Rapp sailed in that year for Baltimore, accompanied by his son John and two other persons. After looking about in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, they concluded to buy five thousand acres of wild land about twenty-five miles north of Pittsburgh, in the valley of the Connoquenessing. Frederick (Reichert) Rapp, an adopted son of George Rapp, evidently a man of uncommon ability and administrative talent, had been left in charge in Germany; and had so far perfected the necessary arrangements for emigration that no time was lost in moving, as soon as Rapp gave notice that he had found a proper locality for settlement. On the 4th of July, 1804, the ship _Aurora_ from Amsterdam landed three hundred of Rapp's people in Baltimore; and six weeks later three hundred more were landed in Philadelphia. The remainder, coming in another ship, were drawn off by Haller, one of Rapp's traveling companions, to settle in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. The six hundred souls who thus remained to Rapp appear to have been mainly, and indeed with few exceptions, of the peasant and mechanic class. There were among them, I have been told, a few of moderately good education, and presumably of somewhat higher social standing than the great body; there were a few who had considerable property, for emigrants in those days. All were thrifty, and few were destitute. It is probable that they had determined in Germany to establish a community of goods, in accordance with their understanding of the social theory of Jesus; but for the present each family retained its property. Rapp met them on their arrival, and settled them in different parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania; withdrawing a certain number of the ablest mechanics and laborers to proceed with him to the newly purchased land, where he and they spent a toilsome fall and winter in preparing habitations for the remainder; and on the 15th of February, 1805, these, and such as they could so early in the season gather with them, formally and solemnly organized themselves into the "Harmony Society," agreeing to throw all their possessions into a common fund, to adopt a uniform and simple dress and style of house; to keep thenceforth all things in common; and to labor for the common good of the whole body. Later in the spring they were joined by fifty additional families; and thus they finally began with about one hundred and twenty-five families, or, as I am told, less than seven hundred and fifty men, women, and children.