hancock Shaker Village, located on Route 20 in Hancock. The lecture is free with admission to the village. Info: 800-817-1137 or hancockshakervillage.org.
The Lincoln Trail
This year marks the bicentennial celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birth. The anniversary has become the impetus for the creation of "Lincoln's Trail in the Berkshires," a collaboration of 13 historic sites and museums in the community, compiled by employees at Chesterwood, the historic home of Daniel Chester French, the artist who sculpted the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., and The Minute Man in Concord.
"It's amazing what's in this area on Lincoln and his era," Janet Cathcart, Chesterwood's director of development and marketing, said.
Cathcart said the trail includes sites and venues regarding anything Lincoln. And the trail is not only a chance to educate visitors to Berkshire County and its residents about the tremendous amount of Lincoln-related history in the area, but also to increase visits to the cultural venues on the trail.
"The hope is that it will bring a lot of traffic to these other venues, and it will pique people's interest in these sites," Cathcart said. "We have a lot of history in Berkshire County - a lot of history in our backyard."
Sites with current programming
and exhibits on The Lincoln Trail:
Berkshire Museum: Volk Life Mask, 1860; Mary Todd Lincoln letter and other memorabilia
Berkshire Athenaeum: Book and memorabilia displays
Arrowhead/Berkshire Historical Society: Berkshire Eagle of April 20, 1865, announcing Lincoln's assassination
Hancock Shaker Village: Story of the Shaker chair for Lincoln as told by Anita Sanchez, lecture and book signing, July 11 at 2 p.m.
Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum: Robert Gould Shaw letter describing meeting with Lincoln
Lee Library: 1860 Lincoln photograph framed by floorboards from Lincoln home
West Stockbridge Public Library: Lincoln bust by Leonard Volk
Stockbridge Library Museum and Archives: Lincoln statue and memorabilia from Daniel Chester French
The Red Lion Inn: "Lincoln Table" from Union League Club in New York and Lincoln etching
Norman Rockwell Museum: "Reflections on Lincoln" exhibit, through Sept. 7
Chesterwood: Home, studio and gardens of Daniel Chester French, sculptor of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, open through Oct. 31
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