NEW LEBANON, NY.- Many small rural towns contain hidden treasures – if only you know where to look. The Shaker Museum has just made it easier by releasing “Water and the Word,” a multi-media app exploring the astonishing early history of New Lebanon, NY.

This 16-stop, one to two hour driving tour explores the period following the American Revolution, when the hope of attaining personal and community perfection gripped the Shakers as well as many of New Lebanon’s leading citizens and led to significant social reforms that helped define American democracy.

Researched, written, and narrated by Ruth J. Abram, founder of Behold! New Lebanon and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the driving tour app also features original music and optional illustrated audio chapters offering more information at each location. Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon became the distributors and stewards of the app when the museum absorbed Behold! New Lebanon earlier this year.

Lacy Schutz, Executive Director of the Shaker Museum, said, "This app reveals the distinctive history not just of the Shakers, but of extraordinary people who shaped the town of New Lebanon. It's a great resource for visitors as well as residents and explores the town as a birthplace of the pharmaceutical industry, a site of educational reform, and a destination for tourists seeking the healing waters of the local springs."

The Water and the Word app is available for free download via the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad as well as the Google Play Store for Android devices. Find the app by searching "Water and the Word" wherever you normally get your apps.

Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon is dedicated to preserving the history of the Shakers, including their furniture and architecture as well as their values of inclusion, innovation, integrity, and conviction. It stewards the historic site in New Lebanon, New York, which is open year-round for recreation and self-guided tours, and offers tours, exhibitions, and public programs seasonally. The museum also has a campus in Old Chatham, New York, open year-round by appointment, where the administrative offices, collections, library, and archives are housed. The museum’s collection of over 56,000 Shaker items is the most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world.