Sheldon, Thaddeus S.

The nineteenth century utopian community of Harmonia, located in the valley of Kiantone Creek, situated on the border between New York and Pennsylvania, was known variously as Harmonia, the Association of Beneficents, The Sacred Order of Unionists, and The Domain. This group of spiritualists "believed that the great men and women of earlier ages were guiding them toward the realization of a new social order. Some of their ideas included a perpetual motion machine, the curing of disease by 'magnetic waters,' world federalism, feminine emancipation, marriage reform, and the manufacture of sewing machines." The leader of the Kiantone Harmonia was John Murray Spear, a Universalist minister, and later a spiritualist. Harmonia was interested in practical ideas as well as idealistic plans for a utopian world with reforms in government, education, business, and marriage. Views on education, for example, describe a progressive theory which recommends the use of field trips and laboratory experiments, and advocates the education of women on an equal basis with men. Spear, a staunch abolitionist, and members of the Harmonia community undertook a river voyage to New Orleans on the Cleopatra in a plan to secure recruits for the association. The trip was also a peace mission to protest the outbreak of a civil war in 1859 and 1860. Members were also involved in the following sewing machine companies: Orvis, Boyd and Co.; Orvis and Williams Co.; the New York, Boston and Philadelphia Sewing Machine Embroidering Co.; and the American Sewing and Embroidery Machine Company.