The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
I visited the Harmonists again not many months ago; the village and
orchards lie as sleepily among the quiet hills as ever. There are more
houses closed, more grass on the streets. A few more of the simple,
honest folk have crept into their beds under the apple-trees, from which
they will not rise in the night to eat, or to make money,--Christina
among the rest. I was glad she was gone where it was sunny and bright,
and where she would not have to grow tired for the sight of "a little
shild." There have been but few additions, if any, to the society in the
last twenty years. They still retain the peculiar dress which they wore
when they left Wuertemberg: the men wearing the common German peasant
habit; the women, a light, narrow flannel gown, with wide sleeves and a
bright-colored silk handkerchief crossed over the breast, the whole
surmounted by a straw hat, with a rim of immense width. They do not
carry on the manufactures of silk or woollen now, which were Rapp's
boast; they have "struck oil" instead, and are among the most successful
and skillful land-owners in Pennsylvania in the search for that
uncertain source of wealth.
The "Economite Wells" are on the Upper Alleghany, nearly opposite
Tidionte. In later years, I believe, children have been brought into the
society to be cared for by the women.
It needs no second-sight to discern the end of Rapp's scheme. His single
strength sustained the colony during his life, and since his death one
or two strong wills have kept it from crumbling to pieces, converting
the whole machinery of his system into a powerful money-making agent.
These men are the hand by which it keeps its hold on the world,--or the
market, perhaps I should say. They are intelligent and able; honorable
too, we are glad to know, for the sake of the quiet creatures drowsing
away their little remnant of life, fat and contented, driving their
ploughs through the fields, or smoking on the stoops of the village
houses when evening comes. I wonder if they ever cast a furtive glance
at the world and life from which Rapp's will so early shut them out?
When they finish smoking, one by one, the great revenues of the society
will probably fall into the hands of two or three active survivors, and
be merged into the small currents of trade, according to the rapid
sequence which always follows the accretion of large properties in this
country.
Rapp is remembered, already, even by the people whom he meant to serve,
only as a harsh and tyrannical ruler, and his very scheme will not only
prove futile, but be forgotten very soon after Fredrika and Joseph have
drank their last cup of home-made wine, and gone to sleep under the
trees in the apple-orchard.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] _Vide_ Trustees of Harmony Society _vs._ Nachtrieb, 19 Howard, U. S.
Reports, p. 126, Campbell, J.
[B] Schreiber _vs._ Rapp, 5 Watts, 836, Gibson, C. J.
ABRAHAM DAVENPORT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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