This 1800s mansion housed America’s most successful cult; then things went wrong
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In the late 19th century, in this impressive New York State home, the utopian Oneida Community thrived for 30 years. This implausible Protestant Perfectionist community had hundreds of members; worldly possessions were universal, living quarters were shared, and everyone in the society raised their children.
The Oneida Community Mansion House holds many stories and has since been restored to its former glory after an extensive renovation.
Born of the late 19th century Protestant revival known as the Second Great Awakening, the Oneida Community in central New York was an idealistic community of Perfectionists, and arguably the most successful commune in American history.
Oneida residents shared everything, from living quarters and possessions to sexual partners, and at their height, the community numbered about 300 members, all packed together in this sprawling 93,000-square-foot (8.6k sqm) brick mansion.
The commune was founded in 1848, in Oneida, New York, by the charismatic, Vermont-born John Humphrey Noyes. He assembled a legion of followers united by the belief that Jesus had already returned in AD 70.
Noyes believed that people could bring about Heaven on Earth through a combination of communal living, an unconventional family structure in which all men and women were married to one another and by raising children in common.
By 1878, the Community’s original 87 members had grown to 306, while branch communities sprang up in Wallingford, Connecticut; Newark, New Jersey; and Putney and Cambridge, Vermont.
Content retrieved from: https://uk.style.yahoo.com/1800s-mansion-housed-americas-most-200000314.html.
