King, Emma Belle (1873-1966)
Biography
Eldress Emma B. King came to the Canterbury, NH Shakers at the age of 5. She taught school before becoming an eldress in 1913, and joined the Ministry, which moved to Canterbury after the closure of Mount Lebanon, in 1947. She established a trust fund for the Shakers, which still safeguards the Society's assets, and facilitated the donation or sale of thousands of Shaker manuscripts and documents to the Shaker Museum in Old Chatham, NY, and so the museum's library is named in her honor. In the photograph above, Eldress Emma is shown with Shaker Museum founder John S. Williams, Sr., at the official opening of the library in 1962.