George Rapp
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Johann Georg Rapp (November 1, 1757 in Iptingen, Germany – August 7, 1847 in Economy, Pennsylvania) was the founder of the religious sect called Harmonists, Harmonites, Rappites, or the Harmony Society.
Born in Iptingen, Duchy of Württemberg, Germany, Rapp became inspired by the philosophies of Jakob Böhme, Philipp Jakob Spener, and Emanuel Swedenborg, among others. In the 1780s, George Rapp began preaching and soon started to gather a group of his own followers. His group officially split with the Lutheran Church in 1785 and was promptly banned from meeting. The persecution that Rapp and his followers experienced caused them to leave Germany and come to the United States in 1803.[1] Rapp was a pietist, and a number of his beliefs were shared by the Anabaptist movement.
Rapp's religious beliefs and philosophy were the cement that held his community together both in Germany and in America – a Christian community and commune, which in America organized as the Harmony Society. The Harmony Society built three American towns, became rich, famous, and survived for 100 years – roughly from 1805 until 1905.
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[edit] George Rapp and the Harmony Society
Rapp and his followers, the Harmonites, believed Christ would return in their lifetime. The purpose of the community was to be worthy of Christ and prepare for his return. Rapp produced a book with his ideas and philosophy, Thoughts on the Destiny of Man published in German in 1824 and in English a year later.
Rapp was the son of Hans Adam Rapp (1720-71) and Rosine Berger. He had one brother, Adam, and three sisters, Marie Dorothea, Elise Dorothea, and Maria Barbara. George Rapp married Christine Benzinger in 1783 and the couple had two children, Johannes (1783-1812) and Rosine (1786-1849). Johannes, trained as a surveyor, died young in an industrial accident. His is the only name listed on a stone in the Harmonist cemetery in Harmony, Pennsylvania - the Harmonists did not mark their graves. The stone was donated by Non-Harmonists, and the Society accepted it reluctantly. The location of Johannes' grave within the cemetery is unknown. Johannes' daughter, Gertrude (1808-89), would become a minor American celebrity and organized the Society's silk production at Economy, Pennsylvania.
Rapp adopted Frederick Reichert (1775-1834), who organized the move of Rapp's followers from Württemberg to America in 1804. In America, Frederick was the business leader and public spokesman for the Harmony Society.
Rapp was tall, blue eyed, broad shouldered, with long hair and a patriarch's beard. He had a powerful voice, which matched his commanding presence. Rapp trained as a journeyman weaver and learned the art of wine growing. Grapevines and wine are prominent in all three Harmonite towns.
By 1798, Rapp and his group of followers had already begun to distance themselves from mainstream society. In the Lomersheimer Declaration, written in 1798, Rapp's followers refused to serve in the military or attend Lutheran schools. In 1803, when the government began to persecute Rapp's followers, he decided to move the entire group to the United States. The initial move scattered the followers and reduced Rapp's original group of 12,000 to many fewer persons. In 1804, Rapp was able to secure a large tract of land in Pennsylvania and started his first commune. This first commune, 'Harmonie', (Harmony), Butler County, Pennsylvania, soon grew to a population of about 800, and was highly profitable. At Harmony, the Harmony Society was created and its members contracted to hold all property in common, to submit to spiritual and material leadership by Rapp and associates, and adopted the celibate lifestyle.
In 1814, the first town was sold to Mennonites for 10 times the amount originally paid for the land, and the entire commune moved out west to Indiana where their new town was also known as Harmony. Ten years after the move to Indiana the commune moved again, this time it returned to Pennsylvania and named their town 'Ökonomie', Economy. The Indiana settlement was sold to Robert Owen, at which point it was renamed New Harmony, Indiana.
George Rapp lived out his remaining days in the town of Economy, Pennsylvania, until August 7, 1847, when he died at the age of 89. George Rapp's life was not without controversy and problems. Rapp and the Harmony Society were involved in protracted legal cases: many relating to the monetary claims by former Society member who did not feel properly compensated for their time and labor, other cases concerned the ownership and sale of property Society members left in Württemberg, and legal complications from fines and payments made to avoid militia service. Rapp was called a tyrant and Society members his slaves. During elections, the Society was seen as a monolithic voting block which caused political ill feelings and generated animosity against Rapp. He was accused of killing his son Johannes – who died in accident. Rapp predicted that on September 15, 1829, the three and one half years of the Sun Woman would end and Christ would begin his reign on earth. Dissension grew when Rapp's predictions went unfulfilled. Perhaps his greatest error was in 1831 when he accepted Bernhard Müller, who called himself Maximilian Count de Leon, the "Lion of Judah" as the man who would unite all true Christians. In the year that followed Rapp changed his mind, but one third of the Society members separated and joined with Müller in establishing a separate community, the New Philadelphian Congregation. After Rapp's death in 1847, a number of members left the group because of disappointment and disillusionment over the fact that his prophecies regarding the return of Jesus Christ in his lifetime were not fulfilled. His last words to his followers were, "If I did not so fully believe, that the Lord has designated me to place our Society before his presence in the land of Canaan, I would consider this my last".
The Harmonite commune ultimately failed because the policy of celibacy prevented new members from within, and the majority of the outside world had no desire to give up so much to live in a commune. The society was formally dissolved in 1906.
[edit] See also
- Harmony Society
- Harmony, Pennsylvania
- New Harmony, Indiana
- Ambridge, Pennsylvania
- Old Economy Village
- Old Economy, Pennsylvania
- Economy, Pennsylvania
[edit] References
- ^ Robert Paul Sutton, Communal Utopias and the American Experience: Religious Communities (2003) p. 38
[edit] Bibliography
- Arndt, Karl J. R., George Rapp's Harmony Society 1785 – 1847, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965.
- Arndt, Karl J. R., Harmony on the Connoquenessing 1803 – 1815, Worcester, Mass. Harmony Society Press, 1980.
- Duss, John S., The Harmonist: A Personal History, Harrisburg, PA, The Pennsylvania Book Service, 1943.
- Fritz, Eberhard: Johann Georg Rapp (1757-1847) und die Separatisten in Iptingen. Mit einer Edition der relevanten Iptinger Kirchenkonventsprotokolle. Blätter für Wuerttembergische Kirchengeschichte 95/1995. S. 129-203.
- Fritz, Eberhard: Radikaler Pietismus in Württemberg. Religioese Ideale im Konflikt mit gesellschaftlichen Realitaeten. Quellen und Forschungen zur wuerttembergischen Kirchengeschichte Band 18.. Epfendorf 2003.
- Fritz, Eberhard: Separatistinnen und Separatisten in Wuerttemberg und in angrenzenden Territorien. Ein biografisches Verzeichnis. Arbeitsbücher des Vereins für Familien- und Wappenkunde. Stuttgart 2005. (Register of Separatists in Wuerttemberg, including most of Rapp's followers).
- "Harmony: Commemorating the Sesquicentennial of Harmony, Pennsylvania." Compiled and edited by Arthur I. Stewart and Rev. Loran W. Veith, Harmony, PA., June 1955.
