Shaker Mother Ann Lee: A 'True Legend'

Mother Ann Lee is one of the most consequential (and least understood) figures in early American religious history.

In just ten years in the colonies, during the chaos of the American Revolution, she helped give rise to a movement that would shape communal life, labor, design, music, and belief across America (and even Europe) for generations.

This episode of The Jiffy traces Ann Lee's life from industrial Manchester to upstate New York, from persecution and imprisonment to the founding of the Shakers' first American settlement near Albany and across New England.

With guidance from Kathleen Lynch, curator and director of collections at Hancock Shaker Village, we examine what can be known about Mother Ann, and what survives only as testimony, memory, myth, and legend.

As renewed attention turns toward Ann's life, this episode offers the long view that intends to place her where she belongs: not as an abstraction or aesthetic, but as a human being whose convictions helped shape a country still defining itself.

By the way, Kathleen took me on a tour of the 1830 Brick Dwelling in 2024 for my series, "This Old Vibe," and showed me the Shaker concept of borrowed light. You can watch that video here.

You can visit Hancock Shaker Village at: https://hancockshakervillage.org

Here's more info on "Ann the Word: the Story of Ann Lee, Female Messiah, Mother of the Shakers, the Woman Clothed with the Sun," by Richard Francis

This is part of my series throughout 2026 looking at how New York looks at itself during the Semiquincentennial: The Jiffty250. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Scene At Ann Lee Pond
• 2:34 Arrival At Hancock Shaker Village
• 6:15 Inside The Brick Dwelling And Collections
• 10:20 What We Really Know About Ann Lee
• 14:42 Manchester Origins And Early Trauma
• 19:24 Breaking From Quakers + The Three Cs
• 23:40 Charismatic Worship And Female Christ
• 28:05 Visions, The Voyage, And The Plank
• 33:22 New York Hardships
• 37:50 The Dark Day
• 42:10 The Mission And Message Through New England
• 47:36 "I'm Going To Be With You Soon"
• 52:18 Ann Lee's Legacy

Transcript

James Cave: 0:02

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Jiffy, a podcast about upstate New York that really takes you places. I'm James Cave, and to get to where I am today to start this episode, I had to drive through the mean streets of Albany, New York, up 787 North to I-90 west to Buffalo. Get off a little early before Buffalo at the Albany International Airport, not to get on an airplane or anything like that, but to turn left and head over to this pond called Ann Lee Pond. I wanted to start here because I don't know if you've been watching the awards shows or if you've been paying attention to cinema, but there's a film out right now directed by Mona Fastvold and starring Amanda Seyfried called The Testament of Ann Lee. Amanda Seyfried playing Shaker Mother Ann Lee.

Movie Trailer: The Testament of Ann Lee: 0:51

The time is near at hand. I know it.

James Cave: 1:01

And if you followed me on the James Cave Instagram feed, then you know I love anything related to the Shakers. I love their history. I love their unique utopian communal life. I love their severe belief in Christianity. But one thing I didn't really ever know all that much in depth was who was Shaker Mother Ann Lee? Why did she bring this belief over to the United States? Especially at that time, a tumultuous time in U.S. history. Here we are, the 250th anniversary of that time. Specifically, Ann Lee coming up into uh upstate New York during the American Revolution. It's just so interesting to learn about this. So I thought as this film hits wider release, I think it's actually coming out to theaters here in upstate New York this week, actually. So I thought, let's go learn about Mother Ann Lee. And what better way to start that and kick that episode off than to be here at their first settlement in America? But in order to learn about Ann Lee, we're actually gonna move. We're gonna go to Western Massachusetts, out to another Shaker village called Hancock, to go meet with Kathleen Lynch, their curator and director of collections.

Movie Trailer: The Testament of Ann Lee: 2:13

Legend has it: This is what happened to Ann Lee.

James Cave: 2:21

That's from the trailer to "The Testament of Ann Lee", by the way. And I love that they're using a tagline that says "based on a true legend," because as you'll hear in my interview here, there's not much that we can know for certain about Ann Lee. Okay, now I'm out at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It's blanketed in snow. It's uh beautiful. I've been here in the summer and the fall, but never after a snowstorm. And uh it's still more peaceful today than it usually is. That's really saying something. The Hancock Shaker community was founded in 1790, just six years after Ann died. And today it occupies roughly 750 acres of farmland in Berkshire County. It's still a working farm. In front of me is the Round Stone Barn, a super historic and rare building because it's the only round barn the Shakers ever built. But most of the other 20 authentic shaker buildings here that you can see and visit are rectangular, two or three stories tall, except for the brick building where we're meeting Kathleen.

Kathleen Lynch: 3:21

Where'd you park?

James Cave: 3:22

I parked in the lot. I didn't see your text until I started walking over, but I liked the walk. It's beautiful.

Kathleen Lynch: 3:26

Oh no, no, the walk's good. It's good today. It's nice and sunny.

James Cave: 3:29

Yeah.

Kathleen Lynch: 3:30

How are you, my friend? Well, you're here when everything is shut down. It kind of has its own beauty, doesn't it?

James Cave: 3:39

Certainly does.

Kathleen Lynch: 3:40

Yeah, it does. It does. Nobody's here, so it's okay. So, um, come on in. I don't know.

James Cave: 3:47

Now the 1830 Brick Dwelling is a beautiful, it's a little imposing, brick building. It was the communal dorms where the brethren and sisters lived. And it kind of looks like one of those monopoly pieces for the hotels. It's divided in half. The brethren and sisters use separate doors and stairs to get around. And at its peak in the mid-1800s, 100 people lived here. Today it's Kathleen's office, and they've covered up the windows with some insulation panels. So as we were getting around, it was actually really dark inside.

Kathleen Lynch: 4:19

You know, go let's go upstairs and you'll see what I mean. So because this is a historic building and it houses the collection, it's the only building that has heat. So you put these, it's like panels in. Yeah. And so it's really dark.

James Cave: 4:37

Uh some of them have fallen out and they've uh now I have to describe the collection here because as we're walking up to our office, what what what you're seeing is rooms and rooms and rows and stacks of shaker furniture, dressers, tables, chairs, cabinets. It is a dream come true for a shaker freak like me.

Kathleen Lynch: 4:57

See, what I do is I come in and I clean everything and then I cover it all. It's like, pretend it's like a gilded mansion, and I'm now going to Palm Beach, and so I've covered all the furniture. It's like 1890, so and then all the servants will come back in the spring and pull off all the uh covers. Uh, but it kind of has a ghostly kind of feel to it, the building at this time of year. By three o'clock, it feels kind of really creepy in here. I'm sure this lights, I mean, I got it's a we actually have lights though in the hall. They just put that in this year. Previously, there were no lights because no one thought about it until somebody else came up here, some board member, and said, Jeez, there's no light up there. And so we were like really thrilled about that.

James Cave: 5:54

I noticed that Kathleen had laid out some signs depicting Ann Lee's life behind her. So I asked her about that. What are these?

Kathleen Lynch: 6:02

These are these are my signs that I was gonna use in case I needed to, you know.

James Cave: 6:07

Oh, do a tour.

Kathleen Lynch: 6:08

Yeah, no, no, no, no.

James Cave: 6:08

Or like a video, like a video.

Kathleen Lynch: 6:10

No, for you. In case I there was a factoid, I didn't remember. Um, anyways, these are the signs I had up last year for uh the Mother Ann Lee, a little exhibit I had, because the only thing you really have with Mother Ann is the story. There are, I don't care, we have a couple little artifacts that this is Mother Ann's sleeve or part of a dress. Well, you know what? They're way too clean. Really? They would be so filthy.

James Cave: 6:42

It's like the Shroud of Turin or something.

unknown: 6:45

Yes. Immaculate.

Kathleen Lynch: 6:47

There's just no way. I'm sorry. There's just can you imagine they had like one dress or something? It would be so rank. It'd be awful.

James Cave: 6:59

So then what do you think uh Mother Ann's clothing would smell like if you had it now? Um based on what you saw there.

Kathleen Lynch: 7:05

Well, I think it would smell I think you'd still be able to pick up some moll. I mean, you'd have to have a like a scientist do it, but you definitely I think it would smell swampy, wood smelling like from fires. I think it would be like that, a lot of mud, a lot of dirt, because uh she obviously lived in the most rudimentary of conditions, you know. Uh it would really reek of like body odor. Um, you know, it would just be it'd be bad, you know. The other thing is with Mother Ann Lee, if you see images of her online, there are no images of Mother Ann Lee. Photography wasn't, you know, there's one where it shows a woman. That's not Mother Ann Lee. She died in 1783. Photography hadn't been invented, you know. And there's one you'll see where she has this really huge head. Yeah, that was some guy who imagined that he knew what she looked like because he was a phrenologist. So we literally have this, you know.

James Cave: 8:17

So oh yeah, so you pulled out this phrenology bust with all the numbers and I know.

Kathleen Lynch: 8:23

I don't even know where this came from, but it's an accessioned object. But the thing is that um they have her with this big head, and he tried to figure out who she was by the bump side. She didn't her head didn't look like that.

James Cave: 8:39

Yeah, that she has a huge forehead in that drawing.

Kathleen Lynch: 8:41

Yeah, yeah, it's like disgusting. So, anyways. Well, let's get us set up. Yeah, yeah, get set up.

James Cave: 8:47

We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll finally learn all the mysteries, and maybe even some legends of Shaker Mother and Lee. Stay with us. You know, as we're walking in, there's just like rows and rows of Shaker furniture, cabinets, dressers, tables, chairs. It's so beautiful, it's like fan to see for people like me who like this furniture and this aesthetic. But you know, I think most people maybe these days know of Shakers through their aesthetic or their color palette or their chairs. And so I, you know, we've got this film coming out about Ann Lee. Yes. And so I think there's when we previously talked a while back, you talked about this idea of there being a sort of waves of interest in the shakers, and you quoted someone who was sort of maybe frustrated or sad about the fact that they don't want to be remembered as a chair.

Kathleen Lynch: 9:39

Oh yeah, Sister Mildred. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to be remembered as a chair. Yeah.

James Cave: 9:46

So can you talk just broadly about the shakers? What should people how can we understand the shakers? What did they believe in terms of their faith, in terms of their relationship to God and heaven and the afterlife and hell or the threat of hell? What were the shakers like outside of this design aesthetic?

Kathleen Lynch: 10:04

You can't really talk about the Shakers at all without going to the origin story. And the origin story is Mother Ann Lee. And uh the movie will, I haven't seen the movie yet, but will start in Manchester, England, where Mother Ann Lee came from. And so let me just set it up for you because I think that people's personal experiences lays out their path in life. And so for Mother Ann Lee growing up in Manchester, England, in the 1700s, where Manchester became kind of an industrialized area at that time. There were textile mills and hat factories, and it was also a place that someone might use the term debauchery. All right. So the population had jumped from about 7,000 to 20,000 with this industrial flux coming in, and people were poor. They were working in factories, but it was we can't even imagine uh child labor and making enough money to live. They would live in one room, and of course, with no birth control, people were having a lot of children. And so Mother Ann Lee, Ann Lee at the time grew up in an apartment apartment, a room, let's just say a room. There was no word as an apartment, a room on Toad Lane, and almost anyone who's an Anglophile or knows anything about if you say Toad Lane, they go, Oh, Toad Lane. Um, there was a lot of uh drinking, a lot of perhaps prostitution. There was this was a dark, dark time. And of course, at that time, also with the factories, the air was dark, it was black, it was just dirty. It was the whole place was dirty. And Ann Lee grew up in this horrible environment. She was the second of eight children. Her father worked, her mother was home. But think about growing up in this kind of environment. You're already, because our personalities and characteristics are set when we're born. Ann was a very pious, well-mannered, quiet child. And here she is experiencing in this one room the idea of her parents having relations, her mother giving birth to child after child. And because she's pious and well-mannered and a good person, she's helping around the house. You know, she is. Somebody has to take care of all the small ones. And so this all becomes very traumatic for her. She doesn't like it at all. It's she didn't like the idea of marriage as she got older. And you have to understand also that she was working as a child, not only taking care of everyone at home, and I'm sure she was not the only one, but she worked for a while in a clothing factory. She worked in a hatter's establishment cutting fur, all right, for hats. Beaver hats were very popular with the society people. And do you think possibly any mercury was used? I mean, think about you know, Matt is a hatter. Here's this child that's in this environment taking fur off these animals. It had to have been almost too much. And then she worked later on, not as horrific an environment as the hatting industry, but she worked as a cook in an asylum institution. Back then, you might have the criminals and the people who are mentally ill in the same institution. So in her young age, she's seen an awful lot around her, and she just wasn't built, she didn't have that resiliency to really thrive in this environment, and uh it was too much for her. So she saw everyone around her, and she became very anti-marriage, but eventually her parents did want her to marry, and she did uh marry a young man against her will, and she was older, she was in her 20s, which was really late at this time period. But Ann gave birth to four children in four years, and they all died in infancy. Now, psychologically, this would impact you greatly. She's already against all of this, she was married against her will, and it just is kind of cementing her beliefs in she's looking for something higher in the world, something that is more meaningful to her. And at this time, she was kind of anti-Anglican church. Her parents, they she was raised in the Anglican Church, the Church of England, but she felt like they were proletariat, and she was against that. She wanted something more for the common man, and she became known to the Wardleys, and the Wardleys were Quakers, and so she kind of joined them. Her mother joined with her, you know, her siblings, and they also had ties to the Camissards of France, who also all this charismatic shaking and dancing, a lot of that is the release, purging oneself. They were often referred to, that's how the whole the shaking Quakers. There were a lot of ties back through history as to why people had these ecstatic dances and the shaking, but eventually she broke off with the Quakers as well because she's started to have her own beliefs in we refer to them as the three C's, which is celibacy, and the Quakers were not for that, they won't they were family-oriented faith, and she was really for celibacy, confession of sins, and communal living. And so she that started that path to the next stage of her life.

James Cave: 16:58

Well, you mentioned charismatic. Now, that is that's a unique term to this religion, not being like a charismatic person where you're, you know, gright some charming. But like what how can you talk about that a little bit? Because I think that's really interesting as it fits into this mode of worship and their dance, their I don't even know if it would be dancing, it's more just like convulsion, all sorts of stomping and all sorts of movements.

Kathleen Lynch: 17:20

Yes, and you'll see a lot of this in the movie, and they do a really great job of showing this. It's funny because when they were filming the movie and we were all in this scene together, and oh right, because you're in it. I hear you're in the well, I yeah, just a one little scene, but it was like she needed to do more. You know, it's like go for it, go for it, because it feels unnatural, you know. You're like, this doesn't seem right. This is really letting go. And it's hard as a restrained society to just let this go. In fact, if we see people, I accidentally went into a charismatic episcopal church one time and they were doing this, and it felt so unnatural to me that I had to leave, you know, because I couldn't release myself in that way. I was much too much of a traditionalist, but that is empowering for the Shakers to be able to have this release, whether it might be speaking in tongues, purging one's soul, speaking to the heavens. And you have to understand also, we haven't got there yet, but uh Mother Ann Lee is in the Shaker faith the second coming of Christ in the form of a woman. So she is she's it. So they're preaching to her and to the heavens, and it people in the early days after Mother Ann Lee died, people used to come and watch. People of the world would come and watch this dancing and the singing and all that went with it. Uh, the stomping, it just was cathartic for them. Yeah, and they relished it and it gave them expression, you know, and they may not have expression in other capacities, the way someone else might have through love or the human contact, you know. So this was their way.

James Cave: 19:22

So then this is in the what mid-1700s, where she's starting to build her own system of faith and her own sort of branch of the Quakers, and they're getting starting to be known as Shaking Quakers.

Kathleen Lynch: 19:35

Yes, but it before that, so she's still in Manchester and she's starting to break free out on her own, and she has a vision that she is going to be the second coming of Christ in the form of a woman, and that's her. And while she never said, I am mother, and other people did. And so she she was started to be known as Mother Ann. And she was preaching, but she was going to jail a lot because, first of all, she's a woman and she's preaching, and it's, you know, it in a way that no one has ever experienced before. Um, she's broken free from the Quakers. And believe me, other faiths are throughout the history of the Shakers, there were a lot of other faiths and Renaissance times where people broke free of other religions and came and became Shakers. But so she's ending up in jail. She's out and about, people are tormenting her, she's being persecuted.

James Cave: 20:36

I mean, they're beating her, right?

Kathleen Lynch: 20:38

They're beating her somewhat, not as bad as when she gets to America, but she certainly is paying a very steep price for her faith, her belief. But she has followers, and one of her followers, James Whitaker, he's imprisoned. And he, now she's already had a vision. Now he has a vision that he sees a tree that's blazing with light, all right, in a faraway place. She takes this as a sign that she, the far away place for her to go and establish her faith is in America. All right. And so they do. There's other follower, John Hocknell. He has some financial means, and he books passages for eight of them to go to America. And they book passage on this ship called the Mariah. And the Mariah, the word is that it will sink, you know. And so she's she says it won't sink.

James Cave: 21:44

Yeah, because I think it was condemned or something.

Kathleen Lynch: 21:46

Yes, it was like, yeah, what are you doing? You're you're going over on this ship.

James Cave: 21:50

I wanted to ask you about this miracle of the plank.

Kathleen Lynch: 21:53

Oh, yeah, yes, yeah, the miracle of the plank. There, her husband goes with her, her brother, her sister, Nancy, William, her brother, and some other followers, the eight of them go, and they come into rough seas. All right. The captain has had it with this group of passengers.

James Cave: 22:13

Because they're worshiping on the boat.

Kathleen Lynch: 22:14

They're worshiping on the boat, and he's like ready to throw them all off. He can't take it. And so then a really big storm comes through, and you know, Mother Ann's like, God is not going to let this happen. This we're meant to be on this ship, and we're gonna go to America. And the storm comes through and lifts up this plank. Okay, now I don't know if this is actually truth or not, but it is a great story. And that the plank is lifted and the water is getting onto the ship, and then she's praying to God, and another wave comes through, it puts the plank down, puts it back into its spot, and all is well, and that's when the captain said, You can do whatever you want. And so then they arrive in America, but of course, when they arrive in America, it's almost could the timing be worse? Could the timing be worse? It's 1774. What's going on in America at this time? Here's this woman who's preaching on the streets. They land in New York Harbor. She's preaching on the streets. And what we imagine New York Harbor, New York City would look like in 1774 is very different than what you can possibly imagine. I mean, it was it was barren. I mean, it was not as you might, it was farmland. It was a little sprawl at the harbor, but pretty much then marsh and farmland. And so, uh, but she goes there. There's definitely some city aspects to it. And the preaching isn't doing well for her because she is being persecuted, things thrown at her, but she continues on. They actually spend about two years in New York. Her husband eventually leaves. He's had enough other people leave because they're not really having the success that they thought they might have. But it's the time of patriots, it's the time of breaking free of the British. And here's this woman with a British accent, all right, saying, Lay down your arms, is a pacifist, you know, and so and she's a woman. And so they are thinking, was she a traitor? What would is she a spy? You know, this persists with her, and she's she's not having success. There's let's just say America has bigger things to be worried about at this time, and you know, the precursor to the Revolutionary War. And she's her timing is just it's off, but as things work out, there's a path for everyone. And so she ends up as a housemaid, you know, it's not this is not the plan. And so she finds out from some other people, so I think some Quakers, that there is inexpensive land about 100 miles north uh near Albany. And so John Hocknell, again, he's got the resources. He and William they go up to Niskayuna, which means Maze, which is now Watervliet near Albany, and they can lease some land, and so Mother Ann and her entourage go up there.

James Cave: 25:54

Okay, I want to ask you about this because in reading about this, I saw that the the way they discovered this land was by put sticking your finger in the sky, and then your finger is essentially starting to shake and vibrate, and now you're following the finger through the mud, through the wilderness until you find this place. And that's how those two men found this. And I don't know if that's common. Is that like is that something that happens a lot within the Shaker belief that you could essentially your body's vibrating so much that your body is guiding you the way? Now at this point, Kathleen's kind of looking at me like, dude, what are you talking about? But I I bring it up because I just love this example of what is true and what is legend and what do we remember? Because in his biography of Ann Lee, Richard Francis tells all sorts of stories about Ann and the early Shakers that include miracles, revenge exorcisms, and the unexplainable, like, for example, how John Hocknell came to discover for himself that area of land and right up against what is now the Albany International Airport. Okay, here's what Richard Francis wrote. John Hocknell and a few others went up the Hudson River to Albany to try to acquire land in that region, but found it too expensive. They then heard of cheaper land a little to the northwest and continued on their way another seven miles or so to find it. At this point, Hocknell found his arm rising upward and going forward into a pointing position, a common, if bizarre Shaker, phenomenon that can perhaps be related to the old country tradition of water divining. What we are left with in the mind's eye is the middle-aged Hocknell, erstwhile respectable Cheshire farmer, scuttling over the vast brooding landscape of northern New York State in pursuit of his own quivering finger. But it worked. In Quicker terms, he found himself in Wisdom's Valley. I mean, of course, there's no way for us to know for certain, but most of what we know about Ann was written or told by those who knew her, and sometimes even decades after she had died. Ann didn't write anything down. She couldn't write herself. Anyway, I just love this uh example because I think it illustrates for me this true legend myth status that Ann still retains in her mind today. Um but let's go back to here's how here's how Kathleen responded.

Kathleen Lynch: 28:20

I don't know anything about the the fingers or anything like that. I know that the land was available for lease, uh, so that seems like a pretty good reason to get the land. It was swampy, it was woods, it was, you know, not good, but they may do. And so uh they started off trying to tame the land and build a simple wood structure, and it took a long time to do that, and but they did it. I think they were all becoming saddened, not disenchanted, but they weren't getting the followers that they thought that they might get. And so, but Mother Ann would go into Albany and preach as well, and she ended up in jail. And of course, they also really believed that she was a dissenter because they wanted her to sign an affidavit saying that she would support the war and she wouldn't do that. So she ended up in jail on the rebel side, right? Oh no, yeah, for patriots, yeah.

James Cave: 29:30

If not supporting the United States, or it wouldn't be the United States yet, but not supporting that cause, then maybe that by default they're part of the enemy, right?

Kathleen Lynch: 29:38

Oh yes, yeah, a traitor, maybe a spy. As time would go on, yeah. I'll tell you what they did, they actually did to her. So, but she was in the jail in Albany, and but it had a little window, and she would still preach out the window to people, you know, their feet are walking by. And again, this is a very rural area with this, you know, just imagine what a town would look like in 1776. And so eventually, I think she ended up in Poughkeepsie, and it was George Clinton who let her go. But they were yeah, the governor at the time, and she had support, you know, she did have some people, but it wasn't what she imagined it to be. And then the dark day occurs, all right.

James Cave: 30:26

Is this a big moment for New England?

Kathleen Lynch: 30:28

It's a big moment for Mother Ann, and what happens in it's in May. I have to look up the date. What happens is there is a day.

James Cave: 30:42

It was May 19, 1780. It was a Friday, and it would turn out to be historic for New England, not just An Lee, but all of New England, because at around 11 a.m., the sun didn't behave as expected. It started to get noticeably dark, and by noon, it said that candles were required if you wanted to say anything. An article in the Boston that described that, quote, in the time of the greatest darkness, some of the fowls went to their roost, roosters crowed to one another as they commonly do at night, uh, woodcocks, which are nightbirds, whistled as they do only in the dark, frogs peeped, in short, there was an appearance of midnight at noonday. And, you know, so as you can imagine, people tended to find a religious meaning out of all of this. There are accounts of crowds gathering in the streets, people were seen wringing their hands and howling that the day of judgment has come. Richard Francis has a whole chapter in his biography of Ann Lee called The Dark Day.

Kathleen Lynch: 31:40

Do you remember her a number of years ago? Well, we've had this happen a few times, where the fires from Canada, the smoke comes down and it's a dark day. And the sun is bright red from this smoke. And you're like the first time this happened, I remember it, I don't even know, was it eight years ago, ten years? I remember I was on Martha's Vineyard, and it's like it's dark and dark, but there's this big red sun. And we're like, wow, what is going on? What's going on? They said it's fires from Canada, fires from Canada. Well, this happened then, and it was a dark day, but of course nobody knew it was fires from Canada, but it was this eastern seaboard, and they what do you think they thought was happening?

James Cave: 32:24

That was the end.

Kathleen Lynch: 32:25

It was the end, it was judgment day. It was judgment day because it was it, this is going to be the end of the world. So Mother Ann, eureka moment, decides to go out and preach. And so this was the pivotal moment, this was the change because she goes out and starts preaching, and people are listening because they're is this the judgment day? And so then she starts to get followers, and that is a pivotal moment to her, and they it's almost like they're being reborn again because they're having the faith of other followers who come to them, and so it's at this point that she feels that she needs to make a missionary trip, and so she gets her brother, some other followers, all right, and they start off on a two and a half year mission trip through New England.

James Cave: 33:26

And so they go east over the Hudson River and they're starting to walk through Massachusetts and New England and it's kind of a crazy when I look at the path.

Kathleen Lynch: 33:37

We have a sign that shows the path uh that was made later on. You have to understand that so much of what we know is somebody recording something later on in whatever they feel, whether it's good or bad. Because they have, you know, apostates that are writing about Mother Ann Lee later on, you know, and that's their opinion. That's their

James Cave: 34:03

Because she couldn't write. Is that right?

Kathleen Lynch: 34:05

She was illiterate her whole entire life, yes. So she, yeah, she just used an X. But she may not have been able to write, other people wrote for her. But but thinking about this at this time, think about the time she's in Niskayuna, and every day is this major struggle of survival. People are not eating, you know, they're it's just trying to tame this land and believe in God and hearts to God, hands to work to try to get this going. There really isn't time. Oh, let's journal. I mean, you know, so later on, after she's gone, people are looking back, and so many of the writings, the testimonies, things uh that occurred. But so when I'm looking at the pathway to her mission trip, it's you're kind of like, and of course, what maps do they? I mean, everything is so it's rudimentary. She's illiterate. You know, they're trying to get over a place, through a place, and it seems to me it's not a direct pathway. She's going one place and then backtracking and then going forward again.

James Cave: 35:17

It's very mountainous too.

Kathleen Lynch: 35:19

It's I can't even imagine it. I can't even imagine how you survived, you know. But people, she was gaining followers, but also, of course, people were horrible to her and to the people with her. And people they they came to America, they lived in rural areas, it was very siloed as to what their beliefs would be. And she's like an anomaly to everything that they know, and they don't necessarily are they're not educated, they're they're simple folk just trying to eke out an existence in these rural areas of New England.

James Cave: 36:02

Would any of those mid-century religious movements like the Great Awakening and those types of, I don't know what it's like, perfectionism or those types of religious movements that were so uh all about the judgment day and the apocalyptic nature of faith, would she have benefited from that belief system sort of being in people's minds as well, like as she's now coming into their towns and and and and then preaching to them? Or she's not really preaching, she's sort of like individually talking to them, right?

Kathleen Lynch: 36:30

Yeah, she would go to a farmhouse and and talk to people and they would you know house her and and things like that. But she could have benefited if that whole time period came at an earlier point, but maybe not, I mean, the impact because it was this time, because she was, you know, in the 1700s, I think she was like one of maybe 10 women uh religious leaders, you know. It people don't they did not necessarily take to a woman. I mean, would it have been a different experience had it been a man after she died? And then it was, you know, it changed. It changed. I think I always this is on my own personal belief, is I'm not sure if she had lived, I think it would have been a very different faith because she was very harsh and dogmatic. And I wouldn't say that she was a warm, gentle person, but of course I'm just saying that what I wasn't there, but I do think she was very strong. She you'd have to be, you'd have to be in order to do what who is going to do this? How if you talk about somebody like Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that self-transcendence, going, are you willing to die for something? You know, this whole universalist morality. And she was willing to do it. She did, she died for it. She would literally say, I'm supposed to have this experience. I'm supposed to be beaten. I'm supposed to do this. This is all the path to righteousness. And so this was her path, and she took it. And I, you know, she was up there for a very long time.

James Cave: 38:28

So she's converting people. She's on the city.

Kathleen Lynch: 38:30

She's converting people, and she's also being horribly abused. Uh, one of the worst instances was where she would, she might speak, they she was taken by a group of people to a tavern, and literally they believed her to be a traitor, a spy, and they were pulling her hair out to, you know, and her clothes off of her to see if she was a man as a spy. And later on, when they had exhumed her body, you know, you could see how all the beatings that she had on her skeleton, you know, that this woman had been beaten. And I think that there would be no question that the way she was treated, all the beatings, the persecution, the just the hunger, the survival, just just trying to live that that shortened her life immensely. But she really literally would say, no, this has to happen in order for me to succeed. And she did get a number of followers, especially at Harvard Mass. I mean, the truth of the matter is when she came back, there were eight communities that had started.

James Cave: 39:48

Wow.

Kathleen Lynch: 39:48

Two and a half years of a mission trip. I think it's important for us to always remember she was only in America for 10 years, and two of those were new. York, two and a half of them on a mission trip. Think about a couple years of trying to just get a landing spot in Niskayuna and what she did in that very short period of time that still exists today.

James Cave: 40:19

During a wartime?

Kathleen Lynch: 40:21

During war. Yeah. During war. Yeah. Absolutely. And you're a pacifist to boot. And you're a woman. And you couldn't be treated any worse. I don't, I can't even fathom it. And it will be very interesting for me to see this in the movie, you know, which is, I think the beauty of the movie is I think it will create a interest in the Shakers because a lot of visitors come and they don't really know who the Shakers are. We're a living history museum, but who's gonna, I mean, it's an esoteric out there, outlier religious group with only three members now. You know, we have a new member. So it's I think it will help a lot. It is a biopic, you know, it's a musical, but I think it's, you know, some people have seen it and it's supposed to be absolutely stunning and beautiful, and I'm very excited to see it myself. But of course, some of the scenes are in this building that we're in right now, and this building certainly wasn't around when Mother Ann Lee was around, you know, nor was the Roundstone Barn, you know. So, you know, you have to just keep that in mind. That it certainly, I think that Mother Ann Lee looked quite beaten and old, probably, most likely, you know, not this fresh and beautiful, you know, Amanda Cyprin. But you can't, it's almost if you did it as real as it would be, it would be almost overwhelming. Because anything I read, it's overwhelming to me to think about. And how many times we let's think about this? Let's think about what it would really be like.

James Cave: 42:08

It brings up a really interesting question about like what do we really know about Mother Ann Lee that's true or myth? Is most of what we know mythical? I mean, is her destiny that she self-perceived and proclaimed was based on a vision. I just think it's really interesting about getting into this sense of truth in this sort of mythical person.

Kathleen Lynch: 42:34

And I think so many of our people historically have become almost mythical to us. And really, what do we really know? Whoever this, whether it's uh John Smith, uh Marco Paul, I mean, any person becomes larger than life. But that's okay. That's all right. Uh, if they weren't larger than life, then they wouldn't have had the impact and we wouldn't still be talking about them today. And so Mother Ann Lee people certainly were able to write down aspects of her, their experience with her. But I think she just became larger than life as time went on. And that's where the gift drawings come into play because by the time the mid-1800s are around, you're talking about the followers, none of them, no one's really around anymore who had spent any time with Mother Ann Lee. And that would have been a small group of people, anyways, because she died after coming back from the mission trip. But there isn't this, I don't know, this connection. They're removed from it, and the faith is becoming different in a way, and it's becoming, you know.

James Cave: 43:56

How's it changing?

Kathleen Lynch: 43:58

Well, it's like there isn't nobody has this connection with Mother Ann Lee until randomly a young sister has a vision, and that vision is Mother Ann Lee speaking to her, and then you've got the era of manifestations, which was a huge shot in the arm for the Shakers, you know, that those visions that they had are the way to connect Mother Ann Lee to a new generation of followers. And that during the 1800s, it was almost like the golden age of Shakers, you know, they're very industrious. There's, you know, you you're getting communities that are successful. The Shakers were very successful economically and with industry.

James Cave: 44:47

Yeah, can you because I was gonna ask, like, how did we get from Mother Ann Lee as the second coming of Christ and the belief in that she is Christ in the female form to this original question of the Shaker aesthetic, the design that people seem to know about now? So, how did we get from there to here?

Kathleen Lynch: 45:05

After she died, and the the faith wasn't quite as harsh. Now, her the principal tenets were always remain the same to this day. All right, the three C's. But they have to start building a life for themselves. And it's not like the Shakers were this special breed of people that just magically appeared who had this incredible design aesthetic. It's that they were their focus became on this communal living and how to provide living for all these people. At one time there were 100 people living in this building we're in, okay? And now it's just you and me in here. And it's how do we how are we efficient? How do we farm? How do we learn? Just something as simple as the baskets, okay? Shakers are known for their baskets. Initially, when they came from England, all right, say we're over at Niskayuna, Watervliet, and in England, your baskets, a large amount were made of willow. Where they land, there's no willow. So they have to figure out what is available to them. All right. Native Americans actually were very helpful to the Shakers. And, you know, how what you can medicines, cures, how to live on the land, how to create baskets with materials that are here. And in the end, the Shakers then said, Oh, that's great, but we're going to need baskets to carry whatever 50 pounds of potatoes. And so then they said, Well, what if we put this ring around the bottom so it creates this base? So they started thinking like that. They were always you using fluid intelligence, the Shakers. That is being creative thinking, thinking outside the box. What's here? What can I use? How am I going to fix this? How am I going to make it better? They're a communal society. There isn't, I'm sure there was bickering and all kinds of things that were going on, but everything was for the good of all. It's all. We're all a unit. We're a unit. And so you had a lot of different people with a lot of great ideas. Here's the thing about the Shakers, they had a lot of energy, all right, that may not have been used for other things, perhaps procreation, but they they used it in a very if you're going to bother doing something, do it well, do it as a form of beauty, do it for God. And when you, if we all had that same philosophy, they say to you, do your best every day, be wise, work for the good of all, we would be very different. We're a very individualistic society, but they weren't. They were really very collectivist in the respect that everything that was done for the community. So it is, it's in amazing faith. I don't know where the movie ends, but I hope that it opens doors to more scholarship. And I will say that they had a movie premiere at someplace in New Jersey, all right, in September, I think, or October. I don't know. But that very next weekend, people who had gone to that came here. They said, Oh, we saw the movie, and now we've come here because we want to know more. We want to see this place where obviously it wasn't just filmed here, but it is the place where it was filmed where it's a real Shaker community. So I do think that there's a lot of opportunity here, and we should all take that the movie, which is a great introduction to the Shakers, and then go from there.

James Cave: 49:17

Okay, well, let's go back to the 1780s. Okay. Yeah. 1780s. We have to close Ann, Mother Ann, out. So what happens? So she's come back from her trip. She's created how many? Eight, you said eight communities.

Kathleen Lynch: 49:32

Yeah. She comes back, and the first thing that happens in July is that her brother William dies. All right. And this breaks her. This breaks mother, and she loved her brother so much. They were so close. And he was with her from the beginning to the end. And she can't handle it. And he dies. He's a young man, and he he's dying because of the life that they've chosen. It's just beaten him down. And so from that point, after he dies, she now, this could be an urban myth, okay? All right, but the story, one of the stories, is that she really at that point, she just sits in a rocking chair and she's almost like speaking in tongues and talking to William, you know, I'm going to be with you soon. And she herself dies in September. And she just, it was all too much for her body and her spirit. But after William dies, that's really it. But she would say that when she had gotten to Harvard Mass and all the large group of followers she had, and they housed her and took care of her, that she had seen that in her vision. And when she got there, she said, This is what I saw in my vision in England. And so I did everything I needed to do. And now I can go back to Niskayuna. So she felt like she had accomplished everything that she needed to do. And then she started on that journey back. And part of that journey, and she's in very bad shape. It's just, it's all too much. It's all too much. So I would say she knew probably when she left Harvard that she had completed what she needed to do, and she could rest. That was the whole idea, is that she would rest. And when she got back, I don't know if she thought she would be resting quite so much, but after her brother died, that was, but I'm sure a combination of the broken spirit and just the physical abuse and the starvation and illness, and I just can't even imagine it. I can't imagine being flung in the back of a wagon and dragged and all the abuses upon her. This is a pious woman who is so otherworldly to have to endure these indignities is it's just it broke her. It really broke her. And so she she died and and they celebrated her life in a very simple way, a simple wooden coffin. But I do think that people were surprised that she actually died. But she was a human being. She certainly did change the faith for the greater good, because so many of the things that we love in our life, some values, just the song Simple Gifts, which is just a renowned song, Shaker Hymns, Shaker Dance, Shaker, they wouldn't call, they would be offended that we would call their gift drawings art, but the gift drawings, which were simple tokens of love for one another, they were really not meant to be seen. But just the industry, what they did. And the women, I celebrate the women just like Mother Ann. They just said, we will survive. We will survive. It's if it's just four women, we're gonna do it. We're gonna sew up a storm here, we're gonna sell our things to the public and to the scholars, people who've been studying the Shakers and kept them alive for everyone else. All the writers and scholars that exist today who keep Mother Ann's story and the Shakers here for all of us.

James Cave: 53:46

When Ann Lee died, she had converted at least 1,000 people. And what's especially amazing to me is that she began her religious mission arriving at Niskayuna around 1776, 250 years ago, and over the next two years and three months, having traveled many hundreds of miles across rivers, mountains, lands at war with each other, facing maniacs and militias, her mission ended, and having accomplished what she set out to do. She returned to Niskayuna, also known as Watervliet then at 11 in the evening on September 4th, 1783. That's one day after the Treaty of Paris was signed, which recognized American independence and ended the American Revolution. I want to thank Kathleen Lynch and the rest of the Hancock Shaker Village team for always welcoming me in to share the stories of the Shakers and Emily.org to find out when they'll reopen this too. And "The Testament of Ann Lee" is opening to wider release on January 22nd. I know there's some showing at local cinemas around the Hudson Valley then. They're presenting as the story of Ann Lee, basd on a true legend, and I hope that you understand that legend a little bit more. This is part of my series this year looking at the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I'm calling it the Jiffty 250. And I'll feature more stories from this time throughout 2026. So I hope you'll follow along. Okay, that's the first joke. If you liked it, please start with a friend with an independent podcast and a rely on word of mouth to help the scope grow. And uh wanna thank you for making it all the way to the end. Okay, until next time. I'll see you over on the James Cave Instagram Feed.