George Rapp

In 1814 George Rapp and his followers came up the Wabash River by flatboat and founded the utopian community of Harmonie. The Harmonists were a group of Lutheran dissenters who had left Germany in 1805 seeking religious freedom and settled in Pennsylvania. In 1814 they purchased property 50 miles south of Vincennes and came to the Indiana Territory. They turned the land into a successful economic enterprise through farming, and manufacturing. Within five years 1,450 acres of land were under cultivation and the community had 180 log and brick buildings. The almost completely self-sufficient town in the wilderness was a model for planning, order, and cleanliness. Much of their attention was turned to education and they had an open school for children along with a library and printing press. The climate proved too extreme and the markets for their goods were far away. In 1824 Father Rapp and his followers left the state to build another utopian community near Pittsburgh. The Indiana property was sold to Robert Owen, a wealthy Scottish textile mill owner