George Rapp, founder and until his death in 1847 head of the "Harmony Society," was born in October, 1757, at Iptingen in Würtemberg. He was the son of a small farmer and vine-dresser, and received such a moderate common-school education as the child of parents in such circumstances would naturally receive at that time in South Germany. When he had been taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography, he left school and assisted his father on the farm, working as a weaver during the winter months. At the age of twenty-six he married a farmer's daughter, who bore him a son, John, and a daughter, Rosina, both of whom later became with him members of the society. Rapp appears to have been from his early youth fond of reading, and of a reflective turn of mind. Books were probably not plentiful in his father's house, and he became a student of the Bible, and began presently to compare the condition of the people among whom he lived with the social order laid down and described in the New Testament. He became dissatisfied especially with the lifeless condition of the churches; and in the year 1787, when he was thirty, he had evidently found others who held with him, for he began to preach to a small congregation of friends in his own house on Sundays. The clergy resented this interference with their office, and persecuted Rapp and his adherents; they were fined and imprisoned; and this proved to be, as usual, the best way to increase their numbers and to confirm their dislike of the prevailing order of things. They were denounced as "Separatists," and had the courage to accept the name. Rapp taught his followers, I am told, that they were in all things to obey the laws, to be peaceable and quiet subjects, and to pay all their taxes, those to the Church as well as to the Rapp was then forty-eight years of age. He was, according to the best accounts I have been able to gather, a man of robust frame and sound health, with great perseverance, enterprise, and executive ability, and remarkable common-sense. It was fortunate for the community that its members were all laboring men. In the first year they erected between forty and fifty log-houses, a church and school-house, grist-mill, barn, and some workshops, and cleared one hundred and fifty acres of land. In the following year they cleared four hundred acres more, and built a saw-mill, tannery, and storehouse, and planted a small vineyard. A distillery was also a part of this year's building; and it is odd to read that the Harmonists, who have aimed to do all things well, were famous among Western men for many years for the excellence A certain number of the younger people, feeling no vocation for a celibate life, at this time withdrew from the society. The remainder faithfully ceased from conjugal intercourse. Husbands and wives were not required to live in different houses, but occupied, as before, the same dwelling, with their children, only treating each other as brother and sister in Christ, and remembering the precept of the apostle: "This I say, brethren, the time is short; it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none," etc. These are the words of one of the older members to the Reverend Dr. Aaron Williams, from whose interesting account of the Harmony Society I have taken a number of facts, being referred to it by Mr. Henrici, the present head of Economy. The same person added: "The burden was easier to bear, because it became general throughout the whole community, and all bore their share alike." Another member wrote in 1862: "Convinced of the truth and holiness of our purpose, we voluntarily and unanimously adopted celibacy, altogether from religious motives, in order to withdraw our love entirely from the lusts of the flesh, which, with the help of God and much Surely so extraordinary a resolve was never before carried out with so simple and determined a spirit. Among most people it would have been thought necessary, or at least prudent, to separate families, and to adopt other safeguards against temptation; but the good Harmonists did and do nothing of the kind. "What kind of watch or safeguard did or do you keep over the intercourse of the sexes," I asked in Economy, and received for reply, "None at all; it would be of no use. If you have to watch people, you had better give them up. We have always depended upon the strength of our religious convictions, and upon prayer and a Christian spirit." "Do you believe the celibate life to be healthful?" I asked; and the reply was, "Decidedly so; almost all our people have lived to a hale old age. Father Rapp himself died at ninety; and no doubt many of our members would have lived longer than they did, had it not been for the hardships they suffered in Indiana, where we lived in a malarious region." I must add my own testimony that the Harmonists now living are almost without exception stout, well-built, hearty people, the women as well as the men. At the same time that the celibate life was adopted, the community agreed to cease using tobacco in every form—a deprivation which these Germans must have felt almost as severely as the abandonment of conjugal joys. The site of the Pennsylvania settlement proved to have been badly chosen in two respects. It had no water communication with the outer world; and it was unfavorable to the growth of the vine. In 1814, after proper discussion, the society determined to seek a more desirable spot; and purchased thirty thousand acres of land in Posey County, Indiana, in the Wabash valley. Thither one hundred persons proceeded in June 1814, to prepare a place for the remainder; and by the summer "Father Rapp" appears to have guided his people wisely. He continued to exhort them not to care overmuch for riches, but to use their wealth as having it not; and in 1818, "for the purpose of promoting greater harmony and equality between the original members and those who had come in recently," a notable thing was done at Rapp's suggestion. Originally a book had been kept, in which was written down what each member of the society had contributed to the common stock. This book was now brought out and by unanimous consent burned, so that no record should thenceforward show what any one had contributed. In 1824 they removed once more. They sold the town of Harmony and twenty thousand acres of land to Robert Owen, who settled upon it his New Lanark colony when he took possession. Owen paid one hundred and fifty thousand dollars—not nearly the value of the property, it is said; but the Harmonists had suffered from fever and ague and unpleasant neighbors, and were determined to remove. They then bought the property they still hold at Economy, and in 1825 removed to this their new and final home. One of the older members told me that the first detachment which came up from Indiana I think it probable, from what I have heard from the older members, that when they were comfortably settled at Economy, the Harmony Society was for some years in its most flourishing condition. All had come on together from Indiana; and all were satisfied with the beauty of the new home. Those who had suffered from malarious fevers here rapidly recovered. The vicinity to Pittsburgh, and cheap water communication, encouraged them in manufacturing. Economy lay upon the main stage-road, and was thus an important and presently a favorite stopping-place; the colonists found kindly neighbors; there was sufficient young blood in the community to give enterprise and strength; and "we sang songs every day, and had music every evening," said old Mr. Keppler to me, recounting the glories of those days. They erected woolen and cotton mills, a grist-mill and saw-mill; they planted orchards and vineyards; they began the culture of silk, and with such success that soon the Sunday dress of men as well as women was of silk, grown, reeled, spun, and woven by themselves. In building the new town of Economy they displayed—thanks, I believe, to the knowledge and skill of Frederick Rapp—a good deal of taste, though adhering to their ancient plainness; and their two removals had taught them valuable lessons in the convenient arrangement of machinery; so that Economy is even now a model of a well-built, well-arranged country village. As soon as they began to substitute brick for log houses, they insisted upon erecting for "Father Rapp" a "The warehouse was shown to us, where the articles made here for sale or use are preserved, and I admired the excellence of all. The articles for the use of the society are kept by themselves; as the members have no private possessions, and every thing is in common, so must they, in relation to all their wants, be supplied from the common stock. The clothing and food they make use of is of the best quality. Of the latter, flour, salt meat, and all long-keeping articles, are served out monthly; fresh meat, on the contrary, is distributed as soon as it is killed, according to the size of the family, etc. As every house has a garden, each family raises its own vegetables and some poultry, and each family has its own bake-oven. For such things as are not raised in Economy, there is a store provided, from which the members, with the knowledge of the directors, may purchase what is necessary, and the people of the vicinity may do the same. "Mr. Rapp finally conducted us into the factory again, and said that the girls had especially requested this visit that I might hear them sing. When their work is done, they collect in one of the factory rooms, to the "Their factories and workshops are warmed during the winter by means of pipes connected with the steam-engine. All the workmen, and especially the females, had very healthy complexions, and moved me deeply by the warm-hearted friendliness with which they saluted the elder Rapp. I was also much gratified to see vessels containing fresh sweet-scented flowers standing on all the machines. The neatness which universally reigns is in every respect worthy of praise." * This account shows the remarkable rapidity with which they had built up the new town. But perfect happiness is not for this world. In 1831 came to Economy a German adventurer, Bernhard Müller by right name, who had assumed the title Graf or Count Maximilian de Leon, and had gathered a following of visionary Germans, whom he imposed, with himself, upon the Harmonists, on the pretense that he was a believer with them in religious matters. He proved to be a wretched intriguer, who brought ruin on all who connected themselves with him; and who began at once to make trouble in Economy. Having secured a lodgment, he began to announce strange doctrines, marriage, a livelier life, and other temptations to worldliness; and he finally succeeded in effecting a serious division, which, if it had not been prudently managed, might have destroyed the community. After bitter disputes, in which at last affairs came to such a pass that a vote had to be taken, in order to decide who were faithful to the old order and to Rapp, and who were for Count Leon,
The end of the dispute was an agreement, under which the society bound itself to pay to those who adhered to Count Leon one hundred and five thousand dollars, in three installments, all payable within twelve months; the other side agreeing, on their part, to leave Economy within three months, taking with them only their clothing and household furniture, and relinquishing all claims upon the property of the society. This agreement was made in March, 1832; and Leon and his followers withdrew to Phillipsburg, a village ten miles below Economy, on the other side of the river, which they bought, with eight hundred acres of land. Here they set up a society on communistic principles, but permitting marriage; and here they very quickly wasted the large sum of money they received from the Harmonists; and after a desperate and lawless attempt to extort more money from the Economy people, which was happily defeated, Count Leon absconded with a few of his people in a boat to Alexandria on the Red River, where this singular adventurer perished of cholera in 1833. Those he had deluded meantime divided the Phillipsburg property among themselves, and set up each for himself, and a number afterward joined Keil in forming the Bethel Community in Missouri, of which an account will be found in another place. In 1832, seven years only after the removal to Economy, the society was able, it thus appears, to pay out in a single year 79:* "Travels through North America, during the years 1825-26, by His Highness, Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach." Philadelphia, 1828.
