The photo, courtesy of Nancy Benton, shows James Allen Noyes and Caroline Atwell with daughters Emma Viola b. 1860 and Cora Rachel b. 1863. One will notice that the photograph is actually 2 combined.

James Allen NOYES was my grandfather. He had a happy childhood at Pavilion, Mich near Kalamazoo. His father was experimenting with the theory of Alphadelphianism, and they all lived in common community. After his mother’s death and his father’s marriage to Miss Susan WATERS, who was southern in belief, he was unhappy and started out for himself. He was forever looking for other communities that were trying the theory of Alphadelphianism. He went to Berlin Heights, Erie Co., Ohio, where such a group existed. Here he met Caroline ATWELL of Waterbury, VT who was living with an aunt and attending school. He was drafted in the Union army but paid a substitute to go in his place. In 1864 he left Michigan and went to Anna, Illinois where he lived 18 years raising fruit and potatoes and shipping to the Chicago market before coming to Liberal, MO, where he had heard of another group of Freethinkers that had ideas similar to Alphadelphians. The trip from Anna to Liberal took three weeks by covered wagon in 1882. He saw his idea fail again at Liberal. He died on his farm at Liberal in 1901. I well remember the songs he used to sing to me, walks he and I took to the neighbors and especially the whistles he could make from maple whips early in the spring.

Source: Nancy Benton, from Grace Noyes Pinkerton’s writing on the Noyes.

James Allen NOYES, son of James NOYES and Sally MARBLE was born 22 Dec. 1826 at Ann Arbor, Michigan. He died 24 Jan. 1901 at Liberal Barton Co. MO.

On 28 June 1859 at (Brady Village) Kalamazoo Co. Michigan, James NOYES married Caroline ATWELL, daughter of Hiram ATWELL and Rachel SCAGEL.

Caroline was born 2 Oct 1835 at Waterbury, Washington Co. VT and died 18 April 1894 at Liberal Barton Co. MO.

James was 32 and Caroline 23 when they were married. He died at 74 and she at 58. Emma born when they were 25 and 34. Cora born when they were 27 and 36. Victor born when they were 29 and 38. Allen born when they were 32 and 41. Paul born when they were 34 and 42. Ray born when they were 38 and 47.

In 1864, James and Caroline moved to Anna, Union County, Illinois. In 1882, they moved to Barton County, Missouri where they resided the remainder of their lives.

James and Caroline had the following children:

• 1) Emma Viola was b. 15 Dec. 1860 at 4 oclock at Wakeshma MI, married, 9 June 1878 in Anna, Union Co. IL, Ormie Ellie HARMON who was born Dec. 1853 in Michigan. They adopted Cora’s son Robert after her death in childbirth. Emma died at age 85, 24 Oct. 1946, in Monroe, LA. O. E. Harmon wrote, “The Story of Liberal Missouri”
  
  “Viola had a son who died when he was about a year old. She and husband O.E. adopted her sister’s son when her sister died in childbirth. They lived in Chehalis, WA for 20 years, then moved to Liberal where they lived for 40 years. She died of heart failure in home of her adopted son, Robert Harmon, in Monroe, LA.”
  SOURCE: Nancy Benton
• (2) Cora Rachel was born 19 April 1863 at “1 and 1/4 oclock” in Wakeshma, MI. She married Frank GREEN, 30 March 1886 at Junction, Geary, KS. Cora died in childbirth, 16 Oct. 1887 at Liberal, Barton Co. MO. Her son, Robert, was adopted by Cora’s sister, Emma Viola.
• (3) Victor Hugo was born 20 August 1865 at “4 o clock” in Anna, Union Co. IL. He died at the age of 21, 23 Oct. 1886 at Wildwood, FL., killed by a train. Because of a yellow fever epidemic, his body was buried for a year there, then brought to Liberal. Victor traveled a good deal, including a trip to China, from which he returned with silkworms which he raised for silk. A letter of his is on this blog.
• (4) Allen Marble was born 30 Oct. 1867 at “4 o’clock AM” at Anna, Union County, Illinois. He married Susie REYNOLDS, 1 May 1897, at age 29. He died, 21 April 1939, at Dexter, Stoddard Co., MI at the age of 72. His Niece, Grace PINKERTON, wrote, “Allen made the land run into Indian Territory in 1889 and settled on a farm near Miller, OK. Since he had made the first run and was experienced, he was the teacher of a group of ten men who made the run into the Cherokee Strip in 1893. They met at Orlando, OK. several days before at the home of one of the men. They rode into the strip early to choose the place they wanted which was about midway or nearly a 30 mile ride from the border. The farms were adjoining ones in a bend of two streams called Red River and Bunch Creek. On the morning of September 16 1893 everyone lined up on the border. The only food they carried with them was bread.” The 1889 land run was April 22nd. An 1895 map shows a town of MIller in OK County, in the Spring Creek area, toward the center of the state, below Logan and west of Pottawatomie.
• (5) Paul was born 24 Nov. 1869 at “10 oclock AM” in Anna, Union Co. IL, and died 3 May 1931 at Humansville, Polk Co., MO. He married Edna STARK. Their two children were Grace, b. 1892, who married PINKERTON, and Ormal, b. 1893. His daughter, Grace PINKERTON, wrote, “Paul made the run into the OK Cherokee Strip with his brother Allen in 1893. Another man arrived at the property he wanted at the same time and he paid him $25 for the site. He had bought a fine racing mare to ride in the opening and was grieved when she had to be shot a few days later because her hooves were coming off from being ridden so hard. After he completed the required shanty and fencing and plowed a plot of ground, he went back to his brother Allen’s farm to get his family.” He can be seen in the 1900 Barton Co. census. More on Paul Noyes.
• (6) Ray, b. 4 Jan. 1874 at “10 1/2 clock A.M.” at Anna, Union Co., IL, married Elizabeth Jane BREWER.
  Post on the family of Ray and Bettie.

James Allen NOYES’ father was a president of the Alphadelphia Association, a Utopian community which lasted from 1844 to 1848. James Allen traveled to different communities and he and, as noted above, were at Berlin Heights. Later they moved to Liberal, Missouri, which was to be a “Free-Thinkers” town. During the McCarthy years the family destroyed all materials and letters associated with Alphadelphia and the days of Utopian interests.

A TIME LINE

A time line will help with presenting events on James Allen’s life.

• Birth, 22 Dec 1826, Michigan, Washtenaw County, Ann Arbor. Birth date from Family Record of James Noyes created by James A. and Caroline Atwell Noyes. The copy by Caroline gives the birth year as 1836.

1826 was the year of the formation of Washtenaw Co.

• Sibling’s Birth: Maryette is born., 17 Jul 1828.

• Census, 1830, Michigan, Washtenaw County, Ann Arbor.

An unidentified 20 to 30 year old male is in the household.

pg. 138
Harvey CHUBB
John CHANDLER
Eli CHANDLER
John A. ENSWORTH
WIlliam STUBBS
Phillip McKUNAN?
Michael STUBBS
William PRINGLE
JOhn SLOE?
Elam SLOE?
Aaron ROSENGRANTS
Hugh MCCALL
John BENWICK
Isaac SEWALL
Avis BRUNDAGE
George MCGOUNTER?
Moses ALLEN
Eli CONKLIN
William ALLEN
David BOTIFORD
David HUEA?
Joseph LORCE
Benjamin SUTTON
James NOYES 1 – 1 – 1 1 | 1 1 1 – – 1
NOTE: 1 male under 5, 1 10 to 15, 1 male 20 to 30, 1 male 30 to 40, 1 female under 5, 1 female 5 to 10, 1 female 10 to 15, 1 female 30 to 40.
1 male under 5 would be James Allen. Male 10 to 15 would be Ezra. James is the 30 to 40 male. I don’t know who the 20 to 30 male is. 1 female under 5 would be Maryette. Female 5 to 10 would be B. J. Female 10 to 15 would be Elizabeth. And then Sally Marble.
John C. CARPENTER
John NIXEN
Isaac SUTTON

• Sibling’s Birth: Dan is born., 4 Nov 1831.

• Sibling’s Birth: Delia is born., 15 Nov 1833.

• Sibling’s Death: Dan dies at the age of 3 of malaria fever., 10 Sep 1835.

• Sibling’s Death: Delia dies at 4 of malaria fever., 1837.

• Mother’s Death, 10 Aug 1838. James’ mother died when he was 11.

• Father remarries, 1839. James’ father remarries to Susan WATERS.

• Half-sibling’s Birth: By Susan Waters, George W. is born., 8 May 1840.

• Census, 1840, Michigan, Kalamazoo County, Pavilion Township.

pg. 253 (ancestry.com 1)
John B. CHIPMAN
Martin McCAIN
Sally CHIPMAN
John HOLCUM
James NOYES 1 – 1 1 2 – 1 | 1 – 1 1 1
NOTE: 1 male under 5, 1 male 10 to 15, 1 male 15 to 20, 2 males 20 to 30 1 male 40 to 50, 1 female under 5, 1 female 10 to 15, 1 female 15 to 20, 1 female 20 to 30

1 male under 5 would be George W. (son of Susan Waters and James Noyes), 1 male 10 to 15 would be James Allen. 1 male 15 to 20 would be? 1 of the 2 20 to 30 males would be Ezra, James is the 40 to 50 year old male. 1 female under 5 would be Sarah Malissa, 1 female 10 to 15 would be Maryette. 1 female 15 to 20 would be B. J. 1 female 20 to 30 would not be Elizabeth if she was married before 1839. Though Susan’s birthdate is given as 1815, this female would be her.

• Sibling’s Death: Ezra dies at 23., 17 Jun 1841.

• Sibling’s Death: Maryette dies at the age of 14., 13 Feb 1843.

• Sibling’s Death: B. J. dies at the age of 19, of malaria fever., 6 May 1843.

• Half-sibling’s Birth: By Susan Waters, Daniel T. is born, 11 Sep 1843.

• Half-sibling’s Death: Daniel T. dies in infancy., After 11 Sep 1843.

• Commune: Alphadelphia – First meeting, 21 Mar 1844.

• 1846. It was under duress that Dr. H. R. Schetterly, who founded the Alphadelphia Association, was forced to leave, the Community convicting him of appropriating goods to the amount of two hundred dollars and the Sunday June 21 1846 Day Book reporting that he “ran away this day.”

• Half-sibling’s Birth: By Susan Waters, Mary R. is born., 7 Mar 1847.

• Commune: Alphadelphia – Dissolution, 30 Apr 1848.

• Residence, 3 Jun 1848, Indiana, Lagrange County,

James compiled a list of family births and deaths and dated it 1848, place, IN, Lagrange Co., Springfield.

Schetterly, a founding member of Alphadelphia, is also given in one of the news articles on Alphadelphia as going to Lagrange and Wisconsin. It’s known he left Kalamazoo in 1846 under duress. The record books for Alphadelphia give him as “fleeing” the community after getting in some trouble to do with funds. It could be that James Allen traveled with him, though with Schetterly fleeing under duress this is questionable.

The 1850 Indiana, Lagrange County, Springfield census shows Cornelius W. VINING, one of hte initial directors of Alphadelphia.

A Fourier publication from the 1840s refers to a Fourier community in Lagrange so that’s where I would imagine James was in 1848. John Humphrey Noyes mentions this info in his publication on American Socialism. In the same paragraph is mentioned a Fourier “Washtenaw Phalanx” which would be Alphadelphia. At the time the Washtenaw Phalanx was mentioned in the Fourier publication it was still in the planning stages, c. 1842

• Accessory Document: James Noyes Family Record, 3 Jun 1848.

• Timeline note: John Humphrey Noyes founds Oneida Perfectionist Community, 1848, New York, Oneida.

It is likely that at some point, James Allen stayed at Oneida. Dorothy Noyes McKenney (my grandmother) spoke of a relation (I had thought an aunt or great aunt) staying for a while with her family, who had been at Oneida. She was fairly concrete on this, saying the woman never married and would not discuss Oneida. But I have not been able to determine who this relative was. It is perhaps one of those family connections that isn’t apparent on the family tree and is not even recorded. My grandmother called her an aunt or great-aunt, but no such individual lived at Oneida. For all I know, if she wasn’t familially connected, she could have been an individual who James had met at Oneida, who later came to stay with the family and who was called “aunt”.

James Allan Noyes and John Humphrey Noyes were only 4th cousins, but John Humphrey Noyes’ sister Elizabeth F. had moved from Putney to to Kalamazoo, Michigan with her husband Fletcher Ransom and his brother Roswell Ransom is known to have been a member of Alphadelphia.

• Promissory Note: Places in Battle Creek, 14 Dec 1849.

For value received I promise to pay to James A. Noyes or bearer the sum of twenty three dollars & sixty cents on or before the first of June 1850 with use. Samuel Dickinson.
Battle Creek Dec 14 1849

• Travels, 1850-1860, Wisconsin, Waukesha County, New Berlin.

After the deaths of Hiram ATWELL and his wife Rachel SCAGEL, Caroline ATWELL is given as having gone to live with an aunt. This has been given by Grace Noyes Pinkerton, who first did the research, in both New Berlin, Wisconsin and Berlin Heights, Ohio. It appears that Caroline was indeed associated with both New Berlin and Berlin Heights for she had addresses in her address book connecting her with both places.

George SCAGEL and Deborah Hunkins SCAGEL were one set of relatives in New Berlin, Waukesha Co. WI in 1850. George’s sister, Sarah Sally Scagel BRYAN, was living next to the Hiram Atwell family in 1850. As George SCAGEL died in 1850, she perhaps went to live for a period with Deborah HUNKINS SCAGEL who was a first cousin once removed through the HUNKINS and also an aunt by way of being married to her mother’s brother, George.

George SCAGEL and wife Deborah HUNKINS were first cousins, he being a nephew of her mother Hannah SCAGEL. Moses HUNKINS, Deborah’s father, was a brother of Lydia HUNKINS who married Nathaniel ATWELL, father of Hiram ATWELL who married Rachel SCAGEL, sister of George. Moses and Lydia HUNKINS’ brother, Robert HASTINGS, had a grandson, Hazen Hastings HUNKINS, who married Aurelia Seymour SCAGEL, daughter of George SCAGEL and Deborah HUNKINS.

As noted, Aurelia, daughter of George and Deobrah, married Hazen Hastings HUNKINS. They had a daughter named Carrie in 1855 who is possibly a namesake of Caroline ATWELL, and was found in Caroline’s address book.

Daughter Deborah married Robert Hastings HUNKINS who was a nephew of Hazen Hastings HUNKINS through his brother Robert W. who is given as having died Feb 1845 in Wisconsin.

We have no way of knowing if Caroline went to Wisconsin before or after her working at Pacific Mills.

Tracing the whereabouts of Caroline Atwell and James Noyes circulates to some extent around the different communes of the time. Caroline’s address book and family history offer a few leads.

Schetterly, who founded the Alphadelphia Association of which James’ father was a President, in a news article on Alphadelphia is given as going to Lagrange , Indiana and Wisconsin then back to Michigan. No time frame is given but in the 1850 census Dr. Schetterly appears to be already back in Michigan. We know James Noyes was in Lagrange June 3 1848. It could be he traveled with him, though as Schetterly left under duress it seems questionable.

Grace Noyes Pinkerton recorded, “(James) was forever looking for other communities that were trying out the theory of Alphadelphianism. He went to Berlin Heights, Ohio, where such a group existed. Here he met Caroline Atwell of Waterbury, VT. She was living with an aunt and attending school.” Because this leaves out the time she worked at Pacific Mills, and because the time at New Berlin has apparently become confused with the time at Berlin Heights, it’s difficult to put the decade into chronological order in relation to Caroline and where she was at what time.

There was a Fouerier community in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin called the Ceresco Commune (1847-1851, given as dissolving December 1849…record books continued until 1857). Fond du Lac is a couple of counties over from Waukesha.
http://www.ripon.edu/library/archives/reference/history.html

Though the Wisconsin Phalanx ended in 1857, its day as a commune were finished by 1851. It was supposed to have been a very successful community that disbanded at its height when it was still doing very well, and sold out its holdings for a good sum, making quite a profit.

The Wisconsin Phalanx ending in 1857 and the Berlin Heights experiment in OH beginning in 1857, so it is perhaps plausible that James may have gone to Wisconsin where he met Caroline (she is at the mill in 1857 but may not have been there for long), and then they both traveled to Berin Heights in Ohio. Sarah Melissa NOYES ended up in WI for a while with her husband John SLATER. They were married there in 1857. It may be that Sarah traveled there with James, and the 1857 marriage may help in placing Caroline and James perhaps meeting about that time in Wisconsin. Or as Pansy, their granddaughter states at one point, they may have met instead at Berlin Heights and Caroline’s time in New Berlin was separate from her meeting James NOYES. Regardless, they were together for a period of time in Ohio, as also evidenced by Caroline’s address book which gives the following name: Francis Barry Berlin Heights, Ohio.

The 1850 census shows for Ohio, Erie County, Berlin:

167/167 Samuel S. BARRY 25 blacksmith
Elsie H. BARRY 23
Francis O. BARRY 24 preacher after ancient gospel
George BUCKINGHAM 21 wagon maker
William BUCKINGHAM 23 wagon maker

I would imagine this is the same BARRY as below:

Francis Barry. Free Love community; ed. with Cordelia Age of Freedom, cited History of the Firelands, comprising Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio . . . (Cleveland, W.W. Williams, 1879), 487; Age of Freedom 1858)

Francis Barry had to do with the Berlin Heights Community, known as a kind of Free Love community, and published with Cordelia the “Age of Freedom” circular.

Hudson Tuttle wrote on Francis Barry, and apparently hadn’t much affection for his journal:

The Berlin people are noted for tolerance, but it may be presumed that the socialists, with their strange ideas, did not always find their paths strewn with roses, and the citizens still retain fresh in their memories, how, when Francis Barry attempted to mail a number of the obnoxious “Age of Freedom”, twenty Berlin women seized the mail-sack in which he had brought it on his shoulder to the office, and made a bonfire in the street. The following journals were successively started by the socialists and ran brief careers: “Social Revolutionist”, conducted by J. S. Patterson, 1857; “Age of Freedom”, commenced in 1858, Frank and Cordelia Barry and C. M. Overton, editors; “Good Time Coming”, 1859, edited by J. P. Lesley and C. M. Overton; the “New Republic”, 1862, edited by Francis Barry; “The Optimist” and “Kingdom of Heaven”, 1869, Thomas Cook, editor; “The Principia”, or Personality”, 1868, N. A. Brown, editor; the “New Campaign”, 1871, C. M. Overton, editor; “The Toledo Sun”, moved from Toledo to Be lin Heights in 1875, by John A. Laut. Besides these, two local newspapers were published for some time: “The Bulletin”, by W. B. Harrison, commenced in 1870; and the “Index” by F. J. Miles, commenced in 1875.

Whatever the sequence of events, Caroline and James would have been in Berlin Heights Ohio at the time the of the Community there.

John Humphrey NOYES, founder of the Oneida Community and distant relative of James Allen, wrote the following on the Berlin Heights experiment.

The Putney Community by John Humphrey Noyes, compiled and edited by George Wallingford Noyes

Chapter 19

FREE LOVE

SWEDENBORG was not alone in his hostility to marriage. The socialistic innovators, whose experiments we have reviewed, attacked not merely the economic hilt also the sexual foundations of modern society.

The religious colonies that came early from Europe felt instinctively that marriage was antagonistic to communism. Partly for this reason and partly in the interest of a supposedly higher religious life the Shakers adopted celibacy as a cardinal principle. The Rappites too were originally celibate. Even after marriage was allowed in order that they might “raise their own members,” sexual commerce beyond the requirements of reproduction was prohibited, and virginity was held to be more commendable than marriage. The Ephratists, the Zoarites and the Amana Society tolerated marriage, but looked upon it with disfavor.

Robert Owen did not attempt the immediate displacement of marriage. But he included marriage with irrational religion and private property as one of the “awful trinity” of man’s oppressors, and contemplated its ultimate destruction. His son, Robert Dale Owen, was outspoken in his enmity to marriage, and became a leading advocate of free divorce. Both father and son were enthusiastic disciples of Modern Spiritualism, a religious cult of which Free Love was believed by many the social complement.

Certain groups of “antinomian Perfectionists” renounced marriage and mated by spiritual affinity. [1] Noyes and the Putney Perfectionists, as we have seen, held aloof from these groups, believing that marriage was ordained by God as the law of the apostasy and was not to be set aside until salvation from sin and the resurrection of the body had been attained.

The Mormons in 1843 adopted polygamy, which Noyes called a dilution of marriage.

Like Robert Owen, American Fourierists were cautious of im-

1 Religious Experience of John Humphrey Noyes Chap. XIX.

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mediate changes in the law of marriage. But Henry J. Raymond showed in his public debate with Horace Greeley that as a system Fourierism permitted “higher degrees of amorous freedom” after the human race had become regenerated by socialistic institutions.

The socialistic reformer whose teachings were the most highly subversive of marriage was Josiah Warren, inventor of the term “Individual Sovereignty.” At Modern Times, Long Island, his final socialistic experiment, each member was supposed to know his or her best interests in the sexual relation as in everything else, and no questions were asked. It was here that Warren in 1851 enlisted Stephen Pearl Andrews to popularize the doctrine of Individual Sovereignty by a series of lectures and by a pamphlet distributed gratuitously. Among the converts were Dr. and Mrs. Thomas L. Nichols, water-cure specialists of New York City. They were publicity adepts and prepared themselves at Modern Times to broadcast the principle of Free Love based on Individual Sovereignty and Modern Spiritualism.

The essential connection between Free Love and Spiritualism is thus stated by C. M. Overton, editor of The Social Revolutionist, a Free Love journal: “Free Love is a doctrine of Spiritualism. I say of Spiritualism, not of Spiritualists. Many recognize the facts of Spiritualism who know little of its philosophy. But will any intelligent Spiritualist deny that the concurrent testimony of the spheres proves that their inhabitants are controlled in their love relations not by arbitrary outside authority but by the law of attraction, affinity or Free Love? Is it not a conceded fact that the angels do not have to be hauled up before a magistrate to legalize their marriages? How supremely ridiculous the idea that the men and women of Paradise live together on the cat and dog principle because it wouldn’t be respectable to separate! They are not so generous there as to sacrifice their individual happiness for the good of the community. They are not so senseless there as to stay together and scratch and pull hair from a sense of duty to their children or other members of the community, when these other members are doing the same thing from the same laudable motive! The fact that they break up false relations there and form new ones is as well established and is just as much a part of the Spiritual or Harmonic Philosophy as the doctrine of Endless Progression.”

In 1852 the Nicholses joined with Andrews in establishing at Port Chester, New York, a Free Love School under the guise of a water-cure and vegetarian Medical College. It was suppressed by the authorities. Dr. Nichols then put forth a flowery prospectus

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of “The Institute of Desarrollo.” This was to be based frankly on Individual Sovereignty, and was expected to garner all the results that had been vainly looked for in the Fourieristic Associations. A site was selected near Modern Times, the cellar dug, the foundation wall partly laid, when the plan was abandoned. Dr. Nichols explained that a campaign of education should precede practical attempts. To this be now addressed himself.

His first move was the establishment of a magazine called Nichols’ Journal, in which Spiritualism, health and social relations were discussed.

Next he published a book of five hundred pages entitled Esoteric Anthropology. This, he prefaced, was “no book for the center-table, the library shelf, or the counter of a bookstore.” It was a private treatise on physiology and health, written “not to get consultations but to prevent their necessity, not to attract patients but to keep them away.” Free Love, though hinted, was not directly advocated. During 1853 and 1854 twenty-six thousand copies were sold.
To this great audience Dr. Nichols in 1854 introduced his second book entitled Marriage, in which he openly presented his threefold creed, Individual Sovereignty, Spiritualism, and Free Love. Marriage ran through three large editions during its first year. By the fall of 1854 Dr. Nichols’ writings were circulating actively in every State of the Union, especially in the west.

So widespread was the popularity of these new doctrines that Dr. Nichols ventured upon overt acts in the full glare of publicity. With his former partner, Stephen Pearl Andrews, he instituted a series of “Sociables” in New York City, which were broken up by the police.

Dr. Nichols now found himself accepted as the prophet of a new age by scattered thousands eager to share in its benefits. How could he make his followers known to each other and commence the realization of their dream? The “spirits,” by whose illumination he says he had written his books, came again to his aid. They directed the formation of a “Protective Union.” A Central Bureau was established in New York City with Dr. Nichols as Secretary. All who wished to associate were enrolled as members and received a printed list of names and addresses. Thus a tempting opportunity was offered to affinity-hunters.

Early in 1856 Dr. Nichols began to see signs of a hurricane arising from the zephyr be had sown. Sensational charges were made in the newspapers and he found it necessary to issue a statement in his own defense. Hitherto no oath of secrecy had been exacted

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from members, but now a circular was sent out prescribing a Declaration of Principles and secrecy of the most guarded kind. The Central Bureau was removed to Cincinnati away from the hostile press of the east and nearer the main body of its constituents. Dr. Nichols began to hint in the Journal that sexual commerce should be limited to propagation. In May 1856 he launched a “Harmonic Home” called Memnonia at Yellow Springs, Ohio. But he gave notice in the Social Revolutionist, that Memnonia would be “provisionally and necessarily a despotism,” as wise and benevolent as circumstances would permit.

But the western disciples of Dr. Nichols, trained by him in Individual Sovereignty, could brook no control. They turned their backs on Memnonia, and found a gathering-point at Berlin Heights, a small town near Cleveland, Ohio, where Individual Sovereignty, Spiritualism and Free Love were smoldering and could easily be fanned into flame.

Memnonia was Dr. Nichols’ last attempt at social reconstruction. After its failure, which was complete, Dr. and Mrs. Nichols recanted their errors to Archbishop Purcelle of Cincinnati and were received into the Catholic Church.
With the exit of Dr. Nichols the “Nicolaitan doctrine,” as it was called by Noyes in allusion to the doctrine which according to Revelation 2: 15 Christ “hated,” entered upon its final phase. The Rising Star Association of Darke County, Ohio, believing that a large organization necessarily infringed the rights of the individual, had striven since August 1853 to realize Individual Sovereignty in a small group with the hope that later a federation of small groups could safely be effected. In the spring of 1857 this Association removed from Darke County to Berlin Heights, and its press, The Social Revolutionist, having taken over the subscription list of Nichols’ Monthly, became the organ of fierce Spiritualistic Free Lovers eager for advance on a large scale. A convention was held at Berlin Heights in the fall of 1856, another in the fall of 1857. The next year thirty householders pledged themselves to dispose of their property and remove to Berlin Heights as soon as practicable. But the public had become aroused. The Social Revolutionist for November 1857 was seized and burnt by a mob, and the number for January 1858 was the last. After this, though many Spiritualistic Free Lovers continued to live at Berlin Heights, the Free Love movement which had centered there fell into complete disorganization.

Reviewing the fruits of Berlin Heights Free Love a prominent convert asserted that among less than one hundred persons there

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were several suicides; that one man was in prison charged with murdering his wife’s sister, with whom he had been intimate; that three-quarters of the married couples had been separated and their families broken up; that many children born in Free Love had been forsaken; and that venereal disease had become alarmingly prevalent.

It isn’t as though John Humphrey Noyes didn’t have his own scandals to negotiate in the end, fleeing Oneida under the specter of statutory rape, men of the Oneida Community disgruntled at Noyes being the one who introduced females (some as young as 13) to the life of the Community in which it is said that every member was free to turn down sexual relations, but to do so could mean reprisal for selective love, which was seen even as a detrimental relationship even in the bonding of parents and children, for which reason children were removed from the care of their parents when weaned and placed in the Community Home. The abhorrence of selective love also prompted the burning of the childrens’ dolls.

• Travel, 1850-1860, Ohio, Erie County, Berlin Heights. At Berlin Heights sometime before and perhaps during 1859.

• Census: Possible, 1850, Illinois, Rock Island.

There is a James NOYS in the Rock Island Illinois census aged 23. Given as born Ohio however. But this James NOYS is in a household with a group of men of different professions. Nearby was a well-known Swedish utopian community, so I do wonder if this is James Allen Noyes. No way of knowing.

James NOYES is given as James NOYS in the 1860 census,which may also lend support to the Rock Island NOYS being James Allen NOYES.

24 October, R.I. Cty Lower Ward
Roll: M432_126 Page: 220 Image: 74
29 1177/1177 John LITTIG 50 Laborer $400 Germany
30 Mary 50 Germany
31 Mary 19 Germany
32 Nicholas 16 France
33 John 8 France
34 Amelia 4 Illinois
35 Andrew 2 Illinois
36 Morriah 1 Illinois
37 John LITTLE 84 Laborer Germany
38 Lewis RUBIDEAU 38 Laborer Canada
39 Mary 24 France
40 Lenora 5 Illinois
41 John L. 3 Illinois
42 Amanda 1 Illinois
1 Frederick RATCLIFF 29 m baker $300 England
2 A. D. GIBBONS 25 m wagonworks $300 Ohio
3 James NOYS 23 Laborer Ohio
4 William HOLLOWAY 33 Assesor Ohio
5 R. H? ANDREWS 24 Lawyer D.C.
6 William NEWBY 25 Sadler $1000 Ohio
7 A. H. MCCULLY 26 laborer Ireland

• Half-sibling’s Death: Mary R. dies as a young child, before the age of 3., Cir 1850.

• Sibling’s Death: Elizabeth dies at the age of 31., 22 Sep 1850.

• Half-sibling’s Birth: By Susan Waters, John W. is born., 31 Jan 1851.

• Half-sibling’s Birth: By Susan Waters, Minerva is born., 19 Jun 1851.

• Half-sibling’s Birth: By Susan Waters, Arilla W. is born., Cir 1851.

• 1851. In 1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, “The House of the Seven Gables”. Though it was Rev. Nicholas NOYES who had been purportedly cursed for his hand in the Salem witch trials, and who never had children, the forward of the book gives the curse falling upon John Hathorne, great-grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was a magistrate at the Salem Witch Trials. It also gives the family having come to believe the curse fell not only upon Hathorne but the family in general, and was a matter of preoccupation for some. Seems the curse uttered against Noyes was absorbed by the Hathornes as belonging to them, and perhaps others involved absorbed it as well.

The House of the Seven Gables, antique as it now looks, was not the first habitation erected by civilized man on precisely the same spot of ground. Pyncheon Street formerly bore the humbler appellation of Maule’s Lane, from the name of the original occupant of the soil, before whose cottage-door it was a cow-path. A natural spring of soft and pleasant water-a rare treasure on the sea-girt peninsula where the Puritan settlement was made-had early induced Matthew Maule to build a hut, shaggy with thatch, at this point, although somewhat too remote from what was then the centre of the village. In the growth of the town, however, after some thirty or forty years, the site covered by this rude hovel had become exceedingly desirable in the eyes of a prominent and powerful personage, who asserted plausible claims to the proprietorship of this and a large adjacent tract of land, on the strength of a grant from the legislature. Colonel Pyncheon, the claimant, as we gather from whatever traits of him are preserved, was characterized by an iron energy of purpose. Matthew Maule, on the other hand, though an obscure man, was stubborn in the defence of what he considered his right; and, for several years, he succeeded in protecting the acre or two of earth which, with his own toil, he had hewn out of the primeval forest, to be his garden ground and homestead. No written record of this dispute is known to be in existence. Our acquaintance with the whole subject is derived chiefly from tradition. It would be bold, therefore, and possibly unjust, to venture a decisive opinion as to its merits; although it appears to have been at least a matter of doubt, whether Colonel Pyncheon’s claim were not unduly stretched, in order to make it cover the small metes and bounds of Matthew Maule. What greatly strengthens such a suspicion is the fact that this controversy between two ill-matched antagonists-at a period, moreover, laud it as we may, when personal influence had far more weight than now-remained for years undecided, and came to a close only with the death of the party occupying the disputed soil. The mode of his death, too, affects the mind differently, in our day, from what it did a century and a half ago. It was a death that blasted with strange horror the humble name of the dweller in the cottage, and made it seem almost a religious act to drive the plough over the little area of his habitation, and obliterate his place and memory from among men.

Old Matthew Maule, in a word, was executed for the crime of witchcraft. He was one of the martyrs to that terrible delusion, which should teach us, among its other morals, that the influential classes, and those who take upon themselves to be leaders of the people, are fully liable to all the passionate error that has ever characterized the maddest mob. Clergymen, judges, statesmen,–the wisest, calmest, holiest persons of their, day-stood in the inner circle round about the gallows, loudest to applaud the work of blood, latest to confess themselves miserably deceived. If any one part of their proceedings can be said to deserve less blame than another, it was the singular indiscrimination with which they persecuted, not merely the poor and aged, as in former judicial massacres, but people of all ranks; their own equals, brethren, and wives. Amid the disorder of such various ruin, it is not strange that a man of inconsiderable note, like Maule, should have trodden the martyr’s path to the hill of execution almost unremarked in the throng of his fellow sufferers. But, in after days, when the frenzy of that hideous epoch had subsided, it was remembered how loudly Colonel Pyncheon had joined in the general cry, to purge the land from witchcraft; nor did it fail to be whispered, that there was an invidious acrimony in the zeal with which he had sought the condemnation of Matthew Maule. It was well known that the victim had recognized the bitterness of personal enmity in his persecutor’s conduct towards him, and that he declared himself hunted to death for his spoil. At the moment of execution-with the halter about his neck, and while Colonel Pyncheon sat on horseback, grimly gazing at the scene-Maule had addressed him from the scaffold, and uttered a prophecy, of which history, as well as fireside tradition, has preserved the very words. “God,” said the dying man, pointing his finger, with a ghastly look, at the undismayed countenance of his enemy,–“God will give him blood to drink!” After the reputed wizard’s death, his humble homestead had fallen an easy spoil into Colonel Pyncheon’s grasp. When it was understood, however, that the Colonel intended to erect a family mansion-spacious, ponderously framed of oaken timber, and calculated to endure for many generations of his posterity-over the spot first covered by the log-built hut of Matthew Maule, there was much shaking of the head among the village gossips. Without absolutely expressing a doubt whether the stalwart Puritan had acted as a man of conscience and integrity throughout the proceedings which have been sketched, they, nevertheless, hinted that he was about to build his house over an unquiet grave. His home would include the home of the dead and buried wizard, and would thus afford the ghost of the latter a kind of privilege to haunt its new apartments, and the chambers into which future bridegrooms were to lead their brides, and where children of the Pyncheon blood were to be born. The terror and ugliness of Maule’s crime, and the wretchedness of his punishment, would darken the freshly plastered walls, and infect them early with the scent of an old and melancholy house. Why, then,–while so much of the soil around him was bestrewn with the virgin forest leaves,–why should Colonel Pyncheon prefer a site that had already been accurst?

So, Pyncheon dies apparently choking on his own blood. Some generations pass and the curse, which is one rather of posterity, weighs heavily.

Nathaniel Hawthorne builds his book upon that curse, and in this era gives the Free-Thinker the prescriptive saving grace. An artist, daguerreotypist, who has traveled a good deal, stayed for several months with a Fouererist community, has studied mesmerism, comes to the house and he and Phoebe (a Pyncheon) fall in love, etcetera, everyone is freed from the curse and of course the Artist is a descendant of Maule and acknowledges he is a sort of wizard himself. A little more complex than that but those are the fundamental wheels on which the car as novel is driven.

The daguerreotypist describes the family as carrying about a giant’s dead body, slaves to bygone times. “But we shall live to see the day, I trust…when no man shall build his house for posterity. Why should he? He might just as reasonably order a durable suit of clothes, –leather, or guttapercha, or whatever else lasts longest, –so that his great-grandchildren should have the benefit of them, and cut precisely the same figure in the world that he himself does. If each generation were allowed and expected to build its own houses, that single change, comparatively unimportant in itself, would imply almost every reform which society is now suffering for. I doubt whether even our public edifices–our capitols, state-houses, court-houses, city-hall, and churches,–ought to be built of such permanent materials as stone or brick. It were better that they should crumble to ruin once in twenty years, or thereabouts, as a hint to the people to examine into and reform the institutions which they symbolize.”

Interesting that Hawthorne used the Witch Trials and the curse as the basis for the novel. One hundred and sixty years after the Salem Witch Trials and the temper of that time and people, and the repercussions of the trials, was considered, by Hawthorne, to be significant, ongoing, intimate. An interesting commentary on the time.

• Half-sibling’s Birth: By Susan Waters, Lunetta is born., 20 Apr 1854.

• Half-sibling’s Birth: By Susan Waters, Jean N. is born., Cir 1856.

• Marriage, 28 Jun 1859, Michigan, Kalamazoo County, Brady Village. Marred at 32 to Caroline ATWELL who was 23.

• Census, 1860, Michigan, Kalamazoo County, Wakeshma. Nearby is a George SLATER, 22, b. OH, who may be a relation of John SLATER who married James NOYES’ sister Melissa in 1857 and was living with her in Wisconsin.

1860 MICHIGAN KALAMAZOO CO. WAKESHMA CENSUS
pg. 43 (16 of 18)
Lyman FAIRCHILD and family
John WEBSTER and Lydia (in above FAIRCHILD household)
306/308 Charles S. BROWN 27 farmer $800 $335 b. NY
Phebe J. 22 B. MI
Willard 2
Luther 2/12
306/309 Thomas J. PIERCE 33
Nancy 22
307/310 George R. SLATER 22 day laborer b. OH $800 $320 b. OH
Sarah A. FAIRCHILD or FAIRCHILER 42
Mary A. SANDERSON 19 b. MI
John FAIRCHILD 26 b. OH
Julia 14 b. MI
Jane 12
Lucinda 9
Hannah M. 2
308/311 Samuel RETON 50 farmer 500 437 b. NJ
Sarah 42 b. PA
Alice 18 b. NJ
William 15 b. PA
Harriet COYSTER 12 b. IA
Daniel Reton 7 b. PA
Samuel R. 4 b. MI
Reynolds 1 b. MI
Anna MERRILL 20 b. IA
Charles 7/12 b. MI
309/312 Thomas RETON 52 1000 320 b. NY
Esther 38 b. CT
Elizabeth 10 b. NY
Eugene HOWARD 14
310/313 James A NOYS 33 farmer $1200 b. MI
Carrie A. 25 b. VT
311/314 Henry BILLINGS 28 day laborer $25 b. NY
Margaret 18 b. IA
Lewis 7/12 b. NY
312/315 Joseph MERRITT 57 $1000 $310 b. MA
Lury B. 51 b. VT
Nelson H. 27 b. NY
Hester A. 23
Almena A. (?) 14
Charles D. 3 b. MI
313/316 James PRESTON 33 $600 300 b. NY
Lucy E. 28 b. OH
Herbert S.2 b.MI<

• Occupation: Farmer, 1860.

• Property: $1200, 1860.

• Child’s Birth: Emma Viola is born., 15 Dec 1860.

• Child’s Birth: Cora Rachel is born., 19 Apr 1863.

• Father’s Death, 26 Aug 1864. Jame’s father dies when he is 37.

• Child’s Birth: Victor Hugo is born., 20 Aug 1865.

• Child’s Birth: Allen Marble is born., 30 Oct 1867.

James Allan Noyes and John Humphrey Noyes were only 4th cousins, but John Humphrey Noyes’ sister Elizabeth F. had moved from Putney to to Kalamazoo, Michigan with her husband Fletcher Ransom and his brother Roswell Ransom is known to have been a member of Alphadelphia.

• Child’s Birth: Paul is born., 24 Nov 1869.

• Census: Pg. 388, 1870, Illinois, Union County, Anna.

Page: 388
Roll: M593_284
Image: 33
Page No. 32 (given on census sheet)
Enumerated 18 of June
14 248/239 NOYES, J. Andrew 45 mw Farmer $3000 $250 b. MI
15 C. Ammanda 35 fw House Keeper b. VT
16 E. Violetta 8 fw b. MI attended school
17 C. Rebecca 7 fw b. MI attended school
18 V. Henry 4 mw b. IL
19 A. Monroe 3 mw b. IL
20 Patric 1/12 b. IL
21-26 249/240 Household of Davis CALVIN 47 and Mary V., he of IL and she of AR
27-31 250/241 Household of R. Henry CALVIN and Clarissa, he of VA, she of NC.
32 251/242 HARMAN Asa 40 mw Farmer $2000 $200 b. VT
33 Susan 39 fw House Keeper b. NY
34 O. Ephriam 15 mw b. MI
35 N. Edward 6 mw b. MI Can’t write
COMMENT: What happened here? Did the census taker just record initials and then reenter the information and make up names while doing so? The J. Andrew NOYES household is that of James Allen NOYES and the children should read Emma Viola, Cora Rachel, Victor Hugo, Allen Marble, and Paul. The children in the Asa HARMON household are Orrin Ellie and Edgar. The “Susan” as Asa’s wife is probably Lucy as in the 1880 census.

• Half-sibling’s Death: George W. Noyes died at 30., 3 Mar 1871.

• Child’s Birth: Ray is born., 4 Jan 1874. Ray will marry Elizabeth BREWER. DIRECT LINE

• Half-sibling’s Death: Minerva dies at the age of 23., 4 Sep 1874.

• Half-sibling’s Death: Lunetta dies., 25 Mar 1878.

• Census: Pg. 25B, 1880, Illinois, Union County, Anna.

Year: 1880; Census Place: Anna, Union, Illinois; Roll: T9_254; Family History Film: 1254254; Page: 25B; Enumeration District: 113; Image: 0207
Enumerated 36 and 28 of June by Joseph Levey
33 337/369 HARMON Asa wm 52 md Farmer b. VT parents b. VT
34 Lucy wf Wife 51 md Keeping House can’t write b. OH parents b. NY
35 Edgar wm Son 15 MI father b. VT mother b. OH
36 Almina sister 54 unable to read or write VT parents b. VT
37 Ida LEE wf19 Boarding sg b. IL parents b. IL
38 Charles LEE 16 wm Boarding sg Laborer IL parents b. IL
39 338/370 NOYES J. A. wm 53 md. Farmer b. MI father b. MA mother b. NY
40 Caroline wf 44 Keeing house b. VT parents b. MA
41 Cora wf 17 Daughter sg b. MI father b. MI mother b. VT
42 Victor wm 14 sg Son b. IL father b. MI mother b. VT
43 Allen wm 12 sg Son b. IL father b. MI mother b. VT
44 Paul wm 10 sg Son b. IL father b. MI mother b. VT
45 Ray wm 6 sg sg Son b. IL father b. MI mother b. VT
46 338/371 HARMON Orin wm 25 Son-in-law md Farmer b. MI father b. VT mother b. (VT written over Ohio or vice versa)
47 E. Viola wf 19 Daughter md. Farmer b. MI father b. MI mother b. VT
48 Chloe DAVIS wf 70 wd keeping house unable to read or write b. NC father b. NC mother b. VA
COMMENT: Chloe DAVIS looks like she was inadvertantly placed in the Orin HARMON household, as 338/372 continues with daughters of Chloe’s. Viola and her husband Orin HARMON reside in the J. A. NOYES’ household. There don’t appear to be other Michigan families nearby.

• Occupation: Farming, 1880.

• October 26, 1880, plat of Liberal is made by George Walser.

• January 1, 1881, Oneida Perfectionists Community disbands.

• October 7, 1881, Noyes Deed, Missouri, Barton County, Liberal.

Though the family is not given as migrating until 1882, a land deed records James NOYES of Barton County Missouri, 7 October 1881. It may be that he went first to Missouri where Liberal was in the process of being founded, and brought his family down later. We have the record of Caroline’s trip which gives that migration as 9 August 1882.

The reason for the move to Liberal was that it was to be a Free-Thinkers town. O. E. HARMON, son-in-law of James Allen NOYES, wrote a history of the town., The Story of Liberal, Missouri,which was published in 1925 by the Liberal News.

The text on the plat pretty much says it all:

Liberal has now such an impetus that it can smile at the combined powers of priest, preacher, church, ignorance and hell. It is the only town in the United States set apart for Liberalism alone, and the only town of its size in the WORLD without a priest, preacher, church, saloon, God or hell; and they are the happiest and purest people on earth. The only fit home for liberally disposed persons. Liberal is a good country, rich in all the needs of life usually found in good countires. Address,
G. M. WALSER
Liberal, Barton County, MO.

• November 7, 1881, Liberal is incorporated as a town.

• Migration, 9 Aug 1882, Missouri, Barton County. Departed Anna IL for Barton Co. MO on this day. The trip of about 300 miles took nearly three weeks. Caroline kept a diary for nine days.

• Accessory Document: Noyes Family Constitution, Cir 1883.

• Child’s Death: Victor Hugo dies of Yellow Fever., 23 Oct 1886.

• Child’s Death: Cora Rachel dies in childbirth., 15 Oct 1887.

• Half-sibling’s Death: Franklin NOYES dies at the age of 43., 28 Jul 1891.

• Wife’s Death: Caroline dies at 58. , 18 Apr 1894. Caroline and James had been married 34 years.

• Census: Pg. 20A, 1900, Missouri, Barton County, Central Township.

Sheet No. 3
Supervisor District 13
Enumeration District 18
5 June enumeration by David E. Harpole
(Ancestry.com page 5)
Preceding households appear to be John RHINE, Thomas WILLIAMS, James HANSHAW, John SMITH and Charles DURHAM.
20 48/49 HARMON O. E. Head wm Dec 1854 age 45 married 21 yrs. b. Michigan F-Vermont M-New York Farmer 0 can read and write, 0 months unemployed, F F 50
21 E. Viola Wife wf Dec 1860 39 md 21 yrs, 1 child 0 living, b-Michigan F-Michigan M-Vermont can read and write
22 Robert adopted son wm Oct 1887 12 sg. b-Missouri F-Penn M-Michigan Farmer 9 months unemployed, can read and write
23-29 49/50 Frank and Nancy STONE household Farmer
30 59/51 William H. GRIVET household Farmer
31-33 51/52 Newton WINNER household Farmer
34 52/53 NOYES Ray Head wm Jan 1875 25 married 6 years b. Illinois f-Michigan m-Vermont Farmer can read and write O F F 54
35 Bettie Wife wf July 1877 22, 2 children 2 living, b- Missouri parents-Illinois, can read and write
36 Pansy Daughter wf Dec. 1895 4 sg b. Missouri f-Illinois m-Missouri
37 Cora Daughter wf Sept 1896 3 sg b. Missouri f-Illinois m-Missouri
38 James A Father wm Dec 1824 75 Wd b. Michigan Parents-NY can read and write
39 53/54 JACKMAN Henry Feb 1849 51 married 21 years b. Penn parents-Penn
40 Mabel March 1863 37 5 children, 3 living b. Michigan F-Michigan M-Rhode Island
41 Hiram July 1881 18 b. Missouri
42 Amy May 1880 20 b. Missouri
43 Benton Oct 1891 9 b. Missouri
44 54/55 BECKMAN George April 1866 34 married 7 years b. New York F-Prussia M-Germany
45 Emma 1871 28 2 children 2 living b. Indiana parents-Indiana
46 Harold 1894 5 b. Missouri
47 Basil 1897 3 b. Missouri
48 55/56 NOYES Paul Head wm Nov 1869 30 married 9 years b. Illinois F-Michigan M-Vermont Farmer o months unemployed, can read and write, O F F 57
49 Edna Wife wf Dec 1872 27, md 9 years, 3 children, 3 living b. Missouri parents-Illinois Can read and write
50 Grace Daughter wf Mar 1892 8 b. Missouri f-Missouri m-Illinois
Pg. 21B
51 Ormil Daughter wf May 1893 7 sg wf b. Oklahoma Ter. f-IL m-IL did not attend school
52 Garrett Son wm Dec. 1896 3 b. Oklahoma Ter f-IL m-IL
Following households are STEVENSON, FOOTE Virginia, WILSON, JACKSON Louis, JACKMAN Allen, STRICKLAND Julia and son Lemuel, MOHLER James, JACKMAN A. M. , JONES William, Viola, Iva and Eva and Marcus, CHESTER Hiram and Permelia, BARNES E. J. and STACY William.and Permelia, BARNES E. J. and STACY William.