Back in 1922 when the Shaker village at South Union closed, a public auction was held to divide and sell the community’s 4,000 acre farm into smaller
tracts. One of the largest tracts included over 25 buildings that had once been part of the village. It also included a cemetery.
The new owner of this large tract first destroyed the 1847 East House, one of the Shakers’ four communal dwellings, recently damaged by a tornado. Next
he razed the 1818 Meeting House and built on its site a brick home for use by his family on weekends. Other buildings followed until attention was
turned on the village cemetery. Oral history accounts relay that the fence surrounding the six acre graveyard was removed and the stone markers ground
into lime to be used on the fields. Barns were built over part of the burying ground and the rest of it was cultivated for many years to come.
In 1997 the South Union Shaker Village, a non-profit historic site, purchased the property and dismantled the barns that had been built over the
cemetery in the late 1920s. In 2009 archaeologists from the University of Kentucky completed a survey on the tract and discovered the original
perimeter of the cemetery. Ground penetrating radar allowed the archaeologists to identify individual grave shafts from burials that had taken place
there during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Because of the generosity of private individuals and public foundations, a fence has now been built to surround the cemetery and a single grave marker
erected to honor those who died at South Union. According to Shaker records, at least 425 people are buried there between 1810 and 1921.
The South Union Cemetery grave marker will be dedicated Saturday, April 16. Those wishing to be a part of this event should meet at the Centre House at
2 p.m. and the group will make the short walk to the cemetery. The South Union Shaker Village is located 10 miles west of Bowling Green or three miles
east of Auburn on U.S. 68-80. For more information call 1-800-811-8379 or 270-542-4167.