"If any accident should have detained my brother, General Joseph Duncan, who is the member of Congress for this State at New York, where he was at the date of your letter upon business, hunt him out, and he will have it in his power, and will take a pleasure, in giving you more information than could be expected in the limits of a letter."

I have been surprised, while engaged in revising what I had written at the time respecting Albion and the English prairie and neighbourhood, to observe, in the fifth chapter of Mr Ferrall's book, the statement as to the settlement of Messrs Birkbeck and Flower, in which he describes Albion as "a small insignificant town,"—" their property as having passed into other hands," and "the members of their families as in comparative indigence."

I was fearful, on obtaining this information, that some calamity had recently befallen the settlement, since I visited it in May 1830, and turned over the pages of Mr Ferrall's book to learn when he was there. Mr Ferrall is, I found, entirely silent as to dates on his ramble, but he mentions in his very last chapter, that he left New York on the 1st October 1830, which proves that he could not have seen Illinois much later than I did.

The discrepancy between his representation and my own, therefore, appears to me not easily to be accounted for. It is clear from what he writes, for he states the fact positively, that he was at Albion, but he

must have seen it with very different eyes from mine. The late Mr Flower laid out, confessedly, far too large sums in expensive buildings there, for which his family are not likely, at least for a long period, to have any adequate return. But it is a thriving place, a county town, the great market for the produce of a very large district of Illinois, and the residence of extensive merchants. The country in the neighbourhood is singularly beautiful. That the property had not passed from the families of Messrs Birkbeck and Flower, when I was there in May 1830, is most certain.

The original settlers, Messrs Birkbeck and Flower, were, it is true, both dead: Mr Birkbeck drowned, not as Mr Ferrall mentions, when he was Secretary of State, but after the Illinois senate had rejected his nomination, and he had again returned to a private station. His son-in-law, Mr Pell, and his daughter, were residing on his property when I was on the spot. Mr Flower's property passed to his eldest son on his death. He and his family, and his mother, are all resident upon it, and, as far as I observed or heard, in flourishing circumstances, contented and happy.

It may be very true, that Mr Flower is not so rich a man as his father, who had a large family, and divided his fortune among his children, not in the unequal proportions very common in England. I cannot conceive that Mr Ferrall was himself on the English prairie, or at least on Mr Flower's settlement, nor does he say that he was. I therefore suspect that the information he has given on this subject has been derived from

others, in which case I submit, that, considering the nature of the information, and the effect it might have on the friends of the parties, and perhaps on some part of the public, he ought to have mentioned the source from which he had it.

I know nothing of the hostility said by Mr Ferrall to have been shown by the back-woodsmen to Messrs Flower and Birkbeck. Neither Mr Flower, nor any of the gentlemen I saw at Albion, ever mentioned any thing of the kind. I cannot give any credit to the story.

The Wabash River having lately overflowed its banks, we had to pass five miles of very wet bad road before we arrived on the west bank of the Wabash, opposite to Harmony, where the river and its banks are very beautiful. I was struck with the gay appearance of the place, before the ferry-boat moved from the east side to carry us over. The population seemed to be altogether out of doors, on a beautiful Sunday evening. In a few minutes after I crossed the river I found myself in an excellent hotel, where there was a good reading-room, at Harmony, in the State of Indiana.

NEW HARMONY.

437

CHAPTER XIII.

Mr Owen's Settlement, New Harmony-Mr Timothy Flint's Account of it-Details on the same subject by the Duke of Saxe Weimar— Faults found with Mr Owen-His celebrated Address on the 4th July 1826-Effect of the Address-State of the present Society at Harmony - General Twigg - Mr Maclure's Library - Ride from Harmony to Princeton in Indiana-Visit to Mr Phillips' Plantation -Mr Phillips' grounds for dissatisfaction with his Situation-Details upon this subject-Want of well educated Medical Men in the Western part of the United States-Road from Princeton to Vincennes Vincennes, a French Settlement-Excellent Land in the Neighbourhood-Journey in the Mail-Stage from Vincennes to LouisvilleView over the Ohio at Louisville.

May 1830.

HARMONY has lately become so celebrated from its having been the theatre of Mr Owen's experiment on the social system, that I am anxious to detail, though, of course, very briefly, all the particulars respecting the settlement which have come to my knowledge.

Mr Flint's history of the western states, to which I have already so often alluded, contains the following brief account of it.

Mr Flint was, and I suppose still is, the friend of Mi Owen, and was made acquainted by him with his pro

ceedings. His statement, therefore, so far as it goes, may be considered to be authentic.

"Harmony, fifty-four miles below Vincennes, and something more than 100 by water, above the mouth of the Wabash, is the seat of justice for the county of Posey. It is situated on the east bank of the river, sixteen miles from the nearest point of the Ohio, on a wide, rich, and heavily-timbered plateau, or second bottom. It is high, healthy, has a fertile soil, and is in the vicinity of small and rich prairies, and is, on the whole, a pleasant and well-chosen position. It was first settled, in 1814, by a religious sect of Germans, denominated Harmonites. They were emigrants from Germany, and settled first on Beaver Creek in Pennsylvania. They moved in a body, consisting of 800 souls, to this place. Their spiritual and temporal leader was George Rapp, and all the lands and possessions were held in his name. Their society seems to have been a kind of intermediate sect between the Shakers and Moravians. They held their property in common. Their regulations were extremely strict and severe. In their order, industry, neatness, and perfect subordination, they resembled the Shakers. They soon erected from eighty to one hundred large and substantial buildings. Their lands were laid off with the most perfect regularity, and were as right-angled and square as compass could make them. They were wonderfully successful here, as they had been in other places, in converting a wilderness into a garden in a short time. They had even the luxury of a botanic garden and a green-house.