The Shaker Village Barn Fire
By David Tirrell-Wysocki
Photos courtesy of Paul Lepesqueur, Kent Ruesswick, Mark Stevens, Charles “Bud” Thompson, Darryl Thompson, Ken Williams, Teresa Wyman
Church Family Cow Barn, circa 1900-1910. Looking south from the field that borders Shaker Road
At sunrise on August 10, 1973, Canterbury Shaker Village’s Church Family cow barn – two-and-a-half stories tall, 45 feet wide and 200 feet long – was the Village’s most imposing feature.
By nightfall, it was smoking rubble, victim of a fire that destroyed an iconic landmark and saddened Shaker Village, its neighbors and the town.
All that remains are the granite ramp foundations at both ends of the barn’s footprint and memories of the impressive structure and its demise.
Around 1:15 pm, Charles “Bud” Thompson, who lived at the Village and was curator of its museum, was outside on the Village grounds.
“We heard a sound in the trees, something like rain,” he told The Concord Monitor. “And then I saw the entire barn in flames.”
Looking north, the attached building in the center is one of two wings, or ells, where Shakers kept grain and other supplies. The small building with the white cupola was a woodshed. The building survived and still exists.
Note the fire has advanced to the left (west) from the previous photo
Media reports at the time said 19 fire departments, the National Guard and the Forest Service responded. They could not save the barn, but many credit Canterbury Fire Chief Philip “Bucky” Rollins with saving the rest of the Village’s closely packed wooden buildings.
As the towering flames devoured the barn, the chief directed some fire crews to turn their hoses on nearby historic buildings to protect them from the fire, embers and intense heat.
Bucky’s crucial role was cited in his 2020 obituary: “His quick and clear thinking in obtaining mutual aid from surrounding towns and to spray water on the buildings was essential in saving the historic site.”
Fire Chief Philip “Bucky” Rollins
Bucky’s sister, Jan Cote of Canterbury, said recently that she and her brother spoke often about the fire.
“He did feel he saved the Village,” she said. “What he did was something he learned in training — you would water down buildings beside the fire, especially if it was something as big and historical as the Village. He said that was the best thing to do and that’s what they did.”
Jan saw Bucky the next day.
“He was devastated,” she said. “He used to go up to the Village with our older brother and fish up there. The Sisters — he thought they were great. They gave them cookies.”
Firefighters were at the barn through the night, she said. “It went on and on and on and they had to worry about embers.”
Reports at the time said two firefighters were overcome by smoke, with no other injuries. But Jan said some of the dangerous embers found Bucky.
“He took some embers on his helmet and some went down inside his coat and down his back. They burned his back,” she said, recalling seeing the tender wounds.
Note the proximity of undamaged historic buildings beyond the barn.
Canterbury resident Ken Williams, on the scene as a photographer for The Monitor, escaped the embers, but had a close call of his own as he focused his lens on the firefighters.
“All of a sudden I hear ‘ding, ding, ding, ding,’” he said recently. “It was the backup signal from a fire truck that was headed right toward me.
“The guys yelled, ‘Ken, get the hell out of there’ – which I did. They saved my life, I guess.”
Concord Monitor photo by Ken Williams
Teresa Wyman, who lived across Shaker Road from the barn, was working as a nurse’s aide at McKerley Nursing Home in Concord when she heard that there was a big fire at the Village. She was so shaken, they sent her home early. She was 19 years old.
“I rode home not knowing whether it was just the barn or whether the whole Village was burning,” she recalled recently. “When I got home, it had pretty much burned to the ground.”
That afternoon, she crossed the road into the field that adjoined the barn.
“I lay down on my stomach and I sobbed,” she said.
The flames from the field across from the Wyman home
A 1960’s photo taken by Teresa’s mother, Midge Wyman, looking south from the field across from their home.
Teresa and her family saw the barn from their window every day. She was angry that their personal loss became an attraction.
“For several days after, there was bumper-to-bumper traffic on Shaker Road — people driving by to gawk at it. I was so angry at them I wanted to go out and pound on their cars. I hated them for going by and looking at our loss,” she said.
Note the surviving ramp structure at far end
Teresa had been in the barn as a young child, but she remembers a later adventure just a couple of weeks before the fire. She and her friend June Sprigg, now a renowned Shaker historian and author, snuck into the barn to explore and hang out.
“We thought that would be fun, so about seven in the morning, we crawled under the door, just for an adventure,” Teresa said. “What I remember the most is how cool it was up in the cupola. You could see forever.”
She said it is entirely possible that she and June were the last people in the barn before the fire.
Initial reports suggested the fire was sparked by spontaneous combustion, not uncommon where hay is stored, but Teresa and others said there was no hay inside and very little equipment.
“That afternoon, I said it was arson,” she said. “I had seen the barn. There was nothing in it that would lead to spontaneous combustion. No oil, no green hay, nothing.”
Jan Cote said her brother Bucky also believed someone set the fire on purpose.
The state fire marshal concluded the fire “possibly may have been caused by a person or persons unknown” and ruled the cause of the fire as “undetermined.”
Concord Monitor, Aug. 15, 1973
Darryl Thompson of Canterbury, a long-time Village resident, tour guide and current Shaker historian, is among those who recall a rash of barn fires around the time of the Shaker fire.
He also remembers a conversation with a neighboring police chief who believed the fire was set and told him they had a suspect who later died in car crash. He said the fires stopped after the crash.
Scott Swank, the Village’s executive director long after the fire, also remembers the discussion in which the chief mentioned a possible suspect, but no name was given. What he remembers most was the description of how massive the fire was and the “marvel that the rest of the Village was not swept away by it.”
The fire prompted later Village efforts to develop Turning Mill Pond into a fire pond, with a modern pump house, and installing fire suppression systems in key buildings, such as the Dwelling House and Trustee’s Office, Scott said.
Darryl was 16 years old when he saw the sheer wall of flames and felt heat from the fire even some distance away.
He felt a profound loss, then and now.
“I remember thinking this is irreplaceable,” he said recently. “The thought kept going through my mind: the Village has lost one of its very valuable components. It could have been a star attraction with visitors going through it. It was an incredible loss.”
For many years, the barn was the largest wood-frame barn in New Hampshire, an “ingenious style” that made it a “show place, a masterpiece,” Darryl said.
With its three cupolas, long before the fire, the barn housed more than 100 dairy cows. On the first floor, each cow had its own stanchion. Multiple trap doors allowed manure, used as fertilizer, to drop to the basement below to be shoveled into drying pits.
Note the open trap doors behind the cows
The cow stanchions
The 25-foot ramps at either end of the barn allowed wagons to enter the second floor with hay or supplies, then exit without having to turn around. The building also featured progressive Shaker innovations like indoor running water and steam boilers.
Shaker barn looking south from Shaker Road
The Shaker Sisters considered rebuilding, but concluded it would have been too expensive.
View in July 2026 from the west ramp looking along the barn’s span to the east ramp in the distance. Look closely. The white speck beneath the red line is a six-foot-tall person.
Erin Hammerstedt, the Village’s current executive director, said replacing the barn is not a priority in their current five-year strategic plan, but it and other enhancements might be considered at a time when the Village’s current buildings and dams are well preserved and cared for.
Even today, visitors dream of replacing the structure.
“More than one person has told me that if they win the Powerball, they’ll give us the money to rebuilt it,” she said. “I like to ask them what they think we should do with a barn that size. We can see it as potential centralized collections storage, or as an event or program space.
“If we still had the barn, and were able to keep it in usable shape, it would have tremendous potential to serve the needs of the Village. It was certainly a tremendous loss,” Erin said.
East end ramp foundation at sunset, January 2012