Amy Bess Williams Miller, who helped found Hancock Shaker Village, a restoration of a former Shaker community and a museum, died on Sunday at her home in Pittsfield, Mass. She was 90.
Mrs. Miller, an expert on the Shaker religious movement, was president of Hancock Shaker Village Inc. from 1959 to 1990. The museum and historic site on the border between Pittsfield and Hancock contains many pieces of Shaker handiwork, including Shaker furniture that Mrs. Miller donated.
She also raised funds and directed the restoration of the site, which had been a Shaker community for a century. The Shaker movement, named for the pious trembling of its members, began in 1747 in Britain as a celibate offshoot of the Quakers.
She began her work shortly before the Shakers ended the settlement in 1960, a century after Shakerism had begun to decline, leaving behind more than 12 buildings. At one time, it appeared that a nearby racetrack would acquire the buildings. But a group of Pittsfielders bought them from the remaining Shakers.
Mrs. Miller's writings include "Shaker Medicinal Herbs: A Compendium of History, Lore, and Uses" (1998, Storey in association with Hancock Shaker Village).
A doctor's daughter, Amy Bess Williams was born in El Paso and grew up in Worcester, Mass. She graduated from Miss Hall's School in Pittsfield and studied at the Sorbonne.
Her husband, Lawrence K. Miller, who was editor and publisher of The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, died in 1991, after 58 years of marriage.
Her survivors include a daughter, Margo Miller of Boston; three sons, Kelton II, of Shaftsbury, Vt., and Michael and Mark, both of Pittsfield; a sister, Margery Adams of Charlotte, N.C.; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.