The Ebenezer Society: New York Stopover Before Iowa
Near Amana Colonies, Iowa
Between Germany and Iowa, there was New York. In eighteen forty-three, the Community of True Inspiration established the Ebenezer Society on five thousand acres near Buffalo, purchasing farmland in Erie County for its fertile soil and relative isolation from the cities of the eastern seaboard. At Ebenezer, the community made its communal system official in eighteen fifty: all property pooled, all labor collective, no private ownership, and members drew a yearly allowance instead of wages.
The system that would run for more than seven decades in Iowa was designed and tested here first. Ebenezer worked well enough, but it did not remain isolated for long. Buffalo grew.
The city expanded toward the community's land. New settlers moved into the area. The separation from the surrounding society that the Inspirationists required for their way of life was eroding.
Christian Metz began looking for somewhere more distant. In eighteen fifty-five, after scouting the Iowa frontier, the community began buying land in Iowa County, Iowa, eventually holding about twenty-six thousand acres, and began moving west. About twelve hundred members relocated over several years.
The Ebenezer land was sold. The community would not stop moving until they reached Iowa, and then they would not move again.
