With over 6,000 acres and 100 buildings, the Mount Lebanon Shaker Village was a driving force for agricultural, industrial, and commercial activities. Today the mountainside is home to Darrow School, an independent co-educational college and preparatory school, who have been the site’s conscientious caretakers since 1932.
Darrow was born from the ideals of a group of educational and community leaders who shared a set of values about education and community responsibility, similar to that of the Shakers. Beginning as a boy’s schools in 1932, it was renamed Darrow School in 1939 in honour of the local family who had first settled the land and provided support in its early years as a Shaker community.
Darrow is the only school in the United States located on the site of a Shaker village, and as such is a nationally recognised historic site. Its setting in the Mount Lebanon parkland is one of unparalleled beauty and historical significance that has helped define the character of the school.
The craftmanship, architecture, and simple design sense of the Shakers is reflected in the buildings throughout the campus. The school’s ethos and values also strongly reflect those of the Shakers, as does its nationally recognised Sustainability Program; the school prides itself in encouraging individual productivity, creative problem solving, and interdependence with the natural environment.
Darrow has now embarked on a mission to dig even deeper into the unique history of its campus, and incorporate this activity as an essential part of their project-based curriculum. This innovative pathway of study will be the only program of its kind available to high school students in the United States; understanding the archaeological resource, and what it tells us about the Shakers, is fundamental to this exciting new phase of learning.
