History of American Socialisms

by John Humphrey Noyes

THE OHIO PHALANX.[ToC]

This Association, originally called the American Phalanx, commenced with a very ambitious programme and flattering prospects; but it did not last so long as many of its contemporaries. It belonged to the Pittsburg group of experiments. The founder of it was E.P. Grant. Mr. Van Amringe was one of its leaders, whom we saw busy at the Trumbull. The first announcement of it we find in the third number of the Phalanx, as follows:

[From the Phalanx, December 5, 1843.]

"Grand Movement in the West.—The friends of Association in Ohio and other portions of the West, have undertaken the organization of a Phalanx upon quite an extended scale. They have secured a magnificent tract of land on the Ohio, have framed a constitution, and taken preliminary steps to make an early commencement.

The projectors say: "We feel pleasure in announcing that the American Phalanx has contracted for about two thousand acres of land in Belmont County, Ohio, known as the Pultney farm, lying along the Ohio river, seven or eight miles below Wheeling; and that sufficient means are already pledged to remove all doubts as to the formation of an Association, as soon as the domain can be prepared for the reception of the members. The land has been purchased of Col. J.S. Shriver, of Wheeling, Virginia, at thirty dollars per acre, payable at the pleasure of the Association, in sums not less than $5,000. The payment of six per cent. interest semi-annually, is secured by a lien on the land.

"The tract selected is two and a-half miles in length from north to south, and of somewhat irregular breadth, by reason of the curvatures of the Ohio river, which forms its eastern boundary. It contains six hundred acres of bottom land, all cleared and under cultivation; the residue is hill land of a fertility truly surprising and indeed incredible to persons unacquainted with the hills of that particular neighborhood. Of the hill lands, about two hundred and fifty acres are cleared, and about three hundred acres more have been partially cleared, so as to answer imperfectly for sheep pasture. The residue is for the most part well-timbered.

"There are upon the premises two frame dwelling-houses, and ten log houses, mostly with shingle roofs; none of them, however, are of much value, except for temporary purposes.

"The domain is singularly beautiful, as well as fertile; and when it is considered, in connection with the advantages already enumerated, that it is situated on one of the greatest thoroughfares in the world, the charming Ohio, along which from six to ten steamboats pass every day for eight or nine months in the year; that it is immediately accessible to several large markets, and a multitude of small ones; and that it is within seven miles of that great public improvement, the National Road, leading through the heart of the Western States, we think we are authorized to affirm that the broad territory of our country furnishes but few localities more favorable for an experiment in Association, than that which has been secured by the American Phalanx.

"From eighty to one hundred laborers are expected to be upon the ground early in the spring, and it is hoped that in the fall a magnificent edifice or Phalanstery, on Fourier's plan, will be commenced, and will progress rapidly, until it shall be of sufficient extent to accommodate one hundred families.

"Our object can not be more intelligibly explained than by stating that it is proposed to organize an industrial army, which, instead of ravaging and desolating the earth, like the armies of civilization, shall clothe it luxuriantly and beautifully with supplies for human wants; to distribute this army into platoons, companies, battalions, regiments, in which promotion and rewards shall depend, not upon success in spreading ruin and woe, but upon energy and efficiency in diffusing comfort and happiness; in short, to invest labor the creator, with the dignity which has so long impiously crowned labor the destroyer and the murderer, so that men shall vie with each other, not in devastation and carnage, but in usefulness to the race."