Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1889-05-01
SIGHTS In ECONOMY.
A Pretty Pennsylvania Town 90
cupied by Celibates
The Remarkable TheOcratic Community
Founded I'm America by a German En-
thuslast-Elder Henrici and His Gov.
ernment-Harmonist Doctrines.

Elghty-four years ago, in what was then
wild forest region Of Butler County, Pa,
there was solemnly and formally organized
the most remarkable and unique theocratic
community that the world had ever seen
since the days Of that famous old Grecian
philosopher, Pythagoras. Its originator and
founder was George Rapp, an humble Ger
man farmer who, with some six hundred of
his fellow-countrymen, had fed thither to
escape religious persecution In their
"Vaterland,n
Absolute communism, says the Chicago
Tribune, was the most important feature of
their creed, and those who had wealth
agreed, quite as cheerfully as those who
had nothing, to throw all their possessions
into comm on stock.
The community founded and deserted two
towns before settling here. Economy is
one of the most picturesque villages in the
world, standing in the midst of an elevated
plateau, which extends some four miles up
and down the Ohio river, and slopes gently
back to the vine-clad hills which skirt it at
the distance of nearly mile The dress of
the Harmonites is precisely in accordance
with the fashion Of provincial Germany In
1905, the year of their immigration. The
men all wear long tailed blue coats and
broad -brimmed stovepipe hats, while the
women dress in hIgh.waisted, plain-slxirted
blue gowns and high pointed caps of blue
satin. Their costume is as uniform as
that Of a company Of soldiers or Of the in
mates Of charity school.
Irepaired to the great hall, where pro-
cession was formed to march through the
streets to the church. First came the
elders Henrici and Lenz, both bowed by the
weight Of more than eighty-three years Of
life, and each with lone curling locks, white
as snow, hanging nearly TO the shoulders.
and floating out upon the winter wind.
They were followed by the other nine elders
who assist in governing the community,
while after them came the members of the
society and their work people,
The streets through which we passed are
sixty feet in width, crossing each other at
right angles. On their corners and midway
on the intervening sides are erected the
dwellings-frame or brick two stories high,
and all Of precisely the same economic style
OF architecture, having but one door, en-
tered from yard at the side. Each house
Is surrounded by large vegetable garden.
Death-principally from old age-has re-
duced the membership OF the Harmony So
ciety from one thousand, which it oncenum-
bered in the days Of its founder, to less
than twenty-five aged men and women.
The society's adoption in 1907 Of the rigid
practice Of celibacy, which they have ever
since strictly observed, checked its natural
increase, and the accessions Of new mem
bers from Germany, which for a time MAIN
tanned their numbers, ceased many years
ago. The church was well filed, however,
By some four hundred or fve hundred
Workpeople whom the Harmonists are
compelled to employ to farm their thirty
i've hundred broad acres, to develop their
rich Oh and natural gas territory, and TO
n- ~ -sv On The various handicrafta necessary