29 October: At seven thirty in the morning, 4°R [41°F, 5°C]. The sun was already shining brightly. Today we prepared to pack the natural history objects we had collected, for which purpose [Page 1:126] a case was ordered. Today I had dismissed the physician. Because we probably will be leaving New Harmony soon, I should like to make a few observations here about this place.

New Harmony was built here by Mr. Rapp (now at Economy) in a flat, wooded region,M8In Posey County, which numbers 6,000 persons. on the Wabash in Indiana about 15 to 20 miles away from all other villages or cities. Because Rapp wished to move to another area, a rich Scot, Mr. Owen, bought the entire property, which was very substantial. This [Mr. Owen] had his own unique religious and philanthropic views. He wished to found a community that would own everything in common; for this, however, he made a significant outlay. He did not have a high regard for religion; therefore, the church constructed by Rapp remained empty and is now used as an amateur theater. One can read more about Owen’s society in the writings of Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, and it cannot be denied that the former had some good intentions and made good arrangements.

Because the establishment did not turn out well financially, Mr. Owen sold part of his property, about half of it, to a very wealthy Scot, Mr. Maclure, who now lives in Mexico but has established a fine library, printing press, and engraving and print shop in Harmony.

Mr. Say, that famous traveler and active scholar in the fields of entomology and conchology, supervises Mr. Maclure’s properties and uses the fine library, where one finds very many excellent and distinguished volumes in the field of natural history. Also, many plates of outstanding works (for example, those for Vieillot and Audebert's Oiseaux dorés and others), have been purchased in Europe. The engraving shop is always being used to produce small plates, which one then tries to disseminate among people in the country.

Mr. Say is having his shell illustrations (he is editing a work on North American species) engraved here; and because there is no one to illuminate them, his wife looks after this matter with great care and enthusiasm. In order to help Mr. Say, Mr. Maclure still has substantial shipments of books sent from Europe every year. Mr. Lesueur owns additional works. A Frenchman who was with Captain Baudin in New Holland, Mr. Lesueur has traveled the Mississippi and all of North America and has already made many new [species of] animals known in Europe and America. He intends to return to Europe soon with his numerous drawings and to publish his fish collection there, as well as a collection of lithographed views of North America. Apart from the persons just mentioned, the family of Mr. Owen is perhaps the most interesting one here. Both his sons who live here were educated at the Fellenberg Institute in Switzerland. They both speak German very well. One of them has a well-educated wife from England who is especially fond of the art of drawing. We were given a very friendly reception in all these homes.

Harmony now has about 600 inhabitants and is pleasant and built in a rather regular manner with broad, unpaved streets.M9The buildings are not built one against the other but often far apart from each other. At this time the following factories, trades, and artisans were here: two jurists (lawyers); three doctors; six storekeepers or stores; two grocers (who sell groceries and spices); a steam sawmill; two steam mills with spirits distilleries; four whiskey distilleries with steam, oxen, and horses for turning the mill; one clockmaker (bad); two smiths; one hat maker; two joiners; four master cobblers; one master tailor with five workers; two master coopers; two wheelwrights; two master saddlers; one cigar factory; two inns; one beer brewery; two tanneries (where all kinds of leather are made); two butchers; three or four flatboat builders who, however, do this work just part of the year. The remaining inhabitants are mostly farmers and land and farm owners. Much whiskey, pork, and beef are shipped in barrels, as well as Indian corn, on flatboats to New Orleans, for which purpose people build boats during the winter and wait for spring high water, and then sell the boats down there as lumber. Most [products] of these craftsmen are expensive, particularly sawed boards; the carpenters demand two to two and one half dollars (five to six florins) for a poor, flimsily constructed case of poplar (tulip tree) wood, and everything else is proportionately [expensive]. The site is completely flat, for adjacent to it are the lowlands, which the river inundates every year in the winter and which were [at present] covered with the dried stalks of Liatris. The river meanders past and forms all kinds of interesting islands. Its bed nourishes remarkable large, bivalve mussels (Unio, Alasmodon, etc.), which Mr. Say has superbly described. The largest of them are said to be found especially in the Fox River, which [Page 1:127]empties into the Wabash. The Wabash was now too low for steamboats, which ply the river at its high level.M10All information regarding this river in David Thomas. The tribes living along it were the Piankashaws roamed the prairies of the Wabash.

Three times a week a stage goes from Mount Vernon through Harmony up the Wabash as far as Vincennes, where the road from Louisville to St. Louis traverses the prairie. The prairies, or the level, open grasslands of western America, begin about 20 miles from Harmony—[more] about them elsewhere. The region in the vicinity of Harmony is quite built up, yet large forests, in which solitary settlers live, begin not far away. (See the following page below.)M11(See the preceding page above.) In the vicinity of Harmony, the land is most fertile; often it is not fertilized for years at a time. But it is no longer inexpensive. Private land cannot be purchased for less than fifteen dollars an acre, but Congress land is inexpensive (one dollar per acre), and here along the Wabash, there is still enough of this land. Here there is a tax of only fifty cents (one half dollar) on a square quarter-mile of land. Food is inexpensive here. Indian corn that costs seven dollars on the Canadian border sells for six and one-fourth cents a bushel. A square mile of Congress land now sells for 100 dollars (about 250 florins).