1 of last Shakers dies; only 2 left
PORTLAND, Maine — Sister Frances Carr, one of the last members of the Shakers religious society, died at 89 from cancer Monday at the community at Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester, said Brother Arnold Hadd, one of the two remaining members. Their community was settled in 1783, one of more than a dozen in the New World. It practiced equality of the sexes, pacifism, communal ownership of property and celibacy. Their numbers declined because members are celibate and the group stopped taking orphans like Carr, who arrived as a 10-year-old after her father died and her mother couldn’t care for her.
