Shaker Ghost Town

By Randy McNutt

Near Monroe lies a ghost town named Union Village, once the largest Shaker communities in the early west with hundreds of residents. Founded in 1805, when Ohio was only two years old, Union Village continued to grow into a leading area producer of brooms, chairs, and various other products. At State Route 741, near State Route 63, I stopped to see one of last larger Shaker buildings left in the area--Marble Hall. It's fancy inside, lined with expensive wood trim and marble. If this seems an unlikely Shaker style, it is. The Shakers decided to remodel one of their early buildings to fit the times of the 1890s, and in the process renamed it Marble Hall. Although still attractive and useful, the building is also a sad reminder of the decline of the Shaker faith. 

The Shakers—formally known as the United Society of Christ’s Second Appearing—were a persecuted religious sect founded in England in the late 1700s by Ann Lee, the wife of a blacksmith. She and her small group left for America and built villages in New York and other eastern states. A main tenant of their faith was celibacy, although the group accepted women and minorities and offered them positions of leadership. The Shakers got their name from the way some of their early converts shook while praying. The name stuck. Nowadays, the early Shakers are known mostly for their fine craftsmanship and woodworking. Only a handful of Shakers remain, and they live in New England.

In time, the Shakers built 24 communities in the United States, including Union Village. The self-sufficient town became a leading Shaker center in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. The community helped created a number of other villages in neighboring counties and in Indiana. In 1818, the town’s population peaked at 634 people. Early on, the town even featured its own printing plant and newspaper, the Day-Star.

Starting in the second decade of the 1800s, Union Village became a center of Merino sheep and Poland-China hogs. Meanwhile, the community began to package and sell garden seeds. “The Shakers,” Cheryl Bauer and Rob Portman wrote in Wisdom’s Paradise, “were always successful merchandisers, even in the early nineteenth century, whether they were selling seeds in Ohio or chairs in New York.”

In 1861 the Civil War started a swift downward spiral for the community, draining it of potential new converts and business markets. (Earlier, many of the village's markets had been in the South.) By the 1900, Union Village had dwindled to only 44 residents. In 1912, the community was sold to the United Brethren Church, which used the village as a home for the elderly. Today, the site is the home of Otterbein-Lebanon Retirement Community on Ohio 741. 

Today, Otterbein-Lebanon features a few remnants of the old Shaker community, including Marble Hall, built in 1810. Most of the original structures have been torn down. The most eye-catching building is called Marble Hall, built in 1891-1892 when the Shakers renovated it in the Victorian style. They added marble floors (hence the name), modern fireplaces, fancy woodwork, and porches. Other impressive remnants that remain include a 10,000-gallon (21 feet deep and 9 feet wide) reservoir that caught rain, various Shaker cupboards, and other historical items.

In 1909, just before Union Village was sold, a reporter visited and wrote: “The past quarter century especially has brought about great changes, especially one, the mode of worship. Whereas years ago, marching, whirling, shaking and exhortations of a pronounced nature was indulged in, today a more intelligent spirit is manifested in forms of singing, reading, and remarks, heralding the essentials of life and duties that tend toward the bettering of selfhood, home and humanity . . ."

Unfortunately, the Shaker town was doomed. Its membership further declined to only 24 members in 1910. The end had come to one of Ohio’s more interesting independent religious communities.

Randy McNutt is the author Lost Ohio:  More Travels into Haunted Landscapes, Ghost Towns, and Forgotten Places.