NEW HARMONY

town, Posey county, southwestern Indiana, U.S., on the Wabash River, at the Illinois border, 22 miles (35 km) northwest of Evansville. The site was first occupied by prehistoric Mound Builders and later was a camping ground for Piankashaw and other Indians. The settlement of Harmonie was founded in 181415 by George Rapp, a German Pietist preacher who had first come to Pennsylvania in 1803 with his followers from Wrttemberg, Ger. When they later moved west, a prosperous Indiana colony evolved, but unrest brought on by hostile neighbours spurred the Rappite leaders to sell their holdings in 1825 to Robert Owen, a British reformer, who first came to the United States to found a cooperative community based on plans for mankind's salvation through rational thinking, cooperation, and free education. Owen renamed the town New Harmony. He was aided by William Maclure, a geologist, businessman, and philanthropist, who agreed to finance the schools and supply teachers, scientific equipment, and a library. About 1,000 settlers responded to Owen's public appeal, but most were misfits who ate his rations, argued over government, and were unable to perform the menial tasks vital to such a community. Farms and workshops lay idle while virtual anarchy reigned. By May 1827, Owen's cash had been absorbed by payments for land and supplies, and he returned to Britain in 1828. The property was divided among Maclure and Owen's three sons, who, with some of the scientists and teachers, stayed on to develop one of the most notable pre-Civil War cultural centres in the United States. A laboratory, built by David Dale Owen (first U.S. geologist), was headquarters for what later became the U.S. Geological Survey. It has since been restored. New Harmony is now an agricultural-trading centre. The town was made a national historic landmark in 1965, and many of the Harmonist and Rappite buildings have been restored, including the Fauntleroy Home (182240), the Rapp-Maclure Mansion (1814), Barrett-Gate House (1814), Dormitory Number 2 (1822), and the Restored Labyrinth (shrubbery) with its baffling pathways. The Roofless Church (1959) has a Jacques Lipchitz sculpture. The ashes of theologian Paul Tillich are interred in Tillich Park. The Workingmen's Institute (1894) was one of the nation's first free public libraries. Inc. 1850. Pop. (1990) 846.