Four-and-a-Half Months’ Stay in New Harmony
Description of the region – Natural history – Messrs. Say, Lesueur, and Owen – Hunting excursions in Indiana and Illinois – Wabash, Fox River – Illinois prairies – Albion – Black River – Mr. Bodmer’s trip to New Orleans
October 29, 1832
At seven thirty in the morning, 4°R [41°F, 5°C]. The sun was already shining brightly. Today we prepared to pack the natural history objects we had collected, for which purpose a case was ordered. Today I had dismissed the physician. Because we probably will be leaving New Harmony soon, I should like to make a few observations here about this place.
New Harmony was built here by Mr. Rapp (now at Economy) in a flat, wooded region on the Wabash in Indiana about 15 to 20 miles away from all other villages or cities. Because Rapp wished to move to another area, a rich Scot, Mr. Owen, bought the entire property, which was very substantial. This [Mr.] Owen had his own unique religious and philanthropic views. He wished to found a community that would own everything in common; for this, however, he made a significant outlay. He did not have a high regard for religion; therefore, the church constructed by Rapp remained empty and is now used as an amateur theater. One can read more about Owen’s society in the writings of Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, and it cannot be denied that the former had some good intentions and made good arrangements.
Because the establishment did not turn out well financially, Mr. Owen sold part of his property, about half of it, to a very wealthy Scot, Mr. Maclure, who now lives in Mexico but has established a fine library, printing press, and engraving and print shop in Harmony.
Mr. Say, that famous traveler and active scholar in the fields of entomology and conchology, supervises Mr. Maclure’s properties and uses the fine library, where one finds very many excellent and distinguished volumes in the field of natural history. Also, many plates of outstanding works (for example, those for Vieillot and Audebert’s Oiseaux dorés and others), have been purchased in Europe. The engraving shop is always being used to produce small plates, which one then tries to disseminate among people in the country.
Mr. Say is having his shell illustrations (he is editing a work on North American species) engraved here; and because there is no one to illuminate them, his wife looks after this matter with great care and enthusiasm. In order to help Mr. Say, Mr. Maclure still has substantial shipments of books sent from Europe every year. Mr. Lesueur owns additional works. A Frenchman who was with Captain Baudin in New Holland, Mr. Lesueur has traveled the Mississippi and all of North America and has already made many new [species of] animals known in Europe and America. He intends to return to Europe soon with his numerous drawings and to publish his fish collection there, as well as a collection of lithographed views of North America. Apart from the persons just mentioned, the family of Mr. Owen is perhaps the most interesting one here. Both his sons who live here were educated at the Fellenberg Institute in Switzerland. They both speak German very well. One of them has a well-educated wife from England who is especially fond of the art of drawing. We were given a very friendly reception in all these homes.
Harmony now has about 600 inhabitants and is pleasant and built in a rather regular manner with broad, unpaved streets. The site is completely flat, for adjacent to it are the lowlands, which the river inundates every year in the winter and which were [at present] covered with the dried stalks of Liatris. The river meanders past and forms all kinds of interesting islands. Its bed nourishes remarkable large, bivalve mussels (Unio, Alasmodon, etc.), which Mr. Say has superbly described. The largest of them are said to be found especially in the Fox River, which empties into the Wabash. The Wabash was now too low for steamboats, which ply the river at its high level.
Three times a week a stage goes from Mount Vernon through Harmony up the Wabash as far as Vincennes, where the road from Louisville to St. Louis traverses the prairie. The prairies, or the level, open grasslands of western America, begin about 20 miles from Harmony—[more] about them elsewhere. The region in the vicinity of Harmony is quite built up, yet large forests, in which solitary settlers live, begin not far away. (See the following page below.)