Ann Lee and her Shakers in Ashfield

as reported in Ann The Word, The Story of Ann Lee,

Female Messiah, Mother of the Shakers,

The Woman Clothed with the Sun, by Richard Francis

 

 

... Ashfield in western Massachusetts was a poor rural community that like so many similar places in the region had been caught up in the New Light Stir. Israel Chauncy and his sister had gone to Niskeyuna and been converted, and having brought the faith with them into the town, had made further converts in turn. This had had the usual divisive effect, and as Ann and her elders approached the place, a Committee of Safety had been set up 'to warn the Straglin Quaquars to Depart the town immediately'. Despite this the Shakers received a degree of protection from the civic authorities in Ashfield which they did not experience elsewhere, and in due course the place became an important refuge for them.

 

Ann and the elders kept a low profile in Ashfield. She kept a tight rein on her followers as usual, however, Lucy Bishop, who had come with the party from her family home in Montague, made the mistake of cutting her nails on a Sunday. Ann had strong views on this subject, as was apparent in Niskeyuna when she instructed John Deming, the man whose baby had swallowed a large button, not to cut his nails, scour his buckles or trim his beard on the Sabbath except in cases of emergency. Lucy got the full treatment from her: 'It is wicked. Walk on your knees to Elder James, and ask him to teach you to pray.' Ann's advice to a sick believer was more upbeat, though there was a headmistressy edge to its psychological perception: 'You must not be so down in your feelings; you must walk sharp; and if you think that you can do as well as you can, you must take faith, and labor to do better: this is the way for you to gain strength.' That little, energetic imperative, 'you must walk sharp', provides one of those moments when one has a sense of Ann's actual voice speaking. Another believer shared Abijah Worster's problem, being too fond of his food, and told Ann he was 'buffeted about eating'. While she had a tendency to dine off the 'driblets' on people's plates, she by no means advocated self-denial in respect of meals. Jemima Blanchard reports that when one of the brothers went without his victuals for the sake of mortifying his flesh, he received the third degree from Ann who asked him where he had 'got his gift' - in other words, what had put that idea into his head? Ann's message - and perhaps she was remembering here her own spiritual struggles in Manchester when she was reduced to skin and bones - was to eat as much as the body required. She had the same advice for the Ashfield man with the opposite problem, adding 'and then do the will of God; be not buffeted'. ...

 

Ann and the Shakers left for Harvard, Mass. in May, 1782, but returned to Ashfield in the beginning of November of that year, having been badly persecuted everywhere they had gone in the interval:

 

[Departing from New Providence ahead of a mob], their destination now was Asa Bacon's house in Ashfield, where they arrived on 1 November, 1782. If Niskeyuna was their base, and Harvard their spiritual home, Ashfield was now their refuge, and they stayed here until the following spring, building the first meeting house specifically constructed for Shaker worship, a one-room hall measuring thirty by thirty-six feet with a chimney at one end, which was used for spiritual labours day and night. There was a shift system for eating, with a large round table accommodating the diners while their brethren and sisters continued to sing and dance behind them. The excitement generated by this arrangement triggered William Lee's emotional volatility - on one occasion, full of thankfulness for the love of God, he sobbed his way through a whole meal, deeply impressing the young believers who were eating with him. Provisions were brought in from Shakers far and wide, though as usual there was talk of multitudes being satisfactorily fed on almost nothing. That winter there were very vivid displays of Northern lights, which were interpreted by some as being a confirmation of Christ's Second Coming.

 

The Shakers worshipped enthusiastically - one meeting was audible, it was claimed, seven miles away - and John Farrington counted sixty sleighs and six hundred visitors on another mid-winter occasion. But Ann could operate on a more private and intimate level as well. A man called Peter Dodge came to the house where she was staying. He was in a state of spiritual despair, and sat himself on some stairs in the back corner of the kitchen, out of sight of everybody. Ann soon materialised in that mysterious way of hers.

 

'Mother,' Peter told her, 'I am full of evil.'

 

'Nay,' she replied, 'you are not full of evil: for if you were full of evil, there could be no room in you to receive any good.' Never one for facile reassurance, she went on: 'You have indeed a great deal of evil in you; but this conviction you feel is good.' Then, in a touching gesture, Ann reached out, took hold of one of his fingers, and led him to the new meeting-house. 'The moment she took hold of my finger,' Peter later recalled, 'I felt the power of God, from her hand, run through my whole body.'

 

Ann was in visionary mode during this period. Lydia Matthewson confided to her that her husband Philip's father, Thomas Matthewson, had died without knowledge of the things of God. Shortly afterwards Ann found herself flying into the depths of hell: 'I felt the power of God come upon me, which moved my hands up and down like the motion of wings; and soon I felt as if I had wings on both hands' - the woman clothed with the sun in the Book of Revelation is given two wings, 'of a great eagle' - 'and I saw them, and they appeared as bright as gold. And I let my hands go as the power directed, and these wings parted the darkness to where souls lay, in the ditch of hell, & I saw their lost state.' At that very moment, while Ann hovered in the ditch of hell, James Whittaker was preaching in the brand-new meeting-house. Ann remained aware of this, and saw that his words were reaching Thomas Matthewson and some of the other denizens of hell. She then came out of her vision and went into the meeting-house herself. There she found Philip Matthewson 'lying on the floor, apparently like a dying man. His father's state had fallen upon him.'

 

'I took him by the hand,' Ann explained to Lydia, 'and told him to rise up, and he obeyed; but it was some time before he was fully released from that state which had fallen upon him.' The surrogacy had been a success, however: 'His father united with the testimony of the gospel.'

 

On at least one other occasion during the Ashfield period Ann had a similar vision: 'I had great wings; with the ends of my wings, I uncovered the dead, who lay on the banks of the gulf.'

 

Another time the journey was the other way, with the dead invading the realm of the living. David Slossom was on the receiving end of what must have been an extremely unnerving experience. He was just about to go home after visiting the Shakers at Ashfield, and was brought into Ann's room to say his goodbyes. He was placed in a chair before her, with the elders also present. He had the sensation of being in the presence of God but at the time felt very oppressed.

 

After a short silence, Ann said: 'David, you know not what you feel. I see the dead around you, whose visages are ghastly and very awful. Their faces almost touch thine. If you did but see what I see, you would be surprized.' She then went into religious labours and afterwards once more looked David full in the face, this time with an expression of joy and love, and said, 'Child be not discouraged; for I see the glory of God in thy right eye, as bright as the sun; its form is like the new moon. Be of good comfort, and be not cast down; for the dead gather to thee for the gospel, which thou hast received.'

 

It is clear from such incidents that ministering to the dead was as important to Ann and her followers as attending to the living. They were living at the crucial moment in the history of the world, in the last act of the human drama. Christ, in the form of Jesus, had made heaven available. Now Christ in the form of Ann Lee and her followers was providing access to that heaven. The spiritual geography had already been established; it was Ann's mission to enable the souls of people, both living and dead, to make the journey across it.

 

It wasn't simply Ann who led the believers into such difficult territory. The enthusiastic Aaron Wood took it upon himself to conduct a series of exorcisms, estimated at a hundred in all, during the winter in Ashfield. We have an extraordinarily vivid account of these services from a young member of the Matthewson family, Angell, who was about twelve during this period, and who wrote reminiscences of it in a series of letters to his brother when he was grown up and had left the Shakers. Part of the charm of these manuscripts rests in the fact that Angell was perhaps the worst speller who ever lived. He tells his brother that James Whittaker claimed schools were irrelevant 'as he that precched Christ never would lack a toung'. James himself was accounted a learned man - 'of the greatist education' - according to Angell, certainly as compared with the ordinary Shakers who 'ware a set of yanky farmers'. James's apparent anti-intellectualism was shared by Joseph Meacham, who burned his own extensive library, and testifies to two Shaker assumptions: firstly that they could obtain direct access to truth from the Almighty - 'mother was continualey in open vision of god', as Matthewson claimed - and secondly, that there was no earthly future to be educated for. Just as the institution of marriage was irrelevant to souls who were being collected into heaven, so the institution of schooling could serve no purpose to those whose sights were set on the afterlife - the outcome being that Angell could write exuberantly and humorously without being able to spell to save his life.

 

One of Aaron Wood's exorcism subjects, according to Angell, was Elias Sawyer, the Shaker who had lost his wife, or, in Shaker terms, his former wife, after she caught 'billows colic' following an energetic Shaker meeting at Harvard. Whether it was his bereavement that had caused Elias to manifest signs of possession, or some other reason, he was diagnosed by Aaron as a candidate for exorcism and the treatment was drastic indeed.

 

Men danced on one side of the meeting-house room, women on the other. Aaron stood in the middle. He would 'snarl grim[ly] and hollow [holler] "You devil!"' Then he would grab hold of his subject, and pull and push him. In the case of Elias he grasped him under his arms and spun him around so fast his 'feet came up about 3 feet from the floor in this form he turned round about 40 times'. Another victim, Israel Chauncy, the Ashfield man who, with his sister, had brought Shakerism to the town, found himself being spun for three hours, an unbearably long time for both parties involved, and Angell had to assure his brother 'I am not riting to you Romantic fiction nor idle tails'. Ann herself attended this ritual.

 

The exorcisms were accompanied by 'yelling yawing snarling pushing halling [hailing, or possibly hauling] elbowing singing danceing,' he wrote, adding that 'the worst drunken club you ever see could not cut up a higher dash of ill behaviour'. The sessions must have hovered uneasily between the terrifying and the comic. While they went on the other Shakers shouted 'Howu howu you devil you - get out devil devil git out' until at last the devil had been cast out. It's not difficult to see how such strange and extreme behaviour should feed rumours that Ann Lee 'casteth out devils by Beelzebub'.

 

Aaron produced the same level of energy in normal meetings, where 'his close [clothes] would go wet with swet', but other believers showed a comparable level of commitment. We have seen how both Rathbun and Plumer described the skirts of spinning Shaker women as looking as if they had hoops in them; Angell's sharp eye produces a far more graphic image: when they were spinning the women's skirts would become 'full of wind to form a shape like a tea cup bottom up - in this exersise they would swet almost equil to Aaron'.

 

Ann made frequent appearances at the services held in the Ashfield meeting-house, but as elsewhere she kept a relatively low profile during the course of them, appropriately enough, given her status: 'Every trew believer believs that christ has made his second operance [appearance] in the world clothed in flesh & blood in the form of a woman by name ann lee.' Jemima Blanchard also made the point that Ann didn't join in the violent antics of the other Shakers. While William and James would labour with great power and zeal, Ann would content herself with singing in a low voice and gently motioning her hands. Nevertheless, she could be assertive when necessary. Angell says that he had 'sevril times heered her speak to the people mostly by way of reproof & chastisment it was handed out in harsh tirms with language that would have bin destitute of dilicasy in aney other woman but as hur divine benidiction was so great it was believed by hur folowers to be by the gift & power of god'. On one occasion during this Ashfield period, James Whittaker was obviously not holding the attention of believers as much as he should have. Ann came into the meeting and told them all off: 'When the word of God is spoken to you,' she pointed out, 'some of you are hawking and spitting, and some of you are shuffling about.' That was the devil's doing, to keep them from hearing God's word. In a lovely image she told them they needed the fallow ground of their hearts broken up, so that they could be receptive. 'When the word of God is spoken to me,' she told them, 'I stand as though my body were dead.'

 

This uncompromising tendency in Ann surfaced as she thought about the predicament of Joseph Bennet and his family at New Providence, where she had stayed shortly before coming to Ashfield. Fifteen or twenty of their cattle had died, and as she reflected on the problem she came to the conclusion that it must be caused by 'sin in the family'. Accordingly she sent one of her elders to investigate further.

 

When he arrived he went into labours with the Bennets and the upshot was that a young man was singled out and accused of defiling himself with the cattle. He confessed his sin, and the livestock malaise disappeared. At the very beginning of her American ministry, Ann had addressed the problem of bestiality: 'If you commit sin with beasts, your souls will be transformed into the shape of beasts in hell.' She warned against keeping dogs in the house, because children were liable to catch their evil spirits, and claimed that even cats were unclean animals.

 

As winter turned to spring the usual tensions began to develop between the Shakers and the surrounding communities. The catalyst in this case seems to have been Daniel Bacon, Asa's brother, who had fallen away from the Shaker faith, though his wife remained a believer. His disaffection became evident one day in March, when he brought his wife and child to the meeting-house by sleigh. He had no intention of going to the meeting himself, and 'without going into the house, he put them out of the sleigh, in a very rough and churlish manner, into the mud, before the house, and immediately drove off and left them'.

 

He had in effect dumped his family on the Shakers. Ann immediately realised that he was deliberately trying to cause trouble: 'This is a snare,' she said. 'He has done this to get occasion; she is his wife, and I will not keep her here so.'

 

Ann's refusal to fall into this particular trap didn't stop Daniel from trying to stir up mischief Because the Ashfield community was unusually tolerant, he went a little further afield, to the neighbouring town of Shelburn, where he managed to gather together fifty or sixty indignant citizens. In response, the Ashfield residents appointed a committee to deal with the crisis, consisting of their militia captain, Thomas Stocking, and two other respectable townspeople. They were deputed to confer with Ann and her elders.

 

When Ann opened the door to Stocking's knock she was not her usual ebullient self. On a number of occasions in the time remaining to her she shows fatigue and demoralisation in the face of the unending conflict her ministry brought on her. 'I am a poor weak woman,' she told him, 'and I have suffered so much by mobs, that it seems to me that I could not endure any more.'

 

Stocking gallantly replied, 'You need not be afraid, Ma'am; we have come not to hurt you; but to defend you.'

 

Stocking advised Ann and her entourage to move into the centre of Ashfield, and stay at Philip Philips's house. She politely refused, but gave him and the other men dinner. Afterwards the committee adjourned to Smith's tavern half a mile away, and met the vigilante leaders, who said they wished to check on scandalous rumours about her, and in particular to investigate the charge that she was a British spy dressed in women's clothes. The committee agreed to call Ann and let her answer for herself.

 

Some of the mob nevertheless insisted on going on to Asa Bacon's. They found Ephraim Welch standing in the doorway. 'Where is that woman you call mother?' they demanded. 'I suppose she is in the house,' Ephraim replied warily. 'What do you want of her?'

 

'We hear that she ran away from her own country - that she has been cropped and branded, and had her tongue bored through for blasphemy; and we want to see for ourselves.'

 

Ephraim went to fetch Ann. When the crowd told her what they wanted, 'she turned up her cap and showed her ears, and said, "See if my ears have been cropped; and see if my forehead has been branded." Then showing her tongue, she said, "See if my tongue has been bored."'

 

After the examination was over, Ann asked, 'What do you think now?' One of the ringleaders replied, 'I think they tell damned lies about you.'

 

Ann then sent them on their way. Shortly afterwards, though, the committee appeared and advised the Shakers to go to Smith's tavern, and negotiate with the mob there; otherwise they were likely to return to Asa Bacon's. Ann and her elders agreed and set out by horse-drawn sleigh.

 

At Smith's tavern the interrogation was conducted by the mob leaders, chief of whom was Colonel David Wells of Shelburn. When she had answered all their other charges, they insisted on having it confirmed that she was a woman. The tavern keeper's wife and another woman were appointed jury on this point, which at least showed more decency than the Black Guards at Petersham had possessed, though one senses similar contempt and prurience in the motives of Wells and his fellow-investigators.

 

The women examined Ann and duly confirmed she was indeed a woman. Foiled in this respect, the persecutors then switched to other accusations, alleging that the Shakers had bought up all the hay in the town so that a poor man was not able to get any for his cow, and likewise with the grain, depriving the Ashfield population of flour.

 

It must be borne in mind that these inquisitors were inhabitants of a rival town, and their charges stung the pride of the Ashfield committee, who chose to answer them themselves, saying that the Ashfield citizens had a surplus of hay and had profited from selling some of it to the Shakers; if anybody could produce the so-called poor man (and cow) in question they would be provided with hay; but no such man was found. As for the grain, the Shakers themselves had brought supplies with them, and sold some to the locals. The committee dismissed the charges and insisted the Shakers should not be harmed, nor the town disturbed.

 

Ann at this point took it upon herself to reprove the colonel, attacking him for listening to scandal, and cleverly emphasising the slight to Ashfield. 'Is not the authority of the town able to see to the affairs of their own town?' she asked.

 

The colonel, stung with this reproof, lost any veneer of civility and resorted to crude bullying: 'If you don't hold your tongue, I'll cane you.'

 

"'Do you pretend to be a gentleman," said Mother, "and are you going to cane a poor weak woman! What a shame it is!"'

 

This silenced the colonel. James Whittaker then gave a ringing address to all present, saying he was prepared to die for the gospel. It was a moral victory for the Shakers. The mob leaders slunk off discomfited, and hitherto resentful locals like the tavern-keeper Smith and his family became more sympathetic.

 

A couple of weeks later, Daniel Bacon made a last attack on the Shakers with a gang of twelve or fourteen individuals, standing outside his brother's house and railing at those within. John Hocknell came out and tried to reason with him. Daniel responded by beating him over the shoulders with the butt end of his whip.

 

The degree of violence he, and others, felt and demonstrated on this and similar occasions cannot be excused, but it does need to be put in context. While it is true that Ann had sent Daniel Bacon's wife and child back to him, the fact remained that they were alienated spiritually, and a full married life was at an end. It was not every man who could walk out alone into an unknown future, as Abraham Standerin, Ann's own husband, had done. And of course, although New England had been settled for a century and a half, there was still a frontier atmosphere in its small towns, and a tendency to resort to violence against strangers who seemed to pose a threat was unquestionably exacerbated by the war.

 

Daniel's violence proved counterproductive, in any case. Some of the crowd recoiled from the spectacle of him beating John Hocknell, and they soon dispersed. Nevertheless, Daniel shortly had the satisfaction of seeing the leading Shakers depart from Ashfield. Ann came to the conclusion that enough time had elapsed to enable them to return to Harvard. Ashfield might be a more welcoming community, but Harvard was the town she had seen in her vision in England, and the Square House was her spiritual home.

 

Before she left, Ann sent out three teams of missionaries to spread the word in the remoter corners of New England. They were Joseph Meacham and Samuel Fitch, Calvin Harlow and Joel Pratt, and Ebenezer Cooley and Israel Chauncy. This evangelism played an important part in establishing a Shaker network in even the smallest and most isolated communities, though it is much less well documented than the central mission of Ann and her elders. She held a meeting to mark their departure, gathering all the children from six to twelve, including young Angell Matthewson, and getting them to join hands to make a ring. Then she sang to the assembly with 'much glee and politeness'. After this the six missionaries saddled up and rode off to preach. Their remit, according to Angell, was to 'tell people to labor for a gift of god to hiss at the devil'. Shortly afterwards, Ann herself left for what turned out to be her last visit to Harvard.

 

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