The exceptionally well-crafted fingers and regularly spaced tacks make this circa 1840 Mount Lebanon box an outstanding example of the form. Finished in a chrome yellow wash, it is close to the largest that was commonly made by the Shakers and may have been used to store a bonnet.

Intrigue, passion and broken promises are excitements not normally associated with the serenity of the Shaker community. All that and more, however, were part and parcel of the formation and preservation of the most significant American Shaker collection and its attendant ethics and scholarship.

The exhibit “Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection” on view at Hancock Shaker Village through October 31 defines the Andrews collection. The title is drawn from scriptural verse on the table monitor in dining rooms of Shaker communities, “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” It describes the gathering of the fragments of Shaker life, the fine and the dross, even what one sister described as “trumpery.” It also refers to the Shaker (and Ben Franklin’s) precept “waste not, want not.”

Further, it visits the controversy that ultimately surrounded the gathering of the collection, its dispersal and the collectors themselves. The fragments of that collection have been gathered together in the new exhibit, the most comprehensive gathering of Shaker objects ever assembled.

Hancock’s curator of collections, Christian Goodwillie, says he organized “Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection” to illustrate the collection from its highest forms to the lowest. Assembled are some 250 pieces of Shaker furniture, printed material, visual art, tools, textiles and small objects collected by Faith and Edward Andrews over 40 years, highlighting specific objects of each type. Many are on view for the first time.

The heavily turned stool donated to Hancock in the 1960s turned out to have a sad poem written in 1871 by Brother Charles Brown lamenting the bare hills of which he had “A dred†[sic] and describing his lot as “living a Hell on earth. 

One such example is a box made of layers of pasted up broadsides advertising Sarsaparilla, Phthisis Eradicating Syrup and Vegetable Pulmonary Pills. When the Andrewses found the box, it contained a sister’s net cap and shoe, a section of peg-rail, palm leaf bonnet braiding, a duster handles and a spool. Another paper object, probably not previously on public view, is the yellow sticky-pad note in Faith Andrews’ hand that reads: “Tin teapot. Early Shaker made tin and pewter teapot given to us by Sister Sadie Neale, New Lebanon, N.Y. F.A.” The teapot is displayed close by.

A red painted pine throne, or platform, made at Mount Lebanon in about 1830 was used by Hancock Sister Sadie Neale to elevate her chair and sewing desk to take advantage of the light.

One of the earliest objects in the exhibition is a 1782 letter from Father James Whittaker of Ashfield, Mass., who accompanied Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee to America in 1774. In it, he excoriates one Josiah Tallcott. To describe the letter as full of fire and brimstone would be an understatement.

A pine spool rack was a practical way to organize thread. The spools are dowelled into the rack, which is inscribed in pencil on the bottom, “Levi Stevens made this.†Brother Levi lived at Canterbury until his death in 1867.

One of the most important of the Andrewses’ collected manuscripts is the first written covenant binding a Shaker family into “gospel order,” a 1795 document entrusted to them by Sister Sadie Neale.

A beautifully pleated shroud, elegant in its simplicity, is made of cotton and treated with zinc chloride to make it wrinkle- and water-resistant. Other Shaker textiles include a scrap from Mother Ann’s dress, sisters’ dress pockets, colorful brethren shirt collars and a dreamy pink silk kerchief made in a Kentucky or Ohio community.

A rare wool corset on view was worn to conceal the female form. Its bone stays, linen backing and a suede lining must have done the job nicely.

Three splendid gift drawings by Hannah Cohoon of the Hancock community stand out along one wall. They are the 1854 “Tree of Life”; “The Tree of Light or Blazing Tree,” made in 1845; and the 1854 “A Bower of Mulberry Trees.” The watercolor drawings capture Cohoon’s visions of religious and mystical experiences.

To many, oval boxes signify Shaker industriousness and elegance of design. Many are on view here, along with a record by Brother Isaac Newton Youngs of the numbers of boxes made at Mount Lebanon in each year between 1822 and 1836. The most productive year was 1836 when 3,560 were made; the total for 15 years was an impressive 24,250.

The Andrewses gathered and preserved it all. The scope of the exhibition attests to their passion for things Shaker. Nothing was too big or too small or even too personal. They collected Shaker articles of personal hygiene, including a potty.

When it was determined in 1938 that the 1786 meetinghouse at Hancock needed to be torn down, the Andrewses determined to save the meeting room woodwork. Sister Sadie Neale of Mount Lebanon provided them the funds to save the interior. The doors and some of the paneling are on view, and their original Prussian blue paint is visible.

The stenciled mark on the painted spit box indicates use in the Ministry (M) or the meeting room (M.R.).

The exhibit tells the story of two collectors and their friendship with the Shakers, a curious and compelling entwining of mutual affection and admiration, and on the part of the passionate collectors, great reverence for the Shaker way of life. It begins with Faith Young Andrews and Edward Deming Andrews, who dealt in American antiques from their home in rural Richmond, Mass., in the early 1920s. They first visited the Shaker community at nearby Hancock in 1923. Their mission was to buy bread. On their second visit, they were invited to wait in the kitchen while the bread was wrapped. They were amazed. Faith Andrews described it years later: “Pandora’s box was empty compared with our first glimpse beyond the kitchen door.”

So captivated by the Shakers and their way of life, the Andrewses became frequent visitors to the Hancock community and began buying objects from the community at Hancock. Their first purchase was a kitchen bowl made from a single piece of hardwood and painted red. It remained in the Andrews family collection until 1993 and is on loan to the exhibition.

Most objects were purchases; many others were gifts from the Shakers. Most of the items they bought from the Shakers were objects no longer in use in the community; some were Shaker made, others were made in “the World” and used in the community.

The leaders of the communities were happy to sell to the Andrewses †and other appreciative collectors and dealers †to help fill the coffers. Gift shops were operated at several communities, supplying seeds, foodstuffs and other objects. The Andrewses collected everything the Shakers touched: gift drawings, manuscripts, printed works, furniture, boxes, kitchenware, metalware, textiles and tools.

They documented their gatherings meticulously, assuring future generations of evidence of the Shaker culture, and the exhibit makes use of that care, tracing each object from its original construction to its use in the community to its dispersal into “the World,” as the Shakers referred to life outside the community.

The Andrewses were a curious embodiment of dealers, scholars, experts and devoted friends of the Shakers. Contemporary critics found much to denigrate, accusing them of having fallen in love with their subjects. Guilty as charged. Conversely, the Andrewses’ interest, along with the income from their purchases, helped perpetuate and preserve a fast disappearing way of life, to say nothing of the discarded objects the Shakers committed to the trash pit.

A group of sieves, produced at Mount Lebanon in the early to mid-Nineteenth Century, is on view with a sieve binding frame on a three-legged platform. The binding frame was used to hold the woven mat between the wooden hoops that held the sieve together. A collection of sieves, most of which are unfinished, surround the stand, illustrating the variety of sizes available.

The Andrewses and the Shakers enjoyed a free give and take, with the Andrewses as frequent visitors at Hancock and the Shakers as frequent guests in the Andrewses’ home. The Andrewses were free to explore buildings in the community; Sister Sadie Neale referred to them as “the antique pilgrims.” Much of the Andrewses’ book, Shaker Furniture, was written in a room set aside for them in the Dairy and Weave Shop at Hancock.

When Sister Alice Smith, one of their closest friends in the community, died in 1935, Edward Andrews was a pallbearer at her funeral. Despite the close relationships, there were undercurrents of jealousy on the part of some of the other sisters.

After the 1957 death of Eldress Frances Hall, the decision was made to close the Hancock community and sell its buildings and 3,000 acres. Local philanthropist and Shaker advocate Amy Bess Miller launched an effort to preserve the property from commercial development †a harness racing facility was in the works †and the Hancock Shaker Village and museum opened to the public July 1, 1961. The brick dwelling house, the first building opened to the public, was furnished with objects from the Andrewses’ own collection.

Miller was the first president and Ted Andrews was the first curator of the Hancock Shaker Village. It was then that the Andrewses donated part of their collection to the village and promised much of the rest. Part of the 1960 agreement was a promise that the museum would issue a catalog of the collection and another that the collection would be displayed and interpreted under the direction of the donors.

Despite the credentials of the Andrewses and their impressive roster of eight major books and innumerable articles about the Shakers and their objects, certain board members disputed their scholarship and ideas about exhibiting the collections. Matters became so unpleasant among the various factions, the board, a new director Miller brought in to supervise Andrews and the Andrewses themselves, that Ted Andrews resigned from the village and attempted to remove their collections.

Two cherry stands, circa 1840, from Mount Lebanon represent the highest refinement of the form produced there. The example on the right bears the mark of a pair of scissors or a wick trimmer in the finish.

A major brouhaha ensued, and the result was that the Andrewses’ gifts already in the possession of the Hancock Shaker Village remained there. They retained the rest, eventually selling or donating it elsewhere. Their extensive library of manuscripts and imprints went to Winterthur; the remainder of the collection was divided among the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum in Britain and other collections.

The Andrewses left behind their own extensive body of evidence about the Shakers and their collections. As the most prodigious collectors of Shaker materials ever, they gathered well over 10,000 objects.

The exhibit and its catalog by Goodwillie and Mario S. DePillis represents a promise kept, albeit more than four decades late. Goodwillie writes, “With this exhibition and its accompanying catalog, we have attempted to ‘gather up the fragments’ of the Andrews’ legacy †both material and scholarly †and to honor their tremendous contributions, not only to Hancock Shaker Village, but to the understanding and preservation of Shaker culture by all of ‘the world’s people.'”

DePillis, who was mentored by Ted Andrews at Yale University, is professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was a member of the founding board of trustees at Hancock Shaker Village at the time the Andrews collection was acquired. He was also part of the conciliation committee convened to determine a resolution of the conflict between the museum board and the Andrewses.

The exhibition catalog is available at the village or from the publisher, Yale University Press. For information, 413-443-1088 or www.hancockshakervillage.org .