Shaker Church Family Round Barn, U.S. Route 20, Hancock, Berkshire County, MA

Significance: The Hancock Shakers were organized between 1780 and 1790. The Round Stone Barn was built 1826, and was described thirty years later as a "grand architectural curiosity...visited as a curiosity by thousands of people" (Holland 1855). Around 1870, the barn was accidentally burnt out so the framing of the structure was replaced. More recently a new cattle shed was erected to the south to furnish larger accommodations and to avoid re-constructing the cattle floor with reinforced concrete as required by the new Sanitary Code of the State of Massachusetts.
Survey number: HABS MA-674
Building/structure dates: 1826 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1864 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: after 1900 Subsequent Work
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 68000037