John Humphrey Noyes

John Humphrey Noyes (September 3, 1811 – April 13, 1886) was an American utopian socialist. He founded the Oneida Community in 1848.

Life

Early activism

Noyes was born in Brattleboro, Vermont and studied at Dartmouth College, Andover Theological Seminary and Yale Theological College. It was at Yale that he became interested in the idea of Perfectionism — that it was possible to be free of sin in this lifetime. In 1834, on February 20, he declared himself perfect and free from sin. This declaration caused an outrage at his college, and his newly-earned license to preach was revoked.

He returned to Putney, Vermont, where he continued to preach, declaring "I took away their license to sin and they go one sinning; they have taken away my license to preach but I shall go on preaching". At this time, his Putney community began to take shape. It started in 1836 as the Putney Bible School, and became a formal communal organization in 1844, practicing complex marriage, male continence and striving for Perfection.

Oneida

In 1847, Noyes (who had legally married Harriet Holton in 1838) was arrested for adultery. Upon receiving word that arrest warrants had been written for several of his loyal followers, the group left Vermont for Oneida, New York, where Noyes knew some friendly Perfectionists with land. They made the decision to settle there and built their first communal dwelling in 1848.

The Oneida Community, as it came to be known, survived until 1879. It grew to have a membership of over 300, with branch communities in Brooklyn, Wallingford, Newark, Cambridge, and even Putney. The Community had many successful industries. They manufactured animal traps and silk thread, and raised and canned fruits and vegetables. Smaller industries included the manufacture of leather travel bags and palm-leaf hats.

Exile

In June of 1879, one of Noyes' most loyal followers alerted him that he was about to be arrested for statutory rape. In the middle of the night, he fled Oneida for Ontario, Canada, where the Community had a factory. In August, he wrote back to the Community, stating that it was time to abandon the practice of complex marriage and live in a more traditional manner. The Community formally broke up and converted to a joint stock company on January 1, 1881.

Noyes never returned to America. He remained a powerful influence over many of his followers. Some even left Oneida to come to the Niagara Falls area. One young woman, entertaining two marriage proposals from two different young men, wrote to Noyes for his advice. When Noyes advised her to reject both proposals and take up with Myron Kinsley — the follower who had tipped him off to his impending arrest, and a man twenty years her senior — she took his advice.

John Humphrey Noyes died in Niagara Falls, Ontario, in 1886. His body was returned to Oneida and is buried in the Oneida Community Cemetery with many of his followers.

Legacy

In the early decades of the twentieth century, his son Pierrepont Noyes consolidated the Community's industries and focused solely on silverware production. The company became known as Oneida, Limited and was the largest producer of flatware in the world for much of the twentieth century. The Community's second communal dwelling, the 93,000 square foot brick "mansion house", survives today as a multi-use facility encompassing a museum, apartments, dormitory housing, guest rooms, and meeting and banquet facilities.

Works

The Berean (1847)
Bible Communism (1848)
History of American Socialisms (1870)

References

Kennedy, David M., et al. (2002). The American Pageant. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Klaw, Spencer (1993). Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community. New York: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press.
Noyes, Pierrepont B. (1937). My Father's House: An Oneida Boyhood. New York and Toronto: Farrar and Rinehart, Incorporated.

External links

John Humphrey Noyes biography, compiled and edited by George Wallingford Noyes - full text online at Syracuse University Library
John Humphrey Noyes: The Oneida Community
Oneida Community Mansion House

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