Portal:Kentucky/Selected attraction/9
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Pleasant Hill is the site of a Shaker religious community that was active from 1805 to 1910. Following a preservationist effort that began in 1961, the site, now a National Historic Landmark, has become a popular tourist destination. Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, or Shakertown, as it is known by residents of the area, is located 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Lexington, in Kentucky's Bluegrass region.
On January 1, 1805, with eleven Shaker communities already established in New York and New England, three Shaker missionaries set out to find new converts among the pioneers then pouring into the western lands by way of Cumberland Gap and the Ohio. By August, they had gathered a small group of new adherents to the doctrine of Mother Ann Lee, many of whom had earlier been influenced by the fervent Cane Ridge Revival. In December 1806, forty-four converts of legal age signed a covenant agreeing to mutual support and the common ownership of property.
