The record-union., 1899-04-07
zOAR AND ICARIA.


THE HISTORY OF TWO COM
MUN1sTIC EXPERIMENTS.
How Once Flourishing Communi-
ties We're Broken UP and
! Scattered.
| The following communication to the
Record Union will be read with in.
terest:
"A number of persons of Mime
apolis who have been reading Toll
stoi with faith and ardor, and are
desirous of trying his fine theories
| in real life. have purchased 1000
acres in the valley Of the Red River of
the North, in the western part of Min
nesota There they propose to seek ref
uge from the devil and get beyond tbs
baleful influences of plutocratic life.
A printing office is the first proposition,
and the making and selling of all in
toxicants are to be prohibited All
things are to be in common, each per-
lson paying $3.50 as an entrance fee into
the common stock. ."-Chicago Church
imam.
All this is evidence Of commendable
philanthropy on the part of the promot-
ers. 1t calls to the writer's mind, how
ever that a number of kindred under
takings have been tried in America, all
of them resulting in failure sooner or
later. That brainy and big hearted HUI
manitarian, Horace Greeley, once en-
barked, with others, in a venture akin
to the one proposed in Minnesota, but it
proved short-1ived and a humiliating
failure. The reading public are as well
advised of this episode in Mr. Greeley's
life as the writer. 1t is therefore passed
with this simple reference, and without
comment.
But the existence and utter disruption
lof two more kindred undertakings have
come within the writer's personal
knowledge. OF either of them very lit
tie has ever appeared in print. A brief
reference only to. their rise and fall
now offer to the well-meaning Mime
apolitans and others of their way of
thinking, in the hope that experience
may furnish some useful light to them
in the pathway they have marked out.
A more complete history of these two
communities, written by an abler pen,
would certainly shed a fund of light on
the practical workings of this catching
humanitarian idea of enlarging the
home circle to the size of a community
Eof hundreds, bound together in inno-
cence and without strife, for the COM
mon betterment of all.
"Zoar,' O., is first recalled. In the
early years of this century, under the
guidance of a sort of chief, whose name
was j. NJ Bimeler with whom the
writer, then mere boy, and for years
afterward, was personally acquainted),
there came community of immigrants,
men with and men without families,
from Germany. Their manner of life
as presented for years at Zoar stamped
them as of the rustic peasant class
in their fatherland Thatched roofs,
wooden shoes, clothes made from wool
taken from the sleeps back, burdens
borne on women's heads, all gave un-
mistakable evidence of their nativity.
With sagacious foresight, their chief
!, selected a location for his trusty, hope
full industrious band in the fertile val
ley of the Tuscarawas River, 100 miles
of Steubenvlle. in Eastern Ohio. It was
in the primitive woods, but embraced all
the natural elements to justify the
highest hopes of such people-moder-
ate climate, healthy, good soil, gushing
springs, flowing streams, many varie-
ties Of wood, coal and iron in plenty.
Here Bimeler bought the choicest tracts
by entry of the United States at $1.25
per acre, and with his little band went
to work to carve from nature and
erect in freedoms land the ideal
earthly community home, and named It
Zoar. Up to the time of Bimeler' s
death, about 1850, the legal title to all
the property, then grown to be worth
millions, rested solely in the individual
name of J. NJ. Bimeler. By that time
the native woods had been changed into
beautiful fertile fields of golden grain,
with sleek, fat fiocks and herds of pur-
est blood grazing in the meadows. The
little hamlet of log huts where the mot
ley band of men, women and children
first broke their bread with Gods bless
ing at a common table had in time been
Supplanted by lovely cottage homes,
with beautiful verandas and blooming
gardens. In business way, in the viii
lage and its enyirons, had been erected
on the banks of the Ohio Canal a mag
nificent Touring mill, whose snowflake
product was the delight of bakers in
New York and London; a wooden fac
tory of no mean dimensions had taken
the place of the crude spinning. wheel
and hand-loom of the fraus and lassies;
a general merchandise store furnished
sundries to the community and supplies
to all the surroaading country. For, be
it known, Bmeler'sS business sagacity
was not pent UP by the snvirons of his
own little Zoar, but spread far into the
adjoining country. Little was ever seen
of Zoar's denizens by the ungodly out
/ slider Mr. Bimeler alone showed him.
self to them, and he mingled freely with
the business world, being known far and
wide while his faithful co-workers in
cluding not only the tillers of the soil,
the shepherd and the herd master, but
the skilled mechanic in all the ordinary
industries, pursued strictly the even
tenor of their way in their several call
ings So far as the world of outsiders
could learn of the inner workings of
these 200 people, more happy and con-
tented community never lived, while
their prosperity in all material things
! that constitute improve ment and growth
in worldly goods was the wonder and
astonishment of all outsiders.
At the time of Mr.. Bimelers death
the Ohio Canal had long been running
through the little hamlet, and railroads
and telegraph lines, and that ever pres