Indiana Historical Society - Manuscripts and Archives Department

NEW HARMONY

COLLECTION, 1814-1884

Collection #

M 0219

Table of Contents

Collection Information

Historical Sketch

Scope and Content Note

Box and Folder Listing

Calendar

Cataloging Information

Processed by

Charles Latham, August 1987

Paul Brockman, February 2000

COLLECTION INFORMATION

HISTORICAL SKETCH

New Harmony, in Posey County in southwestern Indiana, was the site of two utopian experiments in the early nineteenth century.   The first, the Harmony Society, was a group of German Pietists who had come to Pennsylvania in 1804 and founded a communist society.  Led by George Rapp and his adopted son Frederick, they settled at New Harmony from 1815 to 1825, but then moved again, to Economy, Pa., on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh.  In 1825 the New Harmony settlement was sold to the British industrialist and philanthropist, Robert Owen.  Owen attempted to put into effect there his theories of socialism and human betterment.  These were based on absolute equality of property, labor, and opportunity, combined with freedom of speech and action.  The Owenite community failed within two years, but Owen and his family continued both their ownership of the land at New Harmony and their interest in social reform. 

Robert Owen (1771-1857), born in Wales, had limited schooling.  He worked as a draper, then managed a Manchester cotton mill.  Impressed by the need to improve working conditions in the mills, he in 1800 assumed control of the New Lanark mills in Scotland, owned by his father-in-law David Dale, and sought to establish ideal conditions there.  The New Lanark mills, while becoming a landmark of industrial reform, also continued to be an outstanding financial success.

Owen worked to establish free education and to protect child labor.  In 1825 he bought the Rappite settlement at New Harmony, with the idea of establishing an industrial democracy and a model educational system.  He attracted there a notable group of scientists and educators, led by William Maclure.  After the failure of New Harmony, Owen continued to write, lecture, and work for his ideals.  His views became more radical, and at the end included a belief in spiritualism. 

Robert Dale Owen (1801-1877) was the eldest son of Robert Owen.  After being educated by private tutors and at a progressive school in Switzerland, he ran the schools at his father's factory at New Lanark and then at New Harmony.  When Robert Owen left New Harmony shortly after its founding, he left Robert Dale in charge.  After the failure of New Harmony, Robert Dale worked in various progressive circles, with Frances Wright, with his father, and with a group in New York called "The Free Enquirers."

  Robert Dale Owen served in the Indiana legislature (1836-1838, 1851) and was an active and useful member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1850.  He served in the national House of Representatives (1843-1847).  While there, he sponsored the bill setting up the Smithsonian Institution; later he served as chairman of the Smithsonian building committee.  In the 1850s he served as a diplomat in Italy, and embraced spiritualism.  During the Civil War he was an influential advocate, first of emancipation, then of the rights of freedmen, but he opposed immediate enfranchisement of African-Americans.  He wrote several books as well as an autobiography.

William Owen (1802-1842) was Robert Owen's second son.  Educated by tutors and in Switzerland, he came to America with his father in 1824, settled at New Harmony, and remained there until his death.  He tried without great success to look out for his family's business interests at New Harmony.  He married Mary Bolton, daughter of an Englishman who had come to New Harmony as a student of William Maclure and who later ran a mill there. 

  William and Mary Owen had one daughter, Mary Frances, born in 1837.  Her first husband was Henry Fitton (1837-1873).  On his death she married Joel W. Hiatt.

David Dale Owen (1807-1860) was the third son of Robert Owen.  He studied in Switzerland, at New Harmony, at London University, and at Ohio Medical College.  He became an accomplished geologist.  At different times he served as geologist of the United States and as state geologist of Indiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas.  He also did important federal geological surveys in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota.  He married Caroline Neef, daughter of Joseph Neef, an Alsatian teacher and a disciple of Pestalozzi, who had been brought to New Harmony by William Maclure.

Richard Owen (1810-1890) was Robert Owen's youngest son.  Educated at New Lanark, in Switzerland, and in Glasgow, he came to New Harmony in 1828 and taught in the community schools.  After the breakup of the community, he engaged in business at both Cincinnati and New Harmony.  In the 1850s he taught natural science and also earned a medical degree.  He served in both the Mexican and Civil Wars; during the latter he was for a time commanding officer of Camp Morton, the prison camp in Indianapolis.  From 1864 to 1879 he held the chair of natural science at Indiana University.  His wife was Anna Neef, sister of his brother's wife Caroline.

James M. Dorsey (1776-1857) was born in Maryland, but in 1804 moved with his family to Oxford, Ohio.  When the school (later Miami University) was founded there in 1811 Dorsey was selected as the teacher.  He also served as clerk, justice of the peace, postmaster, and member of the state legislature.  In 1816 he organized "The Rational Brethren of Oxford," a utopian society which never actually came into being.  In 1827 Dorsey went to New Harmony to take charge of educating "the young Harmonians."  The $3000 which he was authorized to spend the first year was to come from rents which did not materialize.  Dorsey shortly was delegated by the Owen family to take care of their business interests at New Harmony, and remained there until at least 1833.

Miner K. Kellogg (1814-1889) was born at Manlius Square, New York, and came to New Harmony with his parents in 1827.  After the failure of the New Harmony community, the family briefly joined another utopian group near Jeffersonville, then returned to Cincinnati.  At an early age, Kellogg attracted attention as a portrait painter.  He received from President Van Buren an unusual appointment to West Point to study geometry.  As a painter, he gained perhaps most of his reputation from his portraits of famous men, including Presidents Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Polk, and Garfield, General Winfield Scott, and Sir Stratford Canning.  He also painted many women in exotic costume, as well as landscapes in the Mediterranean and the American West.  In his youth, while living in Cincinnati, Kellogg became a friend of the sculptor Hiram Powers.  He later served as his agent, and from 1847 to 1850 devoted his time to arranging exhibitions of Powers's famous statue of a Greek Slave.  Their relationship ended in a disagreement.

  In the 1850s Kellogg traveled and painted in Europe and the Near East.  He was a friend of the archaeologist A. H. Layard, and handled all the news releases of the latter's excavations at Nineveh.  Kellogg became an art collector of considerable discernment.  He ended his days at Toledo, Ohio.

Charles Alexandre LeSueur (1778-1846) was born at LeHavre, and attended the Royal Military School.  In 1800-1804 he was a member of a French scientific expedition to Australia, and in 1815-1816 on another to the West Indies.  In 1816 he came to America, and in the following two years he made a western tour with William Maclure.  Coming to New Harmony in 1826, he taught drawing there until 1837, then continued his scientific work in Paris, writing and illustrating many works.

William Maclure (1763-1840) was born in Scotland.  Quite early in his career he made a fortune, which enabled him to spend the rest of his life in scientific pursuits.  After two earlier visits to the United States, he became a citizen in 1803, and settled in Philadelphia.  He traveled widely, and did pioneer work in the geology of North America and the West Indies.  An early member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, he served for twenty-three years as its president.

Maclure was enthusiastic over Pestalozzi's educational methods.  He tried to start an agricultural school in Spain, and encouraged two Pestalozzian schools in Paris, one run by Phiquepal d'Arusmont, the other by Mme. Fretageot, both of whom later came to New Harmony.  He persuaded Joseph Neef to come to America to spread Pestalozzi's system, and set up an agricultural school at New Harmony, which survived the demise of the utopian community.  Later he founded the New Harmony Working Men's Institute.  Mainly for reasons of health, he spent most of his later years in Mexico.

Thomas Say, born in Philadelphia in 1787, is called the father of descriptive entomology in America.  An original member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, he accompanied Stephen Long's expeditions to the West in 1819 and 1823.  In 1824-1828 he published "American Entomology,"  and in 1830-1834 "American Conchology";  he also prepared a work on ornithology.  He went to New Harmony in 1825, and died there in 1834.

William Augustus Twigg (1794-1877) was born in London, and came to the United States with his family in 1818.  Landing in Baltimore, he came first to Illinois, then to Vincennes, finally to New Harmony.  In 1828 he married Virginia DuPalais, a niece of Charles Alexandre LeSueur.  He became a lawyer, and at different times acted as judge, merchant, and druggist.  In 1830 he was appointed a brigadier general in the Indiana volunteers.  He was largely responsible for the establishment of an Episcopal Church, St. Stephen's, in New Harmony in 1841.  When William Maclure died in Mexico in 1840, Twigg took on a mission to that country to settle the estate.  After the Civil War he was appointed postmaster in New Harmony.

Frances Wright (1795-1852) was born at Dundee and educated at Glasgow.  In 1818-1820 she traveled in America, and wrote a book about her experiences.  From 1821 to 1824 she lived in Paris, moving in liberal circles.  In 1824 she came to New Harmony.  She wrote articles for the New Harmony Gazette, and concurrently established a settlement at Nashoba, Tenn., where Negro slaves could work out their liberty.  This experiment failed.  Between 1829 and 1836 she delivered many lectures on social questions, attacking slavery and organized religion and advocating female suffrage.  In 1838 she married Phiquepal d'Arusmont, but they were later separated.  She died in Cincinnati.

Sources

  Estabrook, Arthur A., "The family history of Robert Owen," in Indiana

Magazine of History, March 1923, pp. 63-101

Bestor, Arthur E., Jr., Backwoods Utopias, Philadelphia, 1950

Who Was Who-- Science and Technology

Dictionary of American Biography

Materials in collection

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

This collection fills three manuscript boxes.  It consists of original letters, contracts, and deeds, and one box of photocopies.  Items relating to the Owen family are arranged by sender, and chronologically within group.  The papers of James M. Dorsey, William Augustus Twigg, and the Harmony Society are arranged chronologically.

  Taken as a whole, the collection affords some interesting material both on the New Harmony community over half a century and on many of the diverse personalities associated with the community over that period.

  Box 1 contains material relating to the Owen family.  The items relating to Robert Owen, in Folders 1-6, include an 1827 letter outlining his beliefs, a copy of his arrangement with George Rapp, and an outline of how he distributed land to the different communities at New Harmony.

  The most voluminous Owen family material, in Folders 7-16, concerns Robert Dale Owen.  It shows him in action in Congress and as a trustee of the Smithsonian Institution; as a diplomat and as a purchasing agent for the Union government; and as a reformer and author.

The one letter from David Dale Owen (Folder 6) concerns a geological survey of 1847.  Three 1880 letters from Richard Owen are to John H. Holliday who was writing a history of New Harmony; there is also an essay about the Educational Society at New Harmony (Folders 17-18). Finally, there are single items written by William Owen, Henry Fitton, and Joel Hiatt (Folders 19-21).

  The James M. Dorsey papers (Box 2, Folders 1-6) include seven from Robert Owen to Dorsey. One of these comments on methods of land distribution, and another on Alexander Campbell, leader of the Disciples of Christ.  Another series, of 1830, from William Owen to Dorsey, describes Owen's travails on a trip to New Orleans to try to sell the community's agricultural products.  Finally, a series from Robert Dale Owen comments on William Owen's financial problems and other affairs at New Harmony.

  The William Augustus Twigg papers (Box 2, Folders 7-12) contain three items concerning C. A. LeSueur: an 1815 contract between him and William Maclure, the termination of that contract, and an 1838 letter describing LeSueur's activities after his removal to Paris.  There are also four items, dating 1828, relating to the New Harmony Thespian Society.  The papers relating to Twigg himself concern his military service (1830-1832), the baptism of his children by Episcopal missionary bishop Jackson Kemper in 1838, his mission to Mexico in 1840 to settle William Maclure's estate, and his appointment as New Harmony postmaster in 1866.

Folders 13-16 of Box 2 contain two letters from Thomas Say, one concerning his book on conchology; one from William Maclure's brother Alexander describing Thomas Say's death; three letters from the d'Arusmont family; a song, "Ebor Nova," written by Stedman Whitwell of New Harmony; and the transcript of an account by Achilles Fretageot of a flatboat trip to New Orleans in the winter of 1833-1834.

  The papers of Miner K. Kellogg (Box 2, Folders 22-30), contain considerable material about Kellogg's life, particularly the brief period when as a boy he lived at New Harmony.  They include an undated private journal, and notes for an autobiography which are partly in finished form (including his New Harmony period) and partly in the form of lists and sketches.  There is also the beginning of a Life and Times of Kellogg, which does not get beyond his family background.

  Box 3 contains photocopies of the documents published by Indiana Historical Society as Indiana Decade of the Harmony Society, 1814-1824 (2 volumes, 1975 and 1978), which were donated by the editor, Karl J. R. Arndt.

BOX AND FOLDER LISTING

Box 2:  James Dorsey, 1827-1849; William Twigg, 1815-1864; General Correspondence, 1824-1860; Miner Kellogg, n.d.

Box 3:  Photocopies of Harmony Society Manuscripts, 1814-1824 (used in Arndt, Indiana Decade of the Harmony Society)

CALENDAR

ROBERT OWEN                                                 

  3-31-1821   Robert Owen, New Lanark, to Miss Somervill, Edinburgh.     

                           Sending copy of my works.  General statement of beliefs.

                           ALS  4p

  8-20-1826   T. J. V. Neef and ten others, New Harmony, to Robert Owen.    

                           Petition expressing dissatisfaction with the operation of

                           the community, esp. with one teacher using corporal

                           punishment.  ALS  2p

  4-23-1827   Robert Owen, New Harmony, to Frederick Rapp.              

                           Arrangement to pay $30,000 for land.  ALS 1p.   Copy--

                           original in Darlington Collection, University of Pittsburgh

                           Library.

  7-26-1827   Robert Owen, Liverpool.                                  

                           "The conditions on which I have made the contracts for the

                           land with the new communities..."  ALS 4p

9-8-1827    Robert Owen to W. Hone, Belvedere Place.                  

                           Concerning copies of The Life of James Allen, the Piper.

                           ALS  3p  (Transferred from Mitten collection)

  11-11-1828  Robert Owen, London, to Miss Ronalds, Croydon.            

                           Little chance to meet you since I am planning to leave for

                           Mexico.  Am more sanguine than ever in my expectations of a

                           great and effective change in the social system.  Things

                           going well at New Harmony.  You will be wanted in organizing

                           the infant school there.   ALS  3p

ROBERT DALE OWEN

  7-16-1829   R. D. Owen, in Kentucky , to the editors of the National   

                           Intelligencer, New York.  I hear that Mr. C.Schulz of

                           Virginia has challenged me, Miss Wright, and Mr. Houston,

                           editor of the Correspondent, to a theological debate.

                           I disapprove of the spirit in which the Correspondent is

                           conducted, and decline to enter into any discussion whatever.

                           ALS  1p

  8-2-1840    R. D. Owen, New York, to Julius R. Ames, Albany.

                           I am sending you by our excellent friend Josiah Warren a

                           number of popular and other tracts.  Warren is an old friend

                           of the cause of equal exchange of labor.  ALS  2p

  12-9-1843   R. D. Owen, Washington City, to Jos. H. Hedges, Philadelphia. 

                           Here is the autograph you requested.  ALS  1p

3-15-1844   R. D. Owen, House of Representatives, Washington, to L. J. List,

                           Esq.  I enclose a copy of my speech on the Oregon question.

                           My bill may pass the House.  ALS  1p

  5-13-1844   R. D. Owen, Washington, to Richard E. Stilwell, Esq.

                           I send my autograph.  I am a Representative, and a trustee

                           of the University of Indiana.  ALS  2p

  [1846?]     Order for 2000 copies of R. D. O.'s speech on the Mexican

                        War.

  7-24-1846   R. D. Owen, Washington.   Enclosing a copy of Schiller's

                           "The Ideal."  ALS  1p  Torn from a book.

  7-28-1846   R. D. Owen, Washington, to editor of a paper.

                           Enclosing lines written by an amiable lady about the

                           unfortunate McNulty.  ALS  1p

  8-11-1846   R. D. Owen, Washington.   At the President's levee this evening

                           I would like to introduce to you a lady from New York.

                           ALS  1p

  11-18-1846  R. D. Owen, New York, to Professor Silliman.

                           I had hoped to talk with you in New Haven next Friday about

                           types of stone which could be quarried near Washington

                           out of which the new Smithsonian Institution could be built.

                           ALS   4p

3-26-1847  R. D. Owen, [Washington], to Robert J. Walker, Secretary of   

                           the Treasury.  On behalf of brother Dr. [David Dale] Owen,

                           asks about decision in regard to geological survey of

                           Wisconsin. ALS 3p

  4-20-1847   R. D. Owen, Washington, to Hon. Ro .J. Walker.

                           I am leaving for the West tomorrow.  It would be a great

                           favor if my brother's business could be expedited today.

                           ALS  1p

  10-10-1847  R. D. Owen, on board steamboat above Marietta, to Hon. Benj.

                           Tappan.  Mr. Stanton has given me news of you.  Through

                           him I have sent an article about the extension of slavery, on

                           which  your  comments would be welcome.  I am on the way to

                           Washington on the business of the Smithsonian Institution.

                           ALS  4p

  12-20-1847  R. D. Owen, Washington, to M. K. Kellogg, Cincinnati.

                           Re: possible placement of Mr. Powers's The Slave in a tower

                           at the Smithsonian.  ALS  3p

  5-17-1848   R. D. Owen, Washington, to M. K. Kellogg, Baltimore.

                           Have you received any answer from Mr. Powers to our

                           proposition re: The Slave?  I agree that Smithson might

                           be painted in his laboratory.  ALS  3p

  9-13-1848   R. D. Owen.   I enclose for Mr. Defrees a copy of the article

                           I wrote a year ago about the non-extension of slavery.

                           Please return to the Sentinel office.  ALS  1p

  12-22-1848  R. D. Owen, Washington, to M. K. Kellogg, National Academy of

                           Design, New York.  I enclose letters to Messrs. Durant and

                           Slidell.  Please send me sketch and suggestions about tribune

                           for The Slave.  Address me at Rathbun Hotel, New York.

                           ALS  3p

  6-23-1850   R. D. Owen, New Harmony, to Mrs. Bolton, [Louisville]. 

                           I too have suffered from stage fright.  Clay's speech on

                           Compromise was a great one.  I wish I could have been in the

                           Senate to support him.  ALS  4p

  7-6-1850    R. D. Owen, New Harmony, to Mrs. Sarah T.Bolton.

                           Long description of the Flower family.  My Fourth of July

                           oration was successful.  What have you written lately?  ALS  6p

  6-?-1852    "Memoranda regarding revised Bills."  R. D. Owen 1852.