Shaker Elder Henry Clay Blinn (1824-1905) was neither a soldier nor a spy. Those are two roles the Shakers disavowed. But he was a tinker and a tailor. And a typesetter, printer, writer, editor, and publisher. He was a teacher and a beekeeper. His dexterous hands were, at one time or another, devoted to dentistry, cabinetmaking, and mapmaking. His mind’s work lives on in the works he wrote, including chronicles of life in Canterbury Shaker Village. Elder Henry even created a museum—what was then called a cabinet of curiosities. It included specimens of nature as well as manmade artifacts, telling the story of the Shakers and of the Shaker who collected its objects.
How fitting, then, to title our blog The Blinn Report. We hope we honor and exemplify Blinn’s curiosity as we highlight objects from Canterbury Shaker Village’s vast and varied collections—and the many, many stories these objects reveal about this long-lived utopian community. We hope, too, to elicit your curiosity about the Shakers.