About one hundred miles from the mouth of the Wabash is situated the village of New-Harmony, far famed for the singular events of which it has been the scene.[27] It is said to be situated on a broad and beautiful plateau overlooking the stream, surrounded by a fertile and heavily-timbered country, and blessed with an atmosphere of health. It was first settled in 1814 by a religious sect of Germans called Harmonites, resembling the Moravians in their tenets, and under the control of George Rapp, in whose name the land was purchased and held. They were about eight hundred in number, and soon erected a number of substantial edifices, among which was a huge House of Assemblage an hundred feet square. They laid out their grounds with beautiful regularity, and established a botanic garden and an extensive greenhouse. For ten years the Harmonites continued to live and labour in love, in the land of their adoption, when the celebrated Robert Dale Owen,[28] of Scotland, came among them, and, at the sum of one hundred and ninety thousand dollars, purchased the establishment entire. His design was of rearing up a community {37} upon a plan styled by him the "Social System." The peculiar doctrines he inculcated were a perfect equality, moral, social, political, and religious. He held that the promise of never-ending love upon marriage was an absurdity; that children should become no impediment to separation, as they were to be considered members of the community from their second year; that the society should have no professed religion, each individual being indulged in his own faith, and that all temporal possessions should be held in common. On one night of every week the whole community met and danced; and on another they united in a concert of music, while the Sabbath was devoted to philosophical lectures. Many distinguished individuals are said to have written to the society inquiring respecting its principles and prospects, and expressing the wish at a future day to unite with it their destinies. Mr. Owen was sanguine of success. On the 4th of July, 1826, he promulgated his celebrated declaration of mental independence;[29] a document which, for absurdity, has never, perhaps, been paralleled. But all was in vain. Dissension insinuated itself among the members; one after another dropped off from the community, until at length Mr. Owen retired in disgust, and, at a vast sacrifice, disposed of the establishment to a wealthy Scotch gentleman by the name of M'Clure, a former coadjutor.[30] Thus was abandoned the far-famed _social system_, which for a time was an object of interest and topic of remark all over the United States and even in Europe. The Duke of Saxe Weimar passed here a {38} week in the spring of 1826, and has given a detailed and amusing description of his visit.