Quaint, rural, and hardworking, Zoar, Ohio, is the kind of place that wasn’t supposed to thrive in America.
The citizens of Zoar came to this country as religious dissenters in the early 19th century. In unorthodox fashion, they formed a communal society where all wealth was combined: men and women alike pooled their labor, their wealth, and their belongings for the benefit of the whole.
The community thrived. In a nation dedicated to individualism, Zoar’s citizens built a first-of-its-kind economic system, and persevered for three generations, becoming one of the longest-lasting communal societies in U.S. history. That Zoar was allowed to succeed, and was even admired for its efforts, serves as a reminder that America has often celebrated differences that fly in the face of mainstream beliefs.
Many immigrants to early 19th-century America had come to acquire property and better their economic future. But the Zoar dissenters—like the earlier Puritans who fled 17th-century England—came here to worship their God in their own way, and not have to conform to the strict rules of the state-run Lutheran Church.
These believers came from the German kingdom of Württemberg, and were known as Radical Pietists because they thought the established Lutheran church’s rules were too stringent and dogmatic. They desired a simple faith, one harking back to the early Christian Church, and personal relationships with God without the interference of ministers and church hierarchy.
Starting around 1800, the Separatists, as they were also called, had met clandestinely, with itinerant preachers going from village to village. Because the state and the church of Württemberg were so intertwined, they were met with persecution. They were fined, beaten, and jailed. Authorities quartered soldiers in Separatists’ homes, and placed their children in orphanages.
In April 1817, a small band of about 300 farmers, artisans, women, and children decided the only way to fulfill their spiritual desires was to emigrate to America, where, it was said, there was freedom of religion without government interference. When their ship reached Philadelphia, they were greeted by sympathetic Quakers, who provided food and care. The Separatists purchased 5,500 acres in the Tuscarawas Valley of east-central Ohio, where many German-speaking immigrants had already settled. The Tuscarawas River’s banks had been previously cleared by the Delaware Indians, allowing the Separatists to plant crops the next spring.
The Separatists built log cabins on their land, founding a community they called Zoar, after the biblical Lot’s town of refuge. But they struggled to survive through harsh winters and the heavy labor of creating a new settlement in the wilderness.