Shakers, the popular name first applied in derision to 'The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing,' a small religious sect which had its origin in England about the middle of the 18th century. The first leaders of this sect were James Wardlaw, a tailor, and Jane, his wife, the latter claiming to have special spiritual illumination, and to have 'received a call' to go forth and testify for the truth; she proclaimed that the end of all things was at hand, that Christ was coming to reign upon the earth, and that his second appearance would be in the form of a woman, as prefigured in the Psalms. She still adhered to many of the tenets of the Society of Friends, of which she and her husband were members, and preached against war, slavery, profane swearing, and the taking of the legal oath. Among her followers was one Ann Lee, an uneducated girl of poor parentage, of a highly nervous organisation, a strong will, and ambitiously fond of power, who, professing to have received a spiritual baptism, with a command to go forth and preach this new gospel, began to preach in Toad Lane and the adjacent streets of Manchester. She acquired great power over her hearers, who believed in her as one filled with the Holy Ghost, and speaking with the voice of God. The preaching in the streets, accompanied with shouting, speaking of tongues, and other physical manifestations, excited much public hostility, in consequence of which James and Jane Wardlaw, Ann Lee, and her parents were fined and imprisoned in the Old Bailey Prison in Manchester upon a charge of obstructing the streets and violating the Sabbath. A professed experience of Ann Lee while in prison, in which the Lord Jesus appeared before her and became one with her in form and person, led her to be recognised by Jane Wardlaw and her followers as the female Christ—the Bride of the Lamb—in whose person Christ had come to reign upon the earth. She was henceforth styled 'Mother Ann,' and has since been recognised as the 'Head' of this new order. Her claim to be the female Christ excited only ridicule among her neighbours; hence another special revelation—that the foundations of Christ's kingdom were to be laid in America. In the following year, accompanied by her husband and five of the most prominent members of the society—four men and one woman—she emigrated to America, and settled at Niskayuna, 7 miles from Albany, New York, now Watervliet, distinguished as the parent Shaker settlement in America. Here, in their wilderness home, 'Mother Ann' established absolute community of property, the sacred duty of labour, and enforced upon her followers celibacy, which she had previously taught as becoming to 'Believers,' teaching them that no form of love could be allowed in the Redeemer's kingdom, and that men called into grace must live as the angels, with whom 'there is no marrying nor giving in marriage.' Her husband, Mr Stanley, a blacksmith, to whom she had been married in early life, and by whom she had had four children, all of whom had died in infancy, now left her; but believing herself the 'Bride of the Lamb,' she was not daunted either in purpose or faith.
Early in 1780 Joseph Meacham, a Baptist preacher, and Lucy Wright were sent from New Lebanon to Niskayuna, to seek new light as to the way of salvation. They had both been greatly exercised in the religious revival, accompanied by physical manifestations not understood by the clergy, which had occurred the previous year in Albany and adjacent districts, and now, satisfied that in this new order they had found the key to their religious experiences, became believers in Ann Lee. The first converts to Shakerism in America, they returned home and founded a Shaker settlement at New Lebanon which still exists. The denunciations of Ann Lee against war, and her refusal to take the colonial oath, caused her to be suspected as a British spy, and as such she was for several months imprisoned at Poughkeepsie. In the spring of 1781 she started upon a missionary tour throughout the colonies, which she continued until the autumn of 1783, making a goodly number of converts and laying the foundation of future Shaker settlements. In the autumn of 1784 she died at Watervliet, having previously made over the 'headship' of the society to Joseph Meacham and Lucy Wright as representatives of the dual rule of
God, through the male and female Christ, conferring upon Lucy Wright the title of 'Mother Lucy.' Her death was a great shock to her followers, many of whom believed that she was to live in the physical form for ever upon the earth among her people. Her successors, however, taught them that like the male Christ she had cast off her dress of flesh, and withdrawn from worldly sight, but still lived among her people, visible to eyes exalted by the gift of spiritual sight. So all the saints would remain after death near and be in 'union' with the visible body of Believers, becoming their spiritual teachers. This was accepted as a new and divine revelation, and still is a vital part of the Shaker religion. Under the ministrations of Joseph Meacham and Lucy Wright ten Shaker settlements were formed and an organisation of these settlements effected, bound together by a covenant, recognising the duality of God, the divine mission of Ann Lee as the female Christ, the sacred duty of celibacy, labour, and community of property, and appointing elders and deacons of both sexes for the government of their temporal and spiritual affairs. Joseph Meacham died in 1796, after which for twenty-five years, and until her death, 'Mother Lucy' ruled as the sole head of this new order, discontinuing the title of 'Mother' for the female head of the order at her death, and appointing a successor with the title of 'Elderess,' which title is still given to the female head of the church.
According to the 1890 census there are fifteen Shaker settlements in the United States, three each in Massachusetts and Ohio, two each in New York, New Hampshire, Maine, and Kentucky, and one in Connecticut. They have ten edifices, valued at $36,800, with a seating capacity of 5650. There are 1728 members, a reduction of nearly one-third since 1870. The value of their communistic property is about ten millions. They are the oldest communistic order in the United States, and by their success demonstrate the possibility—for a time at least—of communistic life. They have two classes of members—the 'Probationers' and 'Covenantors'; the former practically adopt the Shaker doctrines, but retain control over their own property, or, if they have given it to the community, may at any time resume control of it without interest; the latter consecrate themselves and their property to the society, never to be reclaimed by them or their legal heirs. All full members have equal rights in the community, without regard to the property consecrated, only that it is their all. Each Shaker settlement is divided into families, each family consisting of brothers and sisters, who live in the same house, sit upon opposite sides of the same table, and are presided over by an elder and elderess, their temporalities being superintended by a deacon and deaconess. They take their meals in silence, are scrupulously neat, live well but simply, employ no doctors, take no drugs, and are noted for their good gardens, flower-seeds, and medicinal herbs which they cultivate for the market. Their numbers are recruited mostly by young men and women, although occasionally married people with their children join the order. Believing that education is the right of all, they provide liberally for the education of the children left in their care. Their worship consists of vocal and instrumental music, 'dancing and making merry' followed by silent communion, and sermons which in point of devoutness, logic, and rhetorical form may fairly be compared with the sermons of the ordinary Christian churches. Their societies are united in one organisation presided over by the head elderess, assisted by the chief elder. They repudiate a priesthood, monarchy, and paid ministry, and teach that it is not Christ or Ann Lee, but the principles of Christ which must be accepted, and that all may become Christ's by death of the generative nature and an infusion of the Christ spirit. They repudiate the atonement by blood and the resurrection of the body as 'a horrid idea,' anti-Christian and anti-scientific. They have no creed, but depend upon divine revelation, which they claim is progressive according to the needs and development of humanity. They believe that God is dual—the Eternal Father and the Eternal Mother—the heavenly parents of all beings angelic and human: that the first revelation of God to humanity was as a Great Spirit pervading all things, hence pantheistic worship: that the second revelation of God was as Jehovah; the third through Jesus, a divinely inspired man, representing God as a father; and that in 1770, the beginning of the last cycle, God was revealed in the character of the Eternal Mother—the bearing spirit of all the creation of God in divine love and tenderness—in the person of Ann Lee as the female Christ. Salvation, they teach, can only come by the death of the Adamic or generative life, by which man becomes a new order of being, able to comprehend 'the mysteries of God.' The earthly procreative relation for the purposes of reproduction is fit only for the children of this world, and carnal sexual indulgence is denounced as 'the unfruitful works of darkness.' Labour is 'a sacred and priestly duty,' and the work of the saints is by loving labour bestowed upon the earth to redeem it from the Adamic curse, which was lifted by the coming of Christ; each child born has a title-deed from God for land sufficient for its existence, and in the present advanced stage of civilisation this right is best recognised by a community of interest in the rent obtained for advantages of location, fertility, and mineral wealth. They denounce war, claiming that all disputes of individuals and nations should be settled by arbitration. They oppose the union of church and state, take no interest in governments as now constituted, loving their own country only as the favoured land of God, believing that in America the millennium is first to come when human governments, civil and ecclesiastical, will recognise the female element in harmony with the dual government of God. They make no effort to secure converts, it being a part of their religion that God will designate whom he has called to live in 'union,' and claim that instead of Shakers becoming extinct as is prophesied, and as they admit is prophetically indicated by their loss of membership, 'the first heavens and earth are passing away, and that a new heavens and new earth will be evolved out of the chaotic elements which exist in church and state humanity by the inspiration of revelation from the Christ heavens'—in other words, that the general principles of Shakerism will be established throughout the world.
ENGLISH SHAKERS was the name commonly given to a community calling themselves 'Children of God,' founded by Mary Anne Girling (born 1827), who about 1864 came to believe that she was a new and final incarnation of God, and insisting on celibacy. Founded in London, the communion grew to about 150 members, and in 1872 settled on a property purchased for them, New Forest Lodge, in the New Forest, Hampshire. Though industrious and blameless, they sank into poverty; and, unable to pay their debts, were evicted in December 1873, and subsequently, shrunk to twenty or thirty in number, lived a miserable existence in sheds and temporary shelters. Mrs Girling, who was confident she would never die, did die of cancer, 18th September 1886, and her sect collapsed.
See Elder F. W. Evans, The Shakers (New York, 1859), his Autobiography of a Shaker (1879), the Shaker magazine; also Eads, Shaker Sermons (1879).