"In relation to education, natural intelligence, and morality, I candidly think we were a little above the average of common citizens at large in the State, and no more. Trades and occupations were multiform. Our doctor and minister were academical scholars merely. We had one ripe merchant (a great rogue, too), some first-rate mechanics of all the substantial trades, and a noble lot of common farmers.
"As for religion, we had seventy-four praying Christians, including all the sects in America, excepting Millerites and Mormons. We had one Catholic family (Dr. Theller's), one Presbyterian clergyman, and one Universalist. One of our first trustees was a Quaker. We had one Atheist, several Deists, and in short a general assortment; but of Nothingarians, none; for being free for the first time in our lives, we spoke out, one and all, and found that every body did believe something. All the gospels were preached in harmony and good fellowship. We early got up a committee on preaching the gospel, placing one of each known denomination upon said committee, including a Deist, who being a liberal soul, and no bigot in his infidelity, was chosen chairman on the gospel; and allow him modestly to say, he did acquit himself to the entire satisfaction of his more fortunate brethren in the faith. One word about our Atheist—our poor unfortunate Atheist; he was beloved by every soul on the domain, and was an intimate friend of our orthodox minister. We had no difficulties on the score of religion, and had we remained, we should have been nearer to love to God and love to man, than we are now, scattered as we are, broadcast over the continent. For membership, we required a decent character—no more. No oaths nor fines were required. Honorable pledges were given and generally kept.
"Our domain was located at the mouth of Sandy Creek, on Lake Ontario. It was a slightly rolling plain, and the best soil in the world. On account of so much water (Lake, Bay and Creek), it was rather unhealthy, but would improve in time by cultivation. We had one good flour-mill, two saw-mills, one machine-shop, some good farm buildings and barns, and about half a mile in length of temporary rows of board buildings; a dry goods store for a portion of the time, and over 400 acres of land, under fair cultivation. At one period of our career, we had about four hundred sheep, forty cows, twenty-five span of horses, twelve yoke of oxen, swine, guinea fowls, barn fowls, geese, ducks, bees, etc., etc., in great abundance. We cultivated several acres of vegetable garden, reaped one hundred acres of wheat, and had corn, potatoes, peas, etc., to a large amount—I should think seventy-five acres. We had abundance of pasture, and must have cut two hundred tons of hay. Of wild berries there must have been gathered hundreds of bushels.
"Our regularly elected officers managed the receipts and expenditures; and they were, I believe, honestly managed up to a certain time.
"The four hundred and twenty members kept together until the autumn of the first year, and then were forced to break up and divide property, having but little to sustain themselves, because our capital was wrongfully tied up, in the hands of trustees: this course having been pursued by advice of certain great lawyers, who, when our legal troubles commenced, appeared in the courts against us. No purchasers could be found to buy the lands in the hands of the trustees; so we had come to a dead lock, and were obliged to break up or down, as the fact may be estimated. The associates did not disagree at all save in one thing, and that was, as to these bad property arrangements, which compelled them to break up. They staid or went by lots cast. Two hundred persons staid on the domain some four months longer, and then, the hope of a legal foundation having entirely died out, the whole matter was necessarily thrown into the court of Chancery, and the lawyers, as usual, took the avails of the hard earnings of the disappointed members.
"The regularly organized Association kept together nearly one year. A remnant of the band remained after the court of chancery had adjudged a transfer of the estate back into the hands of the original owners. That remnant tried every little scheme and new contrivance that imagination could devise (except Fourierism), to stick together in a joint-stock capacity for a year longer or so, and then broke and ran all over the world, proclaiming Fourierism a failure. The Heavens may fall, and Fourier's industrial science may fail; but it must be tried first; till then it can not fail.
"In short the reason why the attempt at Clarkson failed, and the only reason, was, that the founders missed the entrance door, viz., a legal foundation; by which they would have made friends with the old world, and begun the new in a constructive way, obtaining the right men and plenty of the 'mammon of unrighteousness.' They should have got incorporated under a general law like our manufacturing law, and obtained a suitable domain of at least 5760 acres of land or three miles square, and should have built and furnished a sufficient portion of a phalanstery to accommodate at least 400 persons, at the outset of organization. I boldly pronounce all partial attempts, short of such a beginning, a waste, and worse than a waste, of time and brain, blood and muscle, soul and body.
John Greig."
A writer in the Phalanx (July 1844), viewing things from a standpoint a little further off than Mr. Greig's, gave the following more probable account of the Clarkson failure:
"The original founders of this Association, no doubt actuated by good motives, but lacking discretion, held out such a brilliant prospect of comfort and pleasure in the very infancy of the movement, that hundreds, without any correct appreciation of the difficulties to be undergone by a pioneer band, rushed upon the ground, expecting at once to realize the heaven they so ardently desired, and which the eloquent words of the lecturers had warranted them to hope for. Thus, ignorant of Association, possessed, for the most part, of little capital, without adequate shelter from the inclemency of the weather, or even a sufficient store of the most common articles of food, without plan, and I had almost said, without purpose, save to fly from the ills they had already experienced in civilization, they assembled together such elements of discord as naturally in a short time led to their dissolution."