Harmonist Demography and Town Planning in New Harmony, Indiana

Georg Rapp, spiritual leader of the Harmony Society, left Harmony, Pennsylvania, with two of the group's members to look for a new town site-one with large tracts of available land, a navigable waterway, and sites for water-driven mills.By May of that year, a promising spot on the Wabash River, north of the Ohio River confluence, had been purchased, and the first Harmonists arrived in June. 1 Soon after, in August 1814, the town streets were surveyed, likely based on a plan drawn up by Georg Rapp's adopted son, Frederick, who was in Pennsylvania at the time. 2 Construction of the new town proceeded at a rapid pace, and by May 1815, the last of the Harmonists had joined their