Lee, Ann, 1736–84, English religious visionary, founder of the Shakers Shakers, popular name for members of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, also called the Millennial Church. Members of the movement, who received their name from the trembling produced by religious emotion, were also known as Alethians.
..... Click the link for more information. in America. Born in Manchester, she worked there in the cotton factories and then became a cook. In 1762 she was married to Abraham Stanley, a blacksmith. In 1758 she had joined the "Shaking Quakers." Claiming revelation in a vision (c.1770) that the second coming of Christ was fulfilled in her, she became their accepted leader and was known as Ann the Word or Mother Ann. Although illiterate, she claimed the gift of tongues and the ability to discern spirits and work miracles. She was also convinced of the holiness of celibacy. In 1774 she led a band of eight to America, where, two years later, at Watervliet, N.Y., the first Shaker settlement in America was founded.

Bibliography

See biography by R. Francis (2001).

Lee, Ann

(born Feb. 29, 1736, Manchester, Eng.—died Sept. 8, 1784, Watervliet, N.Y., U.S.) British-American religious leader. A factory worker in her youth in Manchester, she joined the Shakers in 1758 and was acknowledged as their leader in 1770. Persecuted by the English authorities and compelled by what she believed was a vision, she immigrated to America in 1774. With a band of followers, she founded a settlement at Niskeyuna (present-day Watervliet), N.Y., in 1776, and thereafter her movement spread rapidly. Mother Ann, as she came to be known, was said to have performed miracles, including healing the sick by touch. She was imprisoned briefly for treason because of her pacifist doctrines and refusal to sign an oath of allegiance.

Lee, Ann (b. Lees) (1736–84) religious leader, visionary; born in Manchester, England. A blacksmith's daughter, she was working in the textile mills when she joined a new group of Protestants known as "Shakers" because of their agitation during worship services. She married (1762) but the death of her four children in infancy led to self-mortification, ending in a revelation that cohabitation of the sexes was the source of all evil. By about 1770 she was dedicating herself to preaching her new gospel and was twice imprisoned; there she had a "grand vision" that was later interpreted by her followers as the "second coming of Christ." When the Shakers received a "revelation" that they should be spreading their message in New England, she and eight followers went to New York in 1774. By 1778 she and her followers had settled in Watervliet, near Albany; by then known as Mother Ann or Mother of the New Creation, she traveled throughout eastern New York State and New England to spread her message and gain converts to the Shaker faith. Imprisoned briefly in 1780 because of her pacifist teachings, she was also opposed to slavery; it was her insistence on celibacy, however, that proved both to distinguish and ultimately doom her Shaker church.