CHAPTER XXXIII.
LA GRANGE PHALANX.[ToC]
The first notice of this Association is the following announcement in the Phalanx, October 5, 1843:
"Preparations are making to establish an Association in La Grange County, Indiana, which will probably be done this fall, upon quite an extensive scale, as many of the most influential and worthy inhabitants of that section are deeply interested in the cause."
[From a letter of W.S. Prentise, Secretary of the La Grange Phalanx, published in the Phalanx, February 5, 1844.]
"We have now about thirty families, and I believe might have fifty, if we had room for them. We have in preparation and nearly completed, a building large enough to accommodate our present members. They will all be settled and ready to commence business in the spring. They leave their former homes and take possession of their rooms as fast as they are completed. The building, including a house erected before we began by the owner of a part of our estate, is one hundred and ninety-two feet long, two stories high, divided so as to give each family from twelve to sixteen feet front and twenty-six feet depth, making a front room and one or two bed-rooms. One hundred and twenty feet of this building is entirely new. We commenced it in September, and have had lumber, brick and lime to haul from five to twelve miles. All these materials can be hereafter furnished on our domain. Notwithstanding the disadvantages and waste attendant on hasty action without previous plan, we shall have our tenements at least as cheap again as they would cost separately. Our farm consists of about fifteen hundred acres of excellent land, four hundred of which is improved, about three hundred of rich meadow, with a stream running through it, falling twelve feet, and making a good water-power. We are about forty miles from Fort Wayne, on the Wabash and Erie canal. Our land, including one large new house and three large new barns, and a saw-mill in operation, cost us about $8.00 per acre. It was put in as stock, at $10.31 for improved, and $2.68 for unimproved. We have about one hundred head of cattle, two hundred sheep, and horse and ox teams enough for all purposes: also farming tools in abundance; and in fact every thing necessary to carry on such branches of business as we intend to undertake at present, except money. This property was put in as stock, at its cash value; cows at $10.00, sheep $1.50, horses $50.00, wheat fifty cents, corn twenty-five cents.
"We shall have about one hundred and fifty persons when all are assembled; probably about half of this number will be children. Our school will commence in a few days. We have a charter from the Legislature, one provision of which, inserted by ourselves, is, that we shall never, as a society, contract a debt. We are located in Springfield, La Grange County, Indiana. The nearest post-office is Mongoquinong. We think our location a good one. Our members are seventy-three of them practical farmers, and the rest mechanics, teachers, etc. We shall not commence building our main edifice at present. When our dwelling rooms, now in progress, are completed, and such work-shops as are necessary to accommodate our mechanics, we shall stop building until more capital flows in, either from abroad or from our own labors. It is a pity that the mechanics of the city and farmers of the country could not be united. They would do far better together than separate. We have two of the best physicians in the country in our number."
[From the Harbinger, July 4, 1846.]
"La Grange Phalanx.—This Association has been in operation some two years, and has been incorporated since the first of June, 1845. It commenced on the sure principle of incurring no debts, which it has adhered to, with the exception of some fifteen hundred dollars yet due on its domain. We find in the True Tocsin a statement of the operations of this Association for the last fifteen months, and of its present condition, by Mr. Anderson, its Secretary, from which we make the following extracts:
"Annual Statement of the condition of La Grange Phalanx, on the 1st day of April, 1846.
| "Total valuation of the real and personal estate of the Phalanx, including book accounts, due from members and others | $19,861.61 | |
| Deduct capital stock. | $14,668.39 | |
| Deduct debts | 1,128.82 | 15,797.21 |
| Total product for fifteen months previous to the above date | $4,064.40 |
Being a net increase of property on hand (since our settlement on the 1st of January, 1845), of $1,535.63, the balance of the total product above having been consumed (namely, $2,531.72) in the shape of rent, tuition, fuel, food and clothing. The above product forms a dividend to labor of sixty-one cents eight mills per day of ten hours, and to the capital stock four and eleven-twelfths per cent. per annum.
"Our domain at present consists of ten hundred and forty-five acres of good land, watered by living springs. The land is about one-half prairie, the balance openings, well timbered. We have four hundred and ninety-two acres improved, and two hundred and fifty acres of meadow. The improvements in buildings are three barns, some out-houses, blacksmith's-shop, and a dwelling house large enough to accommodate sixteen families; besides a school-room twenty-six by thirty-six feet, and a dining-room of the same size. All our land is within fences. We consider our condition bids fair for the realization of at least a share of happiness, even upon the earth.
"The rule by which this Association makes dividends to capital is as follows: When labor shall receive seventy-five cents per day of ten hours at average or common farming labor, then capital shall receive six per cent. per annum, and in that ratio, be the dividend what it may; in other words, an investment of one hundred dollars for one year will receive the same amount which might be paid to eight days average labor.
"There are now ten families of us at this place, busily engaged in agriculture. We are rather destitute of mechanics, and would be very much pleased to have a good blacksmith and shoemaker, of good moral character and steady habits, and withal Associationists, join our number.
"Since our commencement in the fall of 1843, our school has been in active operation up to the present time, with the exception of some few vacations. It is our most sincere desire to have the very best instruction in school, which our means will enable us to procure."
The Harbinger adds: "The preamble to the constitution of this little band of pioneers in the cause of human elevation, shows that their enterprise is animated by the highest purposes. We trust that they will not be disheartened by any discouragements or obstacles. These must of necessity be many; but it should be borne in mind that they can not be equal to the burdens which the selfishness and antagonism of the existing order of things lay upon every one who toils through its routine. The poorest Association affords a sphere of purer, more honest, and heartier life than the best society that we know of in the civilized world. Let our friends persevere; they are on the right track, and whatever mistakes they may make, we do not doubt that they will succeed in establishing for themselves and their children a society of united interests."
[Communication in the Harbinger.]
Springfield, June, 14, 1846.
"We hope our humble effort here to establish a Phalanx, will in due time be crowned with success. Our prospects since we got our charter have been very cheering, notwithstanding the difficulties attendant upon so weak an attempt to form a nucleus, around which we expect to see truth and happiness assembled in perpetual union, and that too at no very distant period. Our numbers have lately been increased by some members from the Alphadelphia Association, whose faith has outlived that of others in the attempt to establish an Association at that place.
"Agriculture has been our main and almost only employment since we came together. We have ten hundred and forty-five acres of excellent land, four hundred and ninety-two acres of which are improved, and two hundred and fifty acres of it are natural meadow. We are preparing this fall to sow three hundred acres of wheat. Our domain is as yet destitute of water-power except on a very limited scale. Our location in other respects is all that could be wished. We have a very fine orchard of peach-and apple-trees, set out mostly a year ago last spring, and many of the trees will soon bear, they having been moved from orchards which were set out for the use of families on different points of what we now call our domain. We shall have this season a considerable quantity of apples and peaches from old trees which have not been moved. The wheat crop promises to be very abundant in this part of the country. Oats and corn are rather backward on account of the late dry weather. We have at present on the ground one hundred and forty acres of wheat, fifty-two acres of oats, thirty-eight acres of corn, besides buckwheat, potatoes, beans, squashes, pumpkins, melons and what not.
"William Anderson, Secretary."
Macdonald gives the following meager account of the decease of this Phalanx:
"A person named Jones owned nearly one-half of the stock, and it appears that his influence was such that he managed trading and money matters all in his own way, whether he was an officer or not. This gave great dissatisfaction to the members, and has been assigned as the chief cause of their failure. They possessed about one thousand acres of land, with plenty of buildings of all kinds. The members were mostly farmers, tolerably moral, but lacking in enterprise and science. They maintained schools and preaching in abundance, and lived as well as western farmers commonly do. But they fully proved that, though hard labor is important in such experiments, yet without the right kind of genius to guide, mere labor is vain."