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."