If not for a historical marker along Rt. 434, just south of the confluence of the Lackawaxen and Delaware Rivers, Horace Greeley's Aquarian experiment in socialized living and free love that lasted three years in 1840s Pike County would remain forgotten.

Sylvania, as in Pennsylvania, means forest. What remains of the hamlet of Greeley is today, much like it was before a colony formed here, a forest—only not a virgin forest. The few remains are associated with a stone sawmill. There are ruins its stone walls, foundation and flume supports.

The Marker reads: "Sylvania Colony - The site of Horace Greeley's Utopian colony modeled on Brook Farm and the ideas of Fourier, French Socialist, was near here, 1842-45. The 300 members of the Sylvania Society abandoned it after July frosts killed all crops in 1845."

According to researchers Tom and Kelley Gibson, the sign has several errors. Perhaps, a good segway into the story is to begin by looking into those differences.

The experiment in socialized farming, referred to as the Sylvania Colony, Sylvania Society or the Greeley Colony, was called the Sylvania Association. It formed in 1841 in New York City to create a community base upon the ideas of French Socialist Charles Fourier—not mathematician Thomas Fourier creator of the Fourier series.

Charles Fourier (1772-1837) conceived of a capitalist joint stock company, he called a phalanx, whose members would share the profits according to the amount of money they had invested, their skills, and their labor.

Fourier was the originator of the term "feminism." He was critical of monogamy because it made slaves of women. His phalanxes gave woman the right to vote—and at 18 years of age, three years earlier than men.

Thanks in no small part to Horace Greeley who published his Fourier's writings in the New Yorker magazine and the New York Tribune newspaper, forty phalanxes were started in the U.S.—with only three lasting more than two years.

The Sylvania Association was the first of these experiments. Brook Farm in Massachusetts was the best known although its members refused to adopt Fourier's concept of "passionate attraction" (free love) and remained monogamous. The Red Bank, N. J. Phalanx was one of the most successful experiments and lasted 13 years.

The Sylvania Association followed the writings of Albert Brisbane who had translated Fourier's ideas and married them with those of socialist writer—Tribune English correspondent, Karl Marx. Brisbane paid Horace Greeley to print his ideas in the Tribune to attract members to the experiment. Greeley was intrigued by the plan. He became Treasurer and used his own funds to purchase 3,200-acres from Mahlon Godley Sr. in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania in 1842. The property included a vacant sawmill, built by Mahlon Godley Sr. in 1828.

In 1842, three hundred stockholders relocated to Pike County to partake in the experiment. By 1845, mismanagement, disagreements and poor quality farmland caused the experiment to fail. In 1851, Greeley sold the land to Mahlon Godley Jr. and Rev. Thomas Taylor and for nearly twice the purchased price—a trumping of capitalism over socialism.

Sylvania hoped "to realize the vast economies, intellectual advantages, and social enjoyments resulting from Fourier's system." They constructed a common dwelling with a dining hall serving seven meals a day. The phalanx focused on agriculture but members were free to work when and where they chose. Goods produced by the community were divided equally among the stockholders. The Association could not regulate dress, hire a minister of religion, exclude alcohol, or suppress any form of amusement.

Eleven children were born during the "free love" experiment. Three of the children were adopted by their mothers while eight others were placed in orphanages in New York City.

Horace Greeley tried to forget about his futile dabbling in socialism. He continued to build his New York Tribune into an influential world newspaper. He supported the anti-slavery movement and on Aug. 19, 1862, he published an open letter to the President, which he titled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," demanding that Lincoln commit himself definitely to emancipation. Lincoln's replied, "To an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right" and is credited with spurring a reluctant President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Greeley was a humanitarian and opposed to war. After the war, he displeased his readers by advocating amnesty for the Southern Rebels and was one of the signers of the bail bond to release Jefferson Davis.

In 1872, Greeley ran against U. S, Grant's bid for a second term as president, garnering forty-three per cent of the vote. In the waning days of the election, Greeley's wife died. The shock and stress is said to have driven him insane and he died a month later.

Side Bar 1

Go West, Young Man!

When people hear the name, Horace Greeley, their first thought is his quote, “Go West, young man!” Although Greeley popularized this quote in an 1865 editorial advocating western settlement, the quote was actually borrowed from John B. Soule, who wrote in the Terre Haute Express in 1851, "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country."

Side Bar 2

Although Horace Greeley purchased the land and his Tribune newspaper provided for its advertising, Greeley was only the Treasurer of the Sylvania Association.

The officers of the organization were: Thomas W. Whitley, President, J. D. Pierson, Vice-President, J. T. S. Smith Secretary, and Horace Greeley, Treasurer.

 

Side Bar 3

Rules of the Sylvania Association - proposed by Albert Brisbane and approved by the stockholders.

1.  The association would be a joint stock company with the members investing their labor, capital and talents.  Women could vote at the age of eighteen and men at the age of twenty.

2.  Out of the common product, an equal subsistence portion would be given to each member and the remainder would be divided.

3.  The phalanx would have been a common dwelling with a common dining hall, seven meals a day and free love. 

4.  The emphasis would be on agriculture, but every member would be free to work when and where they chose.

5.  Any person of "character" could become a member of the association, by owing at least one share ($25) and laboring on the domain under the rules of the association. 

6.  Dress and items of wearing apparel could not be regulated by the association and were at the sole discretion of the individual.

7.  A library and "suitable apartment" for public exercise and "amusement" were to be provided. 

8.  Children under the age of ten, the aged and infirm were at the charge of the association.

9.  The association was not allowed to suppress any form of amusement, or exclude wine or ardent spirits from the tables of the association, but was actually required by the bylaws to furnish the same to any members desirous of using them. 

10. The association was not allowed to hire a minister of religion.