The Primary Settlement

The Shakers are a religious sect founded by an illiterate English factory worker named Mother Ann Lee, who came to America in 1774 with eight other pilgrims in order to spread her gospel and guide others with the divine visions and signs of God she had received. They call themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, but because of their ecstatic dancing, they came to be known early on as the Shakers.  They stress simplicity and equality for all, celibacy, separation of the sexes, and agrarian communal living. The first Shakers settled near Watervliet, New York, in the frontier wilderness northwest of Albany, as well as in New Lebanon, New York. Mother Ann embarked on a series of missionary journeys throughout New York and New England, gathering many converts to this new Christian movement.