Old Economy: The Harmony Society's Final Chapter

The buildings surrounding this site are what remain of Economy, the third and final settlement of the Harmony Society. Founded in eighteen oh five by German pietist Johann Georg Rapp and his followers, the Harmonists practiced celibacy, communal ownership of property, and intense religious discipline. They established their first community in Harmony, Butler County in eighteen oh four, then relocated to New Harmony, Indiana, in eighteen fourteen, before building Economy on the Ohio River in eighteen twenty-four.

These buildings went up between eighteen twenty-four and eighteen thirty-one. The society thrived for decades and accumulated considerable wealth through industry and agriculture, but dwindling membership doomed it. The Harmony Society was formally dissolved in December of nineteen oh five, exactly one hundred years after its founding.