I think it probable, from what I have heard from the older members, that when they were comfortably settled at Economy, the Harmony Society was for some years in its most flourishing condition. All had come on together from Indiana; and all were satisfied with the beauty of the new home. Those who had suffered from malarious fevers here rapidly recovered. The vicinity to Pittsburgh, and cheap water communication, encouraged them in manufacturing. Economy lay upon the main stage-road, and was thus an important and presently a favorite stopping-place; the colonists found kindly neighbors; there was sufficient young blood in the community to give enterprise and strength; and "we sang songs every day, and had music every evening," said old Mr. Keppler to me, recounting the glories of those days. They erected woolen and cotton mills, a grist-mill and saw-mill; they planted orchards and vineyards; they began the culture of silk, and with such success that soon the Sunday dress of men as well as women was of silk, grown, reeled, spun, and woven by themselves. In building the new town of Economy they displayed--thanks, I believe, to the knowledge and skill of Frederick Rapp--a good deal of taste, though adhering to their ancient plainness; and their two removals had taught them valuable lessons in the convenient arrangement of machinery; so that Economy is even now a model of a well-built, well-arranged country village. As soon as they began to substitute brick for log houses, they insisted upon erecting for "Father Rapp" a house somewhat larger and more spacious than the common dwelling-houses, though not in any other way different. This was advisable, because he was obliged to entertain many visitors and strangers of distinction. The house stands opposite the church; and has behind it a spacious garden, arranged in a somewhat formal style, with box-edgings to the walks, and summer-houses and other ornaments in the old geometrical style of gardening. This was open to the people, of course; and here the band played on summer evenings, or more frequently on Sunday afternoons; and here, too, flowers were cultivated, I am told, with great success. How rapidly they made themselves at home in Economy appears from the following account of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who visited the place in 1826, only a year after it was founded: "At the inn, a fine, large, frame house, we were received by Mr. Rapp, the principal, at the head of the community. He is a gray-headed and venerable old man; most of the members immigrated twenty-one years ago from Würtemberg along with him.