On February
29, 1736, Ann Lee was born in Manchester, England. She married a blacksmith and bore four
children who all died in infancy.
Ann Lee
traveled around England preaching against sexual intercourse as the “root of
all depravity.”
In 1774 she and
her followers immigrated to the United States and settled in Watervliet, New York. “Mother Ann” as she was known, founded the
religious sect known as the “Shaking Quakers.”
The colony was expected to
practice complete celibacy and communal ownership of all goods and wealth.
By 1826
there were 28 Shaker communities spread from Maine to Indiana.
The last active Shaker community is located at Sabbathday Lake in Maine.
The epitaph
of William Stratton reads:
“Here lies the body of
William Stratton, of Paddington,
Buried 18th day of May,
1734, age 97 years;
Who had by his first wife 28
children;
By his second 17, was own father of
45;
Grandfather of 86’ great-grandfather
of 23.
In all 154 children”
The epitaph
of Ann Jennings reads:
“Some have children – some have none
Here lies the mother of twenty-one.
I understand
how widows and unmarried women of that era might look at a future of subserviency
to a husband, cooking, cleaning, washing, child care – and giving birth every
year until their bodies were wrecked and their health destroyed, and be drawn
to a community of abstinence.
I don’t understand a man choosing celibacy. That seems to be against our DNA and most
basic primal instincts. But perhaps there
was more going on in the Men’s dormitory than making Shaker furniture.
the Ol’Buzzard
The Shakers have always interested me as a social experimental community.
ReplyDeleteThere is perhaps much more going on behind the scenes... as usually happens with all very Odd Religious communities... Cults... and those who claim to be so Wholesome, and are anything but...
ReplyDelete