"Of the old members of the Clermont, many returned again to the city where the institution was first started, but a goodly number still remain about the old domain, making various movements for a re-organization. After the break-up, a deep impression seemed to pervade the whole of us that something had been wrong at the outset, in not securing individually a permanent place to be, and then procuring the things to be with. Had that been the case, a permanent and happy home would have been here for us ere this time. But I will add with gratitude that such is the case now. We have a home! We have a place to be! After various plans for uniting our energies in the purchase of a small tract of land, we were visited during the past summer by Mr. Josiah Warren of New Harmony, Indiana, who laid before us his plan for the use of property, in the rudimental re-organization of society. Mr. Warren is a man of no ordinary talents. In his investigations of human character his experience has been of the most rigorous kind, having begun with Mr. Owen in 1825, and been actively engaged ever since; and being an ingenious mechanic and artist, an inventor of several kinds of printing-presses and a new method of stereotyping and engraving, and an excellent musician, and combining withal a character to do instead of say, gives us confidence in him as a man. His plan was taken up by one of our former members, who has an excellent tract of land lying on the bank of the Ohio river, within less than a mile of the old domain. He has had it surveyed into lots, and sells to such of us as wish to join in the cause. An extensive brick-yard is in operation, stone is being quarried and lumber hauled on the ground, and buildings are about to go up 'with a perfect rush.' Mr. Warren will have a press upon the ground in a few weeks that will tell something. So you see we have a home, we have a place. But by no means is the cause at rest. We call upon philanthropists and all men who have means to invest for the cause of Association, to come and see us, and understand our situation, our means and our intentions. We are ready to receive capital in many forms, but not to hold it as our own. The donor only becomes the lender, and must maintain a strict control over every thing he possesses. [Here Warren's Individual Sovereignty protrudes.] Farms and farming utensils, mechanical tools, etc., can be received only to be used and not abused; and in the language of the 'Poughkeepsie seer,' of whose work we have lately received a number of copies, this all may be done without seriously depreciating the capital or riches of one person in society. On the contrary, it will enrich and advance all to honor and happiness."
Here we come upon the trail of two old acquaintances. John O. Wattles was one of the founders of the Prairie Home Community. It seems from the above, that after the failure of that experiment, he set up his tent among the debris of the Clermont Phalanx. And Josiah Warren came from the failure of his New Harmony Time-store to the same favored or haunted spot, and there started his Utopia. These intersections of the wandering Socialists are intricate and interesting. Note also that the ideas of the "Poughkeepsie seer," A.J. Davis, whose star was then only just above the horizon, had found their way to this queer mixture of all sorts of Socialists.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE INTEGRAL PHALANX.[ToC]
This Association was founded in the early part of 1845 by John S. Williams of Cincinnati, who is spoken of by the Phalanx, as one of the most active adherents of Fourierism in the West. It settled first in Ohio, and afterwards in Illinois.
[From the Ohio State Journal, June 14, 1845.]
"An Association of citizens of Ohio, calling themselves the 'Integral Phalanx,' have recently purchased the valuable property of Mr. Abner Enoch, near Middletown, Butler County, in this State, known by the name of Manchester Mills, twenty-three miles north of Cincinnati, on the Miami Canal. This property embraces about nine hundred acres of the most fertile land in Ohio, or perhaps in the world; six hundred acres of which lie in one body, and are now in the highest state of cultivation, according to the usual mode of farming; three hundred acres in wood and timber land. There are now in operation on the place a large flouring-mill, saw-mill, lath-factory and shingle-cutter, with water-power which is abundantly sufficient to propel all necessary machinery that the company may choose to put in operation. The property is estimated to be worth $75,000, but was sold to the Phalanx for $45,000. As Mr. Enoch is himself an Associationist and a devoted friend of the cause, the terms of sale were made still more favorable, by the subscription, on the part of Mr. Enoch, of $25,000 of purchase money, as capital stock of the Phalanx. Entire possession of the domain is to be given as soon as existing contracts of the proprietor are completed.