page_title: Ceresco, Wisconsin
section_title: Establishment
hierarchical_section_title: Ceresco, Wisconsin / History / Establishment
caption_attribution_description: English: Studio portrait of Warren Chase, Fourierist and politician who served in the state senates of Wisconsin and California
context_page_description: Ceresco, also known as the Wisconsin Phalanx, was a commune founded in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin in 1844 by followers of the communitarian socialist ideas of Charles Fourier. About 180 people lived in the Association at its peak, farming nearly 2,000 acres. It was one of the three longest-lived Fourierist Associations in the United States, dissolving in 1850, and was unique for having assets which exceeded liabilities at the time of its termination.
  Since the Fourierist Association had registered their community under state law, the village of Ceresco, Wisconsin survived the collapse of the utopian socialist experiment of the 1840s. Remaining members of the Wisconsin Phalanx later formed a living cooperative and study group called the Ceresco Union in 1855, espousing the doctrines of religious freethought and interpersonal free love until disbursed by a mob of outraged citizens.
  In 1858 the remaining inhabitants of Ceresco were annexed by the nearby town of Ripon, Wisconsin.
context_section_description: The Upper Midwest was not immune to the Fourierist hubbub that had begun to percolate in the United States in 1843. In the fall of that year the Franklin Lyceum of Southport (today known as Kenosha) began taking up discussion of Fourier's ideas in a series of public discussions. On November 21 the society debated the proposition "Does the system of Fourier present a practicable plan for such a reorganization of society as will guard against our present social ills?" After a week's pause, two more successive weekly meetings of the lyceum were dedicated to the Fourier program.
  One of those Southport residents most interested in the Fourier system was a 30-year-old named Warren Chase, a future  Wisconsin and California State Senator. Convinced of the applicability of Fourier's "Associationist" prescription, Chase committed himself to the emerging movement without reservation, organizing a series of preliminary meetings to draft a constitution for a local "phalanx."
  On March 23, 1844, a formal meeting of phalanx supporters was held at the Southport village schoolhouse and officers were elected in accordance with the constitution previously drafted. Five hundred copies of the group's constitution and bylaws were printed for public distribution and a group of three, including Warren Chase, were tapped as trustees of the phalanx, to serve as legal title-holders to all the property of the nascent community. A bond sale of $10,000 was approved and stock in the new enterprise began to be sold. Shares of stock were sold for $25 each, payable in cash or property. By the end of May 1844, membership in the forthcoming phalanx stood at 71.
  A domain for the phalanx had been located in the spring, and on May 8, 1844, the decision made to purchase 1.25 sections (800 acres) of attractive government land, located in a valley between two gentle hills. By that fall a total of 1.5 sections (960 acres) were purchased. Instructions were issued to participants to obtain a tent to provide temporary shelter until permanent housing could be constructed, and details for provisioning the settling party arranged.
  The group arrived on the site on Saturday May 25, 1844 at 5 pm, naming their community "Ceresco" after Ceres, Roman goddess of the harvest. A total of 19 men and a 7-year-old boy were on hand for the launch, immediately dividing themselves into agricultural and mechanical series, with the former assigned the immediate task of beginning plowing while the latter began digging a cellar for the group's first frame building, intended as the central wing of a structure planned to be extended to 120 feet in length. Upon completion in 1845, the finished "long building" for collective housing would measure 208 feet long by 32 feet wide.
caption: Warren Chase (1813-1891), a founder of Ceresco, later a State Senator and Free Soil Party gubernatorial candidate.
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