Ann Lee

Your teachings of simplicity, equality, and shared labor continue to inspire.

The Square House where Ann Lee stayed in Harvard, now a private home in Shaker Village. This postcard has the wrong date for the Square House, which was actually built for Shadrach Ireland around 1769, before Ann Lee came to Harvard. A postcard from the HHS archives.

An early photograph of the Square House.

Ann Lee was born in England on February 29, 1736. She was an illiterate Englishwoman who left a disappointing arranged marriage—none of her four children survived childhood—to join and eventually lead a small and persecuted religious sect. Their official name was the United Society of Believers, but they became known as the Shakers for their moving, dancing, and shaking form of worship.

In 1774 Ann Lee and eight of her followers emigrated from England to New York during the time American revolutionaries were fighting to form a nation that would honor religious freedom. They set up a community near Albany, New York, where they were able to worship, although still treated with mistrust and violence.

In the spring of 1781, Mother Ann and some followers came to Harvard to the home of Shadrach Ireland, a radical preacher who had recently died. (This building became known as the Square House and is now a private home in Shaker Village.) There she won the devotion of Ireland’s followers and planted the seed of the Shaker communities to be organized in America. The Square House became an important center for the Shakers,       serving as headquarters for her missionary trips.

Ann Lee’s followers came to believe that she embodied all the perfections of God in female form and called her “Mother Ann.” She preached that sinfulness could be avoided by treating men and women equally and by keeping them separated to prevent any temptation leading to impure acts. Celibacy and confession of sin were deemed essential for salvation.

Later Shakers commemorated Mother Ann’s birthday with a solemn day of prayer and reflection. It was a day they kept “as strict as Christmas” – a holy day to be treated with reverence. Because Mother Ann was born on Leap Year’s Day, February 29, her birthday was often celebrated on March first.