Mother Ann Lee

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Ann Lee (originally Lees) was born on 29 February 1736, the second of the eight children of John Lees, a blacksmith, and his wife. They lived in Toad Lane, Manchester, England. On 1 June 1742 Ann was baptized in the Anglican faith at Christ Church. By the time she was born, Manchester and the surrounding area had already been transformed into an industrial center. Large-scale textile production and related trades were the dominant businesses, and it is not surprising that Ann Lee went to work in the mills when she was eight years old. The meager income she earned was needed by her family, and following the common practice of the time, she never learned to read or write. Instead she cut velvet, prepared looms, and sheared fur 12 hours a day. In contrast to this bleak life, Ann remained a deeply religious girl. She was sensitive about her own sinfulness and wanted to learn how to live a pure life. The answers she sought did not come from the Anglican church. In 1758, while she was employed as a cook in the local hospital, an asylum for the insane, she began to attend meetings led by James and Jane Wardley.

 The Wardleys, former Quakers, were tailors and were from Bolton-on-

the-Moors. Though they had separated from the Friends in 1747, they retained the belief in pacifism. They added the practice of ecstatic worship that had characterized the Camisards of France. Also, they held that the coming of Christ would be in the form of a woman. The Wardleys' society became known for its lively worship services, which included dancing, shouting, singing and shaking. They were called shaking Quakers or just Shakers. Ann and other members of her family became active members.

 In spite of her reluctance, Ann married Abraham Standerin or Stanley 

on 5 January 1762. They had four children. Three of them died while still infants. One child, a daughter named Elizabeth, lived a few years and died in 1766. These personal tragedies and her already heightened sense of sin made her an even more fervent member of the Wardley group. So powerful was her testimony that even her husband joined. Gradually, she assumed the leadership. At the same time, severe persecution resulted. Their crimes were generally profaning the Sabbath by their worship and disturbing the peace. They were imprisoned a number of times. In 1770, while in prison, Ann had a vision and a manifestation of the divine. She observed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The details of the first sin were revealed to her. Since she saw that sexual intercourse was the sin that drove humanity out of Paradise, celibacy became an essential part of living the Christlife.

 From this point onward, Ann was known as Mother Ann and served as 

the focal point of the movement. The intensity of the testimony increased and accusations of heresy and fanaticism followed an incident in July 1773, when Mother Ann and her father disturbed the morning sendee at Christ Church. More jail sentences and persecution did not slow growth. Stories abound about her miraculous deliverance from physical harm from individual and mob attacks. For example, when authorities tried to starve her to death in prison, James Whittaker, a young man whom she had brought up, saved her by providing her with liquids through a pipe whose stem was inserted into the cell.

 Her fame grew among her band, and she was regarded as the first to 

receive the fullness of the Spirit of Christ. Instead of the second coming of Christ being heralded by fanfare and notoriety, it had happened in relative obscurity. A lowly, illiterate woman had been chosen by God to reveal a way of life that would be the Heaven on Earth so long sought after. Yet this life could not flourish in England, and guided by a vision and financed by John Hocknell, one of her followers, Mother Ann decided to immigrate to America. On 19 May 1774 Mother Ann Lee, Abraham Stanley, William Lee, James Whittaker, Mary Partington, James Shepherd, John Hocknell, and Nancy Lee left England for New York. After a perilous trip that almost ended in disaster, they arrived in America on 6 August 1774.

 For the first year, Mother lived with her husband with the Cunningham 

family of Queen Street. She did laundry work while he found a job as a blacksmith. When he fell ill, she nursed him back to health. He decided that he had had enough of the celibate life and threatened to go off with a prostitute if she continued to refuse to have sexual relations with him. She did not acquiesce to his demands, and he left her. His fate is not known. Without her husband, she was reduced to extreme poverty and this was, perhaps, the lowest point in her life. Meanwhile, John Hocknell had secured a piece of land at Niskeyuna, northwest of Albany. He left for England to bring back his family and raise money by selling his property. In 1776, the group moved to Niskeyuna, later known as Watervliet, New York.

 As they cleared the land, planted crops, and built cabins, they anticipated 

the arrival of converts. In March 1780, Rueben Wright and Talmadge Bishop visited them. They had heard about the Shakers and came to investigate. Pleased at what they found, they returned to New Lebanon, New York, and shared the information with the leaders of the revival that had just ended there. Joseph Meacham and Samuel Johnson, the principal ministers, also interviewed Mother Ann and were so favorably impressed that they became Shakers. Their congregations joined as well. Families and friends learned of the faith, and Shakerism found its way into many places in New York and New England. Severe persecutions also resulted. Suspected as a spy for the British, Mother and some of her followers were arrested. From August until December 1780, she was imprisoned, first in Albany and later in Poughkeepsie.

 Hoping to strengthen the faith of her new converts, in May 1781, she 

and five companions-William Lee, James Whittaker, Samuel Fitch, Margaret Leland, and Mary Partington-embarked on a long missionary tour. Abuse and mob violence awaited them at every turn. Using the Square House at Harvard, Massachusetts, as a sort of headquarters, they evangelized the region northwest of Boston and central Massachusetts. They also visited Rhode Island and Connecticut. Exhausted by her labors, Mother Ann returned to Niskeyuna on 4 September 1783. During the final year of her life she labored with the many people who came to see her. Her brother, Father William Lee, died in July 1784 and she followed him on 8 September 1784. Both of them died prematurely from the extreme violence they had suffered over the course of the long missionary tour. As she was dying, she had a vision of Father William returning for her in a chariot to take her to Heaven. .

 As thousands of Shakers have proudly asserted, what distinguished 

Mother Ann from the other women who lived at Manchester was that when God spoke to her, she unreservedly followed the call. Her life is the pattern others might think about as they make their own way through the Christlife.

Biography from Dictionary of Shakers by Steven Paterwic