SHAKERS is the name commonly applied to and not rejected by a religious denomination of which the official title is “The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing.” The foundress was Ann Lee, who was born in Toad Lane, Manchester, 29th February 1736, but only privately baptized 1st June 1742. Her father was a blacksmith, and at an early age she found employment, being at one time a cutter of hatter’s fur, and at another cook in the infirmary of her native town. She was a quiet child of a somewhat visionary temperament, and in 1758 joined a small religious body, a remnant of the French Prophets. The leader was Jane Wardley, who was regarded by her followers as the “spirit of John the Baptist operating in the female line.” These people were called Shakers because, like the early Quakers, they were seized with violent tremblings and shakings when under the influence of strong religious emotion. Ann Lee in 1762 married a blacksmith whose character was not very good. Their four children died in infancy. She became “a seeker after salvation,” and her conversion was followed by her taking the lead in the Shaker Society, to which she promulgated a doctrine of celibacy. Their previous training had led them to expect that the second coming of Christ would be in the form of a woman; as Eve was the mother of all living, so in their new leader the Shakers recognized “the first mother or spiritual parent in the line of the female.” With their new-born zeal aflame, they preached their doctrine in season and out of season, and suffered something from mob violence and from the intolerance of the constituted authorities. In 1774 Ann the Word and eight of her disciples emigrated to America, and landed at New York on August 1st of that year. Abraham ...Stanley, not relishing his wife’s celibate creed, abandoned her for another woman. The “Believers” settled at Neuskenna, now called Watervliet, and were imprisoned for refusing to take the oath, for which reason they were suspected of being unfavourable to the cause of the Revolution. On being released they preached their creed and gradually gained converts. Ann Lee died at Watervliet 8th September 1780. She was succeeded by James Whittaker, who died in 1788, when Joseph Meacham succeeded to the leadership and organized the society on that communistic basis which now distinguishes it. In the early history of the Shakers various charges were brought against them, including flagellation and naked dancing, but they have outlived these scandals and are now generally respected. There is an interesting sketch of a Shaker community in Howell’s Undiscovered Country. They all work; they are capital agriculturists; they have a widespread reputation for thoroughness, frugality, and temperance. They believe in the reality of constant intercourse with the world of spirits. There are “poems” by Mother Ann which it is claimed have been dictated by her from the spirit world. They claim from time to time the exercise of the gift of tongues and the gift of healing. The theological ideas of the Shakers are set forth in the Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing exemplified by the Principle and Practice of the True Church of Christ, of which a fourth edition, printed in 1856, was extensively circulated. A compacter statement is that in F. W. Evans’s Shakers’ Compendium, which was printed at New Lebanon in 1859. Elder Evans, who is the best-known representative of Shakerism, is of English birth, and has published an autobiography. In 1870 there were eighteen distinct Shaker communities, with eighteen church buildings capable of seating 8850 persons, and possessing property valued at $86,900. These socialist villages are in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Ohio.
The best known of the settlements is that at New Lebanon, where there are three separate societies in view of each other. The North Family, the Church Family, and the Second Family are distinct groups, whose members live together and have a common right to land, house, hats, tools, books, and all that there is. The only form of government is that supplied by the public opinion of the community, as expressed in its social meetings for mutual confession, counsel, and criticism. Mr Hepworth Dixon’s New America gives an interesting account of their communistic methods.
There is an extensive literature respecting the Shakers; a bibliography is appended to W. E. A. Axon’s Biographical Notice of Ann Lee, Liverpool, 1876.
