The record-union., 1899-04-07

grave unconscious that 1t was j. M.
Bimefer himself and not his theory,
that made Zoar a happy community.
His grave is there, nestled with others
Of his confiding band by whose horny
hands 81
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Theip furrow oft the stubborn glebe has
How joound did they drive their team
How bowed the woods beneath their
sturdy stroke.
Their name, their years spelt by tn un-
lettered muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;
AnS many a holy t text aronrd she - stTews
"Icaria,' Iowa, is second to name, and
second in importance to Zoar. Of it
less will be said because less is per-
sonally known During the wintry
blasts of 1866 the writer travelled
from east to west across Southern
Iowa, with team, in search of a home
away in advance of the terminus, but
on the proposed route of the great c.
b. & @. Railway. His brave young
wife, with her first born nestled in her
bosom, constituted the precious part of
demanded that nightly shelter be found
along the dreary way Such places
were in those days SO far apart that to
be sure of finding one at the end of
the days journey, was always the SUBJ
ject of nightly fireside inquiry by the
anxious pilgrim, whose daily travel was
ten to thirty miles. When 100 miles
or more away the pioneer landlord, in
describing the stopping places, never
failed to tell of the wonderful French
colony" to be passed on the way. With
curiosity whetted for days to see it, it
was finally found located in the south
erly portion of Adams County, 100 miles
east from the Missouri River With
the thermometer at zero and snow
drifts covering the fences, .Icaria' did
not appear at first favorably. But evil
dences of industry and frugality
abounded. The absence of money and
the presence of industry was much in
evidence. Crude prairie barns and
straw and hay stacks told that the
colony domestic animals were more
comfortable than the traveller. A viii
lage of a dozen log cabins protected the
effervescent Frenchmen and their fam
flies from the wintry blasts, while .
particularly long cabin proclaimed the
common dining-room and a sort OF
town hall'' for the whole community
They, too, had thousand acres of
land, in quality, as succeeding years of
observation demonstrated, as rich and
productive as the sun ever shone upon.
At that time the Icarians. like the Zoar-
ties, We're living in quasi-seclusion.
away from the devil and the snares
and vices of plutocratic life. Their pio-
neer nefghbors lived miles away, with
little occasion to intrude upon the iso-
lated colony: but the peculiar people
were ever talked about for a hundred
miles around and their bountiful crops,
slick herds, Frenchy habits and prob
able future, furnished many a text for
evening fireside defamation. So the
colonists plodded along for ten years
or more, when the railway was COM
pleted along the little valley. The tele-
graph and the daily paper came with
1t, and strangers also, by ones, twos
and by dozens, youthful, home seekers
swarming from Far East farms, at
tracted by the fertility of the SOIL The
wide prairies soon proclaimed a new
conner on nearly every quarter section
OF land. Icaria was no longer hidden
from the world and the devil. In lit
tie while the court records of Adams
| County disclosed the discomfort that
had come with the tide of Westward
the Star of Empire"
| The first evidence to the public that
| things were not like they had been
inside the sacred portals of Icaria, was
division of the lands into two bodies.
and of the denizens into two distinct
communities; the general halt to i'm
| provements and neglect of those al
| ready made. The virus of American
| ism (whatever that isl had seized the
French. and was working out their des-
tiny. Tumbled down Icaria could be
seen from the car windows as the train
sped by But a split IN the middle af-
/ forded but temporary relief. One divide
| only encouraged another, until about
| two years ago court decree made a
final and complete division, and the
great French colony exists in memory
only.
| The careful reader Will readily OBJ
serve that Zoar and Icaria seem both
| to have been well located, and both
entitled to permanent success, if that be
possible for such organizations. Why
| they are not in existence yet, prosper
ous and happy as their gifted found
ers prophecied, the reader, with the
facts before him, is fully equipped to
judge for himself H C. WATKINS.
| Woodland, Cal, April. 1899.