Shakers

Although it was to flourish in the United States, the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (whose members were more commonly known as the Shakers), was founded in Bolton, England, in 1774 by Ann Lee (1736–1784). The daughter of a blacksmith, Lee had little education and was put out to work in a textile mill and an infirmary. In 1758, she joined a religious society formed by two dissenting Quakers, James and Jane Wardley. The Wardleys' group was derisively known as “Shaking Quakers” because they sang, dance, and spoke in tongues. In 1762, Lee married, and over the next several years bore four children, all of whom died in infancy. Lee was deeply troubled by their deaths, which she believed were a punishment for her sins, particularly sins of the flesh.

Sin entered the world, according to Lee, when Adam and Eve had sexual knowledge of each other. The Shaking Quakers took to the streets of Manchester to preach a gospel of repentance, regeneration, and the celibate life. In addition to condemning sexual intercourse, they attacked the worldliness of the churches and refused to take oaths or observe the Sabbath. They were persecuted for their beliefs, and Ann Lee was imprisoned in 1772–1773. While in prison, she stated that Christ had appeared to her and announced that she was Jesus Christ in the female form. Her persecution made her a martyr in the eyes of the Wardley sect, and her vision catapulted her to a preeminent position within the group, who called her Mother Ann Lee. In 1774, eight members of the society left Bolton with Lee and traveled to the colonies in North America because Lee had had a vision that a chosen people were waiting for her arrival.

The small group landed in New York City, and after a brief stay there moved north to Albany, where they established their first congregation at Watervliet and began to attract other converts by their preaching and celibate lifestyle. The early days were characterized by enthusiastic meetings, Lee's preaching the Shaker gospel throughout New England, and occasional conflicts with local authorities, who suspected the group of being British spies and mistrusted their pacifism. Lee died in 1784, leaving her followers to organize the group into a coherent body of believers and practice.

Several distinctive features characterized all the Shaker societies that developed over the next century: a belief that Mother Ann Lee had ushered in a period of spiritual rebirth, that she was the manifestation of Jesus Christ in spiritual form, that salvation was to be achieved through the Shaker family, and that sexual intercourse was at the root of evil and a covenant with the devil.