In Genesis, Bethel is the place where Abram stayed building an altar on his way to Egypt and on his return. Later, in the same record, fleeing from the wrath of his brother Esau, Jacob falls asleep on a stone dreaming of a ladder filled with angels stretching between Heaven and Earth. At the top of the ladder, God, who promises Jacob the land of Canaan. When Jacob wakes, he anoints the stone (baetylus) with oil and names the place where he his dream occurred, Bethel. So, as with Abram and Jacob, Wilhelm Keil led his communal German-American followers to a new Bethel. This one in the middle of Missouri.

NOTE: This is the second post of four moving backwards in time from the German-American communal town in Oregon of Aurora to other like settlements from which the Aurorans sprung out from.

WILHELM KEIL – A PROPHET FOR A NEW AGE

Visiting Aurora. its history and museum led me to visit the past in reverse.  Stepping one step back from Aurora – known to contemporary locals as “Dutchtown” – takes you to the far northeastern region of Missouri about 20-30 miles west of the city of Quincy, Illinois.  Here, in 1844, Wilhelm Keil brought his German American followers out from Pennsylvania to form their first communal colony – Bethel.

Five miles north of the Shelby County seat of Shelbyville in the North River valley, scouts – “spies” he called them – sent out by Wilhelm Keil obtained land for a new colony – Bethel – to be established.  The land good for agriculture and far enough out of the way for civilization to intrude much upon the daily activities of the commune.

german roots

Wilhelm Keil was born in the Prussian town of Bleicherode in the province of Saxony.  Raised in a Lutheran family, he trained early on as a tailor.  A strain of wanderlust featured prominently in the psyche of Keil for much of his life.  As a young man, he emigrated to the United States in 1835 or 1836, living in New York for a short while before moving further west to Pittsburgh.

Keil was a devotee of Jacob Böhme’s mysticism. Böhme believed in a more personal version of Christianity not so dependent upon organized clergy, a unique version allowing for private visions to bring individualistic awareness to questions, heretofore were only within the bailiwick of the clergy to illuminate,

Keil gained a smattering of knowledge in botany and medicine leading him to search for a “universalmedizin” which could cure all human ailments.  He is known to show a flask received from an old woman capable of many cures.  According to Keil, the woman only gave him the flask because she knew he was leaving Germany.  After theatrically curing a few people in Pittsburgh, he was given the nickname “Der Hexendokter” – the Witchdoctor.  Adopting the latter part of the nickname, he would be known for most of his life as “Dr. Keil”, though he certainly did not go through any medical school along the way.

american interpretor

In Pittsburgh, Keil attended revival meeting led by Dr. Wilhelm Nast, founder of the German Methodist Episcopal Church.  Converting, he next met Reverend J. Martin Hartmann whose ideas of communism went a long way to pushing Keil in that direction.

On 12 October 1839, Keil was licensed as a local preacher within the church.  But he was never one for supervision.  Soon, Keil began preaching against some of the tenets of the church quoting the Bible, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” A quote he took to mean that men who served God should not receive pay but only what members saw to voluntarily give.

The Methodist Episcopal Church separated him and he in turn took his entire congregation of Deer Creek with him.  Joining next with the Protestant Methodist Church – along with those from Deer Creek – it was not long before he was bounced from those doors for refusing to obey superiors, as well.  Keil denounced sectarianism and church regulation as unessential to Christianity.  He said his sole aim was to serve Christ, not man.  The Golden Rule and living a pure moral life became the spirit of Keil’s teachings.

magnetic persona

Keil was a forceful speaker and attracted a following amongst the German settlers in the western Pennsylvania region.  Several young men went out to other German settlements in the west as missionaries – Keil sometimes following in their footsteps.  His missionaries taught to preach in the manner of Jacob Böhme, bringing in mysticism and personal visions. 

Like many preachers, Keil chose his Bible passages, not always using them in the manner they were written.  The book of Daniel and Revelations gave him a lot of grist for his sermons.  His magnetism carried his listeners away with many thinking Keil being worshipped as much as Christ.  As his influence grew, Keil gave himself the title of “Centralsonne” – central sun – and his leading supporters were “Lichtfürsten” and “Lichtfürstinne” – princes and princess of light.

celibacy and harmony

Keil and his followers came to concentrate in the town of Phillipsburg – today, Monaca, Pennsylvania.  A bit further upstream was one of the more successful communal towns of Economy, Pennsylvania of the Harmony Society and George Rapp.

The Harmony Society already enjoyed a colorful history by the time Keil came into the scene.  The Society admitted one Bernhard Müller into its midst, Müller using the title of Count Maximilian de Leon.  Müller also proclaimed himself the “Lion of Judah” who would unite all true Christians.  While millennial ideas were shared between Müller and Rapp, the idea of celibacy was not.  Müller managed to attract a third of the Harmonist colony away from Rapp establishing a new community in Phillipsburg – today’s Monaca, Pennsylvania, the site from which the Harmonists had taken boats downriver to form New Harmony in Indiana and then, later, returned to Pennsylvania to create Economy.

The New Philadelphia Society formed in 1832 by Müller and his followers renaming the town Löwenburg – Lion Castle.  Several brick homes like those in Harmony and Economy – and later in Bethel and Aurora – still survive.  Müller won a court award of $105,000 against the Harmony Society.  Threats of lawsuits from the Harmonists led Müller to lead his faithful downriver to form a new colony in Louisiana.  Most stayed behind, however, in Phillipsburg.  Enter Wilhelm Keil.

a new audience

Of those who stayed behind, many still convinced a communal lifestyle more fulfilling than one of independence. The group needed only a strong personality as a guide.  Keil definitely fit the bill.  The former Harmonists were able to give Rapp many ideas of how a commune worked.  They also passed along Rapp’s idea of a universal confessional which Keil reportedly used effectively to control the group.

Confessional meant people had to come to him, married couples came together, and he would ask questions often relating to sex and sexual relations.  He would then use these confessions in his sermons to intimidate his flock into line.

The idea of a commune under his leadership grew to the point where he sent out his missionaries again to attract artisans and mechanics to his new idea.  He offered only participants plenty of work and bread and water.

The ex-Harmonists wanted a written constitution drawn up before committing themselves.  They could not agree on all of the provisions with Keil asked for his opinion.  He declared he would not submit to any written agreement.  A man’s word was as good as any written law and the Bible and Golden Rule should be the foundation of any society. 

So, the society which became Bethel and Aurora formed and lived without any written agreements.  Land obtained in Bethel and later Oregon was held in the name of Wilhelm Keil, but with acknowledgment of other’s monetary input into the community.

HEAVEN ON EARTH

With land in Missouri purchased, Keil and a few others went west in autumn of 1844 to begin their venture.  The first winter was harsh living in old log houses on or near the purchase.  In the spring of 1845, many other colonists arrived taking a contracted steamship down the Ohio and up the Mississippi.  Then, they followed a wagon route of 48 miles from Hannibal.  The commune began to take shape. 

Two thousand five hundred acres had been purchased before the arrival of the colonists, to which would be added another four thousand acres.  One large field of a thousand one hundred acres became a common field, cultivated by persons appointed by Keil.

LEBE NICHT FÜR DICH ALLEIN

A brick kiln began and many brick buildings erected which still stand.  Most stood two stories high right on the street.  Like German-style, little ornamentation decorated the homes.  Stone for the houses came from quarries along the North River.  Timber cut down in neighboring forests.

Agriculture and small-scale manufacturing were the focus of the commune.  Cloth from the colony sheep.  Buckskin gloves from deep in the area.  Harnesses, shoes, men’s hats all came out of the leatherworks.  There were plows made in a foundry; a wagon factory and grist mill for grinding flour.  Income from outside sales from distilleries set up to make Golden Rule whiskey provided the Colony with much of its ready cash – the colonists were not big alcohol drinkers except for beer, being good Germans.

Several colonists came to Bethel with the understanding with Wilhelm Keil that they would work with the society for a certain time, after which they would gain a portion of the property.  A few did leave the society and with remittances given for their efforts.  Some stayed in Bethel – one family ran a general store, open to colonists and anyone else.

CHURCH FOR THE NON-AFFLIATED

One of the first communal efforts was to build a church.  Brick, stone, and black walnut with a door for each sex – men and women sat on opposite sides – and a gallery extending around three sides of the main hall – a portion reserved for the communal band.  In the tower, three bells tolled.

Now, no creed nor affiliation meant they could make it up as they went.  Services took place every two weeks when Keil held forth on the doctrine of moral living.  He used his confessional to keen advantage with just the threat of naming names conducive enough to get the guilty to stand and confess in assembly their wrongs.  Afterwards, only the emotional scars remained, as the guilty repented, but were not forced to leave the community.

There was no baptism nor confirmation.  The eucharist took place only on occasion as a general meal at the house of a member.

diversions

Several festivals marked the year – Keil’s birthday, Easter, Pentecost, and the Harvest Feast.  The feasts held at the church or Elim – Keil’s home – located about a mile east of Bethel.  Led by the band, the whole Colony would march out to Elim.  The band would play throughout the meal and there would be dancing in the evening.  Outsiders were welcome to join in.

Music was a major diversion from the mundane.  The communal band was locally well-known.  They played a major role here in Bethel and again in the Aurora colony to come.

eLIM

Elim was a large dwelling built of brick and stone for Keil and his family by the colonists.  He protested the expense and effort involved in building the house which still stands today.  Wilhelm Keil only lived here for a short time, preferring a simple brick home in Bethel or a wooden shack for a time in the satellite communal colony of Nineveh. The second floor was a large meeting-dance hall.

“Das große Haus” – the big house – stood in the middle of Bethel.  It served as the colonial store, hotel, and a dwelling place for those without family to live.  From the store, families could draw their share of provisions each week – everyone got the same lot.

SATELLITE COMMUNES

Satellite communities were established over time.  Hebron is a mile to the northwest.  Here, in addition to the communal cemetery, there was a common barn for cattle and a common pig sty.  Mamri was simply a collection of houses on the south side of the North River opposite Bethel.  Nineveh was the most ambitious satellite. 

Nineveh

In 1849, Keil directed the purchase of 120 acres – eventually the colony would own 2,100 acres – in Adair County along the Chariton River.  The land purchased had a mill run by waterpower from a small dam in the river.  Coal thought to be present, as well, and these two factors were of most interest for the development of a satellite. 

The first year, 1850, around twenty-five people came from Bethel to begin the work.  The earlier mill transformed into a steam mill.  There was a sawmill, tannery, shoe shop, blacksmith, and carpentry shop, though most of the focus here, as at Bethel, was agriculture.  Only a little coal mined during the colonial times. Coal exploitation would have to wait until the end of the 19^th century, long after the colony had ceased.

There were never more than 150 colonists at Nineveh.  A big house served as home for the head elder, his family and unmarried male colonists.  The home took the place of a church building too.  School took place over four months a year – Keil never one for higher education.  Enough teaching to allow reading, writing and basic arithmetic. 

OREGON FEVER

Wanderlust again struck Dr. Keil in 1853.  He directed a party of eight men and one woman to seek out a site on the west coast for a new colony, further afield from the onrush of the World even impinging on Missouri.  They took up claims along the Willapa River just east of today’s town of Raymond.  Keil then led a party of thirty-four wagons westward – 75 men, women and children – on a 2,000 journey.

Wilhelm Keil never returned to Bethel.  He continued to rule through the elders he appointed and by letters.  Two more wagon trains went forth in time.  In 1863, one train came west with another two hundred people including many young men whom Keil sought to avoid being drafted.  A third small group of eight came in 1865.  A last wagon group of sixty came in 1868, while another hundred or more took the water route west. Others took the water passage down the Mississippi and across to the Isthmus of Panama. By rail to the other side and steamer to San Francisco and on to Oregon.

BACK IN MISSOURI

Over time, Wilhelm Keil sent letters asking the Bethel Missouri colonists to join their brothers in Oregon, but dissatisfactions slowly arose with time.  The elders left in charge did not have the magnetism of Keil.  The youth of the Bethel community had migrated west and only 200-250 people remained behind. Some said they would like to move, but the colony could not sell at an appropriate price.

More problems arose when Keil sent his son August east to serve as a physician and overseer for the Missouri colony.  A big mistake with August – he moved into Elim – not well trained in medicine nor did he with much business sense.  Making matters much worse was August was a drunkard. August would end his days alone – his wife divorced him, returning to Oregon – buried in the communal cemetery at Hebron.

By the end of the colony’s days – 1877 when Keil, himself died – Keil’s letters were not as effective as earlier in maintaining control.  Younger members looked at the wealth of their neighbors longingly.  Older members – in both Missouri and Oregon – needed a strong leader to make sense of things.  Keil’s death brought about a division of assets both in Oregon and Missouri, finalized in 1879.

VISITING BETHEL TODAY

In a 1970 listing of National Register of Historic Place buildings in Bethel, some 26 made the list. Quite an impressive showing for a town listed in 2021 having only 110 people living there. By contrast, in 1855, Bethel Colony had 650 people at its peak.

Many of the old colony buildings have been modified quite a bit over the years. The colony church is gone. Keil’s home at Elim, a mile to the east of the town, is still in good shape. The colony architecture – Pennsylvania German in nature – is very similar to Harmony and Economy, Pennsylvania, the communal sites of George Rapp’s Harmony Society. Not surprising, since the bulk of the colonists here originally made up part of those efforts. The architecture seen again in Aurora, Oregon with the main difference being brick used here and wood in the west.

basics for a visit

It has been a while since I last visited Bethel and there have probably been changes from then. I stayed at the Bethel Colony Fest Hall, a restaurant below with rooms above. There is a Inn Harmony just west of Main Street on 1st Street listed on the web, though the last reference I see is 2013. On the National Register map, it is listed as the Bethel school, a one-level brick building. Somewhere, sometime, another level added on.

There is a small museum-gift shop across the street from the Fest Hall in the John Bower Business building. In keeping with the musical past, fiddle workshops occur in the little town and occasional tours offered through some of the old homes.

Solitude reigns most of the time in Bethel today as it slumbers amid its communal past. Much different from the times of Wilhelm Keil and his Bethel colony.