--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Wells, Junius F. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 16 number: 12 published: 1913-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Wells, Junius F., "The Icarians," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 12 (October 1913): 1171–1175.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16012unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera16012unse start_page: 1171 end_page: 1175 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16012unse publication_year: 1913 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1913, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Icarians Improvement Era Vol. XVI. OCTOBER, 1913. No. 12. The Icarians BY JUNIUS F. WELLS To the student of our Church history familiar with the tragic incidents leading to the forcible expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from one place of residence to another — city, county, or state — the aftermath of these localities is bound to be of interest. Who succeeded to the houses and lands from which they have been driven? What has been the fortune of those entering upon the possessions of this cruelly dis- possessed people? It is a fact of history that upon each occasion of their being driven away, the Saints found better places to go to, where they were greatly prospered and blessed. It is also true that no substantial benefits came to those whose envious greed for other people's property led them to take part in the mobbings and murders that drove the owners away, leaving well- built houses and cultivated lands as the spoil of their persecutors. Jackson county, Missouri, was swept as with a besom of destruction, years after the Saints left there, in fulfilment of a remarkable prophecy that such should be its fate, uttered by Joseph Smith, in 1838. The other counties in Missouri occupied by the Saints have never since known their old-time thrift, that made them like the garden of Eden under the tillage of the Saints, until they were expelled from the state. It is in part to show how Nauvoo, "the city beautiful," con- A CITIZEN OF ICARIA His dress is of the style of 1840. 1172 IMPROVEMENT ERA tributes a chapter to this historic decadence, that I have gleaned some facts of interest concerning a remarkable people who suc- ceeded the Saints in the occupancy of this one-time loveliest city of Illinois, and the farms of surpassing excellence surrounding it. These people were called Icarians. It is doubtful if any of them are left. Should there be any, they probably still occupy the dozen small frame houses located upon the four or five hundred acres of land, held in common twelve or fifteen years ago, by about sixty inhabitants of what they still called Icaria, in Adams county, near the southwest corner of Iowa. Here they were as nearly out of touch with the rest of the world as possible, maintaining the customs and dress, and thinking and living in the styles of 1840, a peculiar remnant of a people who had had a day of considerable promise and a prospect of importance. The origin of the Icarians, and the measure of transient suc- cess attained by them, came through the Utopian dream and ener- getic efforts of Etienne Cabet, a Frenchman, born in Dijon, France, in 1788. He was fairly well educated, being trained in the law, and became interested in politics, a social reformer and a leader of the French Carbonari, through whose aid he was elected a member of the as- sembly. He was a man of undoubted ability, but took up extreme socialistic views. He wrote a fiery history of the French Revolution, much praised by early republicans, and later estab- lished a newspaper — a forerunner of the present-day yellow journal, in whose pages he managed to print li- bels enough to secure a conviction and sentence of two years' imprisonment, which he escaped by fleeing to Eng- land. In 1839 he returned to France, and in the following year published his famous book called A Voyage into Icaria. From its appearance, Cabet repudiated its Utopian character, and declaring himeslf a genuine reformer, set to work to put his theories into practical form. Icaria, according to the book, was an ideal place of dwelling, where men and women could live perfect lives. It was the center of political and social perfection, located in a remote part of the world. A flavor of romance is given in The Voyage by assuming that this ideal place and condition is the quest of a young English Sb^L^ AN ICARIAN LADY Dressed in the fashion of 1840. THE ICARIANS 1173 lord whose diary describes, in great particularity, all the elements and conditions that are found finally in Icaria, where his journey ends in a paradisaical haven of perfect peace. With the narrative supplementing the personal proselyting of its author, Cabet won converts to his scheme of a communistic society. He had ability as an organizer, and with his cheerful, optimistic disposition, and strong will, was soon able to place himself at the head of a small company, bound together under a constitution and set of rules of government designed to give every soul absolute freedom and equality. There were to be no masters and servants. Preponderance of opinion was to rule in all ventures, and was to be expressed by men and women in weekly meetings, and the government was entrusted to four directors. The directors were respectively of agri- culture, general industry, of building, and of clothing. These were presided over by a president, elected once a year. Religion was tabooed and no form of worship allowed nor ecclesiastic authority recognized. They, however, set apart Sunday as a day of rest from toil, and it was devoted to amusements of various kinds. A maxim among them was that each should seek his own pleasure, without interference from any one, in his own peculiar way. This was the ultimate of what they regarded as absolute equality, and comprehended free love, free thought, and free speech. In the early spring of 1848, the first company of sixty-nine persons sailed from Havre for this to-be-found earthly paradise. Their destination was at some place on the Red River, in Texas. Cabet remained behind to gather other recruits. The ship Rome bore the pioneer company first to the port of New Orleans, where they arrived on the 27th of March, 1848. They were greeted by the booming of cannon — not, however, in their honor, but in celebration, by the French residents, of the downfall of Louis Philippe, and the establishment of the second republic of France. The Icarian company proceeded to the Red River country, and from the first suffered intensely, and were soon disillusioned of their fantastic dreams. Yellow fever broke out among them. They were soon penniless, and with discontent and failure, Cabet found upon his arrival at New Orleans, early in 1849, that his company was broken up and all but perished. It was at this juncture that he learned of the abandoned city of Nauvoo. And quick to appreciate the possibilities of a ready- built city, and fields already fenced and cultivated, in a climate free from fever, he made haste to gather the remnant of the first company and with his new followers made their way up the Mis- sissippi. They established themselves in Nauvoo, ostensibly for a short time, it being considered only a recruiting station for the 1174 IMPROVEMENT ERA gathering of the ideal people who were to proceed thence to the ideal Icaria, when it should be finally located — somewhere yet to be determined, farther from the imperfect civilization it was their hope to leave and finally supplant. But Nauvoo they found to be already well-nigh the realization of their dreams, so far as homes and gardens and fields went. Here all was prepared, and had they been a religious people, they would have said, providentially made to order for them. They took good advantage of the favorable conditions. Confining themselves to their own form of community -government, they set to work. They tilled the fields, wrought at trades of various sorts, set up a printing press, and published books and pamphlets in French and German, and established schools; and were so prosperous, for a season, that at the height of their success they numbered nearly five thousand souls. Fruit culture, especially of the grape, from which they made much wine ; silk culture also, was carried on. They had property in common. They ate at one table. They were industrious, fru- gal, simple in dress, and had the forms of unity in which the ideal Christian life is truly to be lived, as at times it has been lived ; but the Icarians lacked what nearly all communistic societies have ever lacked, the Spirit of Christ, which is the spirit of unity. The inevitable, therefore, transpired. Cabet,their leader, grew arrogant with power, and dic- tatorial. Dissension was followed by open hostility, and within five years Cabet found himself an exile, with a handful of adher- ents, seeking another place for the ideal Icaria. These were waiting at St. Louis to decide whither they should go, when the fatal illness seized their un- daunted leader, and there, on the 8th of November, 1856, Ca- bet died, at the age of sixty-nine years. One branch of the disorganized society struck out for the West, and located in ''^j*-^,?, ETIENNE CABET'S HOME IN NAUVOO Formerly the home of a "Mormon" leader. THE ICARIANS 1175 southwestern Iowa, where the last signs of the Icarians, if any are left, may yet be found. The greater part of the people went back to France. The property was equally divided, and sold, and the opportunity again afforded individuals to secure bargains in realty. In accrediting Perriton Maxwell with much of the matter contained in this sketch, it is of interest to quote his comment, though we may not altogether agree with it : "Such is the story of Icaria. In the history of remarkable com- munistic colonies it deserves a place apart from its fellows. Its mak- ers and martyrs attempted without knowledge to realize the demo- cratic communism of the old Utopian philosophers, and, as disappoint- ing as is its career, the recording of its experiences points a soci- ological moral that needs no iteration to give it force. Like all of his predecessors and many of his successors who have had the commu- nistic bee buzzing in their bonnets, Cabet failed to understand that human nature itself must first be changed before men can learn to live in perpetual harmony and still carry on their affairs. As yet, the only absolut- communistic settlement, in which there is neither disconcert- ing ambition of leaders on the one side, nor the very human resent- ment of the led on the other, is found in every cemetery. That is as far as the communistic ideal has traveled in five centuries; that is as far, perhaps, as it will go in five more centuries." For years, however, Nauvoo remained dormant, so far as expansion goes, in any industrial sense. Latterly grape culture and fruit raising is increasing. The Catholics have established boys' and girls' boarding schools there, and considerable revival of commerce is noted. This will largely increase from the opera- tion of the great power plant, at the Keokuk dam— the greatest in America, 'located twelve miles below Nauvoo. Here over three hundred thousand horsepower of electric energy has been devel- oped, and the largest locks, greater even than at the Panama canal, have been built to pass the largest man-of-war that can float in the Father of Waters. To dam the Mississippi and con- struct locks for safe navigation by the largest vessels are said to have been advocated and predicted by the Prophet Joseph. (In Vol. 17, Improvement Era, beginning Nov. 1, the reader will find many important historical papers.)