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Harmonist Structures
After the Harmonists
Post-Communal Structures
Harmonist Society
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IUPUI Max Kade German American Center
Historic New Harmony's
Official
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http://www.
newharmony
.org
or
http://www.
newharmonyinfo
.com
University of Southern Indiana
New Harmony Scientists, Educators, Writers & Artists
Harmony Museum,
Harmony, PA, 1st Settlement of the Harmonie Society
Old Economy Village, 3rd Settlement of the Harmonie Society
Church Park
This open space is where the two Harmonist churches once stood. Facing Main Street (east) stood a three-story white frame church with a steeple almost six stories high, topped by a bell-tower with a large clock and holding a large bell. In 1988, after the last wing of the original church was torn down, the University of Southern Indiana began developing the Church Park. It includes a basketball court, grassy expanses for picnicking and relaxing, and a landscape interpretation of the original brick church.The large brick church, west of the frame church, was built in the shape of a Greek coptic cross. The main door faced Church Street and was called the "Door of Promise." Flanked by the date 1822, there was the "Golden Rose" in the doorway pediment. It was carved by Rapp's adopted son, Frederick Reichert Rapp, and is a Harmonist symbol from a German version of the Book of Micah. "And thou Tower of Eden, the stronghold of the daughter Zion, the golden rose shall come, the former dominion, the kingdom of th e daughter of Jerusalem" (Micah 4:8). A reproduction of the brick church doorway stands on the original site, while buckthorn shrubs outline the east-to-west footprint of the original church.
The Neef House
The Neef House is privately owned. Originally it was the home of Gottlieb
Hilarius Henning, the Harmonist blacksmith. After the Harmonists'
departure of the Harmonists, Charles Leseur from the French Academy of
Science briefly lived in it. On March 20, 18
26 Francis Joseph Nicholas Neef (1770-1854) and his wife Eloisa Buss Neef
took up residence there.
Neef, Pestalozzian scholar and teacher, immigrated in 1806 from Soultz in the Alsace. He established the first Pestalozzian school in the U.S. near Philadelphia. His Sketch of a Plan and Method of Education (1808) helped spread Pestalozzian principles of education. He and his equally gifted wife held positions of leadership at the infant and higher schools of New Harmony.
In 1837, from this house two of the Neef's daughters, Caroline and Anne Elizabeth, became the brides of two of Robert Owen's sons, David Dale and Richard, respectively. At the same ceremony a third Owen son, William, took Mary Bolton as his bride.
The house is now the office of University of Southern Indiana President Emeritus, David L. Rice. Dr. Rice studied at Purdue University where, in the mid-nineteenth century, Richard Owen held the position of president.
Other Resources: Francis Joseph
Nicholas Neef (1770-1854), educator
Fauntleroy House
This wood-sided House, built by the Harmonists and known as Number 53, was
occupied by the Franz Pfeil family. It is restored to its 1840-1860
appearance, the period when Robert Henry Fauntleroy and his wife, Jane
Owen Fauntleroy, lived there. Fauntlero
y, engineer and surveyor from Virginia, had bought the house in 1840 and
enlarged it to accommodate his family and lifestyle. Their oldest
daughter Constance founded the Minerva Society in the home.
Jane Owen Fauntleroy was the only daughter of Robert Owen (1771-1858), the Welsh-born social reformer from New Lanark, Scotland, who purchased New Harmony from the Harmonists in 1824. Her brother, Robert Dale Owen (1801-1877), participated in the early st ruggle for women's rights in Indiana and counseled young women of the Minerva Society about writing their constitution.
Mary Emily Fauntleroy, a distant relative, sold the house and its contents to the Indiana Federation of Clubs, which in 1939 gave the property to the State of Indiana to be operated as a historic site under the newly-formed New Harmony State Memorial.
Rapp-McClure-Owen House
The Rapp-McClure-Owen House is privately owned. It was Father Rapp's
house, built app. 1817-18, and destroyed by fire in 1844. Only part of the
stone cellar and the original foundation remain. The brick mansion was 60
ft. square and four stories tall wit
h a 20 ft., one-story kitchen on the northwest corner. Each floor
contained two long halls running east to west. When Harmonie was sold in
1825, William Maclure became the owner and occupant. The building is now
owned by Kenneth D. Owen, descendant of Ro
bert Owen.
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Created: 21 September 1998, JAF Supported by an Indiana Heritage Research Grant, A Joint Effort of the Indiana Humanities Council and the Indiana Historical Society Updated: 17 November 2007, BAS Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, University Libraries URL: http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/kade/newharmony/postcom.html Comments: Ruth Reichmann, reichman@indiana.edu |
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