Research Note: Rufus Rockwell Wilson's Tour of Five Utopian Communities in 1888

ARTICLES on Utopian communities appeared in the Elmira, New York, Telegram under the byline of Rufus Rockwell Wilson.They are first-hand accounts of five communities from New York to Iowa based on extensive research, as well as visits to the communities themselves.Included are the Shaker community at Mount Lebanon, New York, the Rappites at Economy, the Separatists of Zoar, the Icarians in Iowa, and the Inspirationalists at Amana.Rufus Rockwell Wilson was twenty-three in 1888, a local boy from nearby Troy, Pennsylvania.He was educated in the local schools in Troy and went to work at the age of seventeen for a newspaper in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.He soon moved to Elmira, where his most memorable experience was meeting the young Rudyard Kipling who came to Elmira on his way home from India to meet Mark Twain, who summered there.Wilson recalled showing Kipling the way to Quarry Farm, home of Mrs. Clemens' sister, where the Clemens family stayed and where Twain did much of his writing in a special study built for him.Kipling reached the farm, about two miles from town, only to find that Mark Twain was in town at the home of his in-laws that day.Kipling retraced his steps and did meet the celebrated humorist, a visit he recorded in his American Notes (1889).Wilson never forgot meeting Kipling or the familiar sight of Mark Twain in his white suit on the streets of Elmira.