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Ceresco: Utopia in Fond du Lac County by Gayle A. Kiszely
Ceresco was an experiment in communal life led by idealists who believed that human-kind’s essential nature was progressive. The experiment lasted just over six years. It is com-mon to dismiss the utopian experiments of the nineteenth century as failures and to emphasize their weaknesses. Ceresco has not been an exception. There was no single reason for Ceresco’s demise. Participants cited criticism of residents who did not have the proper philosophy upon entering the experiment, including residents who lacked a good work ethic or members whose monetary investment had priority over their ideals. Contemporary observers pointed to growing competition with Ceresco’s neighbor, Ripon, which was established within three years of Ceresco’s inception, and the commune’s lack of a specific religious creed that might have emotionally united people. 1 A more recent theory, still less convincing, is that the women at Ceresco lost what emer-gent powers they had gained in the evolving domestic sphere of the early 1800s when they entered a unitary system. According to this interpretation, the women no longer had any deci-sion-making authority over their own homes and kitchens. Dissatisfied, they influenced their husbands to abandon Ceresco. 2 That Ceresco did not endure often is considered synonymous with failure. But was it a complete failure? Or were its successes simply overshadowed by its ultimate demise? Indeed, a belief in the progress of humankind implies a belief in a process. Communal life was a timely step in that process. Many of those who lived at Ceresco reaped lasting personal rewards and benefited monetarily from their participation. Longevity is not the sole criterion of success. It is what transpired before the inevitable collapse and Ceresco’s lasting legacy that determines success or failure. Ceresco’s communal philosophies of peace and harmony have been resurrected in the 150-year span since Ceresco’s dissolution. The early 1900s, and more recently the 1960s, experienced resurgence in communal efforts. Ceresco existed in the period identified as America's Age of Reform, roughly 1830 to 1860. The reform crusades were diverse, and the reasons behind the crusades were nearly as varied as the causes themselves. Many arose out of fear, fear of the swiftness with which the nation was growing, fear of the change in the nature of immigrants and their religions, and fear of a growing lower class who had the power to vote. These changes were perceived as a threat to the social order. The goal of many reformers was to “reshape the morality of the masses.” 3 Other reformers, whose philosophies encompassed the uplifting of the “morality of the masses,” nevertheless fought for more socially beneficial causes. These activists fought under the banners of anti-prostitution and temperance, prodded for changes both in prison environ-ments and in support for the mentally incompetent, and promoted education, i.e., public schools, universities, and lyceums, as a means for adults to learn and to discuss ideas. Some historians believe that a “heightened sense of the meaning of the American democratic experiment” lay behind all these churning social movements. And even if not a primary motive, faith in demo-cratic ideals was certainly a catalyst for reform. 4 It was into this regenerative environment that Charles Fourier’s grand and theoretical philosophies arrived in the United States through an idealistic American student, Albert Brisbane. In 1828, when he was just 19, Brisbane traveled to Europe to study. He began to read and to be deeply affected by the “profound truths” espoused by Fourier and his “social science.” 5 Brisbane was particularly intrigued with Fourier’s concept of “attractive industry.” This concept addressed the economic and the social frustrations experienced historically by those on the bottom rung of the agrarian ladder and by those in the emerging industrial working class. Fourier theorized that labor could be organized in such a way as to dignify the laborer and the labor, thereby making it attractive. Brisbane convinced Fourier to tutor him, using monetary enticement. He became a Fourier disciple. 6 Fourier’s plans for harmonial conditions included unitary living, often referred to today as communal living. All would live in one large building, and all chores would be shared, there-by avoiding the inefficiency of the isolated family. His views for peaceful association did not involve any kind of Spartan existence. Indeed, his vision was nothing less than grandiose. His plans for dwellings, which he called phalansteries, resembled King Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles. Eventually, he believed, the world would be organized into over two million pha-lanxes. 7 In 1842, Brisbane purchased a weekly front-page column in Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. His column became syndicated and was distributed to newspapers across the states and the territories, feeding the hungry reform intellect of many others who sought an alternative mode of living as a solution of the ills of industrializing society. Those Americans who jumped onto the Fourier bandwagon referred to themselves as Associationists. 8 Paralleling the contemporary currents of frustration with the ills of society, availability of cheap and vast tracts of land energized the dissemination of ideas about ,and the popularity, of an alternative mode of living in America. Land west of the populated East Coast had been surveyed by the national government and put on the market. The Wisconsin Territory was part of that expanse offered for sale in the mid 1830s and 1840s. 9 A Wisconsin group who resided in the Village of Southport (later renamed Kenosha) had formed the Franklin Lyceum in the early 1840s. The members came largely from the lower middle classes, including local professionals, tradesmen and shopkeepers. Some of the group’s timely topics of discussion and experimentation included mesmerism and spiritualism. C. Latham Sholes, editor of the Southport Telegraph and a member of the Lyceum, reprinted information on Fourier’s communitarian philosophy and favorably commented on its virtues in his newspaper. 10 The open-minded and reform-minded members of this group were drawn to Fourier’s principles of association in late 1843. One of those members, Warren Chase, would be instrumental in putting those principles into practice at Ceresco. Warren Chase was, in his own words, a “sufferer from competition and social ills” and became the “mental motive-power of the organization.” His childhood of emotional and physical deprivation and his life of poverty up to his Ceresco years motivated his search for a more edifying mode of living. 11 Chase was born an illegitimate child in Pittsfield, New Hampshire in 1813. His mother died when he was four, and he later discovered that his father had been killed in the War of 1812. Orphaned, he became the “world’s child” (Chase referred to himself as the “world’s child” or the “Lone One” in his autobiography, written in the third person). Chase had no relatives with the means to take him in, leaving him at the mercy of New Hampshire’s primitive early nineteenth-century child welfare system. For orphans like Chase, that often meant being sold into indentured servitude, and this was his fate. 12 When Chase turned twenty-one, he left New England for the opportunities that were opening up in the West. Eventually, his wanderings took him to Michigan, where he met and soon married the sister of a friend. 13 On a promise of work, which turned out to be a scam, Chase moved to Southport, Wisconsin in 1838, wife and child in tow. Their early years in Southport (1838-1844) were their most destitute, but in Southport, sprouted the seeds of change in Chase’s fortune and in his philosophies. 14 The loss of his parents, a loveless childhood, and the death of two of his own children in Southport no doubt increased Chase’s vulnerability to many of the nineteenth century experi-mental philosophies discussed in the Franklin Lyceum, including spiritualism. The stigma of Chase’s illegitimacy on his mother and on him, coupled with his subsequent servitude, instilled in him empathy for the plight of the downtrodden. This included women and, later, slaves. He would maintain his convictions regarding spiritualism, women’s rights, and slavery for the remainder of his life. Chase, an avid member of the Lyceum, enthusiastically embraced Fourier’s novel means to reorganize society.
According to Chase, the conversion from rhetoric to action came in response to taunts from critics, “Why not practise it, if you believe it the best way to live?” And so they did. 15 The members of the Franklin Lyceum most interested in the Fourier experiment moved with proverbial lightning speed. The process, which began with a simple discussion in the fall of 1843, grew to fruition, all within six months. The Southport group, now calling themselves the Wisconsin Phalanx, had already appointed a Board of Directors and developed and adopted a constitution by March 1844. 16 Consistent with Fourier’s ideals for financing the organization, the Wisconsin Phalanx formed a joint stock company and sold shares for twenty-five dollars each. A 20% premium, payable in stock, served as an enticement to investors who paid in monies by April 30. A committee of three was appointed to find a suitable location with “water privileges.” 17 By mid-April, the land committee had returned to Southport with a favorable report of choice land in what is now the city of Ripon on the western edge of Fond du Lac County. The Board of Directors began organizing the teams and wagons, procuring a tent, and purchasing the provisions necessary for the first pioneers to proceed to the “domain,” the name commonly used by members of the Wisconsin Phalanx to refer to its real estate holdings. 18 On May 20, 1844, “nineteen men and one boy” began a journey “by the way of Water-town and the long prairie” to “the land of promise.” Warren Chase, having the business of the deeds to handle, traveled alone by way of Milwaukee and Fond du Lac. He met the group at a prearranged location and from there they continued together. They arrived on May 27 in the valley of their domain, which Chase named Ceresco in honor of the ancient Roman harvest god-dess, Ceres. Other members arrived in the following months. 19 Warren Chase described that first summer at Ceresco in his autobiography, Life Line of the Lone One. The men slept in tents and ate in the shade of trees. Their first order was to break the ground and to plant crops, one hundred acres of wheat, potatoes, corn and other vegetables. A late frost on June 10 took most of the corn and the beans. 20 The families of the first group arrived throughout the summer. The men quickly began to build permanent shelters that, though primitive, were enclosed before winter. Three buildings were built, each twenty feet by thirty feet, and one-and-one-half stories high. Chase described his family’s quarters for their first winter on the domain as
Seven other families lived in similar circumstances through that first winter, which was, accord-ing to Chase, fortunately a mild one. 21 It is easy to imagine the urgency the settlers experienced in those first few months, tem-pered by optimistic enthusiasm. They were the first to settle in the township, and their survival substantially depended on their self-sufficiency. Those first three structures were built almost entirely without the benefit of a sawmill. Only the boards for the staircases and the upper floors were milled in Waupun, twenty-two miles from Ceresco. From oak trees on the land, the men shaped timbers for the frame and rough boards for the clapboards, the shingles, and the floors. They completed their own sawmill by winter, but by then the creek had frozen, ending any finishing work until spring, hence the quilt and carpet partitions. 22 The men commenced building the original “long home” or “long house” in the summer of 1845. They built it in sections. Each tenement was twenty feet wide. Eventually, twenty tenements were built, ten on a side, joined by a hallway to the other ten. This long home was a far cry from Fourier’s vision of a structure resembling Versailles, but Chase described his tenement as “the most capacious house he had ever occupied in Wisconsin; having one room twelve feet square and a bed-room below, and two bed-rooms above . . . .” No space was allot-ted for kitchens in the tenements. True to the ideals of unitary living, all food was cooked in just one kitchen, and all initially ate at the common table. 23 Plans for a second dwelling house were proposed in the autumn of 1845. Two years later, after it was built, the council appointed a committee to review residents’ applications to live in it. This building, having undergone numerous renovations, still stands and is lived in after 150 years. In articles written subsequent to the experiment, this surviving building has been referred to as the “long house.” However, in the corporate journals, it is identified as the “new house,” “long house” being reserved for the original building, which is long since gone. 24 The Constitution of the Wisconsin Phalanx Association, adopted in March 1844, laid out the group’s organization and bylaws. This agreement, with a few minor changes, later was merged into and became the Act of Incorporation for the Wisconsin Phalanx Corporation, as passed by the Territorial government on February 6, 1845. 25 The Constitution called for an annual meeting of stockholders and members to be held the second Monday of every December, at which the yearly election of officers and nine council-men took place. They formed a board of managers, most often simply called the council, who handled all business affairs of the Phalanx. In spite of the cumbersomeness of the rules in Ceresco’s Articles of Incorporation, there is a curious absence of records in which any member criticized the abundance of red tape. The Wisconsin Phalanx was established deliberately as a nonsectarian association. Nevertheless, religion certainly played a role on the domain. The corporate agreement called for complete religious tolerance, thus insuring that each resident on the domain was “protected in his or her religious belief.” The bylaws forbade any unnecessary work on the Sabbath. There appears to have been a strong, fundamental belief in God as creator, but advocating any specific sectarian doctrine was strictly avoided. 26 William Stilwell worked for the Association in the summer of 1846. In letters to his family in New York, he described the religious atmosphere on the domain, which included a variety of sectarian sermons held each week, typically Methodist or Baptist. According to Stilwell, unnecessary work on the Sabbath included hunting and fishing. He estimated the number of children at about fifty, so that his reader “may judge what kind of a sabboth School might be established.” He then offered a critical analysis of the school which was called a
When it was Stilwell’s turn to be in charge of the Sabbath school, he tried to change what he considered to be an unsatisfactory situation by urging attendance and long lessons. Regardless of his criticism, Stilwell attested to “excellent times in prayer and class meeting,” claiming that “the former was not established when I arrived.” 27 Itinerant preachers sometimes held Sabbath services on the domain. In his memoirs, Thirty Years in the Itinerancy, one such preacher, Wesson G. Miller, wrote favorably about the members and the Association, but not the accommodations for preaching. The Reverend Miller remembered being “most hospitably entertained” and that even though some of the men were “professed infidels, they always received ministers gladly and treated them with consideration.” 28 Miller was complimentary of the organization. He noted that their living accommo-dations for each family provided “a parlor and one or more sleeping apartments. Here families were exclusive in their relations as good neighborhoods could well require.” He further com-mented approvingly on their progress in cultivating the land and in developing education for the youth. According to Miller, school in Ceresco was organized “early in the game and [was] excellent.” 29 Reverend Miller was less complimentary about the dining hall, which also served as the chapel in which he preached. According to Miller, the multi-purpose dining facility was
Other traveling preachers were less open-minded and were appalled by the absence of regular observance of religious tradition in Ceresco. The Reverend Cutting Marsh, a Congre-gationalist minister, rode the circuit and recorded his travels and his visits in his journal. He visited Ceresco in 1850, very near the end of the association as it was originally organized. While he gave some credit to Ceresco for being temperate, as opposed to nearby Ripon, which was in its infancy and was more bibulous, he castigated Ceresco for its heathenism. 31 Marsh had been told by Chase that many families regularly worshiped when they first moved to Ceresco, but that habit had eroded in time. Marsh concluded that the end of Ceresco was linked directly to the fading religiosity of its members.
A broad view of the Associationists’ religious philosophy was printed in The Phalanx, the Fourierist organ first published by Albert Brisbane in 1843. While Associationists were not averse to religion and while they believed the Scriptures were the word of God, they could “not set up any distinct theological creed,” nor could “they rely upon mere religious enthusiasm in the propagation of reform.” Their conclusion, that they knew not “which religion to adopt as exclu-sively in the possession of the truth,” was parallel to Warren Chase’s own religious opinions. 33 Criticism of the Wisconsin Phalanx for refraining from adopting a specific Christian creed was to be expected from evangelical preachers. Ironically, the lack of religion, not for its redemptive value but for its contribution to cohesion, has been cited as one reason for the association’s dissolution. Insights into the daily experiences of those on the domain survive through letters written mainly to loved ones and friends. These letters provide glimpses into the surrounding wilderness, the Native Americans still in the area, the difficulty of travel, the physical location and the organization of the domain, and its social life. These insights are supplemented both by remini-scences of former residents and neighbors and by the minutes of the weekly council meetings recorded in a journal kept by the corporation. The few letters that remain hardly can be con-sidered a representative sampling of the whole population, but they do offer valuable glimpses into individual experiences and opinions. Generally, the letters are upbeat. Otis Capron arrived in Ceresco in February 1845. The following October, he wrote a letter to George Swinington describing the abundant crops which included “some [of] the largest turnip and onion that I ever saw, they are powerfull no mistake . . . and a powerfull heap of potatoes and corn.” He continued in his letter to praise the abundance of wildlife. “[W]e live on the fat of land, no mistake–any quantity of game in these digings–Ducks Deers and wild gees . . . .” 34 William Stilwell’s letters to his family in New York in 1846 related the tale of his sixty-mile journey through sparsely settled territory from Sheboygan to Ceresco. Stilwell stayed his first night at a temperance house about six miles from Sheboygan. “[T]he next morning we started on it was raining at the time in a violent manner, but people in this country must not mind anything no matter what.” 35 They continued westward but soon arrived at
Stilwell described the farms and the residences he saw as he journeyed. They ranged from log cabins to a hole dug into the side of a hill, “the whole of it would not exceed in size a small bedroom.“ Stilwell also recounted that some settlers’ furniture consisted of sections of logs for chairs, a hollowed log for “a bread trough and [they] use the same for a cradle if need be.” He wanted it understood that all the people he described owned the land on which they lived. He then described the “poor Indians who roam about from place to place begging as they go for bread to feed their starving children.” 37 Stilwell applied for work on the domain and was employed as a carpenter, for which he was paid a wage of nine or ten cents per hour. He felt that this was a good wage “for a stranger.” 38 In another letter, Stilwell spoke of his plans to return to New York in late summer. He intended to take to Maria “some shoes which are worn here by the ladies of fashion fixed up in real indian style.” 39 Benjamin and Louise Sheldon lived in Ceresco for several years, beginning in 1845. Benjamin wrote to his sister Abigail primarily of things relating to the crops and the gristmill. He wrote that, while the 1847 wheat crop was good, the corn suffered from a cold summer in which there was frost every month. 40 While Louise attested to liking the associative life, her letters to Abigail contain a hint of resignation. She admitted to homesickness, but having moved far from all relations, she expect-ed that. “We must be content, for I find contentment is a greater fortune than riches.” 41 Things became more difficult for Louise in the winter of 1847-48. Sheldon left for Janesville to teach school, and Louise was feeling “very gloomy and lonesome, alone amongst strangers although they are very kind . . . . My constitution has been broken for several years, likewise my mind with it.” She wrote that there were disputes in the association that winter but mentioned nothing specific in her letter. Louise then described the winter weather, the good fall harvest and the illnesses that had circulated that season.
Benjamin Sheldon may have left the domain in order to make some money. Cash was in short supply. What there was of it was used to purchase necessities from outside the domain. The members had little cash of their own. A resolution was passed in April 1846 stating that
Thereafter, requests for leaves of absence appeared in the weekly meeting notes. For example, James Hebden asked for four months leave to earn money “to supply my pressing wants.” John Limbert requested two or three months for the “necessity of working off the Domain for the pur-pose of procuring necessaries for myself and family.” 43 Charlotte and Harriet Haven, unmarried sisters from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, moved to Ceresco in the autumn of 1848. Charlotte wrote newsy letters with humorous anec-dotes to her sister Hannah. 44 Charlotte frequently was interrupted while writing by visits from other domain residents. In one missive, Charlotte mentioned that she and Harriet were not attending the dancing party that night, but that earlier she had made eighteen apple pies, in addition to Mrs. Baker’s “about 100 cookies,” because they were on a committee assigned to provide for visitors who came to the domain for sociable events. “Alas! A knock on the door; it is Mr. Farmin.” Charlotte wrote another paragraph when, “Another knock, Mr. Baker. . . .” She continued writing when the two men settled in to play euchre. Another letter survives which Charlotte began on July 8, 1849 and continued a week later due to interruptions by visitors and by hot weather. She wrote one short paragraph and then noted that four callers had been there since she had resumed writing. 45 Charlotte and Harriet enjoyed the busy social schedule in Ceresco, especially “the society of the three Germans who pass at least two evenings a week with us.” They played whist, chess, and music. And Mr. Farmin offered to teach them German. 46 The sisters first lived in the original long building, which Charlotte described in detail.
Charlotte wittily described the hallway at night, comparing it to a Mother Goose rhyme,
Charlotte Haven recognized that among her fellow associationists “there is, of course a great variety” of character. As she saw them, many truly were interested in association and in the betterment of mankind. She described them as “an intelligent, well informed class of people . . . not much cultivation, but seem desirous of improvement.” There were others for whom she had less esteem. Her 1848 observation foreshadowed the events of the next few years.
In 1850, Charlotte Haven married Volney Mason, who had lived in Ceresco since the summer of 1844 and was a stockholder. He traded his shares in the Wisconsin Phalanx for nursery stock. Volney and Charlotte moved with their trees to land they had purchased near what is now Berlin, Wisconsin, a two hour ride north of Ceresco. 50 Harriet Haven left the domain in 1849 to teach school in St. Louis. She wrote a long letter to Charlotte in 1850, congratulating her on her marriage, but expressed sadness that her own tie to Ceresco now was broken. “[T]he hospitality and warmheartedness of the people . . . has left a lasting impression on my mind, which it is my delight to dwell upon.” 51 Further removed in time from these letters are the reminiscences of early settlers that were recorded in the early 1900s, long after Ceresco’s demise. Along with sharing the lasting impressions of their life on the domain, some former residents suggested reasons for the association’s failure. Isabella Town was a widow living in Milwaukee with her two young sons in 1844. She read the Wisconsin Phalanx bylaws and felt that the lifestyle in Ceresco would be much health-ier for her boys than the intemperate atmosphere of the city. She moved to Ceresco in June of that year. A year later, she married Nathan Hunter, a charter member. 52 Isabella Town Hunter had been in charge of a public house in Canada with her first hus-band. She credited her experience there as the basis for her being made “head manager of the dining room and culinary department” which she also designated the women’s department. 53 Hunter proclaimed, “Those were among the happiest days of my life. We were like brothers and sisters, living together in the sweetest harmony, and the friendships of those days have lasted through all the years.” Hunter recalled the social events held in the evenings; dancing parties on Fridays, lectures, debates, singing school and other festive events. Ceresco member David Dunham, “quite a famous fiddler,” played for the dances. 54 Hunter faulted Warren Chase for allowing some to join who did not possess the proper philosophy and work ethic. She asserted that he placed greater emphasis on quantity than on quality, especially for later applicants. Their laziness increased the workload of the truly industrious. 55 The idealist in Warren Chase would have disagreed. In an 1847 letter, he admitted that, while the Phalanx required a greater financial investment for admittance than was required at its inception, money alone was not the prerequisite. An applicant must be devoted to ”the cause, ready to endure for it hardships, privations and persecutions. . . . [N]one but practical working-men need apply, for idlers can not live here.” 56 Nevertheless, predicated on Haven’s and Hunter’s observations, it is probable that lack of money precluded the admission of some applicants who might have worked hard. Conversely, it is equally probable that, if cash was a pressing need within the association, deficits in devotion would be overlooked. Like Isabella Hunter, Mrs. R. D. Mason was a single woman when she visited her sister in Ceresco in 1848. There she met and later married Robert Mason, who had lived in Ceresco since 1845. Mrs. Mason reiterated the Haven sisters’ and Hunter’s points of view in her recol-lections regarding the sociability that pervaded the atmosphere in Ceresco. Mrs. Mason also recalled attending weekly lyceums for discussing “various subjects and measures of public or common interest.” 57 From Mrs. Mason’s perspective, several factors contributed to the association’s dis-solution. One was the opportunity for wealth and adventure that arose from the discovery of gold in California and the ensuing rush in 1849. But Mrs. Mason’s definitive opinion held that, because of the hope for profit from Wisconsin real estate, the “spirit of speculation was what broke up the phalanx.” 58 The Wisconsin Phalanx Journal supplies a record of the motions and the resolutions of the weekly council meetings, although the discussions producing them are lost to history. It is apparent from these records that the leaders were attempting to improve and to refine their ori-ginal bylaws, and that they were addressing issues and problems that arose from living in close proximity with other humans. As reported in the Haven letters and in the Hunter reminiscences, not all members lived up to the association’s expectations. In 1845, a resolution was passed that the secretary would notify Mr. Babcock that thereafter he would have to pay for his and his family’s board weekly and that the Phalanx “would not receive pay for their board and rent . . . in labor [from Babcock after November 1].” 59 Despite the original plan for unitary living, there appeared to be a need for having some space of one’s own to assert one’s individuality. A number of resolutions were approved in order to meet this desire. After March 1846, the families in the long building had “the privilege of extending their yards 40 feet” and they also could keep their wood in their yards. 60 All resi-dents originally boarded at the common table. Eventually, some families, desirous of privacy and the family unit, chose to board by themselves. 61 A resolution passed in April 1847 implied an accommodation for those providing their own board. Private garden space, two rods square, would be provided to, oddly enough, any male member over 21 years of age. A council member was assigned to stake out the plots and to recommend an appropriate rental price. 62 Some of the resolutions addressed minutiae, reinforcing the argument that Ceresco died partially under the burden of its own weight. Everyday occurrences, for which actions and deci-sions would be otherwise a matter of course, had to be decided by the council. This readily becomes obvious from a sampling of the resolutions:
Adolescent misconduct, then as now, required control measures. A committee was appointed to devise a plan “for the middle size and aged boys for their better advancement in industrial employment and exercise for to prevent their mischievous and dangerous depredations frequently committed by them on the domain.” 68 That the reorganization of the Wisconsin Phalanx was deemed necessary and that changes were imminent is apparent from entries in the corporate journal and in Chase’s letters to various publications in late 1849 and in 1850. Still, there appears to have been optimism for Ceresco, based upon its reorganization. As Charlotte Haven Mason prepared to leave Ceresco with her new husband, she wrote that the amendment which allowed the land to be sold evidently provided stockholders “great satisfaction . . . . The society there is changing very rapidly and I think is much improved.” 69 Beginning in June 1849, resolutions passed in the council foretold the impending dis-solution of the commune as it originally was organized by providing for the disposition of private property. A committee oversaw the sale of cows to individuals. Arrangements were made to rent the boarding house and the bakery. The real estate of the Phalanx was subdivided into building lots and farms and the property appraised. 70 In the spring of 1850, the association officially became the Village of Ceresco. 71 During this transitional time, Chase wrote a letter to The Spirit of the Age, a weekly journal for Associationists, in which he appealed for like-minded reformers to join him and to begin anew in Ceresco with a slightly more practical plan of operation.
In the same letter, Chase listed several specific reasons for the Phalanx’s reorganization. More than half of the stock was held by non-residents, “much of which has been bought and sold in various bartering speculative operations [by those] who buy and sell to get gain and have no sympathy with reforms.” He claimed that those more interested in money knew that the land was worth more if it was divided into parcels and therefore they pushed for the subdivision. 73 In addition, the price of land was rapidly rising, some investors realizing 25 per cent to 50 per cent profit. And the government had purchased more land from the Native Americans just north of Ceresco, which would attract more settlers and more speculation. 74 Chase blamed a “fundamental error” in the Phalanx Constitution for those speculative problems. The provision for one fourth of the yearly profit to be added to the capital brought “the souls . . . of men and women in competition with dollars and cents, and [established] a spirit of speculation . . . detrimental to true progress in social reform . . . .” 75 Indeed, the Wisconsin Phalanx did show a profit at each year’s end. The 1845 annual statement reflected an increase in assets of $8,136.04, of which one fourth was credited to capital, a return of 12 per cent. In 1846, the return was 6 per cent, in 1847, 7¾ per cent, and in 1848 the dividend to stock was 6¼ per cent. 76 Part of the Ceresco reorganization included an attempt to widen its focus, and thereby the options for members. In 1849, some of the members built a cooperative store. Ownership of a share entitled the holder to purchase goods at cost. No one was allowed to own more than one share and because of the speculation experienced in the first endeavor, no dividend would be applied to the capital. 77 Ceresco’s store lasted only one year. The cumulative impact of non-members’ speculative investment in Phalanx stock and the manifestation of profit were too difficult to overcome. In Chase’s words, “Now all the reformers of Ceresco joined, and sang one song, and parted.” 78 Despite Chase’s poetic resignation, many Ceresco residents, including Chase, purchased lots and stayed in the area at least for a short time. Chase’s epitaph for Ceresco characterized the social experiment as an organism, and he described the death of the Phalanx as the result of a
Chase, the “Lone One,” exaggerated his own misfortune. The long house was divided into sections and deeded out, much like a modern townhouse development. He took possession of one of the dwelling units and of additional land in Ceresco. Indeed his experiences in Ceresco occasioned the debut of his political life, his involvement in the Wisconsin Constitutional Con-ventions in 1846 and 1847. Chase was elected to the Wisconsin Senate and later was nominated as candidate for governor by the Free-Soilers. 80 Chase’s Ceresco era was also the beginning of his nationwide lecture tours. He con-tinued on the lecture circuit throughout his life, advocating his odd mix of reform ideas, spiri-tualism, phrenology, temperance and women’s rights. 81 Conflict between the original Ceresco residents, who had first settled the township and desired to maintain their alternative life-style, and those newcomers, who desired to make Ripon the principal settlement, led to further erosion of Ceresco. Early in its emergence as a community, Ripon offered residents creature comforts denied in Ceresco, including local merchants and a public house that served liquor. By 1851, Ripon had grown to include a furniture factory and a woolen goods factory. 82 The difficulty of adjusting to unitary life, including eating at the common table and working on a common farm under Fourier’s “attractive labor” plan, was a significant factor in Ceresco’s dissolution. Unitary living was more appealing and plausible in theory than it was in actuality. The sheer cumbersomeness of associative decisions, the meetings, and the resolutions necessary for the most mundane matters had to have been tedious to even the most dedicated Associationist. A recent argument holds that the women of Ceresco, particularly married women, lost what little power they had gained in prior years within the emerging domestic sphere, and this led to Ceresco’s demise. The “separate domestic sphere” was the result of industrialization that had begun in the early decades of the 1800s. Earlier, both men and women worked primarily at home. While there existed a division of labor based on gender, many tasks traditionally executed by either gender were interdependent with tasks performed by the other. With the advent of industrialization, men began to work in the mills or factories. From this social change, the idea evolved that women belonged in the home and should provide a safe and moral haven. 83 There is not, however, sufficient evidence to support this theory with regard to Ceresco. The degree of development of the women’s sphere varied greatly from region to region. In addition, adjustments and modifications were necessary for the survival of anyone as far re-moved from an industrial economy as were the Ceresco residents. Any loss of decision-making power that was gained through the development of the spheres was not limited to the women who moved to communes, but was experienced by any woman settling on the frontier. Most of Wisconsin in the 1840s was decidedly frontier territory. Nearly all of the residents of Ceresco suffered from the loss of individual freedom and power as a result of unitary life. The evidence does not support a gender-based case for attributing Ceresco’s demise to the unhappiness of women. Rather, the evidence simply suggests the difficulties of unitary life in general. The loss of power and freedom necessarily applied to the men of Ceresco as well as to the women. This is evident given the resolutions cited earlier which addressed the most minute issues. Many of the men’s decisions were controlled as well. For example, consider the items cited earlier regarding the number of ears of corn or buckets of oats to be fed to the horses per day and regarding permission from the council being required before any man could leave the domain for an extended period of time. Furthermore, loss of control was not universal for women at Ceresco. From the letters of Charlotte and Harriet Haven, it appears that some may have gained greater freedom. Unmarried women could enjoy the freedom both of having male visitors in their rooms and of having an active and liberated, if proper, social life. Did Ceresco ultimately fail? Its critics who emphasized its internal problems, its radical philosophies and its short lifespan would have us focus solely on the commune’s brief existence. That Ceresco ended is not indicative of the failure of its ideals, nor does it make the labors of its members futile. Ceresco was simply a step in a process in which many of its members believed, namely, the progress of humankind. And many came away the better for having participated in the Ceresco experiment. Those who invested money into Ceresco, believers and otherwise, benefited from its leaders’ conservative financial management and from the appreciation in value of the real estate. Others gained intangible benefits. It is worthwhile to reiterate the views of those who lived in Ceresco. Isabella Town Hunter, who came to Ceresco a widow with two young boys and married again while she was there, remembered her time there as “among the happiest days of my life . . . and the friendships of those days have lasted through all the years.” The letters from Harriet Haven to Charlotte Haven, written after Harriet had moved, testify to a longing for a part of her life she had left behind. “[T]he hospitality and warmheartedness of the people . . . has left a lasting impression on my mind, which it is my delight to dwell upon.” 84 Finally, Fannie Estella Blakely, the woman born in 1852 to an early Ceresco resident, wrote that she “lived near enough to those significant . . . years of the Community’s life to fall heir to its traditions and ideals, [and] to be vitally touched by its large humanitarianism.” 85 Ceresco’s existence as a commune was transitory. Ceresco as a humanitarian experience was not. It provided enduring memories for some. For others, it provided a foundation from which to move forward.
1 - Isabella Town Hunter, Mrs. R. D. Mason, and Charlotte Haven, residents of Ceresco, and Warren Chase, primary founder and resident, offered specific reasons for Ceresco’s demise. Their reasons are explored in this essay. Ada C. Merrill, “Reminiscences of Early Days,” Interview with Isabella MacKay Town Hunter, Ripon Commonwealth, October 21, 1904, Wisconsin Phalanx Collection, State Historical Society of Wisconsin (SHSW); Interview with Mrs. R. D. Mason by S. J. Kidder, “Recollections of Early Settlers,” 1906, Wisconsin Phalanx Collection, SHSW; Charlotte Haven to Hannah, Ceresco, October 26 and 31, 1848, as reprinted in Samuel M. Pedrick, A History of Ripon Wisconsin, ed. George H. Miller (The Ripon Historical Society, 1964) 54; Warren Chase, Ceresco, October 1, 1849, in Spirit of the Age, Wisconsin Phalanx Collection, SHSW. return 2 - John C. Savagian, “Women of Ceresco,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, v. 83, no. 4 (Summer, 2000) 261, 279. return 3 - C. S. Griffin, The Ferment of Reform, 1830 -1860 (Arlington Heights, Illinois: AHM Publishing Corporation, 1967), 2. return 4 - Griffin, 2-4. return 5 - Carl J. Guarneri, The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 20-22, 26-29. return 6 - Guarneri, 28-30. return 7 - Guarneri, 17, 24, 133. return 8 - Guarneri, 32, 33, 95. return 9 - Robert C. Nesbit, Wisconsin: A History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973, 1989), 142. return 10 - Chase, Life Line of the Lone One; or Autobiography of The World’s Child (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1858), 112, 113, 165: Mesmerism, forerunner of hypnotism and accomplishment through positive thinking, was developed by Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who believed a fluid called animal magnetism flowed throughout the human body. Illness resulted when this fluid was out of balance. Mesmer passed a magnet or his hands over the ill, using his own excess animal magnetism to heal. Patients reportedly entered trances while the healing forces were entering them. Spiritualism was the belief that souls of the dead remained available to believers for communication and protection. Robert C. Fuller, “Alternative Medicine,” in the Encyclopedia of Social History 1:2383, 2384; C. Latham Sholes is credited with inventing/perfecting the typewriter in 1869. He later sold the rights to E. Remington Company for $12,000. Joseph Schafer, “The Wisconsin Phalanx,” as printed in The Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. XIX (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1935-1936), 461; State of Wisconsin 1997-1998 Blue Book (Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, 1997), supplement 31. return 11 - Chase, Life Line, 113, 114. return 12 - Chase, Life Line, 13-20. return 13 - Chase, Life Line, 63. return 14 - Chase, Life Line, 86, 88. return 15 - Chase, Life Line, 113, 114. Rather than continually distract the reader with the vagaries of nineteenth century spelling, the word ‘sic’ is omitted from all direct quotations. return 16 - Michael Frank Diary, 1/6/1844, 3/13/1844, Wisconsin Phalanx Collection, SHSW. return 17 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 4/1/1844, 9/2/1844, Ripon Historical Society (RHS). return 18 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 4/20/1844, 4/22/1844, RHS; Michael Frank Diary, 4/15/1844, SHSW; Chase, Life Line, 114, 115. return 19 - Michael Frank Diary, 5/20/1844, SHSW; Chase, Life Line, 116, 126. return 20 - Chase, Life Line, 117. return 21 - Chase, Life Line, 117-119. return 22 - Chase, Life Line, 117, 118; Charlotte Haven to Hannah, Ceresco, October 26 and 31, 1848, in Pedrick, 52-53. return 23 - Chase, Life Line, 122. return 24 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 10/14/1845, 4/24/1848, RHS. return 25 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 2/14/1845, RHS. return 26 - Wisconsin Act of Incorporation, Bylaws, Article III, Section 1. SHSW; Wisconsin Phalanx Act of Incorporation, Section 16, SHSW. return 27 - William Stilwell letter, dated June 30, 1846, Fond du Lac County Historical Society (FCHS). return 28 - Wesson G. Miller, excerpts from Thirty Years in the Itinerancy (1875), 51-52, SHSW. return 29 - Miller, 51-52, SHSW. return 30 - Miller, 51-52, SHSW. return 31 - Cutting Marsh Journal Entry, June 1850, SHSW; Fred L. Holmes, Badger Saints and Sinners (Milwaukee, E. M. Hale and Company, no date), 102, RHS. return 32 - Cutting Marsh Journal, June 13, 16, 1850, SHSW. return 33 - Guarneri, 34; The Phalanx: Organ of the Doctrine of Association, v. 1:114, (New York, J. Winchester, 1844), 201, RHS. return 34 - Otis H. Capron to George Swinington (excerpt), Ceresco, October 19 and 23, 1845, SHSW. return 35 - William Stilwell to Sarah M. Stilwell, Ceresco, June 30, 1846, FCHS. return 36 - William Stilwell to Sarah M. Stilwell, Ceresco, June 30, 1846, FCHS. return 37 - William Stilwell to Sarah M. Stilwell, Ceresco, June 30, 1846, FCHS. return 38 - William Stilwell to Sarah M. Stilwell, Ceresco, June 30, 1846, FCHS. return 39 - William Stilwell to Companion, Ceresco, July 29, 1846, FCHS. return 40 - Benjamin Sheldon to Sister Abbie, October 1, 1847, copy of letter, SHSW. return 41 - Louise Sheldon to Sister Abigail, October 1, 1847, copy of letter, SHSW. return 42 - Louise Sheldon to Sister Abigail, Ceresco, January 28, 1848, copy of letter, SHSW. return 43 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 4/16/1846, 12/21/1846, RHS. return 44 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 6/21/1848, RHS. return 45 - Charlotte Haven to Hannah, Ceresco, October 26and 31, 1848 in Pedrick, 51-54; Charlotte Haven to William Haven, Ceresco, July 8 and 13, 1849, RHS. return 46 - Charlotte Haven to Hannah, Ceresco, October 26 and 31, 1848, in Pedrick, 51-54. return 47 - Charlotte Haven to Hannah, Ceresco, October 26 and 31, 1848, in Pedrick, 51-54. return 48 - Charlotte Haven to Hannah, Ceresco, October 26 and 31, 1848, in Pedrick, 51-54. return 49 - Charlotte Haven to Hannah, Ceresco, October 26 and 31, 1848, in Pedrick, 51-54. return 50 - Charlotte Haven, Ceresco, January 5, 1850, completed February 13, 1850, in Pedrick, 55. return 51- Harriet Haven to Charlotte Haven Mason, St. Louis, March 10, 1850, RHS. return 52 - Merrill, “Reminiscences of Early Days,” SHSW. return 53 - Merrill, “Reminiscences of Early Days.” SHSW. The women’s department would have been the Domestic group. The elected head of the formal committee was always a man; however, Hunter’s claim to be manager without the official elected title is probably more accurate in terms of the actual labor done. return 54 - Merrill, “Reminiscences of Early Days,” SHSW. return 55 - Merrill, “Reminiscences of Early Days,” SHSW. return 56 - Letter from Warren Chase as printed in John Humphrey Noyes, History of American Socialisms (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1870), excerpts in the Wisconsin Phalanx Collection, SHSW return 57 - Interview with Mrs. R. D. Mason, SHSW. return 58 - Interview with Mrs. R. D. Mason, SHSW. return 59 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 9/29/1845, RHS. return 60 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 3/23/1846, RHS. return 61 - Warren Chase, “Annual Statement for the Condition and Progress of the Wisconsin Phalanx, for the fiscal year ending December 1, 1845,” as excerpted in Noyes, History of American Socialisms, 419, SHSW; Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 10/6/1845, RHS; Chase, Life Line, 123. return 62 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 4/19/1847, RHS. return 63 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 11/2/1844, RHS. return 64 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 7/13/1846, RHS. return 65 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 9/8/1846, RHS. return 66 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 10/26/1846, RHS. return 67 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 3/22/1846, RHS. return 68 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 7/29/1848, RHS. return 69 - Charlotte Haven Mason, January 5, 1850, completed February 13, 1850 in Pedrick. return 70 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 6/4/1849, RHS. return 71 - Wisconsin Phalanx Journal, 4/16/1850, SHSW. return 72 - Chase, Ceresco, October 1, 1849, printed in The Spirit of the Age, SHSW. return 73 - Chase, The Spirit of the Age, October 1, 1849, SHSW. return 74 - Chase, The Spirit of the Age, October 1, 1849, SHSW. return 75 - Chase, The Spirit of the Age, October 1, 1849, SHSW. return 76 - Chase, Reports of annual statements 12/1/1845, 12/7/1846, 12/6/1847, 12/4/1848, printed in Noyes, History of American Socialisms, 420-440, SHSW. return 77 - Warren Chase to Friend Densmore, Ceresco, June 20, 1849, printed in The Oshkosh True Democrat, June 29, 1849; Chase, The Spirit of the Age, November 13, 14, 1849, SHSW. return 78 - Chase, Life Line, 128, 129. return 79 - Chase, Life Line, 126. return 80 - Chase, Life Line, 138, 139; Abstract of Title, A part of Lot One, Block Four, Ceresco Plat, City of Ripon, Wisconsin; 1850 Plat of the Village of Ceresco, RHS. return 81 - Chase, Life Line, 170. return 82 - Mapes, 74, SHSW. return 83 - Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 20, 26; Savagian, 279. return 84 - Harriet Haven to Charlotte Haven Mason, St Louis, March 10, 1850, RHS; Merrill, “Reminiscences of Early Days,” SHSW. return 85 - Fannie Estelle Blakely to Samuel Pedrick, May 22, 1919, SHSW return Copyright 2002 by Clarence B. Davis. All Rights Reserved. Printed by Action Printing, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. |
