Mary Settles

The keeper of a community’s memory

Mary Settles was born in 1836 and joined the Shaker community at Pleasant Hill as a child. She lived long enough to watch the busy communal village become quiet, then became the final Shaker to reside there before her death in 1923.

Mary was remembered as a natural storyteller. Her memories carried forward details of worship, work, meals, songs, friendships and daily routines that might otherwise have vanished with the community itself.

Life at Pleasant Hill

Pleasant Hill once included hundreds of Shakers living in a carefully ordered communal society. Members valued useful work, excellent craftsmanship, worship through song and movement, and a disciplined life shared by the community. The village’s surviving architecture remains one of Kentucky’s most remarkable historic places.

The Parsonage makes an especially fitting setting for Mary’s story. Both places preserve early Kentucky religious life through buildings that once joined belief, work and hospitality under one roof.

A woman who expected an equal voice

Shaker communities recognized spiritual leadership by women and men. Mary lived to see women win the constitutional right to vote in 1920 and proudly connected suffrage with the equality she had long known inside her religious community.

Her perspective invites audiences to see the nineteenth century through a woman who valued faith and tradition while also embracing a larger democratic voice for women.

Janet Scott as Mary Settles

Actor, writer and teacher Janet Scott has portrayed Mary Settles for Kentucky Chautauqua since 2011. Her long professional career includes New York theater, teaching and work as an acting coach. She gives Mary warmth, humor and the confident voice of a born storyteller.

Official event listing: Kentucky Humanities · KET performance resource