Johann Georg Rapp – anglicized to George Rapp – led those who would follow from southwestern Germany to found the first of three communal villages – Harmony – in the New World in 1805. Five other villages would spin off from these in the course of time. Who was George Rapp and who were his followers?
NOTE: This is the third post of four moving backwards in time from the German-American communal town in Oregon of Aurora to Bethel, Economy and New Harmony, other like settlements from which the Aurorans sprung out from.
Harmony became the first of the villages developed by the group, growing and thriving along or near the banks of the Ohio River for a century. during one of the most successful communal living ventures seen in America. The Harmonist Society survived the death of their founder, George Rapp – Father Rapp, in 1847. Not only surviving but thriving until celibacy and the no-show of the second coming of Jesus Christ brought about its eventual end in 1905.
RURAL BEGINNGINGS
Born 1 November 1757 in the rural village of Iptingen, Württemberg – halfway between Karlsruhe and Stuttgart – Rapp was one of five children of Hans Adam Rapp, a farmer and weaver living in an area ravaged by the Thirty Years War a century before. From 1757 until the time Rapp emigrated to America in 1803, the dukes had attempted to introduce a government similar to the French absolutist state of Louis XIV. More than one French army rolled through the Duchy in the years before Napoleon.
PIETISM
Pietism spread through the Duchy at the end of 17th century in response to perceived immorality of the Ducal court. The Pietists believed in private Bible study, a shared government of the church between priesthood and laity, and a reorganization of theological training. They thought of themselves as picking up where Luther left off, a Second Reformation, especially bringing about living a life more immersed in scripture and personal spirituality.
Pietism was also more about personal relationships with God brought about by changing into people into living examples of Christ. Personal, emotional – critics claimed mystical and schismatic – experiences combined with “works” as needed before true sanctification could take place. These claims ran counter to the orthodox Lutheran priesthood in Germany – and other European countries – causing problems eventually with state governments with whom the official church was closely tied to.
THE PLOT THICKENS
Rapp learned how to both make wine and cultivate vineyards from his father. Following his father’s death, he also learned weaving. Apprentices learned from master weavers from within the guild, traveling from on master weaver to the next. While on his study of his new occupation, Rapp became aware of pietism and his own possibilities. He studied the Bible intensely, putting his own personal spin. During the mid-1780’s, he began preaching on a local, private level in Iptigen. The group around him grew, splitting from the official Lutheran church in 1785. In 1791, Rapp declared in front of one court, “I am a prophet, and I am called to be one.”
Estimates of 10,000 to 12,000 followers in Württemberg began concerning the government, linked as it was to the official Lutheran church. Rapp wanted to a separate church free from official doctrines: baptism, confirmation not necessary; communion and confession only a couple times a year; support continued for civil government but refusal to serve in the military, attend Lutheran schools and refusal to take a physical oath in support of the government. All these beliefs increased the uneasiness with the political powers in Württemberg.
CONSEQUENCES
Banned from meeting by local authorities with fines and jailing of some of the members “proved to be, as usual, the best way to increase their numbers and to confirm their dislike of the prevailing order of things”, in the words of Charles Nordhoff. Personally, Rapp received eight court sentences. Seven of were monetary fines, not too much trouble for Rapp since he had married well with his wife bringing in plenty of capital. But one was a short prison term. This last caused a bit of excitement when his followers called to join with their charismatic leader in jail. Rapp decided it was time to get out of Germany and move to America.
A NEW WORLD
In 1803, Rapp with his son Johannes and two others, sailed to Baltimore. After travelling about through Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, to find a site for he and his followers to re-establish themselves. Rapp hoped to for free government land further west in Ohio petitioning President Thomas Jefferson.
Back in Württemberg, Frederick Richert – in 1805 he became the adopted son of Rapp – arranged for the emigration of families from Germany to America with the first three hundred people sailing on the Aurora from Amsterdam arriving in Baltimore on 4 July 1804. Six weeks later, another three hundred sailed to Philadelphia. The emigrant families pooled their assets into a common treasury. Eventually, four and a half thousand acres were purchased – $10,217.74 – in western Pennsylvania on the Connoquenessing Creek. The winter of 1805 saw Rapp and 31 families congregating at the new purchase and began the process of clearing the land for Harmony.
HARMONY SOCIETY
On 15 February 1805, Rapp had members of his Harmony Society officialy organized with nearly 500 members signing Articles of Association laying out the basic rules for the new community. Members contributed all assets into a common pool and submitted to spiritual and material leadership of Rapp. Some question exists about the actual date of the signing of the Articles. Some members living in Ohio eventually sued the Society to regain funds already in the common treasury. One author writes the Articles came after the Society formed and then backdated in response to the lawsuit brought forward in the 1820’s.
In 1806, the House of Representatives turned down the request for a land grant in Ohio where the Harmonists hoped to establish. Development, somewhat slow to this point, gained speed and soon there were over 800 people living in and around Harmony.
COMMERCIAL SUCCESS
George Rapp was spiritual and organizational leader with Frederick Reichert Rapp becoming the business manager for Harmony. Self-sufficiency was quick in coming, the members proving to be good workers with their agricultural backgrounds. By 1806, 150 acres had been cleared with 46 log homes, a grist mill, barn, machine shop and church erected. By the next year, there were 600 acres cleared with a four-acre vineyard established, a distillery, tannery, brick yard, sawmill, and a large brick granary all added. Surpluses of grain increased each year along with beef, pork and mutton. Thousands of gallons of whiskey produced added cash to the colony’s treasury as did the sale of beer from their brewery.
NEW INDUSTRIES
In 1809, Merino sheep were imported from Spain with a woolen mill added a year later. Eventually, the Harmonists had over a thousand of the sheep providing plenty of raw material for the mill. The woolen cloth was originally intended for the local colonists but with the Embargo Act of 1807 and the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, they were marketing their wares to an outside domestic demand further increasing the bottom line of the colony.
By 1810, 2,000 acres were under cultivation and by 1814, 130 buildings were erected with 3,000 acres fenced and cleared. In addition, two apple orchards contained 2,000 trees and there were 15 acres of grapes planted on Vineyard Hill across the creek on the north side of the creek. This is where “Rapp’s Seat” is found.
COLONIAL BELIEFS
The invention of the printing press made the Bible accessible to all. The result was the Reformation, Counter-Reformation and, in Germany, the Thirty Years War. Still, after all of that, the Bible was open to all to study and interpret. Johann Georg Rapp was one such fellow to study and give his take.
End of Times – the Sun Woman
A favorite book of the Bible was the Book of Revelations. It was the favorite of all who would become enamored with the idea of the end of the world, Judgement Day, and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Sun Woman – Revelations 12:1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head – was a key figure in German Pietistic theology and with Rapp. He saw Revelations 12:6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God meaning the millennial kingdom of God was to be established in the United States while Europe would destroy itself, a belief shared by other would-be prophets.
Revelations goes on to describe the Sun Woman’s flight from a pursuing seven-headed dragon – Satan – until Revelations:13-14 give us – And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. Rapp – and many others of his time – and his followers expected the Millennium, the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the World, to occur during their lifetimes. The time and time and half a time, interpreted eventually as meaning twenty-five years from the Rappites venture to America.
END OF TIMES SIGNS REVEALED
Rapp was always on the watch through current events for clues to the impending end. He saw Napoleon Bonaparte as a signal of the end of days at hand. Napoleon’s adventures seen a re-enactment of the war between Gog and Magog resulting in the Second Coming. The Louisiana Purchase in late 1803, Rapp believed an additional sign from God of the United States being the chosen land for the millennium, ridding the continent of the presence of New France and the Anti-Christ Napoleon.
Celibacy – Father Rapp AND REBIRTH
In March 1807, Rapp wrote, “The seventh angel has blown his trumpet, no time remains. We must go forth to meet the bridegroom.” Amidst renewed religious fervor, the Harmonists confessed sins, engaged in penance, and followed stricter self-disciplined lives. Rapp insisted all of Harmony needed to experience a rebirth to be “a true follower of Christ.” One major component of Rapp’s version of religious rebirth was celibacy.
CELIBACY – THE THEORY
Rapp’s theory of celibacy was based on writings by Jacob Böhme and St. Paul. Böhme stated “in the Kingdom of God there will be only a man-virgin, as Adam was not a woman.” Rapp taught his followers; Jesus was a dual being and believing in a “community of goods”. He quoted Acts 4:32: “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common.”
God was perfect, meaning he was both male and female able to create life out of himself. Because God created man in his image, man also was male and female and could create life out of himself without the assistance of a mate. Animals belonging to lower orders of creation gained life as male and female separates. Adam committed the sin of wishing his female element to be separate from the male, like the animals. Granted his wish, harmony became destroyed and disharmony introduced into the world. With the Second Coming of Christ, a great restoration would occur. Man would reabsorb his rib. Until the time of change back to the original status ‘Thy kingdom come,’ the Harmonists would cease propagating man in his fallen state.
CELIBACY – PRACTICE
Younger members of the Harmony Society were to refrain from marriage. Those married were to refrain from sexual intercourse. Married couples could still live together but chastely “treating each other as brother and sister in Christ.” Members redesigned their homes by creating separate sleeping quarters – husbands slept upstairs and wives down.
At the same time of the announcement of celibacy, a ban on tobacco proclaimed – a deprivation some members believed worse than celibacy.
While Rapp thought celibacy a precursor for resurrection and for a “community of equality” to survive, giving human beings the opportunity to sacrifice so by preparing themselves for heaven. Rapp also used celibacy as another method of control over Harmony Society members.
Control and celibacy would eventually lead to the end of the Society. That said, marriage did go on for years on a much smaller scale. Children were created within the Society, but again, not as before.
COMMUNAL LIFE
THE IDEA
Rapp and his followers lived as individuals in Württemberg. His idea for a communal society came from Johann Andreae’s seventeenth century book Christianopolis, a book describing a Christian communal setting. Rapp interpreted Andreae’s ideas to show God’s intention for man to live communally with common ownership of goods. Selfish individual property symbolized as Adam’s sin.
REALITY
Rapp’s three communal efforts, inspired by Andreae, were not the free republic described in the novel, but a theocratic-based commune run by Rapp and his advisers – Harmony the first case.
His word was final in all things. He alone approved the locations for the three sites where the Harmonists built towns during the life of the Society. Members, even though American citizens, originally could not vote and later, told how to vote.
All finances controlled by Rapp. Members signed over all their property to the Harmony Society pledging to obey laws imposed by Rapp. If they ever left the Society, they received only to what they originally brought in without interest. In return, members could attend all religious meetings and all necessities of life would be provided for. They did gain cradle to grave security regardless of illness, injury or age.
CONTROL
The Society was a closed community open only to people who emigrated directly from Württemberg. For a while, emigrants continued to arrive. Rapp exhorted those followers not initially following him to get over while they still could. German Americans living in Pennsylvania could live around Harmonie but not join.
Members could not venture away from the community unless he gave consent. Clothing was uniform, similar to that worn in Württemberg at the time of emigration.
There were three Church services during the week, two on Sunday and one on Wednesday evening. The services conducted by Father Rapp whose eloquence continued to captivate his followers. Another feature of control for Rapp was the requirement of confession of sin to him personally.
As pacificists – one of the main reasons for fleeing Europe meant escape impressment into the armies of the Napoleonic wars – the Society refused service during the War of 1812. The US government did not agree. The young men of Harmonie drafted and ordered to report to Eire to guard from potential British attacks from Canada. The men did not report and were fined.
DROPOUTS
Articles signed by Harmony Society members were legal protection for Rapp in case of financial loss or dissolution. With the Second Coming on the horizon, few dared to speak against Rapp. But a few families did leave over time.
The first to leave was the third group of immigrants who sailed in 1804. They did not follow the other two groups to Harmonie but went to Blooming Grove in central Pennsylvania settling there. Their leader was Dr. Conrad Haller who had come over with Rapp the year before. He had a falling out with Rapp – some think over the oncoming celibacy issue.
Several original families could no longer put up with the “strenuous religious life”. They left “with the greatest bitterness and with a determination for revenge.” Rapp allowed these departures – about 100 people. As Frederick Rapp wrote in 1808: And so Harmonie will quickly cast out all filth in order that the body may be cleansed and purified of all foreign substance, and this is a good sign, although it gives offense to many. Whoever has been in the Harmonie and has left it again, be it for whatever cause it may, is not worthy of the Kingdom of God, and is a despiser of the suffering of Jesus.
Rapp’s son Johannes had married in 1805 with his father presiding. Johannes was one of those leaving in 1808 after a falling out with his father. Those leaving, including Johannes, sued Rapp seeking repayment of funds held in the Harmony Society’s common trust. The group leaving ending up in eastern Ohio. Johannes eventually returned dying in an accident in 1812. Outsiders charged the event the work of his father, though no proof ever given.
MOVING ON
Pennsylvania had not been the original goal of Rapp, however. The area was not as isolated as he wanted as more settlers came west. Land prices went up making it harder to add to the colonial acreage. Wine grapes were difficult to grow because of the climate. The creek was not navigable making transport of goods to the outside more expensive. Local outsiders did not like the bulk nature of colonial voters – a problem shared by many other religious communities. Nor was the pacificism of the colony appreciated during the War of 1812.
Rapp believed in signs as divine indicators of change. The defeat of Napoleon in 1813, the death of Rapp’s son John, and the encroachment of the World were additional flags. In response, Rapp decided the Harmony Society needed to move to a more remote western location, as he originally intended.
The entire colony went up for sale in 1814 with a Mennonite founder purchasing everything a year later for $100,000. New lands purchased along the lower reaches of the Wabash River in southern Indiana. With the sale, the entire colony decamped on flatboats down the Ohio River to start again with New Harmony. They would eventually be back ten years later settling one last time in Economy – Ambridge, today – on the Ohio River just downriver from Pittsburgh. A lot would happen in the decade in Indiana.
HARMONIST HARMONY TODAY
Frederick Rapp laid out Harmony based on the Philadelphia street plan, houses bordering on wide streets with a garden between buildings. The same plan repeated in the next two Harmonist settlements of New Harmony and Economy. Houses reflected the homes of their Swabian roots in Germany. The homes in Harmony were initially log cabins. Brick work began late in the Harmony period of the Society, becoming the construction of choice later. There was central heating, and the homes were resistant to weather, fire and insects. From the Harmonist period, only a handful of structures remain in the town today.
MAIN SQUARE
A visit to Harmony should start with a visit to the Harmony Museum located in the former Großhaus or Society warehouse. From here goods sold to outsiders were kept along with a granary and one of the colony’s two wine cellars. Visits possible Tuesday through Sunday from 1-4 pm with a $7 entrance fee.
Across the main square from the museum is the large Grace Reformed Church. The northwest part of the church served as the original Harmonist church. The church has undergone other congregations since then and several remodels and expansions.
Continuing around the square, across Main Street from the church is the former Harmonist Stohr or Store. Here was the other wine cellar of the colony and another granary in the attic. The store held goods needed by colonists for everyday life. A bakery currently sits in the Stohr.
On the last corner of the Main Square is the former Beahm Hotel. This building built in the 1850’s sits on the site of the former Harmony Inn. The Harmonists built an inn for guests in each of their towns.
HOUSES
Two Harmony Society homes are located just beyond the Stohr sitting across from each other on Main Street are the houses of George Rapp and his adopted son Frederick. Frederick’s is two and a half stories high laid out in Flemish bond brick, occupied today.
Across the street was Father Rapp’s home, The Little Green Bookstore today. Like most of the surviving Harmonist homes, it has undergone multiple renovations with time.
To the north of the Harmony Museum along Mercer Street, the former duplex built for two Harmonist sisters and their families – the Wagner-Bentel Haus. The home today serves as the museum gift shop. There is a beehive bake oven in the garden – moved in from a nearby farm – and mill stone from the Harmonist oil mill along the Little Connoquenessing Creek.
On the opposite side of the street down another block is the former 1807 Rope Shop which served to make rope for the colony close at hand to the former Harmony Bank dating to 1868.
Rapp’s Seat
Continue down Mercer Street and cross the Connoquenessing Creek, turning right along the first street – Evergreen Mill Road. A couple hundred feet brings you to the 137 steps leading up to Rapp’s Seat. Father Rapp used to sit and meditate on all his Harmony Society created from up here in the colony’s sandstone quarry. The Society vineyards were located along the hill as was a music pavilion. A labyrinth was set up on the hillside, as well, here and in the succeeding two Harmonist villages. The maze was a physical representation of the journey one must take to reach Paradise and God.
Harmonist Cemetery
Located just to the east of Route 68 sits the burial ground used by the Society from 1805 until they left for Indiana in 1815. A hundred colonists lie buried in unmarked graves. The graves not marked because with the Millenium on hand, there was no need for grave markings. Rapp and chosen elders attended funerals, no family or friends.
Before leaving for Indiana, Harmonists set several feet of rock atop the graves so the dead would lie undisturbed. In 1869, a revolving stone gate and stone wall went up around the cemetery and the rock removed from atop the graves by representatives of the former community. The gate is symbolic of leaving one world for the next with death.
One headstone stands in the cemetery. The headstone was for Rapp’s son Johann. Non-colonists donated the stone reluctantly accepted by the Society. Johann’s grave is, like the others, unmarked.
