Chapter XXXIII: La Grange Phalanx

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."

[From the _Harbinger_, July 4, 1846.]

"LA GRANGE PHALANX.--This Association has been in operation some
two years, and has been incorporated since the first of June,
1845. It commenced on the sure principle of incurring no debts,
which it has adhered to, with the exception of some fifteen
hundred dollars yet due on its domain. We find in the _True
Tocsin_ a statement of the operations of this Association for
the last fifteen months, and of its present condition, by Mr.
Anderson, its Secretary, from which we make the following
extracts:

"_Annual Statement of the condition of La Grange Phalanx, on the
1st day of April, 1846._

"Total valuation of the real and personal estate
of the Phalanx, including book accounts, due from
members and others $19,861.61
Deduct capital stock. $14,668.39
" debts 1,128.82 15,797.21
----------
Total product for fifteen months previous to
the above date $4,064.40

Being a net increase of property on hand (since our settlement
on the 1st of January, 1845), of $1,535.63, the balance of the
total product above having been consumed (namely, $2,531.72) in
the shape of rent, tuition, fuel, food and clothing. The above
product forms a dividend to labor of sixty-one cents eight mills
per day of ten hours, and to the capital stock four and
eleven-twelfths per cent. per annum.

"Our domain at present consists of ten hundred and forty-five
acres of good land, watered by living springs. The land is about
one-half prairie, the balance openings, well timbered. We have
four hundred and ninety-two acres improved, and two hundred and
fifty acres of meadow. The improvements in buildings are three
barns, some out-houses, blacksmith's-shop, and a dwelling house
large enough to accommodate sixteen families; besides a
school-room twenty-six by thirty-six feet, and a dining-room of
the same size. All our land is within fences. We consider our
condition bids fair for the realization of at least a share of
happiness, even upon the earth.

"The rule by which this Association makes dividends to capital
is as follows: When labor shall receive seventy-five cents per
day of ten hours at average or common farming labor, then
capital shall receive six per cent. per annum, and in that
ratio, be the dividend what it may; in other words, an
investment of one hundred dollars for one year will receive the
same amount which might be paid to eight days average labor.

"There are now ten families of us at this place, busily engaged
in agriculture. We are rather destitute of mechanics, and would
be very much pleased to have a good blacksmith and shoemaker, of
good moral character and steady habits, and withal
Associationists, join our number.

"Since our commencement in the fall of 1843, our school has been
in active operation up to the present time, with the exception
of some few vacations. It is our most sincere desire to have the
very best instruction in school, which our means will enable us
to procure."

The _Harbinger_ adds: "The preamble to the constitution of this little band of pioneers in the cause of human elevation, shows that their enterprise is animated by the highest purposes. We trust that they will not be disheartened by any discouragements or obstacles. These must of necessity be many; but it should be borne in mind that they can not be equal to the burdens which the selfishness and antagonism of the existing order of things lay upon every one who toils through its routine. The poorest Association affords a sphere of purer, more honest, and heartier life than the best society that we know of in the civilized world. Let our friends persevere; they are on the right track, and whatever mistakes they may make, we do not doubt that they will succeed in establishing for themselves and their children a society of united interests."

[Communication in the _Harbinger_.]

_Springfield, June, 14, 1846._

"We hope our humble effort here to establish a Phalanx, will in
due time be crowned with success. Our prospects since we got our
charter have been very cheering, notwithstanding the
difficulties attendant upon so weak an attempt to form a
nucleus, around which we expect to see truth and happiness
assembled in perpetual union, and that too at no very distant
period. Our numbers have lately been increased by some members
from the Alphadelphia Association, whose faith has outlived that
of others in the attempt to establish an Association at that
place.

"Agriculture has been our main and almost only employment since
we came together. We have ten hundred and forty-five acres of
excellent land, four hundred and ninety-two acres of which are
improved, and two hundred and fifty acres of it are natural
meadow. We are preparing this fall to sow three hundred acres of
wheat. Our domain is as yet destitute of water-power except on a
very limited scale. Our location in other respects is all that
could be wished. We have a very fine orchard of peach-and
apple-trees, set out mostly a year ago last spring, and many of
the trees will soon bear, they having been moved from orchards
which were set out for the use of families on different points
of what we now call our domain. We shall have this season a
considerable quantity of apples and peaches from old trees which
have not been moved. The wheat crop promises to be very abundant
in this part of the country. Oats and corn are rather backward
on account of the late dry weather. We have at present on the
ground one hundred and forty acres of wheat, fifty-two acres of
oats, thirty-eight acres of corn, besides buckwheat, potatoes,
beans, squashes, pumpkins, melons and what not.

"WILLIAM ANDERSON, Secretary."

Macdonald gives the following meager account of the decease of this Phalanx:

"A person named Jones owned nearly one-half of the stock, and it
appears that his influence was such that he managed trading and
money matters all in his own way, whether he was an officer or
not. This gave great dissatisfaction to the members, and has
been assigned as the chief cause of their failure. They
possessed about one thousand acres of land, with plenty of
buildings of all kinds. The members were mostly farmers,
tolerably moral, but lacking in enterprise and science. They
maintained schools and preaching in abundance, and lived as well
as western farmers commonly do. But they fully proved that,
though hard labor is important in such experiments, yet without
the right kind of genius to guide, mere labor is vain."