The Real Story of Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers’ Radical Prophet

Today, the Shakers are best known for their elegant furniture, innovations and utopian ideals, but at their core they were—and remain—a deeply religious society. Founded as a Protestant Christian sect, the Shakers stood apart from many religious movements of the colonial era. Notably, they were founded and led by a woman. 

Ann Lee, later known as “Mother Ann,” had a magnetic charisma that drew followers and shaped the Shakers into a norm-defying religious movement. Her story includes everything from visions and miracles to witchcraft accusations and imprisonment. Here’s what to know about Lee’s life and legend.

Lee was born in 1736 in Manchester, England. As a teenager, she worked as a cook in an infirmary and as a hatter. It was also during this time that she became active within a sect of Methodist separatists, according to Brother Arnold of Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village. He is one of the last three practicing Shakers and a leading authority on Lee’s life. 

The church’s ecstatic style of worship drew notice as early as 1758, when a journalist referred to its members as “shaking Quakers,” despite the fact that they had no affiliation with the Quaker church.

In 1762, Lee married blacksmith Abraham Standerin. Although many accounts describe the marriage as arranged and deeply unhappy, Brother Arnold says there’s no historical evidence of this. What is known is that the couple had four children, each of whom died in infancy.

As Lee took on a more prominent role within her church, its members grew increasingly radicalized. In 1770, she served a 30-day sentence in a Manchester jail after she and her father interrupted a divine service at an opposing church, hurling accusations like “whores of Babylon,” Brother Arnold says.

Until this point, their church had kept a very low profile. The public disruption in Manchester thrust the group into the public eye. “They’re outside preaching and their meetings were so loud that people were throwing stones through windows, and they were being arrested for disturbing the peace on the Sabbath,” Brother Arnold says. Their zealousness and practices led to significant difficulties and persecution.

While in jail, Lee claimed she had a series of revelations. “She announced that the fall had come from Adam and Eve lying together, and that the only way to restoration is through living the pure virgin life,” Brother Arnold explains. From that moment on, they called her Mother Ann.

After celibacy became mandatory for their church, the group’s numbers dramatically dropped. Lee and the remaining members became officially known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers.

“[Lee’s] whole teaching was to actually live the life of Christ,” Brother Arnold says. 

Along with celibacy and pacifism, Lee preached that all individuals could experience God directly, explains Theresa Frey-Alexander, education coordinator at the Shaker Heritage Society. This opportunity for spiritual experience was understood to be available to all members, regardless of gender or race.

“[Lee’s] status as a leader established a precedent that would allow women to enjoy full participation within the religious and secular activities of Shaker society,” says Jerry Grant, director of library and collections at the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York. “The Shaker tenets of racial and gender equality, of pacifism and of putting the needs of the community ahead of the needs of the individual were considered radical during Mother Ann’s lifetime.”

The Shakers continued their zealous preaching and raucous meetings in England until 1774, when Lee had a vision “that the kingdom of God would be established in the New World,” says Brother Arnold. That same year, Lee and eight (sometimes cited as nine) of her followers embarked on a three-month voyage to America, during which a miracle was said to have occurred.

During a violent storm at sea, a board broke loose, and the ship began to flood. While other passengers panicked for their lives, Lee remained calm. According to accounts, she reassured them that an angel had told her they would survive. Soon after, a powerful wave slammed into the ship and forced the board back into place, later confirmed by the captain, says Brother Arnold.

Lee and the Shakers leased land in Watervliet, New York, and established their first community in 1774. They kept a lower profile when they first arrived in America, gathering in private spaces like their own meeting house and people’s homes. As pacifists during the Revolutionary War, the Shakers weren’t exactly popular in America, Brother Arnold explains. They refused to fight and avoided supporting either side in the conflict.

Lee would travel to other towns if people were interested in hearing her religious message but would be removed if the local authorities didn’t want her there. “They were a new religion, drawing people away from established churches. Things did not go well,” Brother Arnold says.

That changed on May 19, 1780—otherwise known as the “Dark Day”—when wildfire smoke from Quebec made it appear as though the sun hadn’t risen. When Lee preached publicly that day, people paid attention, thinking the darkness was a sign of the end of times.

A flurry of new converts joined the church in the aftermath.

According to Frey-Alexander, some of Lee’s appeal was in her convictions. “She didn’t back down from her beliefs and was generally willing to face the consequences of speaking her mind,” she says. “It was very much against the grain of the time, so it attracted a lot of attention.”

But it wasn’t all positive attention. Lee and other Shakers were harassed, beaten, stoned, driven out of towns by angry mobs and imprisoned for religious reasons. Lee was even once arrested and accused of being aligned with England during the Revolutionary War. 

“They were going to ship her off to the front lines and turn her over to the British,” Brother Arnold says. “They also said she was a man. They did all kinds of things—every kind of accusation they could raise against her to put her down so that people would stop going to hear her.” At another point, Lee was even accused of witchcraft.

In spite of these accusations, interest in their religion grew. To further spread the word, Lee and two other Shakers embarked on a three-year missionary tour of New England in May 1780. Under Lee’s leadership, they established eight communities across 10 states—each of which sought to achieve equality for all.

Lee died at age 48 in 1784, only one year after the tour. “Many attributed her death to the physical strain of her missionary travels and the bodily abuse she encountered from angry outsiders,” Grant says.

When her body was reportedly reinterred in the 1820s, it was discovered she had a fractured skull—possibly from one of the beatings she’d endured.

Today, more than 200 years after her death, Lee’s influence lives on. “She still remains very centered to the church, and her teachings are still followed by the church and still read on a daily basis,” Brother Arnold says. At their peak in the 1850s, there were roughly 5,000 Shakers.

Lee also made history as a woman who founded a religion. “She was a really rare example of a woman who was who she was on her own accord,” Frey-Alexander says.