In the Eden of heart-love--
Where the fruits of life spring,
And no death e'er can part love;
Where the pure currents flow
From all gushing hearts together,
And the wedding of the Lamb
Is the feast of joy forever.
Let us sing, brothers, sing.
"We have built us a dome
On our beautiful plantation,
And we all have one home,
And one family relation;
We have battled with the wiles
Of the dark world of Mammon,
And returned with its spoils
To the home of our dear ones.
Let us sing, brothers, sing.
"When the rude winds of wrath
Idly rave round our dwelling,
And the slanderer's breath
Like a simoon was swelling,
Then so merrily we sung,
As the storm blustered o'er us,
Till the very heavens rung
With our hearts' joyful chorus.
Let us go, brothers, go.
"So love's sunshine begun:
Now the spirit-flowers are blooming,
And the feeling that we're one
All our hearts is perfuming;
Toward one home we have all
Set our faces together,
Where true love doth dwell
In peace and joy forever.
Let us sing, brothers, sing."
This was presently followed by another song peculiar to the Oneida
people. A man sang, looking at a woman near him:
"I love you, O my sister,
But the love of God is better;
Yes, the love of God is better--
O the love of God is best."
To this she replied:
"I love you, O my brother,
But the love of God is better;
Yes, the love of God is better--
O the love of God is best."
Then came the chorus, in which a number of voices joined:
"Yes, the love of God is better,
O the love of God is better;
Hallelujah, Hallelujah--
Yes, the love of God is best."
Soon after the meeting broke up; but there was more singing, later, in
the private parlors, which I did not attend. Thus ended Sunday at the
Oneida Community; and with this picture of their daily life I may
conclude my account of these people.
THE AURORA AND BETHEL COMMUNES.
Twenty-nine miles south of Portland, on the Oregon and California
Railroad, lies the village of Aurora, more commonly known along the road
as "Dutchtown." As you approach it on the train, you will notice on an
eminence to the left a large wooden church; in the deep ravine which is
spanned by a railroad-bridge, a saw-mill; and, scattered irregularly
over the neighboring country, a number of houses, most of them differing
from usual village dwellings in the United States, mainly because of
their uncommon size, and the entire absence of ornament. They are three
stories high, sometimes nearly a hundred feet deep, and look like
factories.
Opposite the railroad station, upon elevated ground, stands one of these
houses, which is called the hotel, and is an excellent, clean country
inn, famous all over Oregon for good living. When I mentioned to an
acquaintance in Portland my purpose to spend some days at Aurora, he
replied, "Oh, yes--Dutchtown; you'll feed better there than any where
else in the state;" and on further inquiry I found that I might expect
to see there also the best orchards in Oregon, the most ingenious
expedients for drying fruits, and an excellent system of agriculture.
Beyond these practical points, and the further statement that "these
Dutch are a queer people," information about them is not general among
Oregonians. The inn, or "hotel," however, at Aurora, is used as a summer
resort by residents of Portland; the Aurora band is employed at
festivities in Portland; the pleasure-grounds of the community are
opened to Sunday-school and other picnics from the city in summer and
fall; and at the State Agricultural Fair, held at Salem, the Aurora
Community controls and manages the restaurant, and owns the buildings in
which food is prepared and sold. In these ways it comes into direct
communication with the outside world.
I found the hotel a plainly furnished but scrupulously neat and clean
house, at which I was received with very little ceremony. Nor did any
one volunteer to guide me about or give me information concerning the
society: curiosity does not seem to be a vice of the place. A note of
introduction to that member of the society who acts as its purchasing
agent, with which fortunately I was provided, secured me his attention
after I had found him. He was just then at work as a carpenter, putting
up a small house for a newly married couple.
The Aurora Commune is an offshoot of a society formed upon the same
principles in Bethel, Shelby County, Missouri. Dr. Keil, the President
of Aurora, was the founder of Bethel, and still rules both communities.
He removed from Missouri to Oregon because he imagined that there would
be a larger field for his efforts in a new state; and also, I imagine,
because of an innate restlessness of disposition.
Dr. Keil is a Prussian, born in 1811; and was a man-milliner in Germany.
He became a mystic, and he seems to have dealt also in magnetism, and
used this as a curative agent for diseases. After living for some time
in New York, he came to Pittsburgh, where he gave himself out as a
physician, and showed, it is said, some knowledge of botany. He
professed also to be the owner of a mysterious volume, written with
human blood, and containing receipts for medicines which enabled him, as
he professed, to cure various diseases. Presently he became a Methodist,
and thereupon burned this book with certain awe-inspiring formalities.
He seems to have been a fanatic in religious matters, for he soon left
the Methodists to form a sect of his own; and it is related that he
gathered a number of Germans about him, to whom he gave himself out as a
being to be worshiped, and later as one of the two witnesses in the Book
of Revelation; and in this capacity he gave public notice that on a
certain day, after a fast of forty days, he would be slain in the
presence of his followers.
While he was thus engaged in forming a following for himself among the
ignorant and simple-minded Germans, the rogue who called himself Count
Leon came over and joined Rapp's colony at Economy; and when Leon, after
quarreling with Rapp and removing to Phillipsburg, ran away from there
to Louisiana, Keil managed to secure some of Leon's people as his
adherents, and thereupon began to plan a communistic settlement,
somewhat upon the plan of Rapp's, but with the celibate principle left
out. In the year 1844, his followers, among whom were by good luck some
of the seceders from Economy, began a settlement in accordance with
these plans in Missouri. They were all either Germans or "Pennsylvania
Dutch," and people of limited means. It is probable that Keil had
nothing, for he appears for some years previously to have followed no
regular business or profession. They removed to Bethel, a point
forty-eight miles from Hannibal, in Missouri, and thirty-six miles from
Quincy; and began in very humble style. Not all the colonists came out
at once. He took with him at first two families and a number of young
people. These broke ground in the new settlement, and others followed as
they sold their property at home.
Shelby County, Missouri, was then a new country. The colonists took up
four sections, or two thousand five hundred and sixty acres of land, to
which they added from time to time until they possessed four thousand
acres. Upon a part of this estate they gradually established a
distillery, grist-mill, sawmill, carding machinery, a woolen-mill, and
all the mechanical trades needed by the farmers in their neighborhood,
and thus they made a town. As soon as they were able they set up a
general store, and a post-office was of course established by the
government. Among their first buildings was a church; for Dr. Keil was
their spiritual as well as temporal head.
At Bethel they prospered; and there four hundred of these Communists
still live. I shall give an account of them later.
Keil's ideas grew with the increasing wealth of the people; and his
unrestful spirit longed for a new and broader field of labor. He
imagined that on the Pacific coast he might found a larger communistic
society upon a broader domain; and he did not find it difficult to
persuade his people that the attempt ought to be made.
In 1855, accordingly, Dr. Keil set out with ten or twelve families,
eighty persons in all, across the plains, carrying along household
utensils and some cattle. A few families started later, and crossed the
Isthmus; and all gathered at Shoalwater Bay, north of the mouth of the
Columbia River, and in Washington Territory. There a few families
belonging to Aurora still live, managing farms of the community; but in
June, 1856, the main body of the society removed to Aurora, and began
there, with tedious and severe labor, a clearing among the firs.
The upper part of the Willamette Valley is a broad, open plain, easy to
till, and inviting to the farmer. Dr. Keil and his companions avoided
this plain: they chose to settle in a region pretty densely grown over
with timber. I asked him why he did so. He replied that, meaning to
establish a sawmill, they wished to use the trees cut down in clearing
the land to make into lumber for houses and fences. There was at that
time no railroad, and lumber in the open prairie was expensive. "The end
proved that we were right," said he; "for, though we had hard work at
first, and got ahead slowly, we were soon able to buy out the prairie
farmers, who had got into debt and were shiftless, while we prudent
Germans were building our place." He added a characteristic story of
their early days--that when they first settled at Aurora, having no
fruit of their own, he used to buy summer apples for his people from the
nearest farmers for a dollar a bushel. These were eaten in the families;
but he taught them to save the apple-parings, and make them into
vinegar, which he then sold to the wives of his American farming
neighbors at a dollar and a half per gallon.
In order to make intelligible the means as well as the ways of their
success, I must here explain what are the social principles to which
they agree, and in accordance with which they have worked since 1844.
They are remarkable chiefly for their simplicity. Dr. Keil teaches, and
they hold that--
1st. All government should be parental, to imitate, as they say, the
parental government of God.
2d. That therefore societies should be formed upon the model of the
family, having all interests and all property absolutely in common; all
the members laboring faithfully for the general welfare and support, and
drawing the means of living from the general treasury.
3d. That, however, neither religion nor the harmony of nature teaches
community in any thing further than property and labor. Hence the family
life is strictly maintained; and the Aurora Communists marry and are
given in marriage, and raise and train children precisely as do their
neighbors the Pike farmers. They reject absolutely all sexual
irregularities, and inculcate marriage and support the family relation
as religious duties, as the outside world does. Each family has its own
house, or separate apartments in one of the large buildings.
4th. Dr. Keil, who is not only their president, but also their preacher,
holds the fundamental truth of Christianity to be, "Love one another,"
and interprets this in so broad and literal a sense as requires a
community of goods and effects. His sermons are exhortations and
illustrations of this principle, and warnings against "selfishness" and
praise of self-sacrifice. Service is held in a very commodious and
well-built church twice a month, and after the Lutheran style: opening
with singing, prayer, and reading of the Scriptures; after which the
president preaches from a chosen text.
To me he spoke with some vehemence against sects and creeds as
anti-Christian. Sunday is usually a day of recreation and quiet
amusement, with music and visiting among the people.
5th. The children of the community are sent to school, there being at
Aurora a common or free school, in which an old man, a member of the
society, who bears a remarkable resemblance to the late Horace Greeley,
is teacher. The school is supported as other free schools of the state
are; but it is open all the year round, which is not the case generally
with country schools. They aim to teach only the rudimentary studies--
reading, writing, and arithmetic.
6th. The system of government is as simple as possible. Dr. Keil, the
founder, is president of the community, and autocrat. He has for his
advisers four of the older members, who are selected by himself. In the
management of affairs he consults these, whose opinions, I imagine,
usually agree with his. When any vitally important change or experiment
is contemplated, the matter is discussed by the whole community, and
nothing is done then without a general assent.
7th. Every man is expected to labor for the general good, but there are
no established hours of work, nor is any one compelled to labor at any
special pursuit.
8th. Plain living and rigid economy are inculcated as duties from each
to the whole; and to labor regularly, and to waste nothing, are
important parts of the "whole duty of man."
9th. Each workshop has its foreman, who comes, it would seem, by natural
selection. That is to say, here, as elsewhere, the fittest man comes to
the front. But it is a principle of their polity that men shall not be
confined to one kind of labor. If brickmakers are needed, and shoemakers
are not busy, the shoe shop is closed, and the shoemakers go out and
make brick. During the spring and summer months a large proportion of
the people are engaged in the cultivation of crops. After harvest these
are drawn into the town, and find winter employment in the saw-mill and
the different shops. It is to accommodate these temporary sojourners
that the large houses are built. Here they have apartments allotted to
them, and the young people board with the different families, the young
girls being employed chiefly in household duties.
These are the extremely simple principles and practical rules which
guide the Aurora Community. Their further application I will show in
detail hereafter. I wish first to show the dollar-and-cent results.
Coming to Aurora in 1856, they have held together, with some outside
gains, and some additions from the Bethel Society, until there are now
nearly four hundred people in the settlement, who own about eighteen
thousand acres of land, scattered over several counties. They have
established a sawmill, a tan-yard, and cabinet-maker's, blacksmith's,
wagon-maker's, tailor's, shoemaker's, carpenter's, and tin shops. Also a
grist-mill, carding machinery, some looms for weaving wool; drying
houses for fruit; and there is a supply store for the community, a drug
store kept by the doctor of the society, and a general country store, at
which the neighboring farmers, not Communists, deal for cash.
They have besides the most extensive orchards in the state, in which are
apples, pears of all kinds, plums, prunes, which do admirably here, and
all the commoner large and small fruits. There is also a large vegetable
garden, for the use of those who have none at their houses. The orchards
are in fine order, and were laden with fruit when I saw them in June,
1873. Near the orchard is a large, neatly kept house, in which the
people gather during the fruit-harvest to prepare it for market, and to
pare that which is to be dried. Beyond the orchard is a public ground of
a dozen acres, for Sunday assemblies; and here, too, are houses for
eating and dancing, with a kitchen and bake-ovens commodious enough to
cook a meal for the whole settlement, or for a large picnic party.
Thus far they have brought their affairs in seventeen years, without any
peculiar religious belief, any interference with the marriage or family
relation, without a peculiar dress, or any other habit to mark them as
Separatists, or "Come-outers," to use a New England phrase. It must be
admitted also that they have achieved thus much without long or
exhausting or enforced labor.
Their living is extremely plain. The houses and apartments are without
carpets; the women wear calico on Sunday as well as during the week, and
the sun-bonnet is their head-covering. The men wear ready-made clothing
of no particular style. Cleanliness is, so far as I saw, a conspicuous
virtue of the society. Dr. Keil, the president, was the only person with
whom I came in contact who was not very neat. He is a snuff-taker; and
he walked over the orchard with me in an untidy pair of carpet slippers.
They appear to be people of few ceremonies. On a Sunday I attended a
wedding; the marriage took place in the school-house, and was witnessed
by a small congregation of young people, friends of the bride and groom.
The young girls came to the wedding in clean calico dresses and
sun-bonnets; and I noticed that even the bride wore only a very plain
woolen dress, with a bit of bright ribbon around her neck. The ceremony
was performed by the schoolmaster, who is also a justice of the peace;
when it was over, the company quietly and somewhat shyly walked up to
congratulate the newly married, some of the young women kissing the
bride. Then there was an immediate adjournment to the house of the
bride's father, a mile off in the country. I was hospitably invited to
go to the feast; and found a small log cabin, with kitchen and bedroom
below, and a loft above, standing near a deep ravine, and with a neat
garden and small orchard back of it.
In front a bower had been formed of the boughs of evergreens, beneath
which were two or three tables, which were presently spread with a plain
but wholesome and bountiful feast, to which the strangers present and
the older people were first invited to sit down, the younger ones
waiting on the table, and with laughter and joking taking their places
afterward. Meantime the village band played; after dinner we all walked
into the garden, and in a pretty little summer-house discussed orchards,
bees, and other country living, and by and by returned to the village.
The young people were to have some dancing, and altogether it was a very
pretty, rather quiet country wedding. It struck me that the young women
were undersized, and did not look robust or strong; there were no rosy
cheeks, and there was a very subdued air upon all the congregation. The
poor little bride looked pale and scared; but the bridegroom, a stout
young fellow, looked proud and happy, as was proper. Dr. Keil was not
present, but drove out in a very plain country wagon as the weddingers
entered the schoolroom.
The community occasionally employs outside laborers; and when a man or
woman applies to join the society, he or she is at first employed at
wages, and at some trade. "We will employ and pay you as long as we need
your labor," the council says in such a case; "if after a while you are
thoroughly satisfied that this is the best life, and if we approve of
you, we will take you in." It is not necessary that the new-comer should
bring money with him; but if he has means, he is required to put them
into the common treasury, for he _must_ believe that "all selfish
accumulation is wrong, contrary to God's law and to natural laws."
Occasionally, I was told, they have had as members idle or drunken men.
Such are admonished of their wrong courses; and if they are
incorrigible, they always, I was assured, leave the place. "An idler or
dissolute person has not the sympathies of our people; he has no
connection with the industries of the society; as he does not work, he
can hardly be so brazen as to ask for supplies. The practical result is
that presently he disappears from among us."
"Do you have no disagreements from envy or jealousy among you," I asked
Dr. Keil; who replied, "Very seldom now; the people have been too long
and too thoroughly trained; they are too well satisfied of the wisdom of
our plan of life; they are practiced in self-sacrifice, and know that
selfishness is evil and the source of unhappiness. In the early days we
used sometimes to have trouble. Thus a man would say, 'I brought money
into the society, and this other man brought none; why should he have as
much as I;' but my reply was, 'Here is your money--take it; it is not
necessary; but while you remain, remember that you are no better than
he.' Again, another might say, 'My labor brings one thousand dollars a
year to the society, _his_ only two hundred and fifty;' but my
answer was, 'Thank God that he made you so much abler, stronger, to help
your brother; but take care lest your poorer brother do not some day have
to help you, when you are crippled, or ill, or disabled.'"
The children who have in these years, since 1844, grown up in the
community generally remain. I spoke with a number of men who had thus
passed all but their earliest years in the society, and who were
content. Men sometimes return, repentant, after leaving the society.
"The boys and girls know that they can leave at any time; there is no
compulsion upon any one; hence no one cares to go. But they generally
see that this is the best place. We are as prosperous and as happy as
any one; we have here all we need."
As all work for the common good, so all are supplied from the common
stores. I asked the purchasing agent about the book-keeping of the
place; he replied, "As there is no trading, few accounts are needed.
Much of what we raise is consumed on the place, and of what the people
use no account is kept. Thus, if a family needs flour, it goes freely to
the mill and gets what it requires. If butter, it goes to the store in
the same way. We need only to keep account of what we sell of our own
products, and of what we buy from abroad, and these accounts check each
other. When we make money, we invest it in land." Further, I was told
that tea, coffee, and sugar are roughly allowanced to each family.
Each family has either a house, or apartments in one of the large
houses. Each has a garden patch, and keeps chickens; and every year a
number of pigs are set apart for each household, according to its
number. These are fed with the leavings of the table, and are fattened
and killed in the winter, and salted down. Fresh beef is not commonly
used. If any one needs vegetables, he can get them in the large garden.
There seemed to be an abundance of good plain food every where.
Originally, and until 1872, all the property stood in Dr. Keil's name;
but in that year he, finding himself growing old, and urged too, I
imagine, by some of the leading men, made a division of the whole
estate, and gave a title-deed to each head of a family of a suitable
piece of property--to a farmer a farm, to a carpenter a house and shop,
and so on. If there was any heart-burning over this division, I could
not hear of it; and it appears to have made no difference in the conduct
of the society, which labors on as before for the common welfare.
I asked, "What, then, if you have divided all the property, will you do
for the young people as they grow up?"
Dr. Keil replied, "Dear me!--in the beginning we had nothing, now we
have a good deal: where did it all come from? We earned and saved it.
Very well; we are working just the same--we shall go on earning money
and laying it by for those who are growing up; we shall have enough for
all." I give below some further details, which I elicited from Dr. Keil,
preferring to give them in the form of questions and answers:
_Question_. I have noticed that when young girls grow up they
usually manifest a taste for ribbons and finery. How do you manage with
such cases?
_Answer_. Well, they get what they want. They have only to ask at
the supply store; only if they go too far--if it amounts to vanity--they
are admonished that they are not acting according to the principles of
love and temperance; they are putting undue expense on the society; they
are making themselves different from their neighbors. It is not necessary
to say this, however, for our people are now all trained in sound
principles, and there is but little need for admonition.
_Q_. But suppose such a warning as you speak of were not taken?
_A_. Well, then they have leave to go into the world. If they want
to be like the world, that is the place for them. And don't you see that
if they are so headstrong and full of vanity they would not stay with us
anyhow? They would not feel at home with us.
_Q_. Suppose one of your young men has the curiosity to see the
world, as young men often have?
_A_. We give him money; he has only to ask the council. We say to
him: