A friend had mentioned that Footpaths might find a good prairie hike at Shaker Village after he had recently toured there. Then I recalled that over recent years I had seen a couple of Kentucky Educational Television programs about Shaker Village’s prairie restoration program, as well as their Bob White Quail habitat efforts. So needless to say, with it being prairie season, this hike moved to the top of the list.
The photographer was all in for the outing because it would marry our nature activities with the historic campus of Shaker Village, a not-for-profit organization that has restored the 19th century Shaker community of 3000 acres.
The Shakers were a religious sect that was an off branch of the Quakers. The primary differences were that the Shakers lived a communal lifestyle and were celibate. In addition the Shakers believe that they received messages from God and the Holy Spirit which caused them to dance and sing in dramatic forms. This style of worship led to the derisive nickname “the Shaking Quakers” – Shakers . In contrast to the Amish, another group that the Shakers are sometimes confused with, the Shakers believed in gender equity and embraced new technology. At Pleasant Hill for example, both genders had equal say on governance, and it was one of the first communities west of the Appalachians to have a water works system. In 1833 they built a water house the had a large elevated cistern. Horsepower pumped water up into the cistern, and then gravity delivered the water to buildings in the community. Shaker communities were also felt to produce superior goods, including brooms, tools, furniture, or livestock, and the Pleasant Hill Shakers were felt to be very prosperous. Because they practiced celibacy, they relied on conversions and the adoption of orphans to grow the community. The adopted would have the option to leave the community when they reached legal age. Pleasant Hill started in 1805 and thrived up till the 1850’s, with a peak population of almost 500 in the 1820s. Starting in the mid eighteen hundreds social and cultural changes led to less people joining the sect and the population of the community declined. Pleasant Hill dissolved in 1910. In 1961 a non-profit was formed and the restoration began.
For our visit to Pleasant Hill we had identified a couple of trails that we thought would work on a hot July day with temps in the upper eighties. We would start on the Meadow View Trail, break for lunch in the historic inn, and then hike the shaded Palisades Trail along the Kentucky River, in the heat of the afternoon.
After parking, we traversed the Shaker Village campus to get to the trailhead of the Meadow View Trail. We were able to take in the serene setting and the lovely historic structures that have been restored, as seen below and in the title photo. There are many more.
At Shaker Village the acres of farm pasture are managed to mimic the Bluegrass Savanna that once dominated the Central Kentucky landscape. This balances the organization’s dual goals of agriculture and wildlife conservation. As we approached our trailhead we saw sheep grazing in one of the savanna-like, ecologically rich, meadows.
We hiked through fields free of livestock.
The trails wound along edges of meadows and exposed us to many of the old stone fences characteristic of Kentucky’s Bluegrass region. While many think that these walls were built by slaves, they were generally built by Irish and Scottish immigrant stone masons, with the peak construction of the walls taking place in the first half of the 1800s. In the Bluegrass, some slaves assisted the masons in their projects, learned the trade, and then carried on the work as free men after the Civil War. There are over forty miles of historic dry stone fencing at Shaker Village. With the Shakers being anti-slavery, it is certain that slaves were not present at Pleasant Hill.
In total there are over thirty miles of trails at Shaker Village and they appeared to be well marked. We liked the repurposing of this historic gate post for directional signage.
As the name implies the Meadow View Trail takes you through rolling fields that offer up a display of wildflowers, utilizing a widely mowed trail.
Upon completion of the Meadow View Trail we again strolled through the village campus as we headed to lunch at the inn. Along the way we passed some lovely ponds and more stone walls.
After an excellent lunch and a tasty local craft beer, we were informed that the Shaker Landing area, which hosts the Palisades Trail we had planned to hike, was closed for a private event. For Plan B, we decided to hike a loop of the Anderson Trail that meanders through another meadow, which was specifically managed to host Bob White Quail. They do this by removing the ubiquitous fescue grass and planting native grasses. The common fescue grass of pastures, Kentucky 31, was introduced in the early 1930s and led to dramatic decline in the quail populations across the region. Native grasses grow in clumps rather than as an impenetrable blanket that fescue does. The spacing of the native grasses allows for quail nesting areas and escape routes from predators. Mixed in are flowering plants which attract insects, providing the quail a food source during the spring and summer. The same flowers provide seeds for their diet in fall and winter. Finally, shrubs are added which provide shelter from predators and extreme weather. While we did not see any quail on this hot afternoon we enjoyed the hike immensely with its wildflowers and songbirds.
On both hikes we saw a collection of meadow flowers.
White False Indigo and Canada Thistle
Glade Coneflower and Ox-eye Sunflower
Yellow Wingstem and Snakeroot
One interesting observation that we had was of some beautiful Queen Anne’s Lace. The image from above allows you to understand its name.
This view from the side shows the flower head development, as it unfolds to expose the small flowers of the flower head.
A common flower of the late summer meadow is Ironweed. This photo displays its outstanding color and textures.
Other interesting flower images are a collection of closeups on Purple Coneflowers. The eye of the “flower” is botanically a cluster of individual flowers.
While we saw some of the butterflies that we frequently see, we did see a couple that were new to us or less common:
Wild Indigo Duskywing and Silvery Checkerspot. As the name suggest Wild Indigo is the host plant for the larval stage of the Duskywing.
Likewise, as is common in prairies, there were a number of dragonfly species:
Ebony Jewel Wing, Common Whitetail, Eastern Pondhawk. The male Eastern Pondhawk is powder blue but the female is a generally a bright green.
On initial observation two plants that were just getting ready to flower had a remarkably similar appearance but were definitely different species:
Canada Thistle and Coneflower
Crossing parts of the Shaker Village campus is the historic Lexington-Harrodsburg-Perryville Turnpike that dates to 1833 and was a National Postal Route. Perryville was the sight of one of the largest battles of the Western Theater of the Civil War with 36,000 combatants (20,000 Union and 16,000 Confederate), and 7,621 causalities (1,422 killed, 5,534 wounded). Interestingly, I read, that in October of 1862, surrounding the time of the Battle of Perryville, the Shakers of Pleasant Hill, who were considered Union sympathizers, were very generous in feeding thousands of both Union and Confederate troops who were begging for food. It was felt that this generosity contributed to the economic decline of the community.
Lastly we were impressed when we saw this stile built into the stone fence that was above the historic turnpike. Stiles are structures that allow pedestrians to travel in and out of pastures without the risk of allowing farm animals to escape. We have seen many varieties of stiles on our hikes in the United Kingdom but never one where stairs were integrated into a stonewall as we saw here. This reflects the agricultural creativity of the Shaker community.
In summary, our visit to the naturalized meadows of Shaker Village was a great success. We enjoyed the marriage of nature and history, and applaud the organization for their efforts at habitat restoration. Based on the diversity of wildlife that we saw it appears to be working. The scheduled lunch in the coolness of the inn was a nice respite from the sun-soaked hiking paths. I envision a return trip to hike other trails at Pleasant Hill, which I think we will time for when the trees are bare of leaves, allowing for better visibility of the rolling terrain and the beautiful stone walls that provide a sense of place and define the Kentucky Bluegrass. And just maybe, the inn will be serving a little Kentucky Burgoo that I can have with my craft ale.
Footpathsblog.com posts are released every Sunday morning and some bonus content is added periodically. Please click on a social media icon above to follow for future posts and to make sure that you catch all our reflections on, and adventures with, the great outdoors.
Photo credits to Peggy Juengling Burns.
Overview:
Location – 3501 Lexington Road, Harrodsburg, KY 40330. It is 108 miles south of downtown Cincinnati.
Parking – large asphalt lot. They charge $10 to park for hikers.
Facilities – at multiple sites on the campus, but none at the trailheads that we utilized.
Trail Conditions – both trails were mowed grass. Meadow View Trail was 2 miles long. The single loop of the Anderson Trail was a little over a mile.
Print Map Link – https://shakervillageky.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2024-Trail-Map-FINAL-for-Web.pdf
Benches – some noted at various sites on the campus but none noted on the trails themselves.
Picnic Tables – at various sites on the campus.
Kids – kids 6 and over should do well.
Dogs – Prohibited.
Suggested Paired Hikes – There are 30 miles of trails here. The pamphlet at he map link above has excellent descriptions of the 14 trails including mention of items of historical interest.