Odd Wisconsin Archive
The Other Utopians
Wisconsin's most famous 19th century communes, James J. Strang's Beaver Island kingdom and Warren Chase's Fourierite phalanx at Ripon, called Ceresco, are well-documented. Their eccentric beliefs and sometimes flamboyant actions brought them lots of press coverage in their day and considerable research attention later.
But there were also quieter experiments in communal living when Wisconsin was young. More than one Moravian spiritual community was established around Green Bay by 1850, and another one in Manitowoc County in 1854. A group of Owenites (followers of the Scottish economic reformer Robert Owen, the founder of co-ops) set up operations near Mukwonago in Waukesha County and a phalanx of Fourierites came to Sheboygan in 1846, independent from Chase's commune at Ceresco. Perhaps the quietest experiment of this sort was also arguably the most successful: "The Community," a religious colony in Germania, Marquette Co., lasted more than 50 years and spanned three generations.
It began in Groton, Massachusetts, during the late 1840s when its leader, Benjamin Hall (1796-1879), was inspired by the teachings of William Miller (1782-1849), who used Biblical prophecies and arithmetical calculations to predict the second coming of Christ around 1843. The failure of this to happen marked the end of Millerism, but gave rise to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and to The Community of like-minded souls who emigrated to Wisconsin.
Before Miller's prediction failed, a group of families and single adults tried to create God's paradise on earth west of Boston, to be ready for the Second Coming. They coalesced near one another in Groton, where they worshipped together daily under the leadership of Benjamin Hall. Not far away were the communes of Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Hopedale, where other idealists tried to realize their dreams apart from mainstream society. Although Hall and his little band realized that Christ had not come, they appear to have assumed that their own calculations were at fault rather than the prophecy. They set about purifying and organizing their lives so they would be ready whenever he did happen to come. This involved supporting the anti-slavery cause and opposing the exploitation of workers. In 1869, after visiting New England factories, Hall told a reporter that it appeared to him that the life of a factory worker was little better than that of an African American slave before the Civil War, and he predicted widespread rebellion among working people.
In the spring of 1860, nearly the entire Community emigrated from Massachusetts to the site of Germania, in Marquette Co., Wisconsin, far from worldly temptations. They set up a commune where they could work, live, and pray together. A central building housed the worship space and lodging for unmarried members, and separate farms were established nearby for families. Roads were laid out, and a school was erected. Although most property was legally owned by individuals, members could only prosper through close cooperation with one another, and every member worked according to his or her abilities in The Community's mill, stores, hotel, fields, and shops. Unmarried women, who in mainstream society were typically forced into domestic service or supported by their families, earned their own wages in Community businesses.
What really held them together, of course, was their shared religious beliefs. They held worship services every evening and on Sundays, believed in living a pure religious life in this world, and tried to be ready at any moment to be called to the next one. The Community did not recruit new members, or ally itself with the formal branches of Millerism such as the Seventh Day Adventists, or with any other religious authority. They went quietly about their business according to Micah 6:8, doing what they believed to be right, loving mercy, and walking humbly with their God.
After Hall's death in 1879, The Community began to wane, and many young people moved off its farms to work or be educated in other towns. Nevertheless, The Community lasted from its founding in Groton in the 1840's well into the 1890's and supported three generations of believers -- of which its historian said, "In the history of American communes, this record is almost unheard of."
Today, nearly all The Community's buildings, like its members, have disappeared beneath the soil of Marquette Co., and its graveyard remains as the only monument to its vision. You can read more about it a short memoir, "Looking Backward," that appeared in the Montello Express on January 23, 1931. Its complete story, with many photos, was told by Peggy Sands in "Till the end of time: awaiting the millennium in Wisconsin" which was just made available online in the Wisconsin Magazine of History (vol. 83, number 1; autumn 1999).
:: Posted in Curiosities on July 15, 2007
|
