The Reluctant Radicals - James Murphy

THE

RELUCTANT RADICALS

Jacob L. Beilhart and The Spirit Fruit Society

James L. Murphy

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF AMERICA Lanham • New York • London

of 210

Copyright © 1989 by

University Press of America ® Inc.

4720 Boston Way

Lanham, MD 20706

3 Henrietta Street

London WC2E 8LU England

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

British Cataloging in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Murphy, James L., 1941

The reluctant radicals: Jacob L. Beilhart and the Spirit Fruit Society I James L. Murphy.

p. cm.

Bibliography: p.

1. Spirit Fruit Society-History. 2. Collective settlements-United States-

History-20th century. 3. Utopias-History-20th century. -

4. Beilhart, Jacob, 1867-1904. I. Title.

HX656.S6M87 1989 335.973-dc 19 89-5618 CIP

ISBN 0-8191-7423-8 (alk. paper)

All University Press of America books are produced on acid-free paper.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American

National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library

Materials, ANSI Z39.48-l984.

of 210

DEDICATION

R. Max Gard

August 18, 1913 - October 19, 1986

Lottie Stuba Card

December 6, 1915 - April 23, 1985

of 210

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Tracing the history of the Spirit Fruit Society has seemed at times almost a

communal effort in itself, so many people having been involved in researching such various aspects of the work and having provided so much help that it becomes virtually impossible to determine whose contributions are the more important.

There are two obvious exceptions to this generalization, however. Foremost, I must thank the late Robert J. Knowdell, Santa Cruz, California, who initially supplied so much information on the later years of the Society, as well as, indirectly, the reminiscences of his half-sister, Evelyn Beilhart Hastings, Lawrence, Kansas. Without their valuable input, which included photographs, copies of Jacob’s writings, and their own irreplaceable memories of the Society and its members, this book could not have been written.

On a personal note, to Max and Lottie Card I owe not only years of valued friendship but particularly their encouragement of my interest in history and, from Max, the initial suggestion that I write a history of the Spirit Fruit Society. It is a source of continuing regret that neither of these fine people lived to see this work completed. To my mother, Thelma E. Murphy, Salem, Ohio, I also owe an incalculable debt, not only for her years of encouragement and help in this project but for her unwavering support in so many other endeavors as well.

To Charles W. Post, Lubbock, Texas, I am particularly grateful for invaluable information about his father and grandparents; as he wryly put it, “perhaps more than you expected.”

A small but diligent band of researchers have not only pursued my every whim but, more importantly, often followed their own shrewd instincts to uncover valuable data. For their aid and their interest in the Spirit Fruit Society, I especially thank Pat Best, Waukegan, Illinois; Sara A. Bunnett, Santa Cruz, California; Nancy Cocagne, Springfield, Illinois; Linda S. Lamberty, Chicago, Illinois; Barbara Doss McKinlay, Los Angeles, California; Katie Matthews, Topeka, Kansas; Kory L. Meyerink, Salt Lake City, Utah; Joan Morgan, Fort Wayne, Indiana; Myra S. Ratay, Denver, Colorado; Toby F. Orel, Canton, Massachusetts; Anthony C. Vittoria, Cleveland, Ohio.

Although many librarians, archivists, and local records specialists have routinely supplied information as part of their job duties, their efforts are no less appreciated than those of people who proved to be more directly interested in Jacob and the Spirit Fruit Society. Through correspondence and during my visit to the Heritage Room, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, Louise Dederen was unfailingly gracious and helpful, as was also true of Marcia A. Steele, Willard Library, Battle Creek, Michigan. Others who have had the courtesy to furnish information at their repositories or offer further leads include Leab Agnoni, Rodman Public Library, Alliance, Ohio; Sally Beecher and Charles S. Longley, Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts; Martin J. Burke and Brian K. Etter,

of 210

Bentley Historical Library, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Gary L. Clayton, Illinois Department of Registration and Education, Springfield, Illinois; Catherine T. Engel, Colorado Historical Society, Denver, Colorado; Prudence A. Finn, Charleston County Library, Charleston, South Carolina; Gene Geiger, Draughton Library, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama; John Gonzales, California State Library, Sacramento, California; Eileen Griffin, Beck-Bookman Library, Holton, Kansas; James L. Hansen, The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin; Philip L. Hartling, Public Archives, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Shirley L. Hutchens, Sanford University Library, Birmingham, Alabama; Mary M. Huth, University of Rochester Library, Rochester, New York; Elizabeth P. Jacox, Idaho State Historical Society, Boise, Idaho; William Kona, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Lukes Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois; Mary Mclsaac, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinoim; Vicki Makings, The Denver Post, Denver, Colorado; Jerrilynn Marshall, The Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois; Clara McGee, Lisbon Historical Society; Barbara Y. Norton, Norwell Public Library, Norwell, Massachusetts; Penny Par&, Culver Military Academy, Culver, Indiana; Paula Poynter, Microfilms Clerk, Columbiana County Court House, Lisbon, Ohio; Betty Rasmussen, Glen Ellyn Public Library, Glen Ellyn, Illinois; Stefan Sub Sarenius, Dwight B. Waldo Library, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan; Ruby J. Shields, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; Wilma R. slaight, Margaret Clapp Library, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MkssachUSett5 Frances G. Staines, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York; Barbara Teller, Wellesley Historical Society, Wellesley Hills, MasachuSett5; Dorothy Y. Wade, Register of Deeds, Linn County, Kansas; Mark F. Weimer, George Arents Research Library, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York; Donald Yost, General Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, Washington D.C.

In pursuing various aspects of this research, correspondence and/or telephone conversations elicited Information from the following: Mary Beilhart, Salem, Ohio; John F. Beilhart, Leetonia, Ohio; Beulah Bell converse, Leetonia, Ohio; Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Habel, Galien, Michigan; Evelyn Beilhart Hastings, Lawrence, Kansas; Barbara Jane Michener, Lawrence, Kansas; Anna Blair Miller, Hebron, Ohio; w. Louis Phillips, Logan, Ohio; Leo S. Rosecrans, San Clemente, California; Foster B. Shattuck, Lisbon, Ohio; Dean Atlee Snyder, Alexandria Virginia; Rex Teagarden, Lisbon, Ohio; Dr. Ronald Zabori, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California.

Many of my colleagues at the Ohio State University libraries have kindly let me bend their ear about Jacob Beilhart, while others have offered valuable suggestions, located useful works, or aided in other ways; particularly helpful at OSU have been Eva Godwin and her Inter-Library Loan staff; Dr. William S. Crowe, Assistant Director, Technical Services; R. Alan Thorson of the History Graduate Library; Ralph Lowenthal, Deborah Rinderkflicht, Marjorie Murfin, Larry Perk, Steve Rogers, and Carol Winchell, all of Information Services, as well

of 210

as Sue Pease, Business Library. Not least, funds available from the Ohio State University, Office of the Vice-President of Research and Graduate Studies, and administered by Dr. William J. Studer, Director of university Libraries, and the Libraries’ Advisory Committee on Research, have helped defray costs involved in this project.

Former colleagues at the Ohio Historical Society who have aided in numerous ways include Frank Levstik, Nancy Pollock, and, most especially, Joan Jones. Carol W. Bell, Youngstown, Ohio, has proven a constant source of information, encouragement, and useful advice on many aspects of the project. James F. Morton, Columbus, Ohio, provided valuable photographic assistance.

Finally, visits to Wooster Lake and to Jacob’s birthplace were made possible by John A. Stauffer, Columbus, Ohio. Dorothy Bowgren not only graciously provided access to her material on the history of the Wooster Lake home, but subsequently pursued the answers to additional questions regarding the Wooster Lake sanatorium.

of 210

TABLE OF CONTENTSChapter ..........................................................................................................Page

CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION .............................................................10

CHAPTER TWO - COOL SPRINGS AND THE DEVILS DEN ...................14

CHAPTER THREE - FROM KANSAS TO CALIFORNIA ...........................22

CHAPTER FOUR - BATTLE CREEK............................................................28

CHAPTER FIVE - BONESVILLE AND NEW LISBON ...............................45

CHAPTER SIX - LISBON ...............................................................................54

CHAPTER SEVEN - CHICAGO ....................................................................73

CHAPTER EIGHT - INGLESIDE .................................................................103

CHAPTER NINE - HILLTOP .......................................................................147

CHAPTER TEN - SEQUEL AND AFTER ...................................................164

CHAPTER ELEVEN - CONCLUSION ........................................................174

APPENDICES:

A. Beilhart Genealogy .................................................................186

B. Spirit Fruit Society Constitution and Regulations ..................188

C. The Post Connection ...............................................................192

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................199

of 210

ILLUSTRATIONSJacob Beilhart, 1867-1908 ..................................................................................9Jacob’s Birthplace, As It Appears Today ........................................................15 Noah Beiharz, In And Out Of Character .........................................................46 Charlena J. Lewis and Virginia Moore .............................................................49Spirit Fruit Society’s farm at Lisbon, Ca. 1905.................................................54Evelyn Gladys, “the Love Child,” aged4 years.................................................68Honore J. Jackson .............................................................................................74Katherine “Blessed” Herbeson .........................................................................77Members and Guests of the Spirit Fruit Society, Lisbon, Ohio, May 29, 1904 80Mary “Dolly” Rockwell and Lallah Rookh White ...........................................81Herman Kuehn ..................................................................................................82Jacob, “Blessed” Herbeson, and “his child” .....................................................84Open House at the Spirit Fruit Farm, Lisbon....................................................86Jacob “Showing The Muscles He Never Uses In Combat” .............................87Female members and visitors at the Spirit Fruit farm,......................................88Male Members and Guests, Lisbon, May 29, 1904 ..........................................89“The Three Graces,” Lisbon, May 29, 1904 ....................................................90“Religion - the crowning glory of Capital and Labor” .....................................91“A group of late arrivals at the Spirit Fruit Farm, Sunday, June 26, 1904 .......94The Dalziel Farmhouse at Wooster Lake ca. 1947 .........................................107The nearly completed Spirit Fruit “Castle” ....................................................109The Spirit Fruit home at Wooster Lake ..........................................................111Dinner at the Spirit Fruit home, 1907 .............................................................112Jacob and St. Nihal Singh at Wooster Lake ...................................................115Kate Waters and Buster Knowdell at Wooster Lake ......................................123Mary Beilhart, Buster, and Evelyn Gladys at Wooster Lake .........................124The Barn at Wooster Lake Shortly Before Dismantling ................................136Hilltop Ranch, A Snapshot Taken Soon After Its Construction .....................154Remnants of the Spirit Fruit Society, Hilltop, 1917 .......................................157Members and Friends of the Society, Hilltop, 1921 .......................................158The house in Soquel, Last Home of the Spirit Fruit Society ..........................164Ralph Galbreath ca. 1945 ..............................................................................167 Destruction of the Lisbon Home, 1969 .........................................................169 Sunnyside Sanitarium at Wooster Lake .........................................................170Wooster Lake and Jacob’s Grave from the Sanitarium Jacob’s Grave, Excavated in 1947.................................................................................................................170The “Training Burn” at Hilltop Ranch John Harvey Post, 1913 ....................172

of 210

Jacob Beilhart

1867-1908

A Portrait Photograph Taken in 1904

of 210

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION“And what has become of Jacob Beilhart’s Spirit Society, that genuine if ingenuous little Christian Communist group.. . ?”--Mark Holloway.

The Spirit Fruit Society, a small, oddly-named, Intentional community developed by Jacob L. Beilhart shortly before the turn of the century, lasted for nearly thirty years, continuing some twenty years after the death of its founder. Genuine and ingenuous, yes; Christian and Communist, yes and no. Although the philosophical underpinnings of Jacob’s thought were essentially Christian, he definitely grew to view Christ as only one of several important historical teachers, in no wise unique or particularly divine. As for Communism, the Spirit Fruit Society did practice a limited communalism, but the members retained personal possessions and even property; couples paired off and such relationships were tacitly recognized in the living arrangements at the various Spirit Fruit homes, at least-at Wooster Lake and at Hilltop Ranch. In fact, one reason for the success of the Society must have been this pragmatic ability to utilize features of various religious and political creeds. Not having to live up to a particular label or to preconceived notions of how they should live, members of the group were not locked into a particularly “Christian” or “Communist” mindset and were therefore free to work out the practical problems of everyday communal living as best they could. Considering the problems faced from both within and without the Society, they succeeded to n remarkable degree.

Remembered primarily because of the sensational manner in which newspaper publicity forced it to leave Ohio for Chicago in 1904, Jacob Beilhart’s creation is deserving of a better fate. Aside from the romantic interest intrinsic in the history of any such extinct group, the Spirit Fruit Society can lay claim to some importance as an example of a viable intentional Community - one that worked, if not forever, at least for a good while, as the lives of such communal groups are measured.

Handicapped by possessing a sensitive nature and only a limited, rural, elementary education, Jacob Beilhart explored various religions, taking from each one what he thought was right. With an independence and freedom of thought that hearkens back to earlier American anarchists such as Josiah Warren, if not further back to the Enlightment itself, Jacob, together with his wife, Louema Beilhart, slowly evolved his own radical beliefs, an amalgam of Adventist, Christian Science, Divine Science, Theosophical, and Spiritualist thought, annealed in Battle Creek, Michigan, by an emotional and spiritual crisis of major proportions.

As for the Society’s name, Jacob believed that mankind remained in a spiritual state akin to the bud or blossom, that man’s soul had not yet achieved the spiritual perfection analogous to full fruition, a quasi-biblical metaphor more common and perhaps less susceptible to ridicule a hundred years ago than it is

of 210

today.1 That some of Jacob’s conclusions seem odd and old-fashioned or are easily disparaged today should not obscure or limit our appreciation of the fundamentally radical nature of his thought. And whether or not Jacob actually quailed before the threatening bulk of an irate Stewart Herbeson scarcely diminishes his innate courage in following the dictates of his conscience.

Reduced to its essentials, Jacob’s perfectionist creed stressed the belief that the way to individual and collective human happiness lies in developing unselfishness in one’s nature, in acting in accordance with the dictates of one’s conscience, in accepting responsibility for one’s actions, with consideration for the effects one’s actions may have on the happiness and well-being of others, and in a passive acceptance of whatever does happen. Not a particularly complex or original system, one as old at least as Voltaire’s Candide and, some would say, as old at least as Christ. The radical and anarchistic element in all this, of course, was Jacob’s stress upon the individual’s freedom to decide matters for himself. It is this basically anarchistic, anti-authoritarian thought that distinguished the Spirit Fruit Society from similar charismatic religious communities and, when put into practice, permitted the group to function successfully. This individualistic and egalitarian philosophy also led directly to ideas such as women’s rights and a rejection of contemporary political and religious authoritarianism, notions only slightly more radical in Jacob’s day than they are in ours, notions which would quickly bring Jacob and his brethren into confrontation with the larger society surrounding them. Once having experienced the negative results of such confrontation, Jacob would wisely grow reluctant to face it again.2

Despite the similarity of much of his teachings to those of Jesus Christ, and newspaper reports notwithstanding, it is unlikely that Jacob ever confounded himself with Christ - or with Emma Goldman, for that matter, though he took greater pains to divorce himself from the latter, in spite of the fact that they, too, hared many of the same beliefs and ideals. Significantly, the issue on which Jacob foundered in Lisbon, Ohio, was not political but clerical. The fact that his sister Mary had given birth to two illegitimate children and, like Jacob, did not believe in formal marriage was used by several local ministers and the press to force the Spirit Fruit Society to leave Ohio. There were other factors, too, most notably the beautiful, seventeen-year old convert, “Blessed” Herbeson. Suffice it to say that when Jacob left Lisbon he left behind whatever respect he may have had for ministers and newspaper reporters. Considerably the wiser for the experience of attempting to justify himself before throng of 400 curious citizens of Columbiana County, Ohio, Jacob grew increasingly reluctant to broadcast his radical views to hostile audiences. Although he continued to write and speak in Chicago until his death in 1908, Jacob carefully toed the mark in regard to municipal regulations such as the building code and permission to speak (Yes, permission to speak!). He also bent over backwards in an attempt to avoid the dangerous label of “Anarchist,” an epithet then generally viewed with about as much horror as that of the Antichrist, though perhaps more accurately correlated with the feelings that the

of 210

word “terrorist” elicits today. Reluctant radical though he sometimes was, Jacob remained consistent in his beliefs and did not hesitate to utter them as occasion demanded. In the same essay in which he states that he opposes Anarchy, Jacob carefully defines it as the defiance of law and order or the setting of one’s “will or desire against others who may not be doing things to suit him.” Then, in a few brief pages, he diverts the argument to his major themes of unselfishness, perfectionism, and anti-materialism, taking anti-authoritarian swipes at the clergy, the press, lawyers, judges, and officers of the law along the way. While it is doubtful that Cardinal Gibbons ever read the essay by Jacob prompted by His Eminence’s comments on marriage and divorce, one wishes that he had. Jacob may have backtracked somewhat on the marriage question previously, but there could not be any mistaking of his views for very long. Although, on occasion, Jacob’s native shrewdness frequently compelled him to temper his remarks, dishonesty and hypocrisy were entirely foreign to his nature. “Freedom Hill” Henry, a latter-day admirer of Jacob, wrote, “As far as I have learned he is the only person since Jesus who has, in his everyday life, actually lived the teachings of Jesus.” High praise, this; it, as I have come to learn, not extravagant.3

-

At the time I first became interested in the Spirit Fruit Society, now more than twenty-five years ago, Mark Holloway’s study of American utopian societies was one of the few recent works on the subject and virtually the only published scholarly reference to the Society made since the group’s demise.4 Surely, I thought, if he did not know what became of the Spirit Fruit Society, how would a mere high school student find out? Sufficient for my purposes then, it was relatively easy to follow the group to Ingleside, Illinois, and to assume that the Society dissolved with the death of Jacob in 1908. 5 Distracted by what in retrospect seems an overly-long college career, I gave little more thought to Jacob Beilhart and the Spirit Fruit Society until 1974, when I became a reference Librarian at The Ohio Historical Society. True, on occasional visits home to Columbiana County I would invariably be reminded by my friend Max Gard that here’s a story in the Spirit Fruit Society”; but preliminary research at the Ohio Historical Society and elsewhere in Ohio revealed little in the way of additional information. Eventually, in 1978, contact was established with Jacob’s nephew, Robert J. Knowdell, whose interest, knowledge, and diligence quickly made me realize that, indeed, there was a story in the Spirit Fruit Society. The twenty-page typescript letter that Mr. Knowdell wrote at my behest has served the springboard for further research (by me as well by others), and I remain profoundly in his debt.6

The last several years have seen publication of a number of articles on the Spirit Fruit Society, based largely upon the more readily available information such as Hinds’ published correspondence with Jacob and Jacob’s autobiographical “Very personal,” as well as Robert J. Knowdell’s account to me and reminiscences of his half-sister, Evelyn Hastings.7 Much of the history of the Society, however, has yet to be told, notably the importance of C.W. Post in the life of Jacob and

of 210

Louema Beilhart and the story of the “Overbrook colony” at Wellesley, Massachusetts. Regrettably, it has been necessary to place heavy reliance upon newspaper accounts which vary in quality from the highly colored to the downright inaccurate. For many of the questions we might ask, particularly those regarding precisely how the Spirit Fruit Society members lived and worked from day to day, or questions of individual motivation or even elementary questions of the sequence of certain events, we simply have no answer. As for particular individuals who were associated with the Spirit Fruit Society, after diligent search we can only ask, paraphrasing Holloway, “And what became of Belle Norris? Robert Wall? ... Carol Noel?” In the main, however, I hope that the following pages do answer, as accurately as possible, Holloway’s original question as well as suggest that the story of Jacob Beilhart, his teachings, and his little band of followers remains highly relevant today, whatever one’s life-style, whether alternative or mainstream.

of 210

NOTES1. Compare with remarks made in 1885 by the religions anarchist Sidney H.

Morse, as cited in William O. Reichert, Partisans of Freedom: Study American Anarchism, p. 55: “‘...human nature is a flower that unfolding’ and we must do nothing to disturb its natural growth toward perfection, Morse insisted. To date the perfect blossom has appeared in individuals but never yet in the race. Tomorrow, perhaps, the race itself will blossom into the perfection we have long dreamed about but have not been wise enough to cultivate. Likening human nature to a ‘plant that has self-conscious and self-directing growth,’ Morse maintained that the answer to the moral problem was to put our trust in freedom and the individual’s ability steer himself according to the unwritten laws within his breast.” It is not known whether Jacob had access Morse’s journal, The Radical or to Morse’s columns the Radical Review, but Jacob certainly would not have objected to most of Morse’s thought.

2. My appreciation of cultural radicalism in America and anarchism in particular owes much to Laurence Veysey’s The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Counter-Cultures in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), William O. Reichert’s Partisans of Freedom: a Study in American Anarchism (Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1976), and James J. Martin’s Men Against the State: The Expositors Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827-1908 (Dekcalb, Ill.: Adrian Allen Associates, 1953).

3. Leroy Henry, “Preface” to Jacob Beilhart: Life and Teachings (Burbank, Calif.: Freedom Hill Pressery, 1925), p. 9.

4. Mark Holloway, Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities America, 1680-1880 (New York: Library Publishers, 51), p. 217.

5. James Murphy, “Old Spirit Fruit Farm Near County Fairgrounds Recalled,” Salem, Ohio, News, August 22, 1961.

6. Robert J. Knowdell, correspondence with author, July 1978, through March, 1980. See also, James L. Murphy, “Jacob Beilhart and the Spirit Fruit Society,” Echoes 18(7), p. 1,3.

7. Robert S. Fogarty and H. Roger Grant, “Free Love in Ohio: Jacob Beilhart and the Spirit Fruit Colony,” Ohio History 89(2): 206-221; H. Roger Grant, “The Spirit Fruit Society: A perfectionist Utopia in the Old Northwest, 1899-1915,” The Old Northwest, 9(1): 23-36; Grant, “A Gentle Utopia: The California Years of the Spirit Fruit Society, 1914-1930,” The Pacific Historian 30(3): 54-70; Grant, “Prairie State Utopia: The Spirit Fruit Society of Chicago and Ingleside,” Chicago History (Spring, 1983): 28-35.

of 210

Jacob’s Birthplace

The Beilhart Homestead As It Appears Today

of 210

CHAPTER II

COOL SPRINGS AND THE DEVILS DENA substantial, white-painted brick structure, the Beilhart farmhouse still

stands at the intersection of Ohio Routes 558 and 164, three miles southwest of the town of Columbiana, in the southwestern portion of Fairfield Township, Columbiana County, Ohio. Here, Jacob L. Beilhart, the ninth of eleven children born to John and Barbara Slutter Beilhart, began life, March 4, 1867.1 The rolling, glaciated hills of this section of eastern Ohio have provided excellent land for farming and orchards for nearly 200 years, though strip mining for coal recently has been making inroads upon the bucolic scene. Aptly named “Fairfield,” the township was settled comparatively early and rather rapidly, soon after the Treaty of Greenville had eliminated the threat of hostile Indians, by two distinct groups of pioneers.

Early Quaker immigration from Bucks and Chester Counties, Pennsylvania, began with the arrival of Surveyor William Heald in 1801. Other members of the Society of Friends included Joshua Dixon, who helped in the organization of Fairfield Township in 1805 and laid out the village of Columbiana in August of the same year. In the summer of 1803, the Middleton Monthly Meeting of the Society of Orthodox Friends was organized in the eastern part of the township, that December witnessing one of the first marriages in the township, when Joshua Dixon’s daughter Rachel married Benjamin Hanna, grandfather of U.S. Senator and president maker, Marcus A. Hanna.2

Pennsylvania German immigration to Fairfield Township started even earlier, with the arrival of a “squatter,” Mathias Lower, in 1800. Lower soon purchased land, which he rapidly improved to such an extent that when the first Columbiana Court of Common Pleas met, in the fall of 1803, the session was held in Lower’s log barn. Native-born Germans also arrived at an early date, some passing through Pennsylvania, others through Virginia. Bushongs, Esterlys, Hums, Unger, Wilhelms, and Schlotterbacks, among others, all arrived before 1810. Of these, the John Michael Esterly family may be considered fairly typical landing at Baltimore, on July 4, 1804, they began their trek west after only a few days. Stopping on their way at Allegheny City, their trip was tragically marred by accidental drowning of a four year old son. The Esterlys reached Fairfield Township and settled on section 5 in the autumn of that year; the remaining children, George, Jacob, Catherine, and John, eventually established homes of their own in the neighborhood. Similarly, George Slutter (originally Schlotterback), settled on Section 19, industriously acquiring his neighbors’ land through the succeeding decades, so that by 1850 he possessed some $3000 worth real estate.3

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the influx of settlers continued to be ?dominantly Quakers from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland, Pennsylvania Germans, and native Germans. Of heads of households in the 1850

of 210

federal population schedule, approximately 45% were born in Pennsylvania, though of course not all of these were Pennsylvania Germans - nor were the some 33% born in Virginia necessarily members of the Society of Friends. By this time, too, other demographic changes were occurring, as some 3% of the heads of households had been born in Ireland, and numerous other Irish “boarders” were listed, mainly laborers on the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was then under construction. In other words, the 1850 census may not be a reliable indicator of the actual composition of the population of Fairfield Township some 30 or 40 years earlier. Nonetheless, it remains evident that the predominant groups were Quakers and Pennsylvania Germans.

While it is impossible to estimate precisely the number of Quaker households in the township, it remains clear that members of the Society of Friends continued to be a major element in the population. They were the first to form a religious establishment in the township, and Middleton Monthly Meeting was, in fact, only the second Monthly meeting of the Friends formed in Ohio. In 1808, a West Fairfield Friends’ (Orthodox) Meeting was established in Section 20, for the convenience of the inhabitants of the western part of the township; with the development of the Hicksite schism in 1828, this church building was used by both groups, on alternate Sundays, and also served as a public meeting house for the nearby community of Cool Springs.4

Cool Springs developed around a tavern kept by Col. Allen Way a half mile northwest of the Friends’ meeting-house and on the Youngstown-New Lisbon highway. Because of an excellent spring nearby, the vicinity of Way’s tavern became known as “Cool Springs,” and the Colonel eventually platted a village as “Unionville.” Passed by by both the Pittsburgh-Cleveland post road (present Ohio Route 558, three-quarters of a mile to the south) and, in 1852, the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railroad, the hamlet never thrived, boasting at most a store, several shoe-shops, a wheelwright, and a blacksmith shop, the latter operated by George Slutter’s son William before he moved to Columbiana to become a successful carriage maker.5

Cool Springs did gain some notoriety as a consequence of the nearby Quaker meeting house, which served as a platform for prominent Anti-Slavery speakers such as Abbey Kelley and Marius S. Robinson. Although it is unclear when the site ceased being used as a Friends meeting-house, the original log building had deteriorated by the 1840s, for a small church building originally erected on the Slutter farm around 1835 and used by a society of Bible-Christians and members of the Church of God (Winebrennarians) was moved to the Cool Springs site sometime during this period. In 1859 the three acre tract, including the frame church and burial ground, was deeded for public use - “to be free to all the sons and daughters of Adam,” the trustees being Samuel Neigh, Samuel Heaton, and David Galbreath. This “union church,” according to one latter-day witness (assuredly not a member) “proclaimed the mysteries of Spiritualism, the saving grace of new and fantastic technologies, and all the delusive ideas of all sorts and conditions of

of 210

men.” Further, “lectures, sermons, harangues, on all subjects, were launched here and it was the seat of so-called ‘advanced thought.’” Sufficient reason, then, that the church became known as “The Devil’s Den.” Years after this second building had fallen into disuse, the name “Devil’s Den” continued to be applied to the local school district, eventually to be replaced by the curious and unexplained cognomen, “Bonesville.”6

Shortly after 1850, John Beilhart moved to Ohio possibly from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The son of Michael Beilhartz (1789-1855), John had been born in Wurttemberg.7 It is unclear when the family immigrated to the United States, though John’s naturalization record, dated August, 1856, indicates that he had been a resident of the United States for at least five years and of Ohio for at least one.8 His marriage to Barbara Slutter must have occurred shortly after the family’s arrival in Ohio, for their eldest son, George, was born in 1852. Much of the George Slutter farm appears to have passed to Barbara Beilhart, for while John is credited with $2000 worth of real estate in the 1860 census and with $4000 worth in his estate settlement in 1873, the 1870 census credits Barbary with $14,000 in real estate.9

John Beilhart’s estate papers indicate a moderately prosperous farmer who was engaged primarily in raising sheep for wool. (Among other items, the widow was allowed to keep three looms, two spinning wheels, and 12 of the 260 head of sheep.) Unfortunately, the family library is not listed in detail, and we know simply that all of the books together were worth less than $100.10 It is known that the Beilhart children were raised in a religious environment, the father being a Lutheran and the mother a Mennonite. Jacob later recalled, “I with the rest of the children was christened, catechised and confirmed in the German Lutheran church. Religion was always a very sacred king with me.”11 Although Jacob was only six or seven years old at his father’s death, he remembered him as “very practical and energetic” and his mother as one “who couldn’t live without work.” Certainly growing up fatherless and on a farm provided ample opportunity for Jacob to become familiar with hard physical labor, and it is no surprise that a strong “work ethic” figured prominently in his adult philosophy. More perplexing Jacob’s is remark that he was “cuffed and kicked” and “told I was ugly and no good.”12

Whether this reflects more than the usual strains of being among the youngest in a large family remains conjecture. That Jacob was a sensitive youth, we have by his own, typically candid, mission:

My mother I became well acquainted with because she gave me her nature, and a great deal of trouble it made me, at least until I found Life. This nature was a very sensitive conscience that was not at all inclined to let me be as selfish as those around me. And with this conscience came a strong desire to give rather than receive, unless the thing received came from a loving heart.13

of 210

Jacob also recalled that:

Work was about all I received as an education ... Some of the things that tried me most as a Christian boy were when any differences arose between me and the two younger children, for the older boys to hold me while they let the younger ones switch or tease me. In this I could not see justice and I felt something in me which might be termed “righteous indignation. 14

Gradually, the Beilhart children left the farm. The two eldest, George and Barbara, both married in 1876 and moved to Alabama. Emma married Jacob Burk and moved to Columbiana, where her husband ran a harness shop. By 1880, Jonas, the second eldest son, was living in Columbiana with Jacob and Emma Burk, which found 15 year old John Michael running the Beilhart farm, with the help of his mother and his sisters Susan and Hannah, the younger children - Jacob, Mary, and Noah being at school.15

According to Jacob’s own brief account, at the age of seventeen he left the farm and went to southern Ohio to work in a harness-shop for his brother-in-law. “A year later he moved to Kansas and I went with him.”16 This brother-in-law was probably Jacob Burk, who had married Emma Beilhart in 1880. Conrad Frederick Burk, Jacob Burk’s younger brother, married Hannah Beilhart in August, 1885, and both Burk families later turn up in or near Ottawa, Kansas.17 It may be surmised that Jacob Beilhart and his brother-in-laws’ families spent a short time in Lancaster, Ohio, with or near his brother Jonas, but this has not been documented. With Susan or Susannah’s marriage to Frank Esterly in January, 1886, only John Michael (Mike) and the two youngest children, Mary and Noah, remained on the farm. Barbara Beilhart, the mother, died June 5, 1894, whereupon the farm passed to Mike, who continued to run it for another ten years, with an energy and industry reminiscent of his father’s - logging, making cider, building a barn - before moving to nearby Leetonia, Ohio, and opening a harness shop.18

of 210

NOTES1. See Appendix A. While some historians (Grant 1983: 29, Fogarty and Grant

1980: 208) have accepted Jacob’s statement that he came from a family of ten children, the Beilharts actually had eleven children. Johannes, who died in 1863 at the age of five years, appears to have been overlooked. He is buried in Nold Cemetery, east of Leetonia, Ohio, along with his parents and grandparents. Elsewhere (“Jacob Beilhart and His Literature,” p. 1), Jacob is quoted as “being the ninth child of a family of eleven children.”

2. Horace Mack, History of Columbiana County, Ohio (Phila.: D.W. Ensign, 1879), p. 138-140. Hereafter cited as Mack.

3. Ibid., p. 138-140. See also I.N. Keyser, The Easterley Pioneers and Their Contemporaries (Columbiana, Ohio: Keyser, 1937). 1850 U.S. Federal Census, Population Schedules, Fairfield Township, Columbiana Co, Ohio.

4. A Historical Collection from Columbiana & Fairfield Township, 1805-1975 (S.l.: s.n., 1975?), p. 66. From notes by Beulah Bell Converse.

5. Mack, p. 142-143.

6. Ibid p. 151. See also, C.D. Dickinson, Leetonia, do, Reporter, June 10, 1904.

7. The family name was generally spelled Beilharz or Beilhartz into the twentieth century, and Jacob’s brother Noah Beilharz used this spelling throughout his life. For the sake of consistency, I have used the modern spelling except in quotations and in references Noah.

8. Columbiana Co., Ohio, Common Pleas Journal 18: 47.

9. Preliminary searching in Columbiana County probate court records reveals some perplexing lacunae. I did not find a marriage record for John and Barbara Slutter Beilhart nor a will record for George Slutter. For that matter, although George Slutter’s wife, Susannah, is buried in the Nold Cemetery (died January 6, 1852, age 47 years, 9 months, and 28 days), her husband’s grave has not been located. It is interesting to note lhit John Beilhart’s first-born appears to have been named for the father-in-law and that his daughter Susannah was probably named for the mother-in-law.

10. Columbiana Co., Ohio, Probate Court Case File 7498.

11. Jacob L. Beilhart, “Very Personal,” p. 2-3. of Hereafter cited as “Very Personal.”

12. “Jacob Beilhart and His Literature,” p. 1.

13. “Very Personal,” p. 2-3. Fogarty and Grant (1980: 2l8-219) have used this and several other passages to discern a strongly “homoerotic” element in Beilhart’s nature, exhibiting a rather profound misunderstanding of Jacob’s

of 210

nature and putting undue and peculiar stress upon such remarks to suit their purpose. Jacob perhaps more happily described his sensitive nature in an Interview with a Salem, Ohio, newspaper reporter (Salem Herald, June 7, 1904) as follows: “When a boy my rest could be disturbed at the thought that the pigs had not a good bed On a cold night; to avoid this sympathetic suffering I saw that the pigs had warm quarters. I mention this because the thoughtful person will see readily why I was not contented in after life, even though I had a happy home, if I saw conditions existing that made others unhappy.” One could, I suppose, use this passage to make a case for an element of (presumably sublimated) bestiality in Jacob’s psyche; but I would not.

14. “Very Personal,” p. 3.

15. George married Louisa E. Genther, November 2, 1876 (Columbiana County Probate Court Marriage Records 7: 35). Samuel Bailey married Barbara B. Beilhart, September 14, 1876 (Ibid. 7: 15). Both families are listed in the 1880 U.S. federal population schedules for Cullman County, Alabama (E.D. 48, Sheet 2). Jonas and Christine Gerken Beilhart were apparently living in Logan, Ohio, in July, 1884, when their son, John F., was born (according to death record for John F., died August 20, 1936, Ohio Dept. of Health, Columbus, Ohio), although they were married in Lancaster. Jonas S. Beilharz, harness maker, is listed in Lancaster in Lancaster and Fairfield County Directory, 1894-5 (Columbus, Ohio: R.L. Polk & Co., 1894), p. 34. 1880 U.S. Federal Census, Population Schedules, Fairfield Township, Columbiana Co., Ohio, E.D. 47, p. 34B.


17. Jacob Burk married Emma Beilhart February 19, 1880. Conrad F. Burk married Hannah Beilhart August 13, 1885. Columbiana County Probate Court marriage records, 7:367 and 8:335. The 1910 U.S. Federal Population Schedules for Ottawa County, Kansas, lists Jacob and Elucinda Burk in Richmond Township, E.D. 99, Sheet 4B; Conrad F. and Hannah Burk are listed in Ottawa, E.D. 92, Sheet 21A, Conrad listed as “merchant” dealing in “vehicles.” Conrad’s two eldest sons, Ralph and Floyd, are listed as harness salesmen.

18. Frank Esterly married Susannah Beilhartz January 17, 1886 (Columbiana County Probate Court marriage records, 8:396). Barbara Bei1hart, August 25, 1826/June 5, 1894, buried in Nold Mennonite Cemetery, Leetonia, Ohio. Leetonia Reporter, “Bonesville,” September 8, 1899; September 22, 1899; May 23, 1902. The Columbiana Independent-Register, June 7, 1894, reports her death as occurring Monday night (June 4). She had suffered from gallstones for many years and an autopsy revealed septicemia and ulceration associated with gallstones. Jacob’s bouts with intense physical pain have also been attributed to gallstones by Leroy Henry.

of 210

CHAPTER III

FROM KANSAS TO CALIFORNIABy the autumn of 1885, Jacob Beilhart was living in or near Ottawa, Franklin

County, Kansas.1 Leaving his brother-in-law’s harness shop, he tended sheep for local farmer, his boyhood labors no doubt standing him in good stead. According to Jacob:

This [farmer’s] family with which I remained for several weeks were Seventh Day Adventists and here is where my conscience got me in trouble. They read the Bible to me and I could see that I had not read it right before and on many doctrinal points, according to the letter. I could see that they were right in their belief.2

It is very likely, though not certain, that this farmer’s family was that of Olive Louema Blow, whom Jacob married February 24, 1887. Louema was the daughter of Peter and Louisa C. Bartram Blow, born July 12, 1867, on a farm near LaRue, Marion County, Ohio, the third in a family of six children. The Blow family can be traced back to John Blow (1663-1752) of Lusby, Lincolnshire, England, whose grandson, Robert Blow, Sr., a shoemaker by trade, migrated to Marion county, Ohio, in 1857. In the spring of 1870, Peter and Louisa Blow, with three-year-old Louema, moved to Cutler Township, Franklin County, Kansas, east of Ottawa, the county seat. In November, 1877, they became members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. In March of 1880, the family moved southwest of Ottawa, in Lincoln Township, where Louema met Jacob, and around 1895 the family moved to La Cygne, Linn County, Kansas.3

Jacob’s brief account of his conversion to Adventism continues:

Perhaps to a less conscientious lad of eighteen years it would not have meant anything, but to me it meant, “Obey your highest light,” and it only required about two hours of facing the decision I had arrived at to cause me to conclude that I would take my stand and let my former friends know that I was no longer with them. This cost me every friend I had, even my mother, for to all of them I was “lost.” I had more joy in being at one with my sense of right than with all the friends in the world. I accepted their doctrine in its entirety, for I had seen, as far as I went, that they had Bible for everything. For a time it looked as thou I could not get work and keep Saturday as the Sabbath, but I would do it or die trying.4

This conversion occurred soon after Beilhart’s arrival in Kansas. According to Jacob, “Two years later I went out to canvass for their literature ... in the few months I canvassed I broke all the records of all the canvassers which they ever had selling the books - thirty orders in a day being the highest mark, while I took fifty.”5 Louema, though not mentioned, clearly accompanied her husband, and her date book provides a more detailed account of their itinerary: March and April,

of 210

1887, were spent in Burr Oak and Jewell City (now Jewell), Kansas. May through late August, 1887, found them in Leadville, Colorado, at which time they moved to Oakland, California. In September, 1887, they both enrolled in Healdsburg, College, an Adventist school, where they studied until April, 1888.6

Healdsburg College at this period had an enrolment of 227 young men and women, mostly from California but with a scattering of people from other western states, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, New York, and Massachusetts, as well as the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand, and “Hayti.” Though only five years old, the college curriculum was solidly established in the form first suggested by Ellen White and implemented at Battle Creek College by Sidney Brownsberger, the first president of both institutions. Learning from his mistakes at Battle Creek, Brownsberger had implemented dormitory living and manual labor at Healdsburg College, and the 1887-88 college catalogue emphasizes that “moral and physical training [are] very prominent features of its work,” as “The greatest defect in the prevailing system of education in America is in cultivating the intellectual faculties to the neglect of the moral and physical powers.7 Moral instruction consisted primarily of Bible study (Old and New Testament) in four classes, with a fifth class devoted to the prophecies and precepts of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. “Believing that manual labor should be made a part of true education,” the school provided male students with instruction and practice in carpentry, blacksmithing, plumbing, shoe-making, tent-making, painting, printing, and vegetable gardening. The “lady students” were taught cooking, dress-cutting and fitting, plain sewing, printing, general housework, and flower gardening. The students were divided into seven “companies,” each assigned a department of manual labor “as far as possible in accordance with the adaptation and taste of each [student] with reference to the pursuit of a trade.” The daily program in the Students’ Home began at 5:00 a.m., with an hour and half of study and worship before breakfast, followed by a half hour of chores, and another forty minutes for study; then, after chapel exercises, were four and a half hours of recitations, with dinner at 2:00 in the afternoon. The main meal of the day (there were only two), dinner lasted a half hour, followed immediately by two hours of work and an hour and half of study. The students were then given 45 minutes for their own disposal (6:00 to 6:45). After a 15 minute evening worship, a little over two hours of study followed, then another 15 minutes in which to “retire” before lights out at 9:30 p.m. There do not appear to have been any provisions for married couples, and “self boarding” was discouraged. The lack of dormitories at Battle Creek College had certainly resulted in problems, so the trustees and faculty at Healdsburg surely felt justified in requiring all students “from abroad” to board at the Students’ Home, North College Hall, a barn-like three-story frame structure. It is interesting to contemplate what effect such semi-communal living may have had upon the young married couple - or at least upon Jacob - for it cannot have been strikingly different from that later adopted by members of the Spirit Fruit Society.8 Healdsburg College offered instruction in five departments - Collegiate, Biblical, Normal, Grammar, and Primary - and it is presumed that Jacob entered the Biblical Course, recommended for “those who are

of 210

endeavoring to prepare themselves for more efficient labor in the ministry and missionary work.” More certain, to judge from later references, is the fact that Jacob chose carpentry to satisfy the manual labor requirement. It is not known precisely what studies Lou Beilhart followed at Healdsburg.

In April, 1888, the Beilharts left Healdsburg for a visit back home. Following a two week visit in Kansas, a month was spent in Leetonia, LaRue, and elsewhere in Ohio. Late May found Louema and, presumably, Jacob in Burton and Newton, Kansas, for the summer. That winter was spent in Ottawa, and the following summer (1889) at various spots in eastern Kansas, mostly around Columbus and Baxter Springs, with Jacob proselytizing.9 A brief letter to the Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald describes the organization of an Adventist Church in Neutral, Kansas, where Jacob preached from June 14 through at least October 7 1889, along with Brothers T.M. Thorn and M.H. Gregory. 10

Jacob’s account of this period is much more vague in regard to their itinerary but provides interesting information about his relationship with the Adventist Church:

The next spring [following their study at Healdsburg College] I returned to Ohio and from there to Kansas. Attended a camp- meeting and asked to be sent to take care of a tent where meetings were held, but instead of granting my request the Conference gave me a license to preach and sent me out with a tent - aged twenty-one.

My first sermon was on this wise. I and a man to care for [the] tent were sent on to our appointed place. We were to get things ready for a Thursday evening meeting when another minister was to come and open our series of meetings. We did our part and had advertised the meeting but at four P.M. I received word that the preacher could not be there. I saw at once that I must either preach the sermon myself or disappoint the people by not preaching. I concluded that I’d risk the preaching, for I knew that they did not know that it would be my first attempt. Well, the tent was full and quite a few came up to congratulate me on the best sermon they ever heard.11

Continuing, Jacob has provided two versions of what happened next. In a letter, he states, succinctly though no more modestly, “At twenty-one I attended camp meeting and received license to preach. Preached three years; began to think for myself, and left the church at twenty-four years of ages leaving a bright prospect before me in the church.”12 In his autobiographical account, “Very Personal,” he gives a slightly different account, including the first reference to his desire to help the sick:

Two years of preaching alternately with another man, meetings every evening, and then one season alone brot me to the time when the “Brethren” decided they needed me in more difficult fields to teach their doctrines, so they decided that I should go South.

of 210

I had decided that I would preach no more until I could do something beside[s] talk. Of course, I had helped the neighbors work on the farm in the day-time and preached in the evening, but I must be able to be of help to the sick and thus get into houses and hearts deeper than mere talking would get me. So I said I would go on this mission if I would be allowed to take a course in nursing at the Sanitarium at Battle Creek. 13

In early March, 1890, Jacob returned to Ohio for a visit, the object “not for pleasure, but that I might scatter some seeds of truth among my relatives and friends. Accordingly I asked God to open the way, and to prepare hearts for the reception of the same.” Jacob spoke twice in the district schoolhouse and converted one family. Returning through Illinois, he spent a week in Hersher, Illinois, before proceeding to Cloud Co., Kansas. There he preached in company with Bro. L. Dyo Chambers. June and July, 1890, found him in Clyde, Kansas, where he expected to remain for some time. 14

We can only speculate about the relationship between Jacob and Louema during this time, but it seems likely that they were a happy couple, zealous in their faith, and sharing in their work and the work of the Adventist church. Though there is no mention of Louema in Jacob’s later account of this period, it is very probable that the couple shared equally in their intellectual development. If there was any unhappiness in their marriage at this point, it may have been their continuing inability to have children. The only personal reminiscence we have of Louema is that of her grandson, Charles W. Post, who recalls her much later, near the end of her life:

My memories of her are of an incurable optimist. Usually smiling and cheerful she seemed to have boundless energy. She was a little woman with large soft brown eyes and an unshakeable belief in the ultimate goodness of everyone and everything no matter how bad things appeared to be. She adored music and art. 15

In September, 1890, the Beilharts moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, apparently by buggy, for Jacob states:

“I started in a buggy from western Kansas and drove thru to Battle Creek, Mich. It was only thirteen hundred miles and the roads were fine and the weather good.16 Jacob exaggerates the distance somewhat, as an arc drawn 1300 miles from Battle Creek actually passes through Colorado; but, then, a buggy ride of a thousand miles - even with good weather and good roads - might well seem like 1300 miles.

of 210

NOTES 1. These and subsequent dates cited in this chapter derive from Louema

Beilhart’s “diary” or date book, now In the possession of her grandson, Charles W. Post, Lubbock, Texas.


3. Ottawa, Kansas, Weekly Republican, March 3, 1887: “MARRIED--At the M.E. parsonage, Princeton, by Rev. W. Emerson Feb. 24, Mr. Jacob Beilhart and Miss Louema Blow, residence Ottawa.” Fogarty and Grant (Ohio History 89(2):210) and Grant (Chicago History 12(1): 30) erroneously give 1893 as the date of Jacob’s marriage. For Blow family genealogy, see Marion County 1979 History (Marion, Ohio: Marion County Historical Society, 1979), P. 287-288. Charles W. Post, letters to author, November 5, 1986, and January 16, 1987. Obituary for Peter Blow, La Cygne, Kansas, Journal, January 27, 1911.

4. “Very Personal,” p. 3-4.

5. Ibid., p. 4.

6. Jacob and “Lou” Beilhart are listed in the register of students. Fifth Annual Catalogue of Healdsburg College ... for the College Year, Ending April 19th, 1888 (Healdsburg, Calif.: College Press).

7. Ibid., p. [12]-[l3j. See also, Joseph G. Smoot, “Sidney Brownsberger: Traditionalist,” p. 72-94, in Early Adventist Educators, George R. Knight, editor (Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 1983).

8. Ibid., p. 34.

9. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986. Although Jacob states that his conversion to Adventism “cost me every friend I had, even my mother, for to all of them I was ‘lost’,” (“Very Personal,” p. 3), this visit to Leetonia suggests either that there had been some form of reconciliation or that Jacob later exaggerated the degree of the estrangement.

10. Adventist Review Sabbath Herald, October 22, 1889.


12. “Jacob Beilhart and His Literature,” p. 1. According to the Seventh Day Adventist Statistics for 1889 (p. 12, 30), Jacob L. Beilhart, Ottawa, Franklin Co., Kansas, was licensed to preach. He is also listed as a licentiate in the Year for 1890 (p. 5, 25), Neutral, Cherokee County, but is not listed in earlier or later years.

13. “Very Personal,” p. 4-5. A rather lengthy account of the “Sanitarium Training-school for Medical Missionaries” appears in the Adventist Review Sabbath Herald of October 21, 1890. The 24-week course was to begin on

of 210

November 2, 1890. It is very probable that this is the course in which Jacob (and possibly Louema) enrolled. The last known reference to Jacob in Kansas is a letter by C.P. Haskell published in the Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald of November 4, 1890, which mentions that “Bro. Bilhart” took Haskell’s place at Haddam, Washington Co., Kansas, on August 25.

14. Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald, May 27 and July 22, 1890. For an obituary of Chambers, see the Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald, November 22, 1898. A convert to Adventism in 1892, Chambers was transferred to the “Southern field,” as was intended for Jacob, where he died, in Chattanooga, in 1898.

15. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986. Dates reported by Mr. Post from Louema’s diary appear to conflict with Jacob’s correspondence in the Adventist Review. According to Mr. Post, the summer of 1889 was spent in Neutral, Columbus, Baxter Springs, and Clyde, Kansas, Jacob and Louema moving to Battle Creek, Michigan, in September, 1889. Since newspaper accounts place Jacob in Clyde, Kansas, in May and June, 1890, the Beilharts very probably did not move to Battle Creek until September of that year.


of 210

CHAPTER IV

BATTLE CREEK “I am well, for the Life is God, and God is never sick.”--C.W. Post.

Ultimately, it might be said, Jacob and Louema Beilhart moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, because of Ellen G. White, prophetess of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Aside from the considerable influence Ellen White’s writings very probably had upon Jacob’s conversion, it was she and her husband, James White, who founded the church as an outgrowth of the Millerite phenomenon of the l840s and effectually moved the center of Adventism to Battle Creek when they accepted an invitation to move there from Rochester, New York, bringing along their printing press.1

Adventism in Battle Creek had been preceded a few years by Fourierism, Abolitionism, and Spiritualism, as well as by Swedenborgianism. For whatever reason, local historian Anson Van Buren seems not to have been exaggerating when he recalled that Battle Creek had “ever been a place where ‘isms’ readily take root and flourish.” According to Van Buren, Adventism flourished in Battle Creek “like Jonah’s gourd.”2 Clearly understanding the power of the press, the Adventist Church expanded its publishing endeavors into the Review and Herald Press, by 1902 said to be “the largest printing establishment between Buffalo and Chicago.” Further, as a result of a vision received by Mrs. White in 1863, the Church embarked upon its massive health and diet reform program. With typical zeal, the Whites had established the Western Health Reform Institute on the western edge of Battle Creek, within three years of the Otsego vision, and launched in the same year, 1866, their periodical Health Reformer. Essentially hydropathic, the regimen followed at the Institute featured saltless, vegetarian menus, with alcohol, tobacco, and coffee being replaced by the homely graham cracker.4

The Health Reform Institute was less than successful until taken over by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg , who changed its name to the Battle Creek Sanitarium - shortened to “The San” by Battle Creek residents - and thoroughly reorganized and rebuilt the establishment, making it both a paying proposition and a fashionable resort. One of the sixteen children of John P. Kellogg, a staunch Adventist, John Harvey had been helped through medical school by the Whites. For many years Kellogg ran the Sanitarium along Adventist lines, utilizing his spare time to become a prolific writer on health topics and to invent meat substitutes and health foods such as Nuttolene, Laxa, and Protose. Eventually, however, a disagreement over control of the Sanitarium would result in his excommunication from the Church in 1907 and a fierce and unseemly battle for the San.5

In the early 1870s, Ellen and James White also turned their attention to education, the result being the creation within a very few years of Battle Creek College (now Andrews University, at Berrien Springs, Michigan). Adventist education, as developed at Battle Creek College under its first president, Sidney

of 210

Brownsberger (1845-1930) included a traditional classical curriculum, with the addition of Bible study. Further, while an emphasis upon manual training was not clearly developed at Battle Creek College during Brownsberger’s tenure (1874-1881), physical labor and manual training was an important component of Ellen White’s ideal of a balanced education. As outlined in her testimony “Proper Education,” the ideal was a balanced approach embracing physical, mental, moral, and religious education. Moral, intellectual, and physical culture should be combined, “agricultural and mechanical establishments” should be connected with schools, and a portion of each day should be devoted to physical labor, as “physical labor will not prevent the cultivation of intellect.” While a manual training program would be implemented by Brownsberger in his presidency at Healdsberg College (1882-1886), he did not accomplish this during his tenure at Battle Creek College. In fact, the General Conference would later ask Brownsberger to return to Battle Creek College to help implement such a program.6

By the time Jacob and Lou Beilhart arrived at Battle Creek, however, they were clearly intent upon the study of nursing rather than the more classical education featured at Battle Creek College and so began work at the Sanitarium. As instruction in nursing was not included in the Healdsburg curriculum, nothing could be more logical than to enroll at “The San,” even though it might mean a buggy ride of a thousand miles.

According to Jacob:

My last year of preaching I did some thinking for myself. I studied the Bible and taught practical living rather than doctrine. I was getting alive when I landed in Michigan. I entered the nurses’ class and began to do such work as the other boys did, which consisted in shoveling snow from the building, scrubbing the basement, and other things I did which some who knew me said they would not do if they could preach as well as I could. But I was tired of preaching. I wanted to DO something.

Well, I took the rounds such as elevator boy, and then entered the bath-room and took instructions there. As the rich men would come in there and I would work over them until I was all aglow by muscular exercise, they would say, “I wish I could enjoy health as you do.” I would answer, “Get up and work as I do and you will.” But no, they had money to hire their work.

I soon became disgusted with the religious atmosphere of the place and my sense of honesty and justice were kicking at the way things were done. I also continued my study of the Bible and became very much convinced that there was another way of healing if the Bible was true, and of course I did not doubt that for a moment. Accordingly I commenced to tell others of my faith in answer to prayer. (The Sanitarium is a denominational institution and most of the three hundred and fifty to four hundred helpers that worked there were religious folks.) I was often asked to take the lead in the religious exercises in chapel, and this, besides Bible studies I conducted with the more earnest

of 210

ones, gave me opportunity to tell my views about healing by faith.7

It is unclear how Jacob’s belief in faith healing originated, but he evidently adopted it with a single-mindedness characteristic of him throughout his life, with no regard for the consequences, which in this instance meant direct opposition to the teachings of his church and the policy of the Sanitarium. Jacob describes in some detail an early example of his faith healing:

One day I was called to see a sick girl who had heard me tell of my faith in healing by prayer. She had typhoid fever and was very sick. Doctors had but little hope for her. I went to see her and she asked me to pray for her to be healed. This I did, annointing [siç] her after the instructions of James, 5:14. She was healed immediately, the temperature going from 104 1-2 to about normal in a few minutes, and she got up and dressed, drank some milk and retired for the night in about an hour. She rested well for that night and got up in the morning and walked down three flights of stairs, across the street and ate breakfast with the rest of us, and then went out in a cottage and gained strength every day, the fever never returning. In two weeks she was back nursing other patients.

Of course she told of her healing and the result was I had many calls, but before I went farther I told Dr. Kellogg I wanted to quit work for the institution because I believed in other healing methods than they did. He begged me to remain with them and drop my new ideas of healing, for they would need such zeal in their work and did not want to let me go.

I was then in his private office attending to patients who came in for examination. That was the highest place for a nurse in the institution.

I went on with what to me was the Lord’s work. I attended faithfully to my daily duties but prayed for those who appealed to me.

Well, things got interesting by the time seven cases were healed. Two I prayed for did not experience a change. These two were the most profitable ones to me, for it made me think, and when one begins to question things of the “Lord” he is going to change his ideas ere long.8

Among the other beliefs that Jacob rejected at this time was vegetarianism. Among those that he embraced - or would soon embrace - were elements of Christian Science, Spiritualism, and Theosophy, including a passive, fatalistic non-resistance or acceptance of whatever happens, a belief in the power of positive thinking, and a devotion to selflessness that eventually was to express itself in a full-fledged attempt at communal living.

It is unclear precisely when Jacob left his employment at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, but it would appear to have been in very late 1891 or the spring of 1892. By his own account, Jacob nursed Charles W. Post while Post was a patient at the Sanitarium, and it is known that Post was a patient there from February 16 through November 9, l89l. Remembered today primarily as the founder of the Post

of 210

cereal fortune, C. W. Post was to have a profound effect on the lives of Jacob and Louema, more so perhaps than any of them would have wished. Jacob’s version of the earliest stage of this relationship is fairly succinct:

I had been nursing C.W. Post, the man who has become famous as the Postum Cereal and Grape Nut manufacturer. He could get no relief from the treatment at the Sanitarium. He saw some of the work I did by prayer and he believed in me, for I got close to him, but he said he did not have enough faith in God to think He would heal him, but it caused him to see things a little differently and when he heard of a lady down town who healed by Christian Science he went down and was treated and cured.

This was my turn to learn something thru him. I wanted to know if this power used in healing him was the kind I used in faith healing. .10

The story has been told so many times as to verge on legend, at least in Battle Creek, though Jacob is seldom mentioned in the telling. Charles W. Post, at the age of 35 came to the Sanitarium to regain his health and, when the “San”‘s regimen failed to cure him, he cured himself. Born in Springfield, Illinois, Post had had a brief, undistinguished schooling and some service in the Springfield Zouaves, the Governor’s Guard that served in Chicago during the Great Fire. Marrying Ella Letitia Merriweather in 1874, Post began a peripatetic career as a hardware store merchant, agricultural machinery salesman, and manufacturer of the “Post Capitol City Cultivator.” When the firm went bankrupt, Post and his brother Carroll went to Texas to start afresh. In Fort Worth, C.W. began dealing in real estate as well as a project to manufacture paper from cottonseed hulls and a less visionary woolen blanket mill.11

Post was the archtypical entrepreneur, a salesman looking and waiting for the right product whether it proved to be woolen blankets, “scientific” suspenders, or breakfast cereal. But furious bouts of work characterized by boundless energy invariably were followed by collapse and illness. These repeated, almost cyclic bouts of ill health, very likely at least in part psychosomatic, caused Post to try an endless variety of cures before coming to Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitarium. 12

Upon arriving at The Sanitarium, Post “demanded a first class private nurse” and Jacob was assigned to him and attended him for the nine months of Post’s stay. According to Post, Jacob at this time “was an unusually faithful person and a most devout Adventist,” and on learning of Jacob’s death Post would later state, “It gives me pleasure to testify to the memory of the careful pains-taking man who cared for me faithfully and honestly during a good many dark days.13

Seeing no progress in his case, Post abruptly left the Sanitarium and turned to Christian Science in hopes of a cure. According to the highly colored reminiscences of his brother Carroll, “somewhere he has [sic] learned of a woman practitioner of Christian Science who was helping many people, and he bribed his nurse to wheel him down to her home for a visit.”

of 210

Carroll Post continues:

She talked to him along the lines that sickness and sin were creations of the mind, and existed only as a mesmeric or abnormal state. So much was he helped by what he had learned that he walked back to the Sanitarium, packed up his effects and, together with his wife and child, went to the practitioner’s home to live.14

It is true that C.W. was confined to a wheel chair - or at least rode around in one - but the rest of Carroll Post’s version is for the most part suspect. Begging the question of whether Jacob would have accepted any sort of a bribe, such a maneuver would have been totally unnecessary, as guests at the “San” had free access to the town. For that matter, there is some evidence that for at least part of their initial stay in Battle Creek the Posts (Charles, Ella, and five year old daughter Marjorie) roomed in a private residence near the “San” rather than at the Sanitarium itself. Actually, it was Ella Post who introduced her

[ husband to Christian Science. Certainly, if W. K. Kellogg’s reminiscence of Ella Post going through Battle Creek and selling door-to-door the “Scientific Suspenders” C.W. had invented is true, Ella had ample opportunity to meet Mrs. Elizabeth K. Gregory.15 The truth, however, is more prosaic, and Ella learned of Mrs. Gregory through correspondence with a cousin.16

There is no question but that Mrs. Erastus H. Gregory was the person responsible for C.W. Post’s recovery and for his introduction to Christian Science. Judging from the account quoted above, Jacob himself never claimed to have cured Post. Years later, however, Louema Beilhart would suggest that she and Jacob played a substantial role in Post’s recovery, only to be told politely but firmly by C.W.’s daughter, Marjorie, that while she was certain Louema and Jacob had her father’s best interests at heart in their ministrations, only Mrs. Gregory was the healer.17

How much C.W. Post’s nearly instantaneous recovery was due to Mrs. Gregory’s fried chicken, pancakes, and sausage, along with her advice to eat what and when he wanted, and how much due to more spiritual causes others may judge; but Post remained convinced that he “got well” because he believed he “was well.” By 1908, Lizzie Gregory and her husband were living in Chicago with their daughter and son-in-law. A rather plaintive letter to Post inviting him to visit whenever he was in Chicago and asking for Ella’s address (the Posts divorced in 1904) did not receive a personal response, and there is no evidence that Post kept in contact with his healer after she and her husband left Battle Creek.18

In 1896, Post did testify in the Kalamazoo trial of Mrs. Agnes Chester, a Christian Scientist who did not belief that a physician was needed during childbirth. According to a Battle Creek newspaper item, “C.W. Post of Battle Creek, a healer, who it is alleged was cured of appendicitis by Mrs. Chester in two days after being ill seven years, testified that she gave him a treatment which

of 210

vitalized in him the dormant forces, set the heart, stomach and other organs to action, and thereby secured a cure.” Post’s testimony may have been somewhat exaggerated, perhaps as a professional courtesy from one healer to another, for there is no other record of Mrs. Chester’s role in his recovery. Agnes Chester was an attractive young widow, very likely quite capable of vitalizing one’s dormant forces and setting the organs to action; in any case, her trial ended in a hung jury. Mrs. Chester married Evelyn Arthur See in 1899, moving to New York and then to Chicago, where her second husband would create a sensation a few years later with the establishment of his “Church of the Absolute Life.”19

In Battle Creek, Mrs. Gregory offered formal instruction in Christian Science, and both Post and Beilhart studied under her, though Jacob had some reservations:

Well, there was a chance for class instruction and of course I must receive it. And here I almost “jumped the track.” I had been so heart and soul in my work of healing and teaching others that to think of paying for any such services shocked me, and when this teacher said, “One hundred dollars for a course of lessons,” by which I was to get the Holy Ghost or something like it, I could think of but one text of scripture for a whole day. That was where Simon the sorcerer offered to buy the power from the apostles and Peter said, “Thy money perish with thee”... Well, now came my instructions in Christian Science. Some of the more practical things were clear, but much was useless theory, far above things practical.20

Men with vastly different temperaments, both Beilhart and Post retained much of what they had learned at the Sanitarium as well as certain tenets of Christian Science, though both left the Sanitarium dissatisfied and both soon abjured Christian Science as a formal religion. As early as 1894, when Post published Modern Practice: Natural Suggestion, or, Scientia Vitae, his most deliberate attempt to formulate his philosophy, there was no mention of Christian Science, although his belief in a “Divine Spirit” or “Divine Universal Mind,” of which one is a part and with which one should be in accord, and the importance of the mind in healing are clearly derivative of Christian Science. Post definitely leaned more toward the “I am well” school of mental healing than did Jacob and, in fact, reprinted The Modern Practice under the title I Am Well. All in all, Post’s thought, as outlined in The Modern Practice is indistinguishable from much of Jacob’s. It is impossible to determine what and how much the one derived from the other, and it seems probable -that the two men developed their ideas together over the period of Post’s stay at The San and the subsequent La Vita Inn partnership. 21

of 210

In 1909, in referring to La Vita Inn, Post addressed this question more particularly:

I never could bring myself to subscribe to the rigid creed of the Christian Science movement, although admitting the truth of some of the tenets and recognizing the good which Christian Scientists accomplish. I conducted an entirely independent institution, organized under the laws of Michigan, for the purpose of research and experiment in the line of what I choose to call “Suggestive Therapeutic.” The experience was intensely interesting and productive of a reasonable amount of good and the solution, to my satisfaction, of a few problems.22

Earlier, in a 1900 letter, Post propounded similar views to an admirer of his The Second Man, a revision of his Modern Practice:

The truth is that the Infinite Life immanent within us, of which we are an integral part, is simply using us at this epoch, for demonstrating its purposes, and will continue to use us eternally, so we may be content to so conduct our affairs as to accord with our highest sense of what it would have us do, and be perfectly content regarding the outcome.

When we can, without fanaticism, say to the marvelous being with [sic] “Go on, use us, operate through us, demonstrate your desires by using us as the tool,” we are relieved of the responsibility, and draw to ourselves marvelous forces, far beyond our present knowledge of them.

While these subjects are not generally thought of as “business subjects,” at the same time, I cannot conceive of a more substantial foundation upon which to build one’s business structure than this knowledge. I dislike much wandering in the realm of imagination, but I very much like the sense of a reliance upon the supreme and beneficent Life, resting upon it and believing in it and conducting ourselves in accordance with our most perfect sense of its high ideals, so far as we can become conscious of them, but I feel this attitude should be assumed in a simple way, stripped of useless talk and fine spun theories.23

Jacob’s philosophy at this time was essentially the same, though expressed in even plainer terms:

All these theories are very nice, but it’s lots of work to run the universe when you known as little about it as any of these folks seem to know who claimed to be teachers. So I said to myself, I will submit myself to the Life, or God, or whatever it is that creates and sustains things. I don’t know who or what He is, or where He is, but He must be somewhere. I’ll take my highest sense of momentary duty and obey it... I came into the consciousness of non-resistance and of having no will of my own.24

Jacob’s terms were “Universal Life” and “Spirit,” but he undoubtedly referred to the same thing.

of 210

At this stage, Beilhart and Post shared a goodly number of beliefs and interests centering around the relationship of mind and health. Given the direction of these mutual interests, as well as the mental climate of Battle Creek at this period, it was quite natural that these two healers, having by their own admission outgrown what we might label “Kelloggism” and having rapidly progressed beyond Christian Science - again by their own admission - it was quite natural for these two seekers to establish their own sanitarium.

La Vita Inn was incorporated March 23, 1892, under a Michigan law by which corporations “may be formed to carry on institutions for the treatment of disease and for instruction therein and in hygiene.25 According to the original articles of incorporation, La Vita Inn, Inc., wished “To maintain and manage an Institute for the entertainment, and metaphysical treatment of guests.” The original stockholders were Ella Post (1998 shares), C.W. Post (1 share), and J.L. Beilhart (1 share). Because of a misunderstanding involving the original law under which La Vita Inn was incorporated, a second set of incorporation papers was filed September 22, 1893, “to carry on institutions for the treatment of disease and for instruction therein and in hygiene.” At this time, Ella Post’s stock was transferred to Marjorie, with C.W. being trustee. J.L. Beilhart, C.W. Post, and Ella L. Post continued to own one share each. Louema Beilhart was never a stockholder.26

Study of Calhoun County deed records and C.W. Post’s 1899 bankruptcy statement do not entirely clarify the history of La Vita Inn. Nor do the minute books of the company, preserved in the C.W. Post papers at the University of Michigan, shed much additional light. Apparently using money belonging to his wife, Post contracted with Mrs. Charlotte Beardslee, March 23, 1892, to purchase approximately 26 acres of land on the edge of Battle Creek for $13,000, though the initial payment (Ella’s money) consisted of only $100.27 C.W. proceeded to lay out the Beardslee farm in 88 town lots and, with the formation of La Vita Inn, Mrs. Post paid for her (later Marjorie’s) 1898 shares ($25.00 per share) by transferring much of “her” real estate to the Inn or, in the case of Texas property, to J.L. Beilhart, trustee for La Vita Inn. According to Post, the sale of lots was “quite active just at that period,” and a considerable amount of money was paid to Mrs. Beardslee on the property. Deed records do show some lots being sold as early as June and August of 1892, while they were formally offered as lots in the Cliff Subdivision as early as August 16, 1892, a house and lot being sold for $295. But as late as May of 1896, La Vita Inn appears to have still been paying Mrs. Beardslee for lots in the original subdivision. 28

Jacob’s role at this point also remains vague. In addition to the Texas property reportedly assigned to him as a trustee of La Vita Inn, deed records show numerous lots transferred to him by C.W. and Ella Post, usually for a token $1.00, and immediately transferred back to Post as trustee of La Vita Inn. It would appear that Jacob was used simply to convey the property from C.W. and Ella Post back to C.W. as a trustee of La Vita Inn, the net result being that C.W. could claim that he did not own any of the Inn’s assets if (as it would) need be. The only money that

of 210

Jacob actually seems to have made is on three lots purchased by him from Beardslee and La Vita Inn in August, 1892, and January, 1893. On one of these he built a house, where he and Louema lived from the fall of 1892 until February 25, 1896.29

Jacob is listed in the 1893 Battle Creek city directory as “Jacob F. Beilhart, carp., n.s. Cliff, 4 E Nelson.” This probably is on Lot 2, Block 6 of The Cliffs Addition, which Jacob purchased for $325 and subsequently sold for $1400. The 1895 Battle Creek directory lists him as “Jacob S. Beilhart, mental healer, 241-3 Cliff”; Louema is also listed, at 241 Cliff, as “mental healer”.30 All of this land is now occupied by General Foods buildings or parking lot.

C.W. Post’s somewhat dismissive account of Jacob states that “After Beilhart was discharged from the Sanitarium for his audacity to put in practice the teaching of Jesus Christ, he came out to work for me and assisted in the building of some houses and other manual work, and he was a conscientious hard worker.31 As a trustee and vice-president of La Vita Inn, and considering the number of deeds in which his name figures, it would seem that Jacob was considerably more than a simple carpenter.

Jacob’s own version of this period is concerned more with his mental development and provides few clues about his relationship with the Posts and La Vita Inn. He states that upon leaving the Sanitarium he first supported himself chopping wood, making ninety cents a day, “snow a foot deep and my work five miles from town.” After “breathing the air of freedom and getting things together in my mind for a week,” Jacob remembered that he was a harness-maker, and the second week worked at that trade in Battle Creek. Then followed his instruction in Christian Science, presumably with Post, under the leadership of Lizzie Gregory.

“At this time,” Jacob bought a lot in Battle Creek “and began by making a hole in the ground and making a cistern out of it.” “This was all new work to me, but I believed that I could do anything that needed to be done by me. Then I began to excavate for cellar and haul stones for cellar wall. Then came the carpenter work and so on, until the house was completed and I knew just how it was done.” Jacob draws an analogy between this “actual work” and the construction of his “internal building,” with which “I likewise began at the bottom, so that I might know just what it consisted of when finished.” As truths were revealed to him in his conscious mind he would be called to treat a patient who had just such trouble as demanded whatever truth he had recently found. “It was a revelation and then a demonstration, and so the ‘building’ went up.”32

During the process he experience both physical and mental trials: “Persons were made to take advantage of me, seemingly on purpose, to see if I would not resist or assert my right as a man or owner of things. This test lasted until I gave up all property I had.” “Would I use the power of will or mind in relieving myself of pain in body?” After intense suffering, in one instance losing seven pounds in seventeen hours, Jacob determined not to continue healing:

of 210

I gave up all my life consisted of and let Life have its perfect work in me. I removed nothing from myself, but let circumstances remove as it would. I resisted nothing. I gave all men and all powers all they asked and spared not my own life. I made friends with all the elements of the world, both physical and mental, and also psychic, for this nature is to serve if we join the Universal Life and cease living a life apart from the Unit.

I became inactive and worked quietly at a friend’s place of business. I taught none and healed none. I let Love work in me. I was unoccupied... Very soon this home came to us, and then others came to join us in this work.”33

Evidently Jacob has telescoped a considerable passage of time into this brief account of his development. The last paragraph in fact probably relates entirely to the period after he and Louema had left Battle Creek. Regardless, it seems certain that he and Louema were involved in the daily operation of La Vita Inn, which was active, according to Post, for three or four years. Existing account books for La Vita Inn cover only a few months in the fall of 1892 and make no mention of the Beilharts. The accounts do provide some information on charges for board and cost of the “treatments.” In August, 1892, a Mrs. Cone was charged $16.50 per week board and $1.00 for a treatment. At the same rates, H.B. Herd stayed a total of twelve weeks from October through December, 1892. Other visitors included Mr. and Mrs. J.P. McDonald and Miss J.M. McDonald, of Grinnell, Iowa, and Mrs. J.H. McNeely, Evansville, Indiana. Literature sold at the Inn included Science and Health, Unity of God, and God’s Image in Man. Doubtless Post’s own The Modern Practice was also offered for sale after its publication in 1894. 34

On August 13, 1894, Harvey H. Beilhart was born. He is listed as the legitimate son of Jacob L. and Louema Beilhart. Jacob’s occupation is given as “Carpenter”, suggesting that he was still engaged in building houses for C.W. Post if not in the daily operation of the Inn as well.35 The latter fact is substantiated by Louexna’s grandson, who states:

The Beilharts worked at the Inn taking care of the increasing load of patients along with C.W. Post who was busying himself with his experiments looking for a grain substitute for coffee that was better than Kellogg’s Caramel Coffee. Meantime the Bs had been trying to have children without success and when Lou[e]ma became pregnant in 1893, Jacob was ecstatic, feeling that his prayers had been answered.”36

Lots in The Cliffs Addition were continuing to sell, and Post himself was in Paris “to complete his education in Christian Science.” It appears that at this time C.W. also attended the neurological clinic of Jean Martin Charcot, a mentor of John Henry Kellogg, as well as studying the hydropathic cures of Father Sebastian Kneipp. 37

of 210

Certainly of more importance financially, however, than Post’s ventures in real estate and healing was the development of. his coffee substitute, to become world- famous as Postum. Unquestionably, Postum was developed at La Vita Inn while the Beilhart’s were working there; but there is no evidence or reason to believe that either of them was active in the development of the cereal beverage, although, like young Marjorie, they may occasionally have “stirred the pot.” Post himself indicates that “one portion of the work [of La Vita Inn], along in 1894, was the manufacture, in a small way, on a kitchen range, of a cereal coffee which was afterwards given the name of ‘Postum Cereal’”38 Jacob was later to state that C.W. offered him half-interest in Postum but that he turned it down; at no time, however, did Jacob or Louema ever express any suggestion that they were anything more than passive witnesses to the creation of the Postum phenomenon.39 Following his return from Europe, Post began commercial production of Postum in a barn at the Inn. The hour, the man, and the product had met, and Post’s advertising genius and business acumen would quickly make him a multi-millionaire. By virtue even of his one share in La Vita Inn, Jacob would have had some claim on profits made by the Postum Cereal Co., for in October, 1896, La Vita Inn sold $37,000 of its assets to the Postum Cereal Co. in exchange for Postum stock which was distributed to the La Vita Inn stockholders. This maneuver effectively separated the production of Postum and related products from the operation of the Inn. Jacob, however, disappears from the list of stockholders as early as September, 1895, when these consisted of C.W. Post, trustee for Marjorie Post (4996 shares); Ella L. Post l share); C.W. Smith (1 share); C.W. Post (2 shares). 40 Although there is no other documentation to support it, it seems that Jacob must have turned over his share to C.W., for the single share issued to Charles W. Smith came from Marjorie’s stock. (Charles Smith had been hired to handle the production of Postum Cereal while it was still a division of La Vita Inn.) By January, 1899, when La Vita Inn stock was again re-issued - apparently to tidy up, preparatory to C.W.’s February 14th bankruptcy statement - Smith’s share and one of C.W.’s were issued to M.K. Howe, who would remain one of C.W.’s trusted business lieutenants for many years; Ella retained one share, and C.W. retained one “qualification” share; the rest was held in trust for Marjorie.41

As for La Vita Inn, Post may understandably have rapidly lost interest as a multitude of business and other activities began to occupy his attention. As Post put it, “Since the organization of the Postum Cereal Co., Ltd, LaVita Inn Co. has been inactive, and the business of caring for the interests of said Inn Co. has been light.” Eventually, on March 30, 1906, the Inn was dissolved, all liabilities and all assets having been paid to its stockholders and the Inn having ceased “to carry on business.”42 Post’s account, though perhaps technically accurate, stops short of telling the entire story, for the development of Postum proved a boon to La Vita Inn, and the patient load at the Inn increased considerably. The reasons for abandonment of the Inn were far more complex than a lack of business.

of 210

By 1895 the Beilhart family had increased to five, as Jacob’s younger brother Noah and sister Mary had moved to Battle Creek for an extended visit.43 Jacob at this time was carrying his belief in selfishlessness and passive non-resistance to “Spirit” or “Universal Life” to its logical conclusion. The following quotations from “Very Personal” suggest his mental attitude at this time.

….the one thing I did was to see that my will was to have the Will of the Universal Life fulfilled regardless of any pain or suffering to my separate Self...

Oh! do you not know the joy of willingly giving up all that Self holds dear?44

The most specific account available of his actions at this point in time is also given in “Very Personal”:

I had been letting Spirit do as it desired. I resisted nothing, and let circumstances take from me or bring to me.

What I had as my own, I did not defend if others tried to assert their right and impose on me. I had passed the physical suffering I have spoken of. I had seen that I could not be consistent with Spirit and continue to take an active part as a self or separate man among men in the business world. I had given my time to healing and doing for others as I was asked. I never received pay for healing or teaching. I could not sell the truth for money.

I had trusted Spirit, while all I had accumulated in the three years of hard work since I had left the church went from me by my consent, rather than try to force others to give up what they owed me. I got to a place where I either had to work for wages, or charge for healing or teaching, or beg or starve, unless there was another way. I desired at that time to have Spirit prove to me its power to know and supply my needs thru others, who in their conscious minds did not know why they did as they did. I had accepted God in them, whether it was to the interest of Self or against his interest. Now I would trust that Spirit would live thru them and act wiser than they as conscious persons knew.

I told no one what I was going to do. I yet lived in a home I had built, but I had given the deed to the man from whom I had borrowed the money, for I could not pay the interest unless I continued to compel others to pay me according to their promise, which they could not do. I would not take their property and leave them homeless, but I gave up my home instead. The blame must fall on someone, so I let it fall on me to save my fellow-men. I ceased to buy anything to eat. I told no one about it, for I knew that many whom I had helped would consider it a privilege to give me all that I needed if they knew that I needed it. I did not want their help. I wanted Spirit thru them to prove to me that it ruled all things, and that it knew my needs. I did not take this attitude in a daring way, but I felt it was the desire of Spirit to prove itself. The result was, that the remaining six weeks I lived in the city I

of 210

was supplied by people who gave things, sent them by the delivery wagons and brought them personally or sent by friends. They did not know why they should take such an interest in my supply, and some apologized for doing it, because they did not know I needed what they brought. Some things came at night, and we would not know who brought them.

We never locked our house, for the Lord was welcome to take as well as to give. The results were that although there were five in our family at that time - a brother, sister, wife, child and myself -yet we never went hungry a single day. And besides doing without sugar a day or two, and without salt for three days, (although I still had salt in a barn in which I had kept my team, and could get it if I wanted to, but I was not going after things but was letting Spirit bring it to me,) thins were supplied just as we needed them.”45

During this period while “Spirit” was providing for the Beilharts, the household increased again, by one, on February 7, 1896, with the birth of Louema’s second child, Edith. After initial rejoicing over the birth of this daughter, increased no doubt by Louema’s acquiescence to have a natural childbirth, Jacob realized that the infant Edith could not possibly be his child. After terrible scenes with Louema, Jacob learned that C.W. Post was the father not only of Edith but also of Harvey Harold. As Louema later related the story to her son and daughter-in-law, when Jacob confronted C.W. with the knowledge, C.W. offered him fifty per cent of La Vita Inn if he would stay in Battle Creek and help with the Inn and the plant. Outraged at having been betrayed by his wife his best friend, Jacob ordered C.W. out of his house. On February 25, 1896, the Beilharts left Battle Creek for Ohio.46

of 210

NOTES 1. Larry B. Massie and Peter J. Schmitt, Battle Creek: The Place Behind the

Product. Woodland Hills, Calif.: Windsor Pub., 1984.

2. A.D.P. Van Buren, “History of the Churches in Battle Creek,” Report of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan 5: 310-324.

3. Massie and Schmitt, p. 38-51.

4. Ibid. p. 5-6.

5. Gerald Carson. The Cornflake Crusade. New York: Rinehart & Co., 1957. Carson provides an amusingly irreverent but generally accurate account of Battle Creek’s part in the health foods phenomenon. Hereafter cited as Carson.

6. Joseph G. Smoot, “Sidney Brownsberger: Traditionalist,” p. 72-94, in Early Adventist Educators, George R. Knight, ed. Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 1983.


8. p. 5-6.

9. Curiously, an Adventist directory of church members in Battle Creek (Membership of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church of Battle Creek, as it Stood May 13 1891 (Battle Creek: s.n., 1891), p. 20) lists only a Louisa Berchardt, who worked at the Sanitarium. This may be Louema, but there is no listing for Jacob. C.W. Post, “Statement made February 14, 1899.” C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, p. 2. In an undated “Notice” refuting statements by John H. Kellogg, the Postum Cereal Co., Ltd., states that “In 1891 C.W. Post was induced by the skillful advertising of Dr. Kellogg, to come to the Sanitarium... Nine months time and about eighteen hundred dollars expense resulted in total failure and Mr. Post was taken from what seemed a death-bed and healed outside the Sanitarium by entirely different methods.” A copy of this Notice is preserved in the Heritage Room, James White Library, Andrews University.


11. Nettie Leitch Major, C.W. Post - The Hour and the Man. Washington, D.C.: Judd & Detweiler, 1963. P. 1- 27. Hereafter cited as Major.

12. Post himself enumerated the following: “All climates of America were tried; sea voyages, summer resorts, ranching in Texas, mountain resorts, mineral springs, Swedish movements, special massage, gymnastics, dieting, will power, special treatment and scientific selection of foods, special tests of the strength of gastric juices, and the application of food of a character that the gastric juices in their peculiar condition would best handle, etc., etc., etc.” (C.W. Post, The Modern Practice. Natural Suggestion, or,

of 210

Scientia Vitae. Battle Creek, Mich.: La Vita Inn, 1894, p. 78.)

13. C.W. Post letter to “The Editor,” typescript dated January 6, 1909. C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The letter was published in the Battle Creek Daily Moon, January 19, 1909, under “Mr. Post in London.”

14. Carroll L. Post, “The Life of Charles W. Post as I Knew Him During the Many Years of Close Association with Him.” Undated typescript, C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, p. 3

15. Quoted in Carson, Cornflake Crusade, p. 149-150.

16. Major, p. 29.

17. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986.

18. 18 Lizzie K. Gregory to C.W. Post, letter dated November 7, 1909. C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

19. Unidentified newspaper clipping, February 12, 1896, Coller Collection, Willard Public Library, Battle Creek. A portrait of Mrs. Chester accompanies an article in the Chicago Tribune of the same date. Mrs. Chester is first listed in Kalamazoo city directories in 1895, as a physician; she is last listed in 1899, as a Christian Scientist. As Agnes Chester See, she preached at The Church of Silent Demand, The Universal Truths Association, and elsewhere in Chicago. See Chicago Tribune, January 18, September 20, September 27, October 11, 1903, and June 5, 1904. In view of later events, it would be most interesting to know the content of the lecture delivered by her husband, Evelyn Arthur See, before the Society of Anthropology, in May, 1903, entitled “The Law and Above the Law.” Chicago Tribune, May 24, 1903. See also Chicago Record-Herald, March 18, 1911.

20. “very Personal,” p. 7-8.

21. C.W. Post, The Modern Practice. or, Scientia vitae (Battle Creek, Co., 1894). Carson, p. 154, gives publication, but this is not correct.

22. C.W. Post, letter to “The Editor,” typescript dated January 6, 1909. C.W. Post Papers, Bradley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

23. C.W. Post to E.F. Clark, Chicago, letter dated February 26, 1900. Portions of this letter are quoted in Major, p. 33, though the name is given incorrectly as “E.D. Clark.” It is interesting to speculate that this may actually have been Eugene H. Clark[e] of Chicago, but the original letter is lacking.


of 210

25. Articles of Incorporation, C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

26. La vita Inn Ledger Book I, p. 1. C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

27. Calhoun Co., Michigan, Deed Records 138: 428.

28. Ibid. 152: 525. Charlotte Beardslee was paid $7,903.78.

29. Charles W. Post, pers. comm., November 5, 1986.

30. Kellogg Publishing Co., Battle Creek City Directory, 1893, p. 70.

31. C.W. Post, letter to “The Editor,” typescript dated January 6, 1909. C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Published in Battle Creek Daily Moon, January 19, 1909.


33. p. 15.

34. La Vita Inn Ledger Book I, C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

35. Calhoun Co., Michigan, Birth Records 4: 311.

36. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986.

37. A newspaper clipping in the Caller Collection, Willard Library, Battle Creek, dated August 29, 1894, notes Post’s trip. See also Carson, p. 150, and Major, p. 49. As Charcot died in August, 1893, Major certainly errs in stating that Post obtained first hand knowledge on hypnosis from him during the summer of 1897. Post very probably did visit the Salpetriere, where Charcot lectured.

38. C.W. Post, “Statement made February 14th, 1899.” C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

39. According to the Lisbon Buckeye State, June 2, 1904, “When Beilhart knew him [C.W. Post] he was making his wonderful breakfast food in an old pan out in a woodshed or other outbuilding and Beilhart assisted him in the work and was offered an interest in the business but refused to accept the offer, and he does not even now express any regret for having done so.”

40. La Vita Inn Ledger I, C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, p. 1-2.

41. La vita Inn Minutes, C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

42. Ibid.

of 210

43. According to the Leetonia Reporter of November 1, 1895, “Miss Mary Beilhartz has concluded to spend the winter with her brother Jake in Michigan.” Noah’s departure is mentioned in the Columbiana Independent Register, August 8, 1895; Mary’s, in that of October 3, 1895. The Independent Register of November 21, 1895, Natural Suggestion, Mich.: La Vita Inn 1893 as the year of indicates that Mary resigned as teacher at Bonesville School to go to Michigan.


45. Ibid, p. 21-22. It will be noted that Jacob’s account of the disposal of his property does not tally with the fact that he sold the house lot to a Lena Phillips January 7, 1896, for $1400 (Calhoun Co. Deed Records 151: 588), unless he then used this money to pay off the original loan (from C.W. Post?)

46. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986. This is the date that Louema and Mary Beilhart left for Ohio, presumably with the children, but it appears likely that Noah and then Jacob followed not long after. Grant “Prairie State Utopia: The Spirit Fruit Society of Chicago and Ingleside,” Chicago History 12(1): 31 and “Spirit Fruit: Jacob’s Ohio Utopia,” Timeline 2(6): 23, incorrectly states that Jacob did not return to Ohio until 1899.

of 210

CHAPTER V

BONESVILLE AND NEW LISBON Jacob’s return to the Beilhart farm near Unionville (Cool Springs) did not go

unrecorded by the local press, for the Leetonia Reporter of March 6, 1896, duly noted that “Miss Mary Beilhart and her brother’s wife, of Battle Creek, Mich., arrived on the 27th inst. [sic]. They are the guests of Mary’s brother.” A month later, Noah’s return was also noted by the Boneville correspondent with equal casualness. Not until late April did mention of Jacob’s return appear, and then it was for the purpose of “paying his brother Michael and his many friends here a visit.” 1

Jacob seems to have wasted little time in beginning to proselytize. The May 15th issue of the Reporter noted that “There will be another [italics added] meeting at Beilharts Friday evening. All are invited to attend.” And a week or two later, “There will be another meeting at the Bonesville schoolhouse Tuesday night, Jacob Beilhartz as speaker.” Travelling farther afield, Jacob spent a Sunday in Alliance, and “a few days at Brady’s Lake” near Ravenna. The only critique we have of any of Jacob’s presentations during this period is a studiously ambiguous notice of a talk he gave in the nearby village of Columbiana:

Mr. Bilehart, the faith cure man, held forth in Groner’s hail on Sunday forenoon last to a small audience, and thoroughly convinced his hearers that the day of miracles had passed and that many false Christs would appear. 2

It may be that not all of these trips were used to spread “Spirit” and “Universal Life,” though the trip to Brady’s Lake very likely included a visit with Capt. Benjamin F. Lee, president of the Brady’s Lake Spiritualist’s Association. A trip by Jacob and Noah to Canton was doubtless to visit their Slutter relatives, as were Mary’s frequent visits there. Nor was Jacob the only family member to perform before the public, for the Bonesville correspondent noted in March, 1897, that “The entertainment given at the school house Friday evening was very entertaining, especially that given by Miss Mary and Noah Beilhartz.” (Noah’s talent would eventually lead him to some renown on the Chautauqua circuit as an elocutionist but for the present he had to remain content with farm labor and painting.)3

of 210

Noah Beilharz (1872-1959) flanked by two of his characterizations. Photos by Frank Moore Studios, Cleveland, ca. 1925. (Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Habel)

Despite the distraction of such occasional “entertainments,” life at the Beilhart farm must have been strained at times. It is not clear what sort of accommodation Jacob and Louema had reached with one another, but matters could not have been improved by the appearance upon the scene of Virginia Moore, the attractive, intelligent, seventeen-year-old daughter of George S. Moore, the leading photographer in the county seat of New Lisbon, some five miles south of “Beilhart’s Crossroads.”4 Whether Virginia met Jacob through Noah, who had been working in Lisbon, or perhaps through Mary Beilhart, remains unclear and relatively unimportant in the face of the profound effect their meeting would have on Jacob, Louema, Virginia, and others.

Jacob’s version of what happened cannot be considered entirely candid, even though his account was not written strictly as either autobiography apologia:

You who are interested in this Life thru me will naturally ask, where is this woman [Louema] now? Is she with you? Are these children with you? They were all with me when the paper [Spirit Fruit, first published in 1899] and the home began, and were a part of the beginning, but although the wife had repeatedly told me not to cease from my purpose because of her or her personal desire, and even wrote it in words like these: “I want you to always remember that whatever I may do or whatever I may ask of you, because of my personal desires, I love and honor you because you are true to the life you are living. Should you take your life away from the channel in which it naturally flows out to others, and direct it alone to me, I could not honor you and love you as I now do.”

of 210

Yet this same person who thus spoke her highest desire, had strong desires that did not agree with that sentiment, and as is the natural inheritance of all, she was bound by the more limited desires of a personal and more selfish or separate nature.

The Home seemed to be too universal; she desired to have her things, and especially her children to herself (not away from me, but away from the rest in the home.) As she put up walls of separation, she found these walls kept her away from others as well as others away from her. After over a year in the Home I saw, as she also did, that it was unjust to her nature to force her to remain in such environments, and that although it would take from me the children, yet what was that compared to the Life so many were dying for?5

This account was written years after the fact, and Jacob seems to have been trying to do two things at once: explain to his public why Louema left him and use her leaving as an example of the fact that not all people may be able to rise to an acceptance of “Spirit Fruit.” While Jacob’s reticence about the fact that his wife’s children were not his own is understandable, Louema here comes off infinitely superior or, at least, infinitely more sympathetic. To publish her feelings, which may be described as nothing less than noble, and then use her mother-love and inability to accept communal living as an example of how weak and selfish people can be has to be ranked as ungentlemanly and single-minded - perhaps worse, depending somewhat upon the sequence and timing of Jacob’s involvement with Virginia Moore.

Elsewhere in “Very Personal,” following an extensive discussion of the Life of Love and of Universal Love (“So to make men become men and to free woman and place her in her inheritance of Love was the joy before me”), Jacob writes of what seems to be this period and of one who is probably Virginia, in these terms:

Well, I ceased healing. I gave up all my life consisted of and let Life have its perfect work in me. I removed nothing from myself, but let circumstances remove as it would. I resisted nothing. I gave all men and all powers all they asked and spared not my own life. I made friends with all the elements of the world, both physical and mental, and also psychic, for this nature is to serve if we join the Universal Life and cease living a life apart from the Unit. “I became inactive and worked quietly at a friend’s place of business. I was unoccupied. I was creating or causing to manifest the feminine Spirit in one who seemed to be tired of the separate life. This was but a slow growth, but my inner ideals came to the surface. Faith, Love and Trust took the place in the heart once wrecked by jealousy, fear and doubt. As this Feminine began to be firmly established, and as Love began to create, Spirit Fruit was born and sent out. Very soon this home came to us, and then others came to join us in this work. 6

of 210

It may be that Jacob is here again telescoping a considerable period of time, depending upon when he actually “ceased healing,” whether in Battle Creek or after his return to Ohio; but I interpret the passage as referring to the period immediately prior to formation of the Spirit Fruit Society and therefore also to the growing love between him and Virginia Moore. In an earlier passage, he is somewhat more explicit about his experiences with love and his marriage:

I had the school-boy love of course; but, when I married at the age of twenty, I did it because of my religion, that I might better work for the Lord. I had but one object in life, and that was to work for the Lord by serving my fellow men. Now a new experience came to me. I had yet to learn what Love is. I had a general interest in all humanity and obeyed what I thought to be my duty to them and to God, but I knew not Love.

Love starts at a center and is personal at first, and if it is not looked after it remains personal and dies, or ceases to exist to those who try to bind it. [Then follows an account of healing a hopeless case of a lady of about the age of twenty-four, in the course of which Jacob asked her to attempt spirit-writing, at which she proved amazingly adept.] The result was that in a few days this woman would seem at times to be taken complete control of by a different nature than her own. It seemed that my highest ideal of the perfection of womanhood would be expressed thru this intelligence that came thru her. Not only was the attitude perfect but the abilities and intelligence seemed all I could ask. When this spirit (for so we will call her) was present, I seemed to be all alive with love for her, but the moment this would depart and leave the woman in possession of her own body, I had no desire to be with her.

You may make of it what you like. To me it served this purpose - it awakened in me LOVE. And about the time I was counting on it, the woman went West and thus ended my first love affair.

But love was begun. I had seen an Ideal that was like the ideal within myself. To create, to draw forth by the power to create by Love, was now my work.7

Here is candor enough, at least in regard to Jacob’s feelings about his marriage to Louema. There is no record of Louema’s thoughts in the matter; in later life she was extremely close-mouthed about her personal life and never discussed Jacob with even her closest friends. And it would be unfair to suggest that something must have been lacking in the relationship or Louema would not have fallen in love with C.W. Post. In any case, in August, 1897, Louema left Jacob, taking the children and going to her parents’ home in La Cygne, Kansas. The Bonesville correspondent reported laconically that “Mrs. Jacob Bielhartz has gone to Kansas to visit her family.8

Very possibly it was at this point that the relationship between Jacob and Noah deteriorated. We have only a stray remark made by a newspaper reporter that “Beilharz’s brother Noah was associated with him in his early ventures, but they

of 210

became intolerant [sic] to him and he repudiated them.9 Although there is no evidence for it, it is possible even that Noah was interested in Virginia Moore and that jealousy played a part in the estrangement between him and Jacob. Regardless, the stressful relationship between Louema and Jacob must have taken its toll on other members of the Beilhart family, and it is probably more than coincidence that at the time Louema left for Kansas Mary Beilhart made an extended visit friends in Canton, Ohio.10

Charlena J. Lewis and her daughter, Virginia Moore. Virginia is at the printing press, Ingleside, Illinois, August, 1907 (Courtesy News-Sun, Waukegan, Illinois)

Virginia Moore, who was to become the leader of the Spirit Fruit Society during its later years, was the product of an unusual couple, Charlena J. Lewis and George S. Moore, of nearby New Lisbon, and her mother deserves particular attention because of the important role she would play, as “Ma” Young, in the life of the Spirit Fruit Society. Charlena or “Linnie” J. Lewis was born December 17, 1848, the daughter of a pedlar, Daniel W. Lewis, and Anna Springer Lewis. It is not known what became of Charlena’s father, but the family of five children (Charlena was the only girl) may have been separated early, for her brother Curtis was living in an uncle’s family by 1860 and the mother and other children can not readily be located in the 1860 census. Charlena married George S. Moore, of Washington Co., Pennsylvania, at the age of nineteen. Moore was about ten years Charlena’s senior, had served three years in the Civil War, and was a photographer by trade. While he set about becoming New Lisbon’s leading photographer,

of 210

Charlena was occupied with rearing a family of seven children, though only three - Benjamin F., Virginia C., and John L. - lived to adulthood. 11

Shortly after their marriage, at various times during 1868 and 1869, George Young “was witness through himself and others in his own home to what he then thought new and strange phenomena which caused him to think, read and investigate.” As his obituary, written by a fellow member of the I.O.O.F., continues,

……he came to the firm conclusion that our forefathers had not read the scriptures and the works of God so as to understand them, thereby to condemn the Copernican system of philosophy and those who espoused it. Nor did they render a rational spiritual understanding of the word of God, for to Brother Moore’s mind and others there is a complete correspondence therein, and Brother Moore was a firm believer in the new Christianity, as it is now becoming known. “And as Copernicus was a true interpreter of the works of God, so with Swedenborg, on the Scriptures or word of God, as it is well known to thousands and becoming better known, and in less time than the Copernican system was known.” 12

The nature of those “strange phenomena” would be of considerable interest, as would the part Charlena played in them as witness or, perhaps, participant. A strong interest in spiritualism continued throughout her long life and would serve as a link between Jacob and the remnants of his followers after his death.

Mention should also made of Virginia’s brother Benjamin F. Moore, the eldest of the children, who was named for Charlena’s brother B.F. Lewis. B.F. Lewis gained some local prominence as a miner of local placer deposits of “kidney ore” to supply the Leetonia iron furnaces but spent his later years in Indianapolis, Indiana, successively as an “ore expert,” travel agent, and harness maker, before joining his sister and niece with the Spirit Fruit Society at Ingleside, Illinois. His nephew and namesake, who was to provide some financial assistance to the Society many years later during its final period in California, followed in his father’s craft. Several of the Moore family, in fact, seem to have acquired a knowledge of photography, for Charlena continued as a professional photographer in Lisbon even after her second marriage and Virginia, too, proved to be adept in the dark room.13 Brother Ben, however, got off to a rocky start, despite the fact that his father set him up in business, paying for the equipment and a five year lease on his son’s shop. Around 1890, against his parents advice, Ben formed a partnership with one Grimmesey, an Alliance, Ohio, photographer, and the pair proceeded to swindle between 400 and 500 people in that area by the simple expedient of getting the people to pay for their portraits, which the photographers merely pretended to take, without the expense of inserting film into the camera! Having served his apprenticeship as a sharper, Ben proceeded to execute the same scheme in East Palestine, a village about twelve miles northeast of New Lisbon, gulling an additional 300 to 400 people out of $2.00 each and then fleeing the area. The East

of 210

Palestine Valley Echo averred that “Mr. Moore won many friends while in East Palestine, and could have made a good living, but bad compa[ny] and high living prompted him to resort to this method of getting money.” Ben was reported to be working the same scheme in southern Colorado; but, a year later, when his father died, he was apparently living in either Cincinnati or Chicago. The scandal had subsided sufficiently by that time for him to be able to visit his mother. Though George S. Moore, “Artist,” officially died of “Consumption,” it is possible that distress over his eldest son’s errant ways contributed to his decline. 14

Several years after the death of her husband, Charlena married a widower, Baltzer S. Young, “the popular North Market street hardware dealer,” who had also been Lisbon’s postmaster for eight years during the 1870s. Young came from a prominent pioneer Columbiana County family and was relatively well-to-do. Virginia continued to live with her mother and step-father, and is so listed in the 1900 census, by which time Jacob had also moved to Lisbon. 15

Unfortunately, this very critical period in the history of the Spirit Fruit Society is the most poorly documented. The last reference to Jacob that places him at the Beilhart farm is a brief newspaper notice in January, 1898. His sister Mary, too, was still living at the farm, as a week later the Bonesville scribe reports that she had been visiting friends in Lisbon. But there is no further mention of Jacob throughout 1898 and the following two years. One can wonder whether Jacob was present at the Slutter family reunion held at the “Beilharz homestead” in October, 1900, but it seems very probable that he was not, for by that time Spirit Fruit was occupying his entire attention, as it would for the remainder of his life.16 According to her diary, Louema Beilhart returned to Ohio, December 23, 1898, specifically to Lisbon, where she remained until February, 1900. This suggests that Jacob had moved to Lisbon by the winter of 1898, but no additional evidence of this fact has been found. 17

of 210

NOTES 1. Leetonia Reporter, “Bonesville” column, March 6, April 3, and April 24,

1896.

2. Ibid June 2, July 10, and July 25, 1896.

3. Bradys Lake, a popular Portage Co. summer resort, was the site of “regular spiritualist meetings” during the l890S. See Ravenfla, Ohio, Democratic Press, June 16 and July 14, 1898. The Lake Brady Spiritualist Camp Association was incorporated August 29, 1899, “for the purpose of investigating the phenomena and calling the attention of the people to the merits and claims of Modern Spiritualism,” Ohio Secretary of State, Records of Incorporation 76: 159. The Lisbon Buckeye State, April 28, 1898, notes the apparent murder of Capt. Lee at Brady’s Lake, though other newspapers concluded that his death was from natural causes and the destruction of his Lake Brady cabin by fire accidental. The Ravenna Republican of April 28, 1898, reports that he was “one of the Ohio Spiritualists ... [and] the first president of the Lake Brady Association. See also Sandusky Register, April 23 and 27, 1898. A Civil War veteran, Lee abandoned an unprofitable attempt at commercially manufacturing yeast, became a lawyer, and served as Sandusky County’s prosecuting attorney from 1877 to 1879, before leaving office under a cloud. According to the Register, “Captain Lee was a man of considerable ability and he saw an opportunity to make use of it in the field of spiritualism, for some of the tricks of which he may have been fitted, possibly by the practice of law.” Leetonia Reporter, December 18, 1896; March 5, April 30, 1897.

4. Ibid., May 28, 1897: “Miss Jennie Moore visited at Michael Bielhartz over Saturday and Sunday.”

5. “Very personal,” p. 24-25.

6. Ibid., p. 15.

7. Ibid., p. 13.

8. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986; Leetonia Reporter, September 3, 1897.

9. Leetonia Reporter, “Fruit of the Spirit,” April 12, 1901. Grant, “Spirit Fruit: ‘Jacob’s Ohio Utopia,” Timeline 2(6): 18, incorrectly identifies John Michael Beilhart as one of the original members of the Spirit Fruit community, apparently confusing him with Noah.

10. Ibid., September 3, 1897. Also October 29, 1897: “Miss Mary Beilhartz has returned from Canton, where she had been for quite a while.”

of 210

11. Los Angeles Co., California, Death Certificate 6670; U.S. Federal Population Schedule, 1850, Salem Township, Columbiana Co., Ohio, p. 7; Ibid., 1860, Wellsville, Columbiana Co., p. 258; Columbiana Co. Marriage Records 5: 365; New Lisbon Ohio Patriot, June 30, 1892.

12. New Lisbon Buckeye State, June 30, 1892.

13. Benjamin F. Lewis is listed in various Indianapolis city directories for 1887 through 1898. Directory of All Business and Professional Columbiana County, O. (Conneaut,. Ohio: Watson & Dorman), p. 58, lists “Mrs. B.S. Young, Photographer.” Mrs. Young regularly advertised in the Buckeye State during the late l890s and the issue of September 23, 1897, notes that “Mrs. B.S. Young’s photographic display at the fair was the center of attraction.” Also, July 7, 1898: “Before going to war have your picture taken at Mrs. B.S. Young’s.” It may be worth noting that her stepdaughter, Eva Young, was the wife of the Buckeye State editor, C.F. Moore. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, May 8, 1979: “And Virginia performed, or supervised practically all of the photography in connection with the Society and did all of her own developing and printing...”

14. East Palestine Valley Echo, July 23 and July 30, 1891; New Lisbon Ohio Patriot, June 13, 1892; Columbiana Co., Ohio, Death Records 3: 147.

15. Lisbon Ohio Patriot, June 13, 1895; Baltzer S. Young obituary, Lisbon Buckeye State, March 18, 1909; U.S. Federal Population Schedule, 1900, Lisbon, Center Township., Columbiana Co., Ohio.

16. Leetonia Reporter, January 14 and 21, 1898; Ibid., October 26, 1900.

17. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986. Louema clearly was living with Jacob in Lisbon by December, 1899, when they deeded a portion of the “Spirit Fruit Farm” to the Columbiana County Agricultural Society: Columbiana Co., Ohio, Deed Records 242: 471.

of 210

CHAPTER VI

LISBON On April 1, 1899, Jacob purchased 5.2 acres of land on the northeast edge of

Lisbon, Ohio, a tract known generally as the Holmes or Seminary property, for the sum of $2500. The land had been owned for many years by Peter Young, an uncle of Baltzer Young but lately had been owned by Almira Rankin and unsuccessfully operated as a hospital. Included on the premises was a fine old brick house, which would serve as the first home of the Spirit Fruit Society. The building was constructed in 1842 by Jesse Holmes to serve as a women’s seminary and then as a coeducational Friends’ school, but the school was forced to close its doors in 1852. As Jacob described the Home, it contained “five acres of good ground with plenty of fruit trees, a fine spring of water, and a large fifteen room brick house in need of repairs.” 1

A penny postcard view of the Spirit Fruit Society’s farm at Lisbon, Ca. 1905. “The ‘Incubator’ of the ‘Spirit Fruit Religion.’” Bert Burns Post Cards.

Shortly before purchasing the Rankin property, Jacob began publishing a four page newspaper, Spirit Fruit, to spread his doctrine. The only extant issue of Spirit Fruit published at Lisbon and available to the author is the lower half of an early issue preserved in the Western Reserve Historical Society’s collections and ascribed to April, 1899. As the masthead and any date on the item is lacking, assignment of a precise date to this issue is somewhat problematic. It seems clear, however, that the newspaper was in operation by this time, as Leroy Henry reprints the first number, dated March, 1899, indicating that publication began even before purchase of the Young or Rankin farm.2

of 210

In March of the following year, Jacob was able to purchase an additional 47 acres approximately three miles east of the Lisbon home, in adjoining Elk Run Township, Columbiana Co., on a ridgetop along the east side of Elk Run. The land was purchased for $1100. 3 Here the 1900 federal census lists Jacob as “Farmer” and “Head,” with the following boarders: Ralph E. Galbreath, David Stanforth, Martha Miller, and Mary G. Bail[e]y. In nearby Lisbon, the census lists Jacob again, but as “Pub[lisher] & Correspondent, together with Louema, the children Harry and Edith, and Jacob’s sister Mary, though Louema had left on February 8, 1900, for a short visit in Battle Creek, after which she returned to her family in La Cygne.4

Where Jacob obtained the $3600 used to pay for these two parcels of land is uncertain. Perhaps some money remained from the sale of his lot in Battle Creek. Some - perhaps a substantial amount - was evidently received as donations obtained through distribution of Spirit Fruit and Spirit’s Voice. 5 Jacob’s newspapers, though distributed free, seem to have resulted in considerable income. A major tenet of Jacob’s philosophy was the belief that each is provided for according to one’s wants and without one’s asking. Perhaps the most clearly this is expressed is in his account of the Lisbon home:

I am not laying up for the future. That which is given me is used, but the supply is bountiful for all my desires. I do not pray or ask for things, because all my desires are fulfilled before I have time to know what they will be...

The result, in few words, is this; Those who have given of their substance without my asking, and even often refusing to take what someone offered because I saw the principle was not understood by them, and those who have come to join me and get into this Life of Universal Spirit have surrounded me, and given into my hands property worth perhaps six thousand dollars. This consists of all the things we need as a family who work and print the paper, and send them out as we desire.6

Jacob’s account of these business transactions is characteristically vague:

About a year after the paper started I found myself holding over three thousand dollars’ worth of property. This I did not want to do, although it was given me to use as I saw fit in this work. I did not want to have it in my name, so we organized a society and I gave all property to the society and dropped even my own name from the paper, and I don’t care to ever use it again except when business law demands it.7

Actually, The Spirit Fruit Society was not incorporated until April, 1901, but Jacob obviously was already laying the foundation for the communal group and had even gained a few converts. Of these, his sister Mary, Ralph Galbrath, and David Stanforth would remain part of the Society until its end. Martha Miller and Mary Bailey, on the other hand, would leave the Society very early - one quietly, the other in a blaze of unwanted publicity.

of 210

Virtually nothing is known about Martha Miller beyond the fact that she was a 42 year old spinster at the time she was staying at the Elk Run farm. Relying upon a certain amount of surmise, it seems probable that Jacob met her while visiting in Alliance. Martha’s father, Samuel Miller, had lived in Fairfield Township, Columbiana Co., as a young man but spent most of his life in Alliance working as a blacksmith and as a machinist on the Pennsylvania Railroad; his obituary describes him as “a very quiet man, unostentatious and simple in his habits of life, and a thoroughly good citizen in all respects. In religious faith he was a Spiritualist.” At the time of his death in 1893, Martha was teaching school in the village of New Baltimore and living with her sister and brother-in- law, Nancy and Jacob Yochum. She continued to live with them after her stay with Jacob, and is so listed in the 1910 census. It is very probable that she had left the Society before 1904, as she is not mentioned in the extensive newspaper coverage of the Society at that time. Martha Miller moved to Ravenna, Ohio, in 1935, where she died in 1937.8

Mary G. Bailey was in her late forties at the time of her stay with Jacob and, if we may believe the editor of the Buckeye State, was “by no means physically [sic] attractive.” Since she was born in Michigan, it is possible that Mrs. Bailey met Jacob while the Beilharts lived in Battle Creek, but a statement by Jacob suggests that she learned of him through his newspapers. In any event, she had lived at the farm for about a year when her husband arrived in Lisbon to take her back to Chicago. Data from the 1900 census indicate that she had been married less than a year and was the mother of one child no longer living. The Buckeye State labeled “Somewhat Mysterious” the entire “Story of a Chicago Husband and an Unwilling Wife.”9 Although the article includes a rather even-handed account of Jacob’s group, it is also of interest for providing the first indication of uneasiness on the part of the good villagers of Lisbon:

“An incident occurred in this city on Friday last, that, while not arousing much public attention, partook of somewhat exciting details, with an air of mystery surrounding the whole affair.” The “Home” is described as “an institution of a religio-spiritualistic nature.” “Just what are the characteristics and purposes of the so-called ‘Home’ it is difficult to learn, although speculations not wholly creditable to its reputation are rife.” Jacob is described as “‘Dr Beilhart, a somewhat eccentric man, well known in the community for years,” but the newspaper notes that “One of the ‘Doctor’s’ eccentricities appears to be a rigid adherence to his own affairs and an expressed desire that the public shall follow his example.” Then follows this description of the Home and its inmates:

Just who and what these inmates are, for what purpose they are there, etc., it is impossible to learn. Primarily, in addition to the “Doctor” there are three or four men, who are almost complete recluses, never visiting the city and never, so far as is known, leaving the farm. They are apparently tirelessly industrious, and are frequently seen working about the place, one of the “Doctor’s” primary requirements being that all about him shall busy

of 210

themselves in some useful employment. The number of women inmates varies from time to time, sometimes being as many as half a dozen and again a lesser number. What they do beyond the necessary housework of a large establishment is one of the mysteries. One of the “industries” of the institution is the publication of a small newspaper, devoted to the promulgation of spiritualism and other theories of earthly duty and eternal reward advocated by the head of the institution. That the “Home” is liberally provided for is evident, but from what source the funds come is another of the mysteries, as Beilhart is known to be possessed in his own right of but limited means. In his dealings with the public Beilhart is rigidly honest and conscientious to a remarkable degree, and, so far as the reputation of the “Home” for strict adherence to the generally accepted rules of propriety are concerned, nothing is known. Many people give voice to suspicion, but when asked for the evidence to sustain it are unable to adduce any, and in the absence of such evidence charity demands that no consideration be given to mere rumor and the gossip of busybodies.

All of this by way of prelude to the account of the “incident” itself:

Friday last there came upon the scene a genteel appearing gentleman, of advanced middle age, who announced himself as “Dr. Bailey, of Chicago,” and claimed the Mrs. Bailey above referred to as his wife, demanding that she return home with him. The woman admitted the relationship, but refused to accompany her husband, declaring that she had found her “heavenly rest” at the “Home” and did not propose to leave it.

Casting aside his gentility, Dr. Bailey went to the courthouse and made affidavit that his wife was insane; faced with the alternatives of returning home and possible commitment, Mrs. Bailey prepared to leave the Home. While the couple were waiting at the railroad station for the next train to Chicago, Jacob arrived, “to take a forgotten article to them,” according to his version, which followed in the next week’s issue of the Buckeye State. When Jacob suggested to Mrs. Bailey that she was not accountable for her actions since she had been adjudged insane, her husband lost all restraint and gave Beilhart “a vigorous smite on the jaw, that caused him to lose all interest in the subsequent proceedings. The bystanders awaited with curiosity what they supposed would develop into a tragedy, but Beilhart, true to his teachings of peace and non-resistance, quietly re-entered his carriage and drove away, as the train drew up and the husband and wife boarded it and started on their homeward journey.”

Jacob’s account of this encounter provides “Some Explanation” in a letter to the editor the following week, concisely stating the situation according to his point of view:

Mrs. Dr. Bailey was here to learn more of what we teach in our papers, and see it lived in a household. I had advised her to return to her husband, who, on account of his former conduct, gave her the right to leave him according

of 210

to law, and I had written him two days before he came that she would be home in a few days. I went to the train to take a forgotten article to them, and not to say good-bye. I had no private conversation with her. Bailey struck me because I told her she was not accountable since she had been judged insane. He had a right to strike me if he could not control his passion. In justice to him I want to say it is not true his wife has property coming to her which he’s after [a suggestion that had been made by the Buckeye State].10

Jacob’s letter also provides a brief account of the Home that is probably the best description of the group at this period:

First, I am not a “Dr.” nor have I any other title. I am just a plain man, born and lived for sixteen years in this county, and have traveled some since. I have studied various religious cults and isms, and came to the conclusion that all professions are vain unless we live them in our practical life. I am not identified with any sect nor creed. I seek to know the laws of life as applees [sic] to all of man’s nature, and when I find them I obey them. This accounts for my being “odd.”

We publish two little monthly papers and send them to such as seek to know a higher and truer life than the selfish business, political and social world teaches or lives. We all work together and have “all things in common.” We have no master nor servant. Each is governed by the law within them. When one discovers a new truth they give the rest the benefit of it.

The women do the work in the house: do their own sewing and set the type for the papers and get them ready for mailing, attend to the subscription list etc., besides doing the house work at the farm, which we purchased last spring in Elk run township.

We do all our work of sending our papers and keep up a large personal correspondence with our readers, absolutely free of charge. We are founded on the principle of “Free Gift.” If any one desires what we have to give them, which we have printed or can write, they get it free of charge, on application. These people, seeing we practice unselfish love to them, desire to aid us in this work and we allow them to give if they choose to do so. However, they must give it as a free gift, and not in payment for our papers. This pleases them and they respond liberally.

We have readers in all classes of society. About forty per cent of our readers are men. All the work we do on the farm and here in the Home is given to carry on the work. I, as a person, do not claim a cent. The property is in my name because we have not formed a legally incorporated institution. My life is wholly given to teach such as desire to learn what I have found out by experience and study. All who live in the Home or help in the work must be in harmony with what we teach.

of 210

We teach that man must obey the law of his being and gradually rise from the lower nature into the unselfish spiritual and subdue all passions and impulses which rule the natural man. We believe in the laws of business and society, but that man is above the man-made law, when he gets full control of his lower nature, but should none the less be obedient to it. We are not “Free Lovers” as the world understands the term. Gossip has been fed by several who tried to connect themselves with us and were refused because they were “Free Lovers.” These have started reports out of their own minds, because we would not give them a place with us. Not all that has taken place in the Home is approved of by me, but the honest person has a right to experience, if he will obey the law when he finds it, while those who were not honest we have removed from the place, after giving them a chance to prove themselves.

“Not all that has taken place in the Home is approved of by me...” Considering his views on marriage, Jacob’s words probably do not refer specifically to the birth of his niece, Evelyn Gladys, which had occurred the previous August, out of wedlock; but surely he knew that his statement would be so interpreted by the readers of the Buckeye State, and this may have been an attempt to forestall criticism of his sister Mary and the Home in general.11

Evelyn’s parents, Mary Beilhart and Ralph E. Galbreath, had known each other from childhood, as they had grown up on farms only a mile apart. The son of Parker P. and Celestia Fox Galbreath, Evelyn’s father came from a strong Quaker background, as the names of his father and his uncle, Charles Burleigh Galbreath, indicate. Although P.P. Galbreath remained a farmer, his family doubtless also reflected the liberal intellectual strain that lead his nephew C.B. Galbreath to become State Librarian of Ohio and secretary of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society and another nephew, A.A. Galbreath, to become president of Mount Hope Academy in nearby Rogers, Ohio, as well as a state senator. Both Noah and Mary Beilhart, incidentally, attended Mount Hope College, preparatory to teaching in the local schools.

Ralph Emerson Galbreath, born January 29, 1871, briefly attended Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio, but did not graduate. The death of his mother as a result of a fall from a cherry tree profoundly affected the teen-ager, who had already left the Methodist Church, in which he had been active, and turned to atheism. By his own account, Galbreath was an associate of a local Christian Endeavor society, from May 28 to November 12, 1893, during which “the holy sanctuary was profaned by the expression of the ‘wisdom of men’ as well as the ‘foolishness of God,’ for I strove to be an active member, literally.” Not content with stirring up the local C.E., Galbreath acquired a small printing press, with the intent of printing and posting “pointers” in public places. “As ‘wisdom’ above what is written is void to some, I expect mostly to use the Bible against itself. Some such printing and my library notices have been torn down, showing that people do read.” Although sarcastic, referring to Christianity as “that great extravaganza,” Galbreath was not irrational on the subject: “However nonsensical Christian ideas may be to

of 210

us, they are sacred to others, and the powerful persuasion of genuine fellow interest and good will is likely to be more successful than derision.” This was advice, however, that he himself rarely seems to have followed during these years. 12

During the mid 1890s Galbreath contributed several letters and articles to the Boston Investigator, a newspaper “devoted to the development and promotion of universal mental liberty,” and these articles clearly reflect Galbreath’s strident free-thinking. “Come, Let Us Reason Together,” a rather rambling address delivered at Woodville Schoolhouse, June 3, 1894, was published in full in the Investigator. More striking than his atheism, however, is Galbreath’s antipathy toward organized religion and religious authoritarianism: “Have perfect freedom anyhow. Don’t be tied to a church or creed. If you must give up your freedom of thought, of speech or of action in order to join the church, don’t join.”13 Local reaction to this particular address of Galbreath’s remains unrecorded, but there is evidence that he enjoyed the role of village atheist, and reaction to another of his performances has been preserved. Attending a local Farmer’s Institute, Galbreath leaped to fill the breach when the president announced that there was a vacancy in the program. He recited “Mrs. Allyn’s fine production, ‘The Earth and Hell of Deacon B,’” which had appeared in an earlier issue of the Investigator, changing the title slightly to eliminate the word “hell,” in order “to prevent suspicion of the Liberal character of the piece, knowing that I would be denied the privilege of reciting if they knew that I would advocate infidelity before the audience.” The poem, which has Deacon B. going to hell and finding the likes of Thomas Paine and Lord Byron having a far better, more enjoyable, and more rational time than men like Wilberforce, Luther, and George Washington in their heavenly abode, was sufficiently irritating for one of the scheduled lecturers to condemn the proceedings in an editorial in “one of our most successful agricultural papers”: “And to set these two men [Paine and Byron] up for admiration before a Christian audience was an insufferable insult to the audience and an offense against good breeding.” Galbreath must have revelled in it.14

At about the same time, writing from “Heathen Ridge” (a.k.a. Leetonia, Ohio), Galbreath was moved to refute a sermon by Rev. Early, “a rising young man from a neighboring town, a ready speaker, and [one who] professes-to be in love with the work.15 Also in the pages of the Investigator, Galbreath waxed poetic in his attack on the Bible, unable to accept a God that permits pain and suffering.16 Of more relevance to Gaibreath’s subsequent sojourn in the Spirit Fruit Society is a brief examination of Spiritualism, in which, though he disclaims being a Spiritualist, he reserves judgment - “Could we see the falsity of spiritual claims as we can that of Christian pretensions, we would denounce them in like terms.” Relating the experiences of several friends with Spiritualism, Galbreath expressed a particular curiosity about spirit writing.17 Although Galbreath’s views on the subject during his later years are Unknown, he seems to have been receptive to such ideas (luring his youth. In any case, Parker Galbreath’s remarriage did not improve matters for his son, and the Unhappy young man was no doubt a ready

of 210

recruit for Jacob’s philosophy. By 1900 Ralph Galbreath was a member of the group and became one of the original incorporators of the Spirit Fruit Society in 1901.

The other original member and incorporator of the Spirit Fruit Society, David Stanforth, may have suffered stresses similar to those encountered by the young Ralph Galbreath. Born in Highland Co., Ohio, in 1863, David lost his mother at the age of three years and his stepmother at the age of fifteen. Nothing is known of his life between this time and his appearance at the age of thirty-seven in Jacob’s budding colony. It is presumed that he left home at an early age and gained his livelihood as a travelling cook, for that was his usual occupation throughout his long life. Stanforth may have married and divorced, presumably at some point in his life after leaving the Spirit Fruit Society, as he is listed as single in both the 1900 and 1910 federal population schedules.18

With the precipitous departure of Mary Bailey and the loss of Martha Miller, Jacob’s family was reduced to Galbreath, Stanforth, his sister Mary, Louema, the children, and himself. The two newspapers, however, proved effective in attracting the curious, some of whom came to visit and observe the Home while some even joined the Society. In April, 1901, the Spirit Fruit Society was incorporated by the Secretary of State, its purpose:

To teach mankind how to apply the truths taught by Jesus Christ to daily life; to disseminate a practical knowledge of the principles which pertain to man’s spiritual, social, mental and physical nature; to assist each other in attaining the highest state of spiritual, moral and physical perfection. Believing that selfishness is the one great hinderance [sic] to human happiness, we desire to unite as one and assist others in eliminating this element from their nature by practicing unselfishness in our own lives by helping others; and to acquire, by donation or otherwise, all necessary property funds.19

Immediately following incorporation of the Spirit Fruit Society, Jacob deeded both the Lisbon and the Elk Run Township property to the Society. The deed records show that there was still a $1500 mortgage held by Almira Rankin.20

Despite the efforts of George Blake, a live-wire newspaper correspondent in the state capital, the local press gave little attention to the incorporation of the Spirit Fruit Society. The Leetonia Reporter published the most extensive version of Blake’s story, including this account of the Bailey affair:

Six months or more ago he [Jacob] was soundly thrashed by an Alliance physic[i]an, who claimed Bei[1]harz had persuaded his wife to join the colony and deed over valuable property to it. The woman asserted that she had cast her lot with the society of her own volition and believed in its doctrine. She was finally induced to leave the headquarters of the society.21

of 210

Blake also reports that “Beilharz’s wife is said to be in Michigan at her former home. She does not approve [of] her husband’s radical views on religious matters, and does not take part in the institution of which he is the head.” Of course, by this time Louema had left Lisbon; it is believed that Jacob never saw her or the children again.

The Lisbon Buckeye State paid little attention to the news of the incorporation. The single paragraph that appeared in that newspaper derided Blake’s account as “a lengthy alleged history of the “Home” in Lisbon, a large part of which is pure romance and a fair share of the remainder idle speculation, the whole giving the alleged “Home” a degree of notoriety to which it is not entitled.22

It should be borne in mind, however, that the editor of the Buckeye State was related by marriage to Charlena Young and her daughter Virginia Moore, which may have caused him to temper his remarks. Following the undesirable publicity of the Bailey affair, Jacob and his followers doubtless welcomed being left alone, although at least one newspaper chided them on their seeking “quiet seclusion in little communities.” “Every church ought to be a ‘Spirit Fruit’ society, but the fruits of the Spirit must be produced amid the activities of life, if they are to be of general benefit,” admonished the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette in a generally kind editorial titled “Do Not, Hide Your Light.”23 Although precise documentation is lacking, the colony acquired several additional members at this time or shortly thereafter and continued to receive a steady flow of visitors over the next few years.

In 1903, possibly to pay the mortgage on the Lisbon farm, the Society sold the Elk Run farm for $1500 to Ellis Crawford, a local farmer. This meant consolidation of the Society in the Lisbon home, as well as a decrease in income from farming. It is possible that financial contributions received through the Society’s newspapers were sufficient to support the group, but it seems more likely that the Society was not able to maintain payments on the mortgage held by the previous owner of the Lisbon property and decided to pay that mortgage with the proceeds from the Elk Run property. This move, which placed all of the members of the Society under one roof, must also have made the nature of the Society more noticeable to the Lisbon townspeople, ultimately with disastrous results.24

Chief among the new members joining the Spirit Fruit Society during this period were Edward J. Knowdell, born in Colchester Co., Nova Scotia, in 1872 and reared as a Presbyterian, and Belle D. Norris, the teenage daughter of a Methodist-turned-Congregational minister, the Rev. John S. Norris, also a Canadian. Knowdell emigrated from Canada, presumably with his parents, as he was naturalized in 1880, although no trace of other members of the family has been found. Rev. Norris’ family moved about considerably, from Canada to New York, Wisconsin, Iowa, Chicago, and Michigan. Belle was born in Grand Rapids, Wisconsin, in January, 1881, but the Norrises were living in Chicago when she joined the Spirit Fruit Society in 1902, by which time she had developed into a “fascinating woman,” according to the newspapers. Photographs and the little that

of 210

is known regarding Belle’s life suggest that this assessment is very probably correct. 25

Ironically, the assassination of President William McKinley (who, along with his mentor/manager, Mark Hanna, is generally ranked among Lisbon’s patron saints - because of family and boyhood ties with the village) may well have had something to do with Belle Norris’ move to Lisbon. When anarchist “Red Emma” Goldman was arrested in Chicago for presumed complicity in the shooting of President McKinley, she was apprehended in the Sheffield Avenue apartment of Charles G. Norris, Belle’s brother. Norris, as both Emma’s autobiography and his own testimony make clear, had no particular interest in Anarchism and appears simply to have thought it something of a lark to hide her from the police. His attitude may have changed when he was hauled to police headquarters. Norris had met Emma after one of her lectures and claimed to have no more than a speaking acquaintanceship with any of the Chicago anarchists. In any event, Charles was quickly released by the police, whereupon he and Belle’s other two brothers, Robert and John, seem to have left Chicago, shortly after McKinley’s assassination. 26 Although Belle Norris is scarcely mentioned in accounts of Emma Goldman’s arrest, it is possible that her sympathies with Emma Goldman did extend to the philosophical and political; at least the newspapers thought so several years later, and it may be that Belle moved to Lisbon in September, 1902, partly to flee the notoriety she had unwittingly found in Chicago. 27

Belle and her brother Charles, according to the Des Moines, Iowa, Register and Leader, “long ago embraced the anarchistic belief as taught by the widely known Emma Goldman. In this lies the ‘dark hand’ influence in the life of Miss Belle.” (“A black hand,” the newspaper explained, “like a dark pall, has always hung over the Norris children.”) The same authority tells us that “Many girls have been inveigled into the place of abode of this strange religious cult, and the queen of the place is Miss Belle Norris. Spirit Fruit farm is the home of the advocates of a free love belief. Beilhart demands of his converts unreserved abandonment of worldly things; entire submission to his will; the unconditional surrender of self, etc.” In this same article the Webster Springs, Iowa, correspondent described Belle as follows:

a very attractive and beautiful young woman of brilliant mind [but] always considered by her closest friend to be rather queer in some respects. Quiet and extremely reserved... Born of highly cultured parents, her early environments were such as to encourage the student side of her character. This, together with her natural fondness for literature and the finer arts tended to bring her whole life under an influence of high intellectuality. Unmoved by the commoner things, she lived in a realm of her own.”28

Yellow journalism at its most noisome, this article was copied by a number of other papers, including the Buckeye State, and did nothing to allay the prurient suspicions of the Lisbon villagers. Nor were matters helped at this juncture by the

of 210

birth of Robert J. Knowdell, the son of Mary Beilhart and Edward J. Knowdell, on May 13, 1904. Since Jacob and his followers did not believe in marriage, both of Mary’s children were born out-of-wedlock, much to the consternation of the more staid Lisbonites.29

If one actually reads the extant material written by Jacob during the seven or eight years he produced articles for Spirit Fruit and Spirit’s Voice, there is little or nothing to suggest that the Spirit Fruit Farm was ever the hotbed of vice and unbridled licentiousness that its antagonists envisioned. The predominant message of Jacob’s writings, pure and simple, is the importance of conquering selfishness. Coupled with this Christian (though not uniquely so) idea is the not particularly Christian belief that whatever is is good and that we therefore should passively accept whatever happens - not primarily because we cannot change the course of events but because whatever happens is for the best. According to his own testimony, this philosophy permitted Jacob to conquer physical pain, not by ignoring the pain, as the “I am well” people would do, but by accepting it. Having conquered selfishness and pain, Jacob also conquered desire, though not much is said about this in his writings and even the most favorably disposed historian might query, “To what extent?” It might seem that, having reached this stage, there would not be a great many activities left with which Jacob could occupy his time; fortunately, however, he also believed in the efficacy of labor.30

Jacob’s developing religious beliefs had brought him to the point where he espoused or accepted a number of political ideas that attracted a wide variety of free spirits and advocates of numerous unpopular causes. As his contemporary critics were quick to point out, none of Jacob’s ideas were particularly original, and he was not always successful in expressing these ideas clearly; but virtually no one accused him personally of insincerity or immorality. Jacob’s philosophy of selflessness and “Universal Love,” however, inevitably led to a renunciation of private property, to a believe in equality for women, and individual freedom to do what one believed to be best (not simply “what one liked”). These beliefs in turn led to communal living, denial of legally binding ties of marriage, and tolerance of other individuals’ personal peculiarities. All three of these practices set him and his followers at odds with the majority of Lisbon’s inhabitants. There may also have been, as the editor of the Buckeye State implied, a certain resentment against Jacob’s penchant for industry and minding his own business. In retrospect, it seems improbable that the Farm was the scene of undue amounts of frolicking, let alone sexual abandon or perversion. Borrowing one of Elbert Hubbard’s a shade too clever aphorisms - “I believe that love should be free; which is not to say that I believe in free love” - Jacob here clearly distinguished between freedom and license, though perhaps, as is common with cleverness, at the expense of complete honesty.

It was doubtless only a matter of time before Jacob’s spiritual family ran afoul of Lisbon’s moral watchdogs, particularly after the attention received at the hands of the press. One of the most industrious busybodies in the crusade to

of 210

remove the Spirit Fruit Society from Lisbon proved to be the Rev. J. P. Anderson, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Lisbon. When William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago American began a lurid expose of the Society in May, 1904, Anderson rejoiced, admitting in print that “I personally have done all within my power to rid this community of Jacob Beilhart. In company with a brother minister [probably the Rev. J. Keene Ryan, correspondent for the Chicago American], we watched the inmates of this farm and their doings for many days from the tops of stables adjacent to the grounds. We failed to obtain evidence sufficient to convict. Then we tried to secure evidence through various sources and by infinite means, but it all came to naught, whereas we all believe that the Spirit Farm is rotten to the core.” What Rev. Anderson failed to accomplish from the pulpit and from the rooftops of the stables of the Columbiana County Agricultural Association was rather quickly effected by the power of the press. Rev. Anderson, by that time, however, had been called to the plains of South Dakota, where, possibly, his highly developed ability to sniff out moral impropriety was more sorely needed.31

By the standards of the day, Jacob’s group quite obvious1y had broken the laws of propriety and morality. Although the Society’s “Constitution and Regulations” recognized the marriage law as “wise” and that “no one has a right to be free from law, until he is obedient to it without restraint,” implicit in the latter statement is the idea that such laws would be unnecessary once man outgrew his natural selfishness. That formal religion would also become unnecessary could hardly be expected to salve Rev. Anderson’s wounded sense of propriety.32

There were some heads in Lisbon cooler than Rev. Anderson’s. Mayor George T. Farrell, placed in a rather difficult position by the Cleveland Leader’s investigative reporter, handled things fairly well, oven if equivocating a bit:

Jacob Beilhart has for a long time been a well-known character here. I can not say that he has proved a bad citizen. On the contrary, he has many friends among the people of Lisbon. He is a quiet, well-behaved, unassuming man, and, so far as any of us know, is law-abiding. He is honest, indeed, scrupulously so, and I never knew of him defrauding anyone.

As to his “Spirit Fruit” farm I know little about it, except from what I have read in the papers and heard on the streets. It is true these reports have not always been complimentary to Jacob or his adherents, but they have all proved to be reports, not evidence. Why do we not raid his place and punish him for conducting a questionable resort? For two reasons. The first is that his colony is outside of our city limits and we have no jurisdiction over him. The second is because we have no evidence against him. You cannot arrest and imprison a man until you have indisputable evidence upon which to proceed, and you must remember that every man is innocent until proven guilty. It is commonly accepted among the people of Lisbon that all is not as it should be out at the “Spirit Fruit” farm, but hearsay evidence won’t hold in courts. It makes no difference how great a reproach Beilhart and his colony

of 210

become to this community, we must have evidence before we can proceed against him, and you can form no idea how hard this evidence is to procure. It looks easy, but it is not. It is a serious thing to prefer charges of this character against a man. I have no doubt the grand jury will take the matter up at its next session if evidence can be procured. 33

In Lisbon’s Ohio Patriot, editor W.S. Potts probably expressed the predominant viewpoint of Lisbon’s citizenry:

The civil authorities should investigate Jacob Beilhart’s church, and if it be found that wholesome laws are violated, then said church should be wiped from the face of the earth. His preaching in Chicago the past few months has started the whole country to talking about him. Jacob is now a religionist. Just what religion he preaches is hard to understand. “Universal love” is one of his expressions. We have some conception of “free love,” and his teaching must be along that line. At any rate, if his church doctrine should prevail the marriage relation would be interfered with and families would be broken up. Society would be turned topsy-turvy, and Jacob would be the entire push. Unbridled licentiousness would be the out-come, and our highly religious civilization would be destroyed.34

Topsy-turviness and unbridled licentiousness aside, Editor Potts does put his finger on a major problem facing small communal groups such as Jacob’s. Throughout Jacob’s life and throughout the existence of the Spirit Fruit Society, no thought seems to have been given to what would be done if large numbers of people adopted Jacob’s philosophy and joined the Society. Presumably, other “colonies” would be formed and their size limited to several dozen people, whatever number proved most suitable for maintaining a farmstead and remaining entirely or nearly self-sufficient. In such an event, the natural tendency for communal living to break up families and “interfere with” marriage - Editor Potts’ fear - would probably be counteracted by the small size of the group and the tendency for such a small group to act much like an extended family. It can be argued that one reason for the relatively long life of the Spirit Fruit Society is the fact that many of the members were related by blood or by marriage (Jacob and Mary Beilhart; Mary Beilhart, Ralph Gaibreath, and Edward Knowdell, plus Mary’s two children; Charlena Young, Baltzer Young, Benjamin Lewis, and Virginia Moore). Further, the Society did not become large enough to produce more children and additional nuclear families, which in turn would undoubtedly have created intra-group stresses potentially harmful to the colony. The Society’s emotional life unquestionably centered around Jacob and, to a lesser degree, the two children.

In the event, Jacob and his followers never had to consider how the Society would function if it were inundated by large numbers of converts to “Universal Love,” for that never happened. While it seems reasonable that Jacob would have preferred small, agrarian communal colonies such as he had established at Lisbon,

of 210

he would undoubtedly have let other groups develop as they might wish. There is some evidence that he may have intended to develop a second colony in Chicago, because of the comparatively large number of people there who had become interested in Spirit Fruit, and it is difficult to imagine an agrarian colony similar to that of Lisbon ensconced on Clark Street, though other, contemporary experimentalists seem to have had no problem with such an idea. Whether Jacob intended to develop a Chicago colony and move it to a rural area or to attempt to have it function in an urban setting remains unknown. Very likely Jacob himself had not planned that far ahead. It is noteworthy that Jacob seems to have been completely oblivious of the well known Ruskin commune in Tennessee; but that wholly secular socialistic society, whose multi-varied industries, ranging from suspenders to “Tolu” chewing gum, promised for a short time to make the commune financially successful, would have held little interest for Jacob, whose wellsprings were essentially religious rather than political in nature.35

It is possible that Jacob’s colony might have continued in Lisbon had it not been for the arrival of the two “love children,” but this does not seen very likely. Regardless, the birth of two illegitimate children fathered by two different men proved to be too much for the local citizenry, providing ample proof of the immorality of whatever was going on at the Hone.36 Even without the physical proof provided by the presence of these innocent children, the moral climate of turn-of-the-century Lisbon was too severe for Jacob’s philosophy to take root and grow to fruition. Perhaps aware of this burgeoning problem, Jacob began to visit Chicago, Illinois, particularly during the early months of 1904. Here, though he gained a number of converts, Jacob also garnered additional, unwanted publicity that would only serve to increase the difficulties of the Society and rapidly lead to the demise of the Lisbon home.

of 210

Evelyn Gladys, the “love child,” daughter of Mary Beilhart and Ralph Galbreath, Lisbon, Ohio, June, 1904. A.C. Gorsuch photo (Courtesy Lisbon Historical Society)

of 210

NOTES 1. Columbiana Co., Ohio, Deed Records, 188: 466 and 238: 423. Spirit

Fruit, June, 1899, cited in Leroy Henry, 1926, “Jacob Beilhart and His Literature,” p. 5. R. Max Gard, “The Roamin’ Gard,” Salem Farm Dairy, June 17, 1964.

2. Leroy Henry, ed., Spirit Fruit and Voice (Roscoe, Calif.: Freedom Hill Pressery, 1926), P. 13-22.

3. Columbiana County, Ohio, Deed Records 246: 38.

4. 1900 U.S. Federal Population Schedule, Lisbon, Center Township., Columbiana Co., Ohio. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986. The census states that Jacob and Louema had been married twelve years, which agrees more closely with the February, 1887, date given by Louema in her diary than with the 1893 date commonly cited.

5. The only known surviving copy of Spirit’s Voice, preserved in the collections of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Volume 1, No. 9, is dated November, 1900. According to the “General Editorial Notice” reprinted by Leroy Henry from the first number, Spirit Fruit was “Issued and sent as a FREE GIFT. Money received only as a gift, given by its readers who wish to help in widening the circulation. No advertising admitted in its pages.”


7. Ibid., p. 17.

8. 1850 U.S. Federal Population Schedule, Fairfield Township., Columbiana Co., Ohio, p. 95. Alliance Review, October 10, 1893, and August 10, 1937; 1910 U.S. Federal Population Schedule, Alliance, Stark Co., Ohio, E.D. 201, Sheet 2B. A further bit of evidence indicating that this is Jacob’s Martha is George Blake’s contemporary newspaper account that refers to one of the two female members of the Society as being the wife of an Alliance physician, apparently confusing Martha Miller with Mary Bailey, who was the wife of a Chicago physician. Leetonia Reporter, “Fruit of the Spirit,”, April 12, 1901.

9. Lisbon Buckeye State, “Very Mysterious,” October 18, 1900

10. Jacob Beilhart, “Some Explanation,” Lisbon Buckeye State, October 25, 1900. Fogarty and Grant, 1980: 212-213, quote only from a later version of this encounter, from the Buckeye State of June 2, 1904, which is a bit more dramatic than the original. 1

11. Evelyn Gladys was born August 28, 1900. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, October 9, 1979. Neither her birth nor that of her half-brother, Robert Knowdell, May 13, 1904, is record in Columbiana Co. birth

of 210

records.

12. Missouri Dept. of Health, Death Record 19479. Leetonia Reporter, July 17, 1891. Additional family Information has been provided by Beulah Bell Converse, niece of Ralph Galbreath. See also, Columbiana Independent Register, July 16, 1894; Leetonia Reporter, April 12, 1901.; and C.D. Dickinson, Leetonia Reporter, June 10, 1904. Boston Investigator, January 5, 1895. Although the family relates that Galbreath lost his faith as the result of his mother’s death, he clearly was writing atheistic articles before her death occurred. Celestia Galbreath’s tragic death could only have confirmed his convictions, however.

13. Boston Investigator, July 28, 1894.

14. Ibid., March 2, 1895.

15. Ibid., September 9, 1894.

16. Ibid., January 18, 1895. In “Her Answer,” “Mary Fulfaith, of Missouri, taught a little district school./ All her days were full of pleasure, every child obeyed each rule.” Faced with an approaching tornado, Mary opened a Bible and prayed for safety, only to have the schoolhouse, the students, and herself strewn over the countryside. Charging God with similar natural disasters, including the Johnstown Flood and the Charleston Earthquake, Galbreath concludes: “If he can, but won’t check evil, he’s a useless God, I vow,! Merits little but our curses, and I therefore curse him now.”

17. Ibid., May 11, 1895.

18. California Dept. of Public Health, Death Record, Solano Co., no. 126. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, March, 1980, p. 10, states : “We knew little of his past except that he had worked as a chef, a coal miner and a general farm handyman.” Quite possibly Stanforth originally worked as a coal miner in Columbiana Co. The Society’s land in Elk Run Township contained valuable coal deposits, and it is possible that Stanforth was engaged in mining them, although no evidence of mining was noted on a recent visit to the property. See Leetonia Reporter, April 12, 1901.

19. Ohio Secretary of State, Record of Incorporations 85: 145. The original incorporators are Jacob L. Beilhart, Ralph E. Gaibreath, David B. Stanforth, Mary Beilhart, and Virginia Moore.

20. Columbiana Co., Ohio, Deed Records, 255: 76.

21. Leetonia Reporter, April 12, 1901.

22. Lisbon Buckeye State, April 12, 1901.

of 210

23. Quoted in Leetonia Reporter, “A Novelty,” April 19, 1901.

24. Columbiana Co., Ohio, Deed Records, 273: 255.

25. Philip L. Hartling, Nova Scotia Public Archives, letter to author, December 11, 1986; 1881 Census, Colchester Co., Nova Scotia; 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Grant Township, Lake Co., Illinois, p. 250. Congregational Year-book, 1908, p. 31; 1900 U.S. Federal Census, Peterson City, Clay Co., Iowa, p. 245A.

26. See Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1901, for an account of Emma Goldman’s arrest. See also the Des Moines Iowa State Register, September 12, 1901 (“Norris an Iowan”), and September 13, 1901 (“Norris Released”).

27. The Lisbon Buckeye State, July 21, 1904, relates that “Miss Norris met Beilhart about two years ago in Chicago. Shortly before she came to the Spirit Fruit farm, in September, 1902, her parents moved to Detroit, Mich., and she has not been in correspondence with them since.”

28. Des Moines State Register and Leader, June 10, 1904.

29. As is the case with Evelyn Gladys, Robert’s birth is not recorded at the Columbiana County Probate Court office. The birth date of Robert Knowdell is confirmed y his death certificate. An account of the Spirit Fruit Farm in the Cleveland Leader, June 1, 1904, headlined “Marriage Not Essential in Beilhart’s Religion,” credits Mary Beilhart with a mind of her own: “There is a sweet little four-year old girl at the farm known as ‘Evelyn Gladys,’ the love child. She is o daughter of Miss Mary Beilhart, who is a sister and follower of Jacob. The remark was made to a couple of newspaper men at the farm today that Mary wanted the child, but did not care to be bound by any ties of wedlock.”

30. While still in Battle Creek, Jacob faced physical tests: “Would I use the power of will or mind in relieving myself of pain in body? At first I did before I became conscious that it was inconsistent with my highest light. Then when I saw that I could relieve myself, I became conscious of the principle and had to submit or violate my sense of right. I suffered repeatedly. It seemed the very elements that composed things were all turned against me to try me.

“This was not imaginary suffering, for in seventeen hours I lost seven pounds in weight, but I submitted and was never more happy than during those times of suffering.”

31. Lisbon Buckeye State, June 9 and 23, 1904. In “Very Personal,” Jacob later gave the following, typically restrained account of Rev. Anderson and the Fourth Estate’s treatment of the Spirit Fruit Society:

With slight additions and omissions they [the newspapers] could give my

of 210

views and the doings of Spirit Fruit Society to the public, and excite curiosity and feed sensational hunger. Newspapers from various cities sent their reporters to our place at Lisbon, Ohio, and in their papers appeared columns and pages of the most sensational matter concerning the “Spirit Fruit Heaven,” as they called it. I do not know as any paper in any city of size omitted to give it at least a part of a column notice, while some, especially Chicago papers, gave from two columns to over a page for ten days. I might say that the reporter from the Chicago American was a young Presbyterian preacher - should have been conscientious but was not. After writing all his fertile imagination could devise, he wrote me the following note: “Well, Jacob, I have called you everything I can think of, and if there is anything you can think of which I have not gotten in, tell me what it is and I will forthwith charge you with that.” Some of the reporters who visited me wrote letters of apology, telling me their papers would not print their story unless they made it sensational, so they had to fix it to suit. I met all these reporters as men, and they liked the way I treated them, and, while they said nothing against me personally, yet their profession compelled them to give what the public desired, regardless of facts. For this I did not condemn them, for their work was as important as mine and not as pleasant. He who would bring a new truth into living expression in his own life must be able to withstand the criticism and condemnation of the system he wishes to supplant... The papers have watched me close for the last five years; I can scarcely make a move without their making a story of it. To me this signifies this - that it will be greatly colored, but those who are ready for it will be able to read.

32. The “Constitution and Regulations” were published in the Salem Daily Herald of June 4, 1904, and the Lisbon Buckeye State of June 9, 1904. Text of the “Constitution and Regulations” is given in Appendix B.

33. Quoted in the Cleveland Leader, June 1, 1904.

34. Ibid.

35. For the history of Ruskin, see John Egerton, Visions of Utopia (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977)

36. Contemporary newspaper accounts name Ralph Gaibreath as father of both Evelyn and Robert. Public disapproval undoubtedly would have been even more intense had the Lisbon populace realized that the two children had different fathers.

of 210

CHAPTER VII

CHICAGO “This is the religion of ‘to hell with care.’”--Robert G. Wall.

It is uncertain how or when Jacob first visited Chicago, but once he had it was virtually inevitable that he attract a following. Whether because of its variegated ethnicity or due to some other aspect of its youthful, yeasty culture, Chicago newspapers were able to brag that their town had more “isms” than any other city in the United States - or, at least, more “isms” per capita.

Jacob’s autobiographical account indicates that he did not visit Chicago until the summer of 1904 and then only at the behest of Chicago readers of his newspapers, which may very well be true; but the addition of Belle Norris to the Society’s fold as early as September, 1902, suggests that the way may have been prepared by an earlier visit. Lisbon newspapers indicate that he visited Chicago in early 1904, and “Blessed” Herbeson’s testimony places him there in March or April, 1904.1

The Spirit Fruit Society is listed at 81 Clark Street in the 1904 Chicago city directory, and the Society definitely was using these rooms in the Leiter Building in late May of 1904, at which time they were ordered to vacate the building.2 After holding forth briefly at 83 Madison Street, above Sam T. Jack’s theater, the Society, by June 9th, had begun meeting in a hail at 681 West Lake Street, space leased by Honore J. Jaxon, a Canadian who had played an important role in the meti uprising known as the Northwest Rebellion.3 Charged with treason and tried in absentia after he had escaped and fled to Chicago, Jaxon was eventually pardoned; but he remained in Chicago, working in the construction business.4 Jaxon was an active and colorful participant in Coxey’s Army, which, as it happened, camped for lunch in the ruins of the Leetonia, Ohio, nail factory on its way to Washington, D.C., in 1894. Hired by the Chicago Times to travel with the Army, Jaxon dressed in a colorful Indian costume that rivaled Buffalo Bill’s. He would travel a half day ahead of the Army, sleeping out-of-doors and living largely on oatmeal.5 Returning to Chicago, Jaxon listed himself as “Capitalist” in the Chicago city directories of 1901 and 1902, but he seems to have had no problem in reconciling his philosophy with that of Jacob’s; perhaps by 1904 he had renounced capitalism for Jacob’s communal vision. Jaxon’s greatest notoriety would come a few years later, as the result of a letter written to Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 supporting “Big Bill” Hayward and the other Idaho miners then on trial for complicity in the murder of Governor Steunenberg. Jaxon’s letter castigated Roosevelt for branding the mine organizers “undesirable citizens,” a phrase that the newspapers (and many other people) had quickly seized upon.6 Characteristically, Teddy rode out the storm simply by insisting that such people, whether guilty or innocent of the Steunenberg murder, were undesirable citizens.

of 210

At a meeting of the Spirit Fruit Society held June 10, 1904, Jaxon addressed a group of strangers at the hall, announcing that “You were inoculated with the Lisbon ‘goo’ when you crossed the threshold of this hall. When you go to your homes and your places of business, people will begin to call you queer, because you will betray all the eccentricities of men who have lost their grip on the life of the intellect and have not yet reached the plane of the spiritual. Henceforth you are marked men, who will do funny things.” This rather threatening utterance seems to have been in reaction to the discovery that the audience included a police chief, representatives of the press, and a “prominent politician.” At the beginning of the meeting, the police captain threw off his disguise and demanded, “I want to know what the underlying principles in the teachings of this organization are, what ideas its leaders promulgate and whether there are any immoral acts done at its meetings.” The “goo,” though nowhere defined and a term not used by Jacob, seems to refer to the Universal Spirit, for Irvin Rockwell (identified only as a “commercial traveler who hails from Idaho”) explained that “You are embraced by the spirit when you enter here and you are a leader just as much as any of us. We have no leaders and no organization: we are individuals.”7 It is uncertain whether this audience included Building Inspector Vaughn, of the Lake Street police station, and Lieutenant O’Hara, of Engine House 12, but at the behest of these gentlemen, Jaxon was fined $20.00 and costs three days later for violating the city building code, and the Society was barred from using the hall until it was remodeled to meet the building code.8

Honore J. Jaxon (Chicago Evening American, May 30 1904)

of 210

From the beginning, Jacob’s Chicago venture encountered resistance. At the dedication of the Central Park Congregational Church, May 29, 1904, the Rev. W.A. Bartlett professed his shock at “the exposure of two cults in our great and splendid city, one killing both body and soul through fasting and torture and false teaching, the other rotten with abandonment to unblushing wickedness.9 Although neither “cult” is mentioned by name, the one clearly is Ottoman Zar Adusht Hanish’s Mazdaznan society, which received considerable publicity when one of its members broke down after a forty day fast, and the other “cult” rather certainly is Jacob’s group.10

At about this time, too, Jacob’s colony received a number of recruits from Chicago, several of whom remained members throughout the life of the Society or continued to be sympathetic followers of the group’s fortunes. Among those who visited the Spirit Fruit Farm from Chicago were Eugene H. Clarke, a 49-year-old advertising agent; his “fiancée,” Grace Mills; Irvin E. Rockwell, a wealthy Idaho mine owner, and his wife, “Dolly”; George Hawkinson, a salesman; Kate Waters; Rose Duffer; Catherine “Blessed” Herbeson, the eighteen – year-old daughter of a railroad lawyer, Stewart H. Herbeson; Mrs. Jeannette White, a milliner; Robert G. Wall, a Canadian laborer who had risen to some prominence as the secretary of the Chicago Municipal League, and his wife, Anna; and Herman Kuehn, a former anarchist. Except for “Blessed” Herbeson, it is unknown when any of these people first became involved with the Spirit Fruit Society; but for the most, it presumably was during the early part of 1904.11

Young Catherine Herbeson was the product of a broken home, one of three daughters of Stewart and Catherine Herbeson. Although both parents were born in New York, the father, at least, grew up in Ohio, on a farm in Rockport (Lakewood). Stewart Hulbert Herbeson became first a conductor on the Erie Railroad and then, eventually, a lawyer for the Erie Railroad. Although the two older daughters, Dessie and Sada, were born in Ohio, Catherine was born in Garden City, Kansas, in 1887.12 The Herbesons moved to Chicago, around 1890 and subsequently divorced, Catherine being reared by her mother, in Chicago. That young Catherine was exposed to hypnotism, faith healing, and spiritualism seems clear from the little that is known regarding her mother.13 According to Mr. Herbeson, the “‘Spirit Fruit’ business gained a foothold in my family while I was away from home practicing in St. Louis.”14 His daughter’s version would seem to corroborate this:

About two months ago [March or April, 1904] “Jacob” came to my mother’s home to see her. As quick as I saw him I felt a presence that gave me a consciousness that there was more than personal man there. I was drawn irresistibly to him and he to me, but in a pure, spiritual manner. So then in my impulsive way I went head over heels without a misgiving doubt. Everything was flung away in that moment of submission to his higher, holier nature, which drew me as a magnet draws the steel. Reputation, home, friends, pride, all were sacrificed to “Jacob.” I laid down my cross, picked up my crown and

of 210

followed blindly after him and am still forsaking all and shall continue so to do, God and “Jacob” being my helper.

All this in an interview with the Rev. R. Keene Ryan, a correspondent for William R. Hearst’s Chicago American. 15 Rev. Ryan, hardly to be expected to be an unjaundiced witness, does seem to have made a conscious effort to represent the Society’s views accurately and to be fair to “Blessed” Herbeson:

She [“Blessed”] is never so happy as when defending her saviour and redeemer, Jacob Beilhart, and in her worship of him places him high above Mahomet, Budha or Christ. In talking to her it is impossible to escape. the impression that she is earnest and sincere. You cannot be just and not admit this. However you may pity her, and I do pity the child, you cannot question her sincerity. She actually believes that “Jacob” is God’s mouthpiece and that his words are the oracles of the Almighty.

In another newspaper interview, given the correspondent of the Cincinnati Enquirer the evening before her abrupt departure from Lisbon, “Blessed” notes that she met Jacob about two months previously when her mother took her to a Spirit Fruit meeting. Jacob, at this juncture, explained to the reporter that Mrs. Herbeson “had long been a reader of his paper and an ardent believer.” “Flinging her plump, bloomer- attired body across the foot of a bed like the child that she is,” ‘Blessed’ welcomed the interview, laughingly remarking, ‘Won’t I roast my sister for the way she has given me away.’” “Blessed” went a long way towards accomplishing this by explaining to the Enquirer and its readers that her mother had never approved of the marriage of her sister Sadie to Charles Grice and that but a short time previously Grice had lured her mother to his home on the pretext that Sadie was ill, telling Mrs. Herbeson this only “to get a chance to abuse her for ‘giving “Blessed” away.’” 17

of 210

Catherine “Blessed” Herbeson. Lisbon, Ohio, 1904. Courtesy Lisbon Historical Society)

Jacob at times during the Enquirer interview “appeared somewhat annoyed at the girl’s volubility and rather free sallies.” As a case in point, “Blessed” allowed that “I never had such a good time in all my life. If everybody knew what a good time we have here they would all be here with both feet. I was never so free and happy and wouldn’t give it up for anything.”

The next day, “Blessed” told her father much the same thing: “Well, I have been having a darn good time,” said “Blessed,” according to the Cleveland Leader. To which her father replied, “I would rather have you found in a resort on Clark street, in Chicago, than in this place.” Herbeson and his son-in-law, Charles Grice, posing as newspapermen and accompanied by Columbiana County Sheriff A.J. Johnson and the Leader correspondent, had arrived at the Spirit Fruit farm on the

of 210

afternoon of June 1, 1904. When Jacob arrived from a trip to the village, Herbeson explained that although they had left their cameras at the hotel, they would like an interview with “Blessed.” “Blessed” came running to Jacob’s call, and her father quickly cast aside his journalistic disguise - probably a good idea since his demeanor, described by the Leader as “more like that of a caged lion than a human being,” would have quickly given him away.

“This girl is my daughter, and I am here to take her away with me or kill some one!” Face flushed and frame trembling with rage and excitement, lawyer Herbeson quickly took the initiative. “Bring her duds here quick! This girl does not leave this room without me!” The gentle Jacob, understandably nervous as the father angrily approached him, shook visibly as he assured the enraged father that he had no objection to “Blessed”‘s leaving.

At this point “Blessed”‘s brother-in-law got in a sly dig with “We appreciate your non-resistance, Jacob.” And, in fact, if the Leader is to be believed, Jacob “had dropped into a rocking chair near the door and uttered not a word, except when spoken to.”

With a silent handclasp, “Blessed” bade Jacob goodbye and was hurried to the Erie station, without time to exchange her rubber-soled moccasins for a pair of shoes. Whether her father allowed time for her to change from her “negligee attire” (possibly the simple, bloomer-like costume female members of the Society often wore) is unknown. Nor do we know what eventually became of “Blessed.” Despite lawyer - like threats of prosecution made on the trip to the train station, Stewart Herbeson seems to have been happy to be quit of the Spirit Fruit Society once he got back to Chicago. According to newspaper accounts, he did successfully petition for a change of guardianship, though no record of this has be found in the Cook County Circuit Court records. Although it is also unclear from newspaper accounts whether he actually had - as he claimed - had “Blessed”‘s mother arrested on a lunacy charge, there is no doubting the strength of his sentiment: “I had her mother locked up yesterday on a lunacy charge and the inquest will be held to-morrow, and this girl is crazy, too.18 By 1910, “Blessed” was living with her mother, however, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Her father, apparently happy in his third attempt at marriage, had by this time moved back to Cleveland, where he continued his legal practice, dying in 1917.19

Newspaper accounts of Stewart Herbeson’s rescue of his daughter suggest that this was a pioneer effort in deprogramming the innocent victim of a cult, despite the tongue-in-cheek tone of the newspaper headlines (“‘Jacob’ Says, ‘The Time For The Harvest Is Here’ - Indignant Father and Brother-in-Law Come and Rudely Carry Away One of the Ripened Sheaves.”) An accurate appraisal or not, the newspaper publicity did much to harm the Spirit Fruit Society’s already seriously strained relationship with the Lisbon community. Jacob’s initial reaction, “I am glad things turned out just as they did,” though characteristic of his philosophy, rings a little hollow. His statement that “I brought her here from

of 210

Chicago, where she has had charge of the work, for a brief rest, intending to have her return with me when I go back there the last of next week,” may be perfectly true but may still be construed as putting the best face on a bad situation. And certainly his belief that “As it is, her father and her brother-in-law have attracted public attention to the matter in a way that will not hurt us” proved to be far from the nark. The Herbeson affair and attendant newspaper publicity undoubtedly did much to damage the Society’s already tarnished image in the Lisbon community.20

Of the numerous people captured by Lisbon photographer Gorsuch during the spate of photography associated with the newspaper publicity the Society received in May and June of 1904, some may simply have been visiting the Society’s home at the time and not have been full-fledged members of the Society. George Hawkinson, Rose Duffer, and Jeannette White, for example, seem to have rather quickly dropped out of the group, for whatever reason, as no subsequent notice of them has been found. Robert Wall, too, though by his own testimony a complete convert to Jacob’s doctrine, does not seem to have stayed with the Society after it left Lisbon. “Blessed” Herbeson’s departure from the Lisbon farm may well have dampened his enthusiasm for the Society. If the Rev. R. Keene Ryan can be believed, Wall followed Blessed” around the farm “like a huge Newfoundland dog, worship[p]ing the very ground she walks on.” Wall’s attentions to “Blessed” were sufficient to make Mrs. Wall threaten to kill both of them.21 The flamboyant manner with which Wall quit his job and renounced his position as secretary of the Chicago municipal ownership central committee and member of the executive board of the Chicago Federation of Labor must have made it difficult for him to return to Chicago, although he apparently did so, as he is listed as being from Chicago when he attended Jacob’s funeral in 1908.22

Grace Mills quite definitely was never a member of the Society, could not abide Jacob’s teachings, and gave Eugene Clarke an ultimatum: if he wished to marry her, he must give up Jacob’s teachings or, at least, leave the commune. This was a demand Clarke could not meet, and Grace returned to Chicago. The newspapers did what they could with it, though hampered by the fact that, unlike Mrs. Bailey and “Blessed” Herbeson Grace Mills left Lisbon under her own volition.

of 210

Visitors and members at the Spirit Fruit Farm, Lisbon, Ohio, May 29, 1904. From left to right, front row: Belle Norris, Jacob, holding Evelyn Gladys, Mildred Wall, Irvin E. Rockwell, and Robert G. Wall; on hammock, Kate Waters, “Blessed” Herbeson, Anna Wall; back row, David Stanforth, Eugene Clarke, Grace Mills, Rose Duffer, Mary Beilhart, George Hawkinson, Mrs. Jeannette White, Ralph Galbreath, and Edward Knowdell. A.C. Gorsuch photo (Courtesy Lisbon Historical Society)

Neither did the newspapers realize, apparently, that Grace was not quite Clarke’s fiancée, since Eugene and Carrie Clarke were still married (though the couple had been separated since July, 1902, because of Eugene’s association with “sporting women.”)24 Unfortunately, none of the several Grace Mills living in Chicago at that time can be identified as the one briefly associated with Spirit Fruit, but Eugene Clarke would remain one of the most important members of the Spirit Fruit Society during its years in Illinois and California. Eugene and Carrie Latta Clarke had met and married in St. Paul, Minnesota, where they worked for the same firm, and it is likely there that Clarke met I.E. Rockwell, for whom he worked as secretary.

Irvin E. Rockwell (1863-1952), though never a permanent member of the Spirit Fruit Society, became associated with the group at this time and would remain a sympathetic friend and benefactor throughout much of the Society’s existence. Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, the son of James Monroe and Ann Eliza Rockwell, “Rock,” as he was known to his friends, could trace his ancestry back to Sergeant Jeremiah Rockwell, a soldier in the American Revolution.25 The son of a stone mason, Irvin attended the common schools, as well as Marshall Academy,

of 210

and received private tutoring. He co-founded the Minneapolis Journal in 1880 and served as a newspaper reporter and then as a district court reporter in Racine, Wisconsin. After a stint as a stenographer, he organized the Rockwell-Wabash Co., in Chicago in 1888, a general accounting, auditing, and advisory counsel, with manufacturing annexes in Wabash, Indiana, and branch offices in London, Melbourne, Paris, and Berlin. Rockwell sold out in 1901 and moved to Bellevue, Idaho, where he had joined others in reactivating the abandoned Minnie Moore mine as early as 1889. Already a wealthy man, Rockwell continued to amass a fortune through mining, banking, and hydroelectric power. A close personal friend of Senator William E. Borah, Rockwell is best remembered as a member of the Idaho legislature, in which he served from 1915 to 1919 and again in 1929-1930, and as the person who almost single-handedly saved the federal American Falls Dam hydroelectric project, the accomplishment of which he was perhaps the proudest. Rockwell also served on the Idaho State Board of Education and the Board of Regents of the University of Idaho.26

Mary “Dolly” Rockwell, from the Chicago American, May 30, 1904; Lallah Rookh White, ca. 1904, from a memorial volume prepared by I.E. Rockwell, courtesy of Boise State University Library.

Although Rockwell moved to Idaho in 1901, he maintained offices in Chicago, where Eugene Clarke represented him in his mining affairs. Very probably it was through Clarke that Rockwell learned of Jacob and his teachings. In any case, Rockwell’s personal life was such that he became a ready convert to Jacob’s philosophy. Rockwell’s first marriage, to Mary Louella Searing, soured,

of 210

although both “Rock” and “Dolly” visited the Spirit Fruit Society and would keep in touch with members long after their divorce. By the time he was introduced to the Society, Rockwell had fallen in love with his secretary, Lallah Rookh White, whom he eventually married in 1914.27

Herman Kuehn, from the Chicago American, May 30, 1904.

Mention should also be made of Herman Kuehn, a Chicago “anarchist” who was associated with the Spirit Fruit Society during this period. Kuehn was left in charge of the Chicago branch of the Society when Jacob, Rockwell, “Blessed” Herbeson, and others left for Lisbon on May 27, 1904. Kuehn behaved admirably, secure in his faith (“I have a power behind me which you cannot see in your benighted state. There are twelve legions of spirits behind me. We are sustained and aided by these spirit legions. You of the world cannot understand it. We shall want for nothing.”) Discussing plans for the Society to move to Idaho and work in Rockwell’s mines, preaching to “a great crowd” in the temporary hail at 83 Madison Street (above Sam T. Jack’s Theater, in a hall understood to have been secured by an ex-gambler who had joined the Society), Kuehn conducted himself well. Facing an audience of the curious, he preached “ideal anarchy” and tried to explain Jacob’s philosophy of universal love, distinguishing it from universal license. It was, according to the Evening American, the sanest talk given since the society located in Chicago. A “jollification” meeting was held the next morning, preparatory to moving to the Society’s new headquarters on West Laka Street, but Kuehn soon proceeded to Lisbon, where, while his wife was in New York, he tried to emulate Robert Wall’s Newfoundland dog act with a young lady named either Eva Barrett or Eva Rogers. Although Eva was too shy for photographer Gorsuch’s

of 210

camera, Kuehn did not escape the Chicago Evening American’s cameraman. Like Robert Wall, Kuehn dropped from sight after the “Blessed” Herbeson affair. He does reappear in Chicago, in 1907, seemingly reconciled with his wife, and a stalwart defender of orthodox marriage.28

Still another Chicago recruit - clearly cut from a different mold than that which produced Wall and Kuehn - was forty-five year old Kate Waters. Born in Charleston, Illinois, in 1859, the daughter of a wagon maker, Kate was teaching geography and reading at Campbell University, Holton, Kansas, in 1888 and 1890, when she was the first president of the local Y.W.C.A. She was also active in the temperance movement at this time. In 1896, she is listed as receiving an L.B. (Modern Language) from Campbell University, “the best private school in the west,” a “Non-sectarian but emphatically Christian” school owned by the faculty and conducted on a co-operative plan.29 Kate received an A.B. degree from the University of Chicago the following year.30 Although her obituary states that she was licensed by the State of Illinois to practice medicine and she herself claimed to be the first female graduate of the Chicago Medical School, neither statement appears to be correct. That she had some medical training may very well be true, as she served as midwife during the birth of Mary Beilhart’s two children and generally tended to the medical needs of the Society’s members. 31 Kate never married, and Robert Knowdell, for whom she developed a motherly love and whom she considered “her boy,” relates the story that on the death of Kate’s fiancé, another physician, she became addicted to alcohol and drugs. Although eventually overcoming this dependency, Kate remained disenchanted with medicine because of “the animosity of many of her male colleagues toward having a woman in the profession, and also because she found that the moral ethics of many of her fellow doctors were inexcusable and in direct conflict with the Hippocratic Oath, which she had taken so seriously.”32 Kate Waters appears to have joined the Spirit Fruit Society in 1904 and continued to be one of its most ardent and useful members throughout the life of the commune.

With this band of stalwart converts, Jacob had good reason to spend increasing amounts of time in Chicago, as he did from May of 1904 onward. While he sat up an office and secured meeting rooms, there is no evidence that he intended to move the Society to Chicago until the unwelcome deluge of newspaper publicity attending “Blessed” Herbeson’s return to Chicago and the Rev. J.S. Norris’s unsuccessful attempt to reclaim his daughter, Belle. After completing the June, 1904, issue of Spirit Fruit and welcoming Mrs. Densie Herendeen, a Christian Science teacher and healer who wished to investigate the principles of Jacob’s belief, Jacob returned to Chicago, planning to hold daily sessions for a few days, although the closing of the new headquarters by the building inspector must have dampened these plans.33 While Jacob remained in Chicago, however, events in Lisbon took an ominous turn when an anonymous notice was distributed around the village calling for the men and women of Lisbon to unite to drive the Spirit Fruit Society from Lisbon or suffer the consequences. From Chicago, Jacob deftly

of 210

answered these vigilante “whitecaps” in a letter dated June 17th from his office in the National Life Building. Professing to have “entirely too much respect for the good sense of the people of Lisbon who attend to their own business and [who] give others the same right to fear any trouble of this nature,” Jacob claimed “to fear nothing except to do wrong to my fellow man, and knowing I have not done this, I am fearless.” Asking for a fair trial, Jacob stated that “If fifty heads of families representing the business and professional men of Lisbon sign a petition requesting the removal of the Spirit Fruit society from Lisbon, we will comply with the request without any cost of trial or investigation to the city.” But there were a couple of clever conditions attached: “The conditions under which one is eligible to sign such petition will be that he and his family shall be reputable and free from scandal for one generation past.” Ministers could not sign “because they are ruled by prejudice rather than the welfare of the city.” “‘Let him that is without sin cast the first stone’ is the principle here involved.”34

A remarkable photograph from the Chicago American of May 29, 1904, showing Jacob, “his assistant, Miss Herbeson,” and “his child” [his niece, Evelyn Gladys]

As late as June and July, 1904, in reaction to an increasingly hostile local press, one of which had asked editorially, “Can Jacob Be Prosecuted?” and printed the Rev. J.P. Anderson’s declarations that the Society was “rotten to the core” and that he personally had done everything in his power to rid the community of Jacob Beilhart, Jacob tried to educate the public by holding two open meetings at the Lisbon homestead. Writing to the Buckeye State, he invited “all who care to come out to hear me, and see our place and all the ‘victims’ that have been so much

of 210

talked of.”35 This first meeting undoubtedly was spurred by the threat of tar and feathers. A large crowd, estimated at “fully four hundred,” of the curious attended the June 26th meeting “and gave respectful attention to his address.” While male members of his “family” dispensed lemonade from the nearby springhouse, Jacob dispensed logic from the front porch of the old seminary building. According to the East Palestine Reveille-Echo, “Jacob talked glibly of his doctrines for an hour and a half. Jacob says that anarchy is no part of his creed; that he thinks lawyers, doctors, policemen, are all necessary parts of society, but that he doubts the usefulness and efficacy of preachers.” Jacob defended his sister Mary at some length. “In this connection he went into an extensive consideration of the marriage institution, of which he says he does not disapprove and of the question of sex relations. He says that while his sister’s motherhood was not strictly in accord with nor a result of his teaching, he does not condemn her, and that, while he was never consulted about the matter by either of the parents, it was not incumbent on them to do so. He excused his sister’s conduct by showing that marriage is not always free from evils and maintained that these she aimed to avoid by seeking motherhood out of wedlock.” Apparently denying the charge that the commune was a “free love institution,” Jacob said that at least twenty people who had come to the home with that idea-had been turned away. He noted, however, that “the mingling of the sexes in some way was necessary to bring out the best that is in both” and observed that many of the world’s most eminent men have found intimacy with women who were not their wives. With all this, Jacob was still able to touch upon the question of capital and labor, maintaining that the key to the adjustment of the differences between these two antagonistic forces involved his principle of nonresistance. According to him, the Spirit Fruit cult had solved the problem of human life.36

The fullest account of the event was given by Buckeye State:

“Jacob” appeared on the west veranda of the spacious mansion, about 2 o’clock and invited his audience to come nearer if they wished to hear what he had to say. There was a general stampede to get the, more favored positions. Forming a background to the speaker were seated the lady members of the colony, while the gentlemen members dished up free lemonade to those on the outskirts, and distributed copies of the Spirit Fruit paper which is published by the society.

of 210

Open House at the Spirit Fruit Farm, Lisbon, Ohio, June 26, 1904. Jacob stands on the porch. Ralph Galbreath stands in the center of the crowd, hatless, with vest and bowtie. Photo by A.C. Gorsuch.

Some delay was occasioned by Photographer Gorsuch, who had stationed himself with his camera on a ladder, and was waiting a favorable opportunity to take a picture of the speaker and his audience.

“Jacob” started his discourse by making a few remarks in a humorous vein, in which he said the people did not seem to be much afraid of him despite the monster that the papers had pictured him.

He paid his respects to the “yellow” journals and said that although himself and his work had been maligned in the city papers, he had figured that the free advertising he had received would amount to a million dollars if paid for at space rates. He was not ready, he said, to have the veil lifted, not that he had anything to conceal, but he was experimenting along certain lines, and while he had demonstrated his theories to his own complete satisfaction he had not reached the place where he could proclaim it to the world at large.

of 210

Jacob giving the press what it wants: “The Leader of the Spirit Fruit’ Farm, Showing the Muscles He Never Uses In Combat.” From the Cincinnati Enquirer, June 6, 1904

The speaker started out on an exposition of the great work he was doing for humanity, but stopped short and said he perceived that his audience wanted to hear something else. Whether he wished to convey the impression that he was a mind reader or merely caught his inspiration from the faces before him, is not known. He, however, told something of his views on the relation of the sexes and gave his version of how it happened that two children were born on the farm outside the marriage relation. He claimed that his teachings had nothing to do with that, but that he neither approved nor condemned it. After giving his views on the marriage relation at considerable length, the speaker returned to his favorite theme of the unselfish life and non-resistance. He thinks the Spirit Fruit cult has solved the problem of life, and that it will, when better understood, be the means of bringing capital and labor into harmony with each other.

During the progress of his speech, “Jacob” took occasion to condemn the preachers and read from the Bible passages which he evidently fitted to his own life, and made them an excuse for certain of his actions.

Reaction to Jacob’s open house was not what he must have wished. Not only did the Reveille-Echo report that “Of all his outgivings, Jacob’s address yesterday is considered the rankest yet,” the newspaper also published an editorial headlined “Down With Beilhart,” ranking Jacob among the county’s most notorious characters, in company with Clement Vallandigham, Civil War Copperhead leader, and Ira Marlatt, “the Demon of the Ohio Penitentiary.” Centering its attack on the “perniciousness” of Jacob’s “libertine” views on marriage, the newspaper called for

of 210

“the arm of the law” to discontinue such enunciations.38

Jacob tried again two weeks later, on July 10, discussing “The Emancipation of Women from Sex Slavery,” “Conscience of the Individual versus Public Opinion,” “Facts of More Value than Sentiment,” “The Sacredness of the Home,” and other topics. While all were welcome, Jacob wanted only “those to attend who are able to think of and study all subjects unprejudicedly and with a pure mind, free from vulgarity.” “Those who do not believe that ‘unto the pure all things are pure,’ should not attend this meeting.”39 Not all of the curious had been satisfied, apparently, for Jacob’s “preaching services” drew a large crowd, “delegations being there from Salem, Wellsville, Columbiana and Salineville.”40 Still, attendance at the July meeting was probably considerably less than at the earlier open house. The Salem Daily Herald estimated attendance at approximately 250 people.41

Female members and visitors at the Spirit Fruit farm, Lisbon, Ohio, May 29, 1904. Front row, left to right: Mary Beilhart, Belle Norris, “Blessed” Herbeson, Mildred and Anna Wall, and Mrs. Jeannette White. Back row: Kate Waters, Virginia Moore, and Rose Duffer. A.C. Gorsuch photo (Courtesy Lisbon Historical Society)

of 210

Regardless of Jacob’s attempts at explication, he seems to have been fighting a losing battle with the press. Just as the same issue of the Buckeye State that announced his June meeting carried an extensive article on the notorious Belle Norris, so did the issue announcing his July 10th meeting featured the sensational story of the Cleveland divorce of Andrew and Anna Bang. According to newspaper reports, A.C. Bang was granted a divorce from his wife on grounds of desertion, his petition stating that “on a return trip from Denmark about a year ago his wife fell in with a disciple of Beilhart’s on board the ship. She was induced to go to Chicago and embrace the new doctrine. She afterward went to Lisbon and became a member of the Spirit Fruit family.” Curiously, Bang’s petition for divorce actually says no such thing, making no mention of Beilhart or the Spirit Fruit Society, naming only a C.E. Barienfleth of Brooklyn, New York, as correspondent and accusing Anna Bang of gross neglect of duty. Nor does the court notice published in the Cleveland leader implicate Beilhart in any manner.42

Male members and visitors at the Lisbon farm, May 29, 1904. Front row, left to right: Robert G. Wall, George Hawkinson, Ralph Galbreath, Eugene Clarke and Ed Knowdell. Back row: Jacob, Irvin E. Rockwell, and David Stanforth. A.C. Gorsuch photo (Courtesy Lisbon Historical Society)

of 210

“The Three Graces.” Belle Norris, Viriginia Moore, and “Blessed” Herbeson, Lisbon, Ohio, May 29, 1904. Photo by A.C. Gorsuch (Courtesy Lisbon Historical Society)

of 210

“Religion - the crowning glory of Capital and Labor.” A humorous photo by Gorsuch, May 29, 1904. Jacob sits astride the shoulders of millionaire I.E. Rockwell who in turn sits on the shoulders of Chicago labor leader Robert G. Wall. (Courtesy Lisbon Historical Society)

Quick upon the heels of the Bang publicity came the Rev. J. S. Norris’s July 13th attempt to get his daughter to leave the Spirit Fruit farm. Behaving “quietly,” in contrast to “Blessed” Herbeson’s father, the Rev. Norris, “a respectable and neat looking gentleman,” pleaded with Belle to return to her distraught, heart-broken mother. Belle refused, telling him that it would be impossible for him to understand the new life she had found, one “higher and incomparably better” than his. She added that the life and religion he was living was all right for him but not for her. Rev. Norris left Lisbon by train the following day.43

of 210

Small wonder that Jacob found Chicago more appealing during this stressful period. It is not certain when he returned to Illinois, but much of August was spent there holding meetings at the Masonic Temple and organizing a living establishment at 4078 Lake Avenue. By this time he must certainly have been anticipating a permanent move of some sort. The new Chicago home was left in charge of Virginia Moore, while Jacob returned in late August to produce that month’s issue of Spirit Fruit. Accompanied by Belle Norris and Arthur Crane, the latter a new convert who had just recently ended a fifteen year stay in Europe, Jacob planned to return to Chicago in about ten days. Putting his newspaper to bed, Jacob took time out to express his views on a recent local option election in Lisbon: “I am glad the town went wet. Not that it makes any particular difference to me, but because I hate to see a set of religious cranks trying to prescribe what people shall drink and what they shall not drink - what they shall do and what they shall not do.” The trio returned to Chicago on August 26, 1904. 44

Unwelcome notoriety continued to plague the Society. Perhaps related to the timing of his return to Lisbon Ohio, was the attention Chicago newspapers were giving to Mrs. Dora Greenlee. According to the Chronicle, Dora and her sister, Mrs. Frank Sitts, first came to the attention of the public (and of Jacob) in January, 1904, when they had their father’s marriage to his housekeeper annulled and had Dora named administratrix of their father’s estate, estimated to be in excess of $100,000. Allegedly, at this point an “agent of Jacob started out for a new recruit who was possessed of money,” and Dora Greenlee was “attracted to the doctrine of the Lisbon fakir,” entering into it heart and soul, attending meetings, giving money to the Society, and preparing to take her little daughter and go to “the Heaven at Lisbon.” “Representatives of the organization visited her every day and when they were not at her home she was attending their gatherings. Two weeks ago her relatives discovered that she was acting in a peculiar manner. They kept a constant watch upon her. She spent her entire time in reading the literature of the cult and in making impassioned speeches.” When Mrs. Greenlee “became violent,” her relatives confined her to her room and took away her street clothing. “In some manner, however, she managed to maker her escape. Clad only in a wrapper and without shoes or stockings she reached the street and began to deliver a sermon. Wildly she declared that she had been sent to this earth to deliver the gospel of the people under the direction of Jacob. She declared that the Spirit Fruit was the only true belief and that any person who did not embrace the belief would be damned eternally. A crowd soon gathered and the attention of a policeman was finally attracted. He took her in charge and notified members of the family, who are heart broken over her condition.” Heart broken, perhaps, but her relatives, which is to say, her brother-in-law, Frank Sitts, retained the presence of mind to haul Dora into court, have her committed to the state asylum at Elgin, Illinois, and attempt to gain legal possession of her ten-year old daughter. Local newspapers copied the story, under headlines such as “Chicago Woman Goes Insane” and “Spirit Fruit’s victim” 45

of 210

There are some definite problems with the Chicago Chronicle’s reporting, however: Frank Sitts, Jennie’s husband was not the Chicago alderman from the 17th Ward (that was his brother, Lewis); Dora lived with her father, Gunder Gundérson, at 40 Sinnott Place, not 40 Center Place; her father’s estate at the time of his death, in 1908, was $6500, nowhere near the $100,000 estimated by the Chronicle Dora was aged 44 years, not “about 35,” and her father was 74, not 77. More significantly, Dora had been named executrix of her father’s will in 1899, and no mention of the annulment of a third marriage or of Dora being named administratrix is made in the testimony establishing heirship. It is also noteworthy that either Mrs. Greenlee or the Chronicle erred in suggesting that Jacob believed that Spirit Fruit “was the only true belief and that any person who did not embrace the belief would be damned eternally.” Even with this many errors of fact, we can probably accept as true the newspapers’ statements that members of the Spirit Fruit Society tried to block Mrs. Greenlee’s commitment. Arrested on August 11, Dora refused to talk or answer questions and refused medication. On August 18th, 1904, a jury of six men found her insane and “a fit person to be sent to a State Hospital for the Insane.” Fortunately for Dora, she was able to conduct herself with propriety and was discharged from the Illinois Northern Hospital for the Insane on parole, November 16, 1904. No mention of the Spirit Fruit Society is made in the paperwork involving her arrest, hearing, and commitment. 46 Dora Greenlee, presumably remaining sane, is listed in the 1907 Chicago city directory, and no further association between her and the Spirit Fruit Society has been documented.

of 210

Members and friends at Lisbon, June 26, 1904. Front row, left to right: “Dolly” Rockwell, Carol Noel(?), and Rachel Reed. Middle row: David Stanforth, Charlena Young holding Buster Knowdell, unidentified woman, Jacob, Herman Kuehn Robert G. Wall], and Frederick Reed. Back row: Ralph Galbreath, Baltzer Young, Rose Duffer, Ed Knowdell, Kate Waters, Mary Beilhart, Mrs. Jeannette -White, and unidentified visitor. Gorsuch photo (Courtesy Lisbon Historical Society)

In mid-September, Jacob formally bade farewell to Lisbon: “I find that my presence is more necessary in Chicago than here at the present time and have decided to spend most of my time there.”47 Much of the summer was spent travelling with Irvin E. Rockwell, first to New York and Boston, then to St. Louis, where Jacob attended a convention of “New Thought people.” It was on this eastern trip, no doubt, that Jacob visited Elbert Hubbard’s Roycrofter establishment at East Aurora, New York. We have only a brief, inimitably arch account of Jacob by “the Sage of East Aurora, though it does serve as a tribute to Jacob’s personal magnetism:

Several persons have written me asking me what I think of Jacob?

Which Jacob? There is only one. It really does not make any difference to Jacob what I think of him - perhaps it makes no difference to anybody. But here is what I think of Jacob: If there were enough men like him in mentality and disposition, we would have the millen[n]ium right here and now.

of 210

In size, Jacob is a little under the average. But the quality is there. Lithe, sinewy, strong as a panther! Jacob makes me think of Kit Carson ... When Kit, the fair- haired, low-voiced little man went to a Tough and asked him to desist, the Tough grew pale, because he knew that Death was only a foot away. Kit never indulged in gun-play - he shot to kill, and when he shot, he always killed. Kit never “drew a bead” on a man - he shot as the gun went up in the flash of a jiff. The peculiarity about Kit was his keen, cool, calculating intellect that had a perfect body under perfect control. The control of Jacob over his faculties is the secret of his power. His brain is not gigantic, but what he has he uses. Kit Carson might have been a very influential man as a non-resistant, but the times were strenuous, so he was what he was. Jacob does not believe in force. He has faith - more faith than any man I can think of at this moment. He has faith in God, and God is us - God is Jacob, and Jacob is a part of God. God wouldn’t be God without Jacob, and Jacob acknowledges this himself. Jacob wants nothing and has nothing, and so he is free to tell the truth. He deceives no one - disappoint nobody, excepting possibly the people who want something for nothing. Jacob accepts life - accepts everything and finds it good. When we cease striving and clutching, everything we need is ours. The pain and bitterness of existence come from our desire to own and appropriate. The man who wants nothing possesses everything.

Jacob does not want you to do what he does, nor believe what he does. He only asks you to live your own life - express yourself according to the laws of your own nature. Jacob works with his hands, and works hard - he does good work. No one can meet him without realizing his worth - he has nothing to hide. He does not seek to impress. He is a healthy, fearless, simple, honest, intelligent, kindly man.

Therefore, he is a great man. But being free from subterfuge and hypocrisy, he is, of course, eccentric. Jacob is a bearer of glad tidings - he brings a message of hope, good- cheer, courage and faith. He affirms again and again that God, which is the Everything, is good - he puts in another “o” and spells it Good. I state these things to show the absurdity of the man, for while it is true that he believes in the Beneficence of Things, he doubts the existence of a personal devil. He disagrees with my dictum that a man who believes in a personal devil proves the proposition because he is one. Of course this is all tommyrot on the part of Jacob, but he is such a stubborn cuss, no one can convince him of his error - he is that awfully “sot.”48

Jacob’s trip to Boston undoubtedly included a visit with Frederick and Rachel Reed, a married couple living in Wellesley, Massachusetts, who were strongly attracted to Jacob’s teachings. Years later, the Reeds would recall their first meeting with Jacob:

of 210

Mrs. Reed and I had not been five minutes in the presence of this latter-day prophet before he gave us a most helpful lesson in the evolution of the human consciousness in its search for Truth. We had just stepped from a train at Lisbon, Ohio, where Jacob met us at the station. After he had greeted us cordially, I said to him: “We’ve come to find the way into the Kingdom, Jacob.”

“You’ve come from Boston together,” replied he, “but you’ll have to enter the Kingdom separately.”

This little episode was typical of all Jacob’s teaching and life - spontaneous, direct, incisive!

Every contact in his every-day life was the signal for some lesson for which, his keen sense of spiritual needs told him, those in his presence were prepared.

Whatever the attitude of those who came into touch with Jacob only through his writings, those who actually lived and worked with him, trusted him, loved him, revered him while he lived and still are held by indissoluble bonds now that he is removed from their sight.49

It is unclear when the Reeds first met Jacob, but both were visiting Lisbon at the height of the furor, in June, 1904. At about that time, Frederick left his job teaching at the Boston Latin School to devote himself entirely to the Spirit Fruit Society. A graduate of Harvard University, Class of 1881, Reed came from sound New England stock, although he himself happened to be born in Wisconsin.50 His wife, Lydia Rachel Reed, became permanently blind as a result of complications in the birth of a stillborn baby in 1895.51 Reed became acquainted with the Franklin Stevens family of Wellesley, Massachusetts, and by 1898 had purchased substantial amounts of the Stevens estate, “Overbrook.” Reed quit his teaching position at the Boston Latin School around 1905 and, apparently able to live on his own income, began to devote his entire time to furthering the ideals of Spirit Fruit. While he continued to own Overbrook in conjunction with Abel Stevens, Reed was, by the spring of 1907, creating some consternation at nearby Wellesley College, with his Overbrook colony receiving as many as 200 visitors at a time, if newspaper accounts are to be believed. The excitement would reach its height when one Wellesley student fled to Overbrook with her boyfriend; the girl’s parents hastily announced a wedding, and the College reportedly forbade its students - including Reed’s own niece - to visit Overbrook. According to the Lake County (Illinois) Independent, Reed’s “love for books turned to hatred. Now he reads no newspapers, magazines or books, but gives all his time to the Overbury [sic] colony.” According to the Independent, which copied the story from the Waukegan Daily Sun, “Reed does little actual work. The days he passes with his followers and the evening in his smoking den.”52

of 210

Following the visit to the St. Louis Exposition, Jacob returned to Lisbon, where he announced that he had just about decided to sell the community home there and purchase other property near Chicago, due to the steady growth of his following in Chicago. When Jacob returned to Illinois on November 5, 1904, it was to close the land purchase that would result in the Society’s move to Ingleside.53

of 210

NOTES 1. Lisbon Buckeye State, June 9, 1904.

2. Ibid., June 2, 1904.

3. Chicago Daily News, June 9, 1904.

4. Donald B. Smith, “Honor& Joseph Jackson: A Man Who Lived for Others,” Saskatchewan History 34(3): 81-101.

5. Donald L. McMurry, Coxey’s Army: A Study the Industrial Movement of 1894 (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1929): 43.

6. The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, selected and edited by Elting E. Morison. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952. 5: 653.



9. Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1904.

10. Chicago Daily News, May 10 and June 14, 1904.

11. All of these people are mentioned in the Cleveland Leader article, “Marriage Not Essential In Beilhart’s Religion,” of June 1, 1904.

12. Lisbon Buckeye State, June 9, 1904.

13. Testimony in a complicated trespassing suit initiated by Mrs. Herbeson (Cook County Superior Court, Gen. No. 204121) against Ida Adelia Marsh and Clarence T. Morse suggests that Kate Herbeson was adept at hypnotism and that she used it to unduly influence Miss Marsh, with whom she and her daughters were living. Miss Marsh had paid for the schooling of the Herbeson children and, according to one witness, “kept them from starving.” When Ida Marsh, who leased the boarding house, mustered the strength to evict the Herbesons, Kate filed a $10,000 trespassing suit against her. Among the other occupants of the boardinghouse at 2951 Indiana Avenue who were mentioned in the trespassing suit was a Mr. Ferris, described as a “healer” and a “scientist.” This may be the William C. Ferris, 119 astrologer, listed in the 1899 Chicago city directory, at 1139 N. Kedzie Ave.

14. Chicago Tribune, June 2, 1904.


16. Ibid., “‘Blessed’ Herbeson in an Interview Tells All About Spirit Fruit Belief.”

17. Cincinnati Enquirer, June 6, 1904

18. Cleveland Leader, June 4, 1904; Chicago Daily News, June 9, 1904.

of 210

19. Cleveland Leader, June 4, 1904; Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 29, 1917. Stewart and Isabelle S Herbeson are buried in Fairview Cemetery, Fairview Park, Ohio.

20. Cleveland Leader, June 4, 1904.

21. Hawkinson, aged 40, is listed as widowed in the 1910 census, living with his spinster sister, Nellie. Rose Duffer, born in Tennessee, was living with her widowed mother, Mattie Duffer, in 1900. Jeannette White, widowed, is listed in the 1900 census, aged 38, born in Hungary, a milliner, with son Philip H., aged 18.

22. Wall’s testimonial to Jacob deserves quotation: “I am the happiest man on earth today and I feel that I owe my happiness to Jacob Beilhart. How did he produce this change in me? By showing me the folly of the life I was leading. I was leading a dog’s life and he showed me how I could live a lord and a prince. He offered me a solution for all of my problems; I accepted the solution and here I am, the most contented human being on earth. Before I joined Jacob I was harassed to death by the problems of life. My life was intolerable, unendurable, but praise the Lord and Jacob I am at peace now. I am leading a Scriptural life - living the Bible to the letter. I am running around here in my bare feet “foot loose and fancy free,” living close to nature and letting the damned old world do the same. This is the religion of ‘to hell with care.’” Quoted in Cleveland Leader, June 1, 1904. For an account of Wall’s conversion, see Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1904, “Quits Labor Agitation for Spirit Fruit Society.”


24. Grace Mills is specifically mentioned in the bill of divorce, Cook Co., Illinois, Carrie L. Clarke vs. Eugene H. Clarke, No. 247359-2409, granted October 12, 1905.

25. Application for Membership, Idaho Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, National No. 31287. Grant (1985:24), curiously, assumes that “Rockwell’s birth was apparently illegitimate” and that the Rockwell family is not included in the 1870 census for Dane Co., Wisconsin. James Monroe nd Ann Eliza Williamson Rockwell were married March 4, 1848, and the family is listed in Medina, Dane Co., Wisconsin, in the 1870 U.S. Federal census.

26. Idaho Daily News, September 23, 1952; Irvin E. Rockwell, 1947, The Saga of American Falls Dam (New York: Hobson Book Press).

27. The couple was married at Ogden City, Utah, July 17, 1914, by District Judge Nathan Harris.

of 210

28. Kuehn appeared as a witness in the sensational divorce trial of University of Chicago literature professor Oscar Lovell Triggs, having accidentally caught the professor in flagrante delicto. Cook Co., Illinois, Superior Court, Laura Sterrette Triggs vs. Oscar L. Triggs, Gem. No. 260816, Term No. 7828, August 23, 1907.

29. 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Charleston, Illinois. Fifteenth Annual Catalogue of Campbell University, 1896-7; Campbell University Students’ Directory, 1890; Campbell University History, undated typescript by Nellie Wenner Bender. Information provided by Eileen Griffin, Beck-Bookman Library, Holton, Kansas.

30. University of Chicago Alumni Council. Alumni Directory (Chicago, 1919),

31. Illinois Dept. of Registration and Education, letter to author, November 20, 1986. Robert Knowdell, letter to author, February 28, 1979.

32. Knowdell quoted in H. Roger Grant, “The Spirit Fruit Society: A Perfectionist Utopia in The Old Northwest, 1899-1915,” The Old Northwest 9(1): 28. Aside from the fact that Kate Waters did not graduate from the Chicago Medical School, which was not even founded until 1912, well after she had joined the Spirit Fruit Society, there are unresolved problems with Kate Waters’ chronology. Grant, following Knowdell, seems to believe that Waters had obtained a medical degree and overcome her chemical addiction prior to teaching at Campbell University (which, incidentally, was not a “Presbyterian school,” remaining non-denominational until 1902, when it became affiliated with the United Brethren); at Campbell University, a friend introduced her to Jacob’s writings, which in turn led her to visit and then join the Spirit Fruit Society at Lisbon. This scenario conflicts with the known facts that Kate Waters was at Campbell University for a period of eight years, according to her obituary, and is known to have been there from 1889 to 1896. It is also known that she graduated from the University of Chicago in 1897. Unless she then returned to Campbell University, it seems more likely that she remained in Chicago and learned of Jacob’s teachings while a resident there. “Miss Kate Waters, matron,” is listed in Chicago city directories for 1902 and 1903.

33. Lisbon Buckeye State, June 9, 1904, and Salem Daily Herald, June 8, 1904. Cleveland Leader, June 9, 1904. Other visitors to the Spirit Fruit farm came and went, despite, or perhaps because of, the publicity. Sumner B. Heald, for example, an elderly Providence, Rhode Island, photographer, had received copies of Jacob’s newspapers for several years and decided to see what Jacob’s commune was really like. He arrived in Lisbon on June 8, 1904, an inopportune time, as Jacob, Belle Norris, and Virginia Moore were leaving for Chicago on June 10, and stayed for about ten days, “investigating the religion and mode of life of the Spirit Fruit Society.” Heald left before Jacob’s return and, although he expected to return within a

of 210

few weeks, there is no-reason to believe that he had anything more to do with the Society. See Salem Daily Herald, June 9 and June 18, 1904.

34. The letter is printed in the East Palestine Reveille-Echo of June 23, 1904, with the following introduction: “The tar and feather sensations in connection with the ‘Spirit Fruit’ farm near this city, which have been given prominence within the last few days have called forth the following ultimatum from Jacob Beilhart.” See also, Salem Herald, June 18, 1904.

35. Lisbon Buckeye State, June 9 and June 23, 1904.

36. East Palestine Reveille-Echo, June 30, 1904.


38. East Palestine Reveille-Echo, June 30, 1904.

39. Lisbon Buckeye State, July 7, 1904.

40. East Palestine Reveille-Echo, July 14, 1904.

41. Salem Daily Herald, July 11, 1904.

42. Cuyahoga Co., Ohio, Court of Common Pleas, Case File 86678. Lisbon Buckeye State, July 21, 1904; East Palestine Reveille-Echo, July 21, 1904.


44. Lisbon Buckeye State, August 25, 1904; Salem Daily Herald, August 27, 1904.

45. Ibid., August 25, 1904; also, East Palestine Reveille-Echo, August 25, 1904.

46. Cook Co., Illinois, Probate Court, Estate of Gunder Gunderson, File 23-8824. Cook Co., Illinois, Probate Court, Case File 26394.

47. Salem News, September 15, 1904.

48. The Philistine 20(3): 86-89.

49. Frederick Reed, “Personal Recollections of Jacob Beilhart,” p. 24. In Jacob Beilhart and His Literature [S.l.: s.n., n.d.]

50. California Dept. of Public Health Certificate of Death 3301-68377. Harvard Alumni Directory (Boston: Harvard Alumni Association, 1926): 707. Reed also received an L.L.B. degree from Harvard in 1886.

51. Robert J. Knowdell, cited in H. Roger Grant, “A Gentle Utopia: The California Years of the Spirit Fruit Society, 1914-1930,” The Pacific Historian 30(3): 59.

of 210

52. Barbara Teller, Wellesley Historical Society, letter to author, August 21, 1987. Libertyville Lake County Independent, June 14, 1907.

53. Lisbon Buckeye State, November 3, 1904.

of 210

CHAPTER VIII

INGLESIDE Jacob’s extensive tour during the late summer and autumn of 1904 must have

been in part a search for a new home, for as early as November, 1904, the Lisbon Buckeye State, in reporting his return also revealed that Jacob had “about decided to dell the community home here and buy another location, which he has in view, within twenty-five or thirty miles of Chicago.” Even as early as October, while Jacob was still “in the east with millionaire Rockwell in the interest of the Fruit Farm,” it was rumored that Jacob would leave Lisbon for a new location “about twenty miles from Chicago on the C. & A. railroad.”1 This may have been the Wooster Lake location at Ingleside, which would become the second home of the Spirit Fruit Society, or it may refer to earlier plans to settle in the neighborhood of Wheaton, Illinois.2

By the first of December, 1904, negotiations for purchase of 90 acres in Lake County, Illinois, had been completed, and Jacob announced the prospective move.3

He returned to Lisbon to superintend packing of the Society’s movable property, and bade the town a final good-bye on December 16th.4 He, Belle Norris, Kate Waters, David Stanforth, and Ralph Galbreath made their way to the Chicago headquarters, then Jacob continued on to Ingleside, Illinois, where the Long Lake correspondent reported his presence on December 20, “making preparations to move onto the Dalziel farm.”5

Unfortunately, there were difficulties in finding a buyer for the Lisbon farm, and the process was further complicated by Louema’s choosing this particular time to file for alimony.6 The petition for alimony was eventually dismissed because the court lacked jurisdiction, since both parties had moved out-of-state; but not before the newspapers did what they could with it. According to W.S. Potts, editor of Lisbon’s Ohio Patriot:

The hypocritical Jacob is a base pretender ... His so-called religion, if adopted and followed, would break up the sacredness of homes just as he has broken up his own home ... He would have freedom between the sexes as the brutes of the field have freedom. In that horrid doctrine he is as far from the teachings of holy Scriptures as the devil is from Heaven. The man who could deliberately send away and abandon his wife and two little children and take up with a lot of young women of doubtful character and live with them in the same house is a pretty specimen to teach religion ... Jacob is a bundle of selfishness and self-conceit. He possesses not a single trait of true manhood, although he professes goodness itself. His teachings lead to lewdness, and altogether he is a very wicked man. His wife found that out and she refuses to answer a letter he wrote her last Friday. She says ‘His letter reminded me of the spider and the fly ... He sent me out and I want to stay out.’ These are the words of a wronged wife who has the care, nurture, and education of two

of 210

little children. If Jacob has a spark of manhood left, he will consent to a liberal amount of alimony and in that way make his wife and children fairly comfortable while he is living on the fat of the land. Goodbye Jacob, Lisbon is well rid of you and your train.7

No doubt sincere in his denunciation of Jacob, W.S. Potts was also in a position to be well informed in the matter of the alimony petition, since Louema’s case was being handled by his own legal firm, Potts and Wells!

When Jacob’s lawyer filed a demurrer, in March, 1905, claiming that the court did not have jurisdiction since both parties had moved out-of-state, the Salem Republican-Era twitted Jacob with the headline “Non-resistance Lost Its Charm In Face of A Suit,” attributing Jacob’s action to “an earnest desire to avoid being separated from any of his property.” Although the court overruled the demurrer, it did also dismiss the case.8

Editor/Attorney Potts’ denunciation reached as far as Lake Co., Illinois, where it was quoted by the Waukegan Daily Sun, along with speculation that Jacob might settle at Winthrop Harbor, “within a stone’s throw” of Apostle J. Alexander Dowie’s religious colony at Zion City, or near Rondout Lake, southwest of Waukegan. The opined that “While Beilhart has managed to get land, it is generally conceded that he is far from being the powerful man that is John Alexander Dowie. However, Beilhart is new in the business and may expand as did Dowie when he started out.” 9

Not hesitant to go after a story, the Waukegan wrote to Jacob, asking him to explain his intentions, which Jacob was pleased to do. Denying that he had any plans of “building a city” or “forming a colony,” Jacob claimed only to wish, with “the few who have joined me in our work ... to set an example to those who do not seem to find satisfaction in their manner of life, how to find satisfaction in the ordinary walks of life amid the conditions as we find them today.” The present move came from a desire to spend part of his time in Chicago. He intended to continue publication of the Society’s papers at the new home, but otherwise had no plans. “To obey nature’s law in our living and in our working with nature is our idea of getting along in this world.” By Jacob’s count, there were “about a dozen of us living and working together as a family, none receiving wages or salary or paying for anything they need for their use.” He claimed nothing new in his teachings, only “what has long been taught by many. We simply are making practical the things others have preached and idealized.”10

With one thing and another, it was not until April 7, 1906, that the Spirit Fruit Society finally purchased from William J. and Matthew J. Dalziel the 90 acre tract of land in Grant Township, Lake County, Illinois, fronting on Wooster Lake, approximately 45 miles northwest of Chicago. The purchase price was $9,900. Realizing $1200 from the sale of horses and cattle at the Lisbon farm, the Society applied this money to the down payment. By June, 1905, two payments had been made on the property, but the Society had difficulty in fulfilling the contract.

of 210

According to Jacob, they made the first five payments “nearly on time.” Then with the house only half-finished and $5000 still due, the Society was unable to borrow money by mortgaging the farm. Through the workings of “Spirit,” and non-resistance, however, along with sympathetic land-owners and the appearance of a check for $3000, the Society was able to retain the farm. The deed was not actually recorded until March 30, 1907. 11

In the meantime, members of the Society were kept busy building their home and improving the land surrounding it. By January 18, 1905, Jacob and his followers were “firmly intrenched” on their land at Ingleside. According to Jacob, “it was mere chance that Lake county ... was hit upon” and “The farm which was discovered for sale was just what the religionists were looking for.”12

As this suggests, members of the Society did not linger in Chicago during the winter of 1904-05 but instead set to work casting the concrete blocks with which their mansion was to be built. Sand and gravel for the mortar was mined during subfreezing temperatures so that tunnels in the frozen deposits would not collapse. The sand and gravel - 500 loads of it according to Jacob’s later recollection - was then hauled by sled across the frozen lake to the construction site, where it was hand mixed in wooden mortar boxes, then cast in four two-block metal forms, producing eight blocks at a time. All of the stair treads, bannisters, porticos, window sills, and framing units were cast in special hand-made wooden forms to produce the ornamental effects desired. Because of the lack of sleeping accommodations in the old farmhouse at the site, the men slept in the wooden barn, along with the livestock, on straw ticks on a dirt floor, through the first year of construction, until the basement of the new house was completed and covered.13

Judging from the numbering and dating of the incomplete series of articles later reprinted from Spirit Fruit and Spirit’s Voice, the Society’s publications must have been suspended for some time during this period of construction, no doubt because of the urgency in making the new home inhabitable before the following winter. In what is probably the first issue actually published at Ingleside, (June, 1905), Jacob warns his readers that there may be fewer numbers of Spirit Fruit in the future (“So if it serves more to work than to write a number of Spirit Fruit I will work... I)14 Nonetheless, a half dozen issues of the newspaper did appear over the course of the next year. In May, 1905, when interviewed by a Waukegan Sun reporter, Jacob and his followers were hard at work laying the foundations of what was projected as a twenty-eight room house. According to Beilhart, the Society had patented their method for manufacturing the cement blocks. The brief interview with the Society’s leader stressed the community’s belief in the work ethic. “We work together because it is a pleasure. The girls complete their duties within and come out here for the joy it gives them and to help the work along.” As the reporter viewed it, “brawny men in khaki trousers and blue shirts” laid the foundations “while by their sides are the women of the sect, clad in bloomers and loose-fitted waists.”15

of 210

“Strictly speaking this is not a religion,” Jacob maintained. “We came here because we became dissatisfied with the frivolities and faddisms of what people call religion ... We do not preach, we practice. We do what we think is right and harm no one and it is no one’s business how we carry out our plans.” Emphasizing his point, Beilhart continued, “Farcical irreligious religion of the so-called religious of the world have driven us from the intermittent enthusiasm of the periodical revivals into a little world of our own where we practice and nothing more. If one member sees another transgressing what he considers the law of right he tells him in a kindly manner that he considers him in error and thus each watches over the other.” During the past several months, the Society had refused admission “to many who have sought to enter but who we thought were unfitted.”16

As the foundations of the “Spirit temple” rose, the Society again received considerable attention from the press. In June, the Cleveland Leader sent a reporter to describe the Society’s progress. By this time, the Society was also renting an additional 143 acres of an adjoining farm, which they were gradually putting under cultivation. The Leader reporter counted eight men and five women at work on the farm. The sixty by eight foot building under construction was described as “of the most substantial character,” including two stories and basement, and to contain twenty-eight rooms. It was anticipated that the building would be completed by September and would then house “upwards of thirty unmarried men and women.” During the interim, the women of the colony would continue to occupy the farmhouse, the men “a granary that has been remodeled into a dormitory.” The entire family eat at one table. With completion of the new building, each member would have a room to himself or herself.

Some detail is given regarding the communal nature of sharing the Society’s financial resources: “The society is relying on its ability to produce on the farm sufficient articles of food to sustain it. Sales from the farm go into a common fund that is drawn from by individuals according to their desires. Any contributions that come in as the result of the publication of tracts are dropped into a box that rests on the piano in the farmhouse. From this box members of the society are privileged to draw sums according to their own ideas as to their needs, but Mr. Beilhart says that it is the custom to consult him in such matters.”

of 210

The Dalziel farmhouse at Wooster Lake, used as a the women’s dormitory during construction of Spirit Fruit “temple” (Courtesy Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren)

Doubtless enjoying his role, if not deliberately with tongue in cheek, Jacob, “the president of the society,” related that there is a total lack of bossing on the farm. “He usually gets up first in the morning to feed the horses. ‘I give a yell,’ he says, ‘and if any of the boys feel like getting up to help it is all right but if they don’t nothing is said.’ No one about the place draws any wages for his or her work. No skilled help has been employed to build the new building save in one instance when the society bought the right to manufacture a certain brand of concrete blocks and two men were furnished to teach the method of construction.”

The perennial question of alcohol was raised, the reporter noting that the use of neither tobacco nor stimulants is barred and that the men drank bottled beer while working on the building. Jacob averred that beer “is better than cold water in certain stages of summer heat.”17

The Leader article, altogether one of the more objective pieces of reporting the Society had received, was reprinted in full in the Lisbon Buckeye State. Other papers condensed and rewrote, with some amusing and telling results. The East Palestine Reveille-Echo, for example, began by referring to Jacob’s “peculiar views and worse mode of life.” Jacob and “his deluded but faithful followers” had now “turned up” at Waukegan, and the $1200 they received for their farm stock at Lisbon was described only as “a fancy price,” while the men at work were described as drinking “many and sundry bottles of cold beer.”18

Despite their dawn to dusk work schedule, members of the Spirit Fruit colony were unable to complete their new home by September. An article appearing in the Waukegan Daily in October indicates that the basement had been completed, with concrete floor and a ceiling of steel beams and concrete, and the “family” had

of 210

moved from the old frame farmhouse and barn and had installed their printing press. The also reported that “Jacob and his followers have been working like beavers all summer.” In addition to having harvested and “thrashed” 1500 bushels of oats, they had also put up 100 tons of hay, and were in the process of cutting 30 acres of corn and a second crop of clover, not to mention cabbage, potatoes, melons, cucumbers, and other produce. Concomitant with harvesting their crops, the Society members continued to make cement blocks with which to finish the building. An average of 100 blocks per day were being produced, with about 1500 on hand.19

Construction continued through the winter and spring of 1906. By that time, it was being reported that the finished building would contain 32 rooms, would house twice that number of men and women and that “more than four score will find a home within the four walls.” “Then indeed will the principles of ‘Spirit Fruit’ run riot,” editorialized the Waukegan Sun. According to the Sun, the building would be a magnificent one when completed, standing upon a knoll that commands an excellent view of Wooster Lake. The large basement would contain the printing establishment, as well as have room for several sleeping quarters. The finished building would be divided into two sections, one containing a dining room large enough to seat more than 100 persons. The floor above would contain a score or more of sleeping apartments. On the other side would be a large living room, with additional sleeping apartments above. Not surprisingly, a photographic darkroom was also included, centrally located on the first floor.20

By June, 1906, the “castle” was nearly complete and ready to receive its roof of tiles. The construction activity may have taken a considerable toll on “Brother Jacob,” as only a year previously he had been described as “the picture of health ... still a young man,” with rosy cheeks and flashing eye. Now, however, the same Sun reporter found him to be “a kindly old man.” Conducting the reporter on tour of the home, Jacob showed obvious pride in his workmanship: “It is just a quiet little home for us, and though we have no skilled workmen among us we will nevertheless make it a creditable piece of work.” Asked of his ambitions, Jacob repeated the familiar answer: “Well, that is a question I have never answered fully nor can I. People have often wondered just what our aims are and possibly we cannot explain it even to our own satisfaction. We live humbly. We are a family; we do not seek growth or advertisement but rather quietness and to live in our own peaceable way. We are farming; that is one of us does the farm work while the rest are employed on ‘the house.’”

“The neighbors here are very kind and treat us well, not attempting to interfere with our affairs in the least. The city people are the only ones who show too great a credulity; sometimes they - “ “Butt in?” The word was supplied him. “Yes, that expresses it,” said Jacob.21

A year later, the house was still not quite finished. William A. Hinds, in eliciting information for a revision of his book, American Communities and

of 210

Cooperative Colonies, promptly received an informative letter from Jacob. Uncertain that “it is time to record our work in history, I think we are yet in the blossoming period, not having reached the real fruit - bearing as yet,” Jacob nevertheless gave Hinds a brief outline of the Society’s history and an invitation to come and visit. Included is a brief description of the “35 room house made of cement which has all modern appliances, steam heat, ascetylene [sic] lights, hot and cold water thruout and 4 bathrooms.” Elsewhere, Jacob provides other details: “The floors are all of oak, except the dining room, which is made of mosaic tile. The doors and all finishings are oak; walls plastered and tinted with alabastine; ceilings all of pressed steel; hot and cold water throughout the house; five baths and Acetylene light system also a steam heat system with twenty-nine radiators. 22

Part of the house had been completed for several months, and the members of the Society were in the process of decorating the walls when Jacob wrote to Hinds.

The nearly completed “Spirit Fruit Castle” at Ingleside. (Courtesy of News-Sun, Waukegan, Illinois)

By Jacob’s own count, there were then thirteen members “who are here permanently, there are hundreds who would like to come and help me do what ever I would want to do but I think large community life is not a success. There are very few ready for true freedom. External conditions do not make any one happy.”

Jacob concluded his statement to Hinds by saying that “All there is here or ever will be must be a natural growth for there are no plans for the future. It may develop into a practical school for those who are ready for the real thing. Those who have studied community life and are interested in it, have told me we had the only place they ever saw where the Ideal of true Brotherhood was fully carried out in every way. That we were living what others were only idealizing and dreaming about. This may be, I don’t know as I’m quite busy tending to the things which interest me daily.” 23

of 210

In a subsequent letter Hinds pressed Jacob with a number of leading questions that were obviously prompted by available newspaper accounts. Did Jacob have a million followers? Had he said that he would yet establish a colony that would be the Mecca of the world? Can he restore sight by faith- healing? Is his monogamic marriage a binding obligation in his Society? Because Jacob did not answer these questions directly, Hinds preferred not to speculate on the truth of such statements. He did suggest that “it is evident from his [Jacob’s] writings that he would have the spirit of Universal Love displace selfish love ... even in the relations of the sexes. He seems, however, to be on too friendly terms with hand labor for such a megalomaniac as the papers describe him.”24 Here Hinds perceptively put his finger on the distinctive feature of Jacob’s philosophy that undoubtedly served to eliminate the cranks and loafers even as it made it impossible for Jacob’s community to grow beyond its “family” size. Years earlier, Jacob had realized the importance of restricting the size of his group: “It is not my object ... to build up a colony here at the community home [then in Lisbon] ... A colony would necessitate a diversity of occupations, which would bring it in competition with the rest of the world, and this would give to it a character not in line with our purpose. Unfortunately, Hinds did not choose to explore further the implications of his remark about the emphasis Jacob put upon physical labor but, instead, concluded his consideration of the Spirit Fruit Society with Elbert Hubbard’s inimitable, if not quite ineffable, effusion on Jacob. Hinds was astute enough, however, to realize that while some members of Spirit Fruit might label it the Society of “To Hell with care,” its philosophy clearly did not extend to “To Hell with hard work.”

Completion of the Spirit Fruit hone and final payment on the property occurring almost simultaneously, in March, 1907. With the filing of the deed, the Lake County Independent and Waukegan Weekly Sun could not resist contrasting the success of the Spirit Fruit Society with J. Alexander Dowie’s troubled community at nearby Zion City: “Thus while Zion’s sun is slowly setting in a dark and clouded sky, the prosperity of the Spirit Fruit colony seems to be on the increase steadily. While one is being dissipated by too much freedom, the other seems to be slowly climbing to a pinnacle of solid advantage in worldly goods. Bielhart began in a small way and in spite of his ultra-peculiar teachings and beliefs seems to be advancing, while Dowie, beginning with a blare of trumpets and with almost oriental magnificence, lived to see his community in the hands of another, the prey to gaunt poverty and a reproach.”25

of 210

The completed home at Ingleside. (Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren)

Unquestionably at the most prosperous point in its history, the Spirit Fruit Society was now able to turn its attention to other matters. On a more mundane level, construction of a large concrete block barn was begun. But Jacob also began to devote increasing amounts of time to publishing and expounding his philosophy. Inevitably, this would bring additional publicity and, with it, the likelihood of trouble with the “authorities.” Some professed to see the difficulties coming. Having received a handwritten letter from “Father Jacob,” the Waukegan turned it over to a local “chirographer.” Without professing to believe in the theory that “the random lines scratched on a sheet of letter paper reveal a life at a glance,” the Sun did remind its readers that the downfall of John Alexander Dowie was prophesied by a handwriting expert “back in days now forgotten.”

As for Jacob’s script, it appeared to the expert to be a remarkable one, “telling a life of storm and stress endured and yet to come.” It would be better, the chirographer advised, if Jacob talked less and were more modest. It would be better if he could keep his mind off material things, things grossly earthy. Jacob’s ambition and “bull-dog qualities” were unerringly revealed by the way he crossed his t’s and by an “inevitable hook to all the letters ending words.” The “prophet of spontaneous love” was careless in details,” a character defect the thought he should remedy “if indeed he possesses, and the handwriting says that he does.” Judging from his handwriting, “Father Jacob” was still to have many ups and downs and the Spirit Fruit Society would yet experience its greatest and its last days.26

of 210

The same issue of the Independent and Sun carried a brief account of another visit to the Spirit Fruit farm, during the course of which the reporter was quickly disabused of the notion that Spirit Fruit was -a “religion.” “Don’t get that idea,” he was quickly told by one of the members. “We haven’t got a hell of a lot of religion here.” Jacob, “partly in support and partly in defense of the bold statement,” added that the members were at least frank. The reporter “deducted” that the colonists “live in the way they do because they prefer it to any [other] mode of living .....They seem to have come to the state of thinking that all religion is naught. Beilhart himself loves to score preachers and the ways of those he terms ‘hypocrites.’”

Invited to join in their noon meal, the reporter found the members “an unusually courteous and polite people” who radiated a guileless feeling of cheer and innocent family-fondness, making the visitor feel “strangely at home.” The reporter, however, shrewdly viewed this happy state of affairs as but the calm before a great battle, “the oppression one feels before the barometer falls.” Citing Jacob’s views on marriage in particular, the reporter described the Spirit Fruit members as “ready for a storm of disapproval.” “They doubt not that the law will take them in hand and will attempt to send them to prison pens. But in the fanaticism of their belief they are ready. They have been quietly planning and plodding onward for years for the time when they will go out into the world and win it over to their way of seeing. The time is now ripe and they will act. They expect trouble and turmoil even as in the days of old. They even have visions of martyrdom but they are prepared.”27

Members of the Spirit Fruit Society at dinner. From the Waukegan Sun, August 17, 1907. (courtesy of News- Sun, Waukegan, Illinois)

As a follow-up to this interview, the Independent and Sun next published a more extensive review of Jacob’s views on ministers and marriage - “Beilhart

of 210

Roasts Ministers” the headline read. “Insists He Will End Marriage Vow.” Based upon a letter Beilhart wrote to the newspaper, the Independent and Sun concluded that Jacob was in favor of trial marriage and did not recognized the role of law or religion in marriage. While the newspaper reported “rumors that the prophet is facing trouble from State’s Attorney Hanna’s office,” it also dutifully reported that the State Attorney had made it clear he knew nothing about the Spirit Fruit Society other than what he had read.28

There would soon be plenty for the State Attorney to read regarding Jacob and the Spirit Fruit Society, for Jacob announced an open house to be held at Wooster Lake on Sunday, June 16th. The home would be open to visitors from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. “You need not bring your pocketbooks, as we have nothing to sell and no collection will be taken.” Jacob would provide a free lecture, giving the views of the society on “the Gospel of Work, the Business and Social Relation of Man, etc.”29

This open house and house warming was to be held in conjunction with the annual outing of the Chicago Anthropological Society and would include a number of distinguished guests, among them being Parker H. Sercombe, head of a Chicago “free love” colony; Honoré Jaxon, still apparently a disciple of Jacob; Saint Nihal Singh, “Hindu pundit and special representative of the Chicago American” and H. Keene Ryan, the young Presbyterian journalist who had given Jacob such a bad press while the Society was still in Lisbon. Nihal Singh, too, had apparently written about Jacob for the Chicago American during those long-ago Lisbon days, and developed an admiration for Jacob. Subsequently, in the course of becoming a distinguished Anglo-Indian journalist, Singh wrote a series of scathing articles on the American press for The Living Age, though he does not specifically cite the treatment of Beilhart and the Spirit Fruit Society by the newspapers.30

Parker H. Sercombe, to whom Jacob had denied admission to the Spirit Fruit Society, is a bit difficult to classify, though Jacob’s instinct was unerring in rejecting this intellectual gadfly as a member of Spirit Fruit. Editor of the “uplift” periodical Tomorrow, Sercombe was generally found at - depending upon one’s point of view - either the cutting edge or the lunatic fringe of Chicago’s liberals, speaking on the same platform with the likes of Clarence Darrow, Emma Goldman, and Dr. Ben Reitmann, Chicago’s own king of the vagabonds. Although Sercombe made valuable suggestions regarding the application of crafts in the public school system,, he was his own worst enemy: remarking that education, like dress, “originated more for ornament than use” was scarcely calculated to endear him to the Chicago Board of Education. The merit of Sercombe’s more rational suggestions must often have been obscured by his indiscriminate enthusiasms for such fads as the peanut diet. Viewed as an amusing crank, Sercombe was largely ignored by those in control of Chicago’s educational system. Ideas such as Sercombe’s notion that the city child suffered from not having chores to do undoubtedly struck a chord in Jacob, but it is most unlikely that Sercombe could have mustered the self control and maturity required to live in a closed community

of 210

such as the Spirit Fruit Society.

Although the most entertaining version of the remarkable hegira of Chicago’s “highbrows” to Jacob’s Ingleside colony is that of the Chicago Tribune, which gave it front-page coverage, the fairest account was provided by the Lake County Independent. A week prior to the picnic, the Independent prepared its readers by reprinting the article appearing in the Wednesday edition of the Waukegan Daily Sun: “Bombless Anarchy Beilhart’s Law.” Emphasizing that the members of the colony “are content to be left alone to live in their own way and are not seeking new members or to begin anything in the nature of a war against the marriage institution,” the Sun also reported that they denied the society was a “free love” cult. As the in interpreted their philosophy, it was one of “bombless anarchy,” where each member is free to do absolutely as he or she pleases, “in every way, in work and in play.” Infringement upon another’s rights is punished in one of two ways: by one’s conscience or, more directly, “at the dinner table, where members take occasion to make confessions and to settle all quarrels or petty feuds.” As one member put it, “I am on the lower plane, in which self rules ... With Jacob it is different. He is unselfish. He has reached the stage where there is no self. He has reached what might be called ‘Nirvana,’ to quote the Buddhist term. This is the ideal state ... We are one great family into which discord rarely enters and when it does it is promptly ‘shooed’ away by being threshed out at the dinner table.” Ignoring the degree of individual responsibility for one’s actions implicit in Jacob’s philosophy and his tenet that one should act as one thinks best - not simply as one pleases - the newspaper unfortunately misinterpreted the Society’s belief: “Colonists of Spirit Fruit Society do as Please and Take Consequences,” read the headline. It was a case of “To Hell with Care” all over again.

of 210

St. Nihal Singh and Jacob at Wooster Lake (Ingleside), August, 1907. (Courtesy News - Sun, Waukegan, Illinois)

The same issue of the Lake County Independent carried an announcement of the planned event, to be “a cross between a basket picnic and a camp meeting,” and suggested that Jacob was desirous of gaining converts. Following this initial meeting, he would send missionaries through the world preaching his doctrine and “the peoples of civilization are to be shaken to the core. “According to the Independent, Jacob’s specific intentions for the June 16th meeting were to annul the marriages of those who have been legally wedded but who think they have made a mistake and would like to begin all over again; to announce his doctrine, including the belief that the mother has the right to choose who shall be the child’s parent; and to begin a world wide war against the institution of marriage.31

The Independent’s account of the actual meeting listed Jacob’s main points or, as the paper dubbed them, his “queer tenets”: The wife is her husband’s bond slave for life. Woman should be on an equal plane with man. Beilhart hopes to make the race of man better by the application of a closer principle of selection. Free love is not a tenet of the Society; there is a form of marriage which takes place when both man and woman have rid themselves of selfish desire and proven themselves worthy of entering into marriage. It then went on to quote Jacob as he expanded upon the question of sex and marriage in a thoroughly modern manner:

of 210

The marriage institution gives a person the right to enslave another person for life and lord it over them simply because they can’t get away. It makes, or at least encourages, the spirit of tyranny in those who are not strong enough in unselfishness to seek the pleasure of others.

Sex is the first thing in all nature, and by sex expression all things have their being. Yet man who should be the most at one with the creator of all that exists has learned to look at sex or things related to it as a thing of which to be almost ashamed.

If love, not lust nor passion, - the love which causes a person to seek that which is desired by others--the love which is glad to suffer that others may rejoice - if this love had been allowed complete control, there never would have been a curse placed upon sex or the thought of shame connected with any expression of love.

But instead of this love which causes each to be the best that is in them toward the other and prefers the desire of the other rather than seek ones own pleasure; instead of allowing this God in the heart of man to possess and keep watch over the creative nature of the race, man has chosen the road to destruction by enslaving himself, by purchasing life leases on the gratification of his desires without being compelled to let the spirit of love rule and ennoble him each day and win for him, at the time, an agreement to an expression of life’s highest function.

Do you see my point? I do not oppose marriage contract to make you free from bondage or to grant you liberty to follow your impulses of the moment, which in most persons are very unnatural and separated from that which alone can control them - love.

I claim the marriage institution as it is upheld today by church and sanctioned by state is not conducive to man’s highest development, because it grants the right of indulgence to man’s most degrading selfishness.

It gives him or her the legal and religious right to own at least one slave who has been sold to him or her for live, and if he so desires he can be a despot in the realm of the highest instincts and finest desires and loftiest inspirations that has become the possession of a human heart.

When a man must, by his behavior and manly qualities, recommend himself to the instinctive nature of a woman who would be a partner in the highest of creation, and cannot participate in the matter unless he so acts that he becomes a choice, then people will be born into this world who will not need police to watch them; no lawyers to defend the rights of others against them, no insane hospitals to receive a good percent of them.

And I might add truthfully that there will be but few doctors needed to heal them, for their physical as well as their mental health will be of a high order.

of 210

The closest we have to an accurate transcript of Jacob’s oratory, this passage suggests that he had considerable abilities in public speaking. Regrettably, the Independent then proceeded to paraphrase and editorialize:

With no customs to furnish a precedent, with no laws to guide except the feeling of what is right and just against the feeling of what is wrong and unjust, with no religion in the ordinary acceptance of the term to inspire, life at Jacob Beilhart’s Spirit Fruit colony in the woods at Wooster Lake is indeed the law of the beast of the field and the bird of the air applied to man.

The article continues, enumerating additional “queer tenets” of the Society: There is no heaven or hell, but there have been lives before and there are lives to follow, until a state of at oneness with the Universal Spirit is reached. There is no personal God, only an universal spirit. There is no law, no custom, no religion binding on a man except his own will; he may do as he pleases but he must take the consequences. The perfect life, at-oneness with the Universal Spirit, is attained by persistently stifling self. Work is salvation. Jesus and the doctrines of the Bible are effete, out of date, and inactive because of their age. Patriotism is useless; if the nation gets into trouble it deserves it. “These are the things that the bloomered women and the overalled men of Wooster lake believe, the things that they ponder on in their work and play, the things they try to live.”

Reiterating the remark that “There is not a hell of a lot of religion here,” but ascribing it to Jacob himself, the newspaper concluded that the society’s creed was essentially a pantheistic worship of nature, “seasoned with the results of centuries of civilization that have passed and endowed with the modern spirit, but a nature worship nevertheless.” An explicit belief in metempsychosis and an eventual “perfect peace and at-oneness attunement with the infinite, a state corresponding with the Nirvana of the Buddhist” suggests an increasingly Eastern influence on Jacob’s thought during this period, quite possibly due to the presence of Nihal Singh, but according to the Independent reporter, Jacob denied this: “Jacob developed his belief, even as Budda did, in the silence of meditation. He had never heard of Budda when he formulated the principles of Spirit Fruit. Then afterwards, someone sent him a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and he found many things in it with which his system, if it can be called that, agreed.”

Despite such disclaimers as “if it can be called that,” the Independent concluded that “it would be hard, indeed, to find a hardier, happier, harder working, saner people than the colonists of the Spirit Fruit farm.”32

The Chicago Tribune’s snide account of “Beilhart’s Summer Housewarming,” though entertaining reading, provides little solid information about the event, other than an estimate of the number of people who attended:

Along about early milking time out in Lake county, Ill., last night a bewildered lot of farmer-folk jogged their teams homeward from a visit to the Spirit Fruit society, the new free love community established on the shore of

of 210

Wooster lake.

They were pondering the “vibrations,” “thought voltage,” “freedom of impulse,” and other stunts of lofty thinking exhibited in their presence by Jacob Beilhart, the founder and leader of the society, to demonstrate his concept-ion of the simple life.

About fifty nonresident members and miscellaneous highbrows went out from Chicago on the St. Paul train in the morning and some 100 farmers drove in after dinner in response to an invitation to inspect the premises and learn all about love.

Of course Sercombe was there - Parker H., head of the Spencer-Whitman center and editor of the uplift organ, Tomorrow. “Sercombe himself” the simple lifers call him. On the hay rack which bore the party from Long Lake station to Spirit Fruit farm, a mile distant, he explained that he was not a follower of Beilhart and had come more as a patron of all revolutionary communal experiments.

At the end of their hot ride, guests were greeted by “a slight, wiry, gray eyed man with a tanned face and an engaging smile, who was ladling dripping dipperfuls of sparkling water from a tin pail.” (No beer here.)

Close at hand Miss Beilhart, a good looking young woman, who is a sister of the leader, received with her two little children while their respective fathers swung the visiting women from the hayracks. There were more good looking women in the background and more children, some of the fathers being present and some not. All of which does not mean that there is not a marriage certificate on the place, for an old couple that moved in just the other day had one among their possessions.

The “old couple” probably was Linnie and Baltzer Young, Virginia Moore’s mother and step-father, who indeed were married but who, also, had lived at the farm since 1905. For that matter, Mary Beilhart, whose virtues undoubtedly remained many, could no longer be described as “a good looking young woman.” The reporter obviously was willing to sacrifice accuracy for effect.

Parker Sercombe quickly took center stage:

As the visitors pressed into the wide, cool halls and living room of the community home Sercombe, in all the exuberance of his 44 years, burst into a reverberating baritone paean of pure ecstasy, embraced one “brother” and two “sisters,” and then, with a mighty whoop, peeled off his coat and began trotting about inspecting the rooms. Next he introduced his traveling companion, Ralph E. Sammons, who had just finished a fourteen day fast. Ralph said he had lost twenty pounds, but had found fasting sublime. A moment later Sercombe piped all hands forward to view a triumph of fearless art he had discovered - a framed photograph of a 14 year old Adam and a 12 year Eve specially posed for the apple incident. Everybody raved over the

of 210

perfect specimen of “revolutionary art” in the “altogether.”

Turn-of-the-century kiddie porn? It seems unlikely; but, since Jacob was not more specific in telling W.A. Hinds precisely how or with what the Society was decorating the walls of its “castle,” this must remain open to speculation. The ages given for the boy and girl do seem to eliminate the possibility that this was simply an “artistic” photograph of Evelyn and “Buster.” More than likely, the Tribune reporter was exaggerating the nature of the photograph in order to enhance his newspaper copy.

Parker Sercombe must have been considered an easy mark, for after this, “Sercombe, who thinks he will live 125 years if he can only keep the upper hand of the adipose tissue, raced about the grounds, wrestled three farm hands to a fall, vaulted a barb wire fence, and led off a revolutionary swimming party.” (No, not what you might think, for the reporter hastened to add that “bathing suits were de rigeur [sic] without exception.”)

“Sercombe, with his hands clasped behind his head and his biceps working like Sandow’s in the third act, danced down the plank and plunged in. A few minutes later he had rescued Sam Hammersmark of Moody’s magazine from drowning after the second sinking. . .” Understandably, if Hammersmark ever saw fit to write his own account of the picnic, Moody’s financial magazine did not see their way to publishing it.

“Meanwhile all through the grounds little groups of pure reasoners were getting up their thought voltage and learning all about ‘nonresistance,’ which is the law of life to the devotees of spirit fruit. Never resist any impulse, any person, anything. Then, being free to do wrong, you won’t want to. A delicious young woman, with a home made Marcel tidal wave billowing up from the back of her neck, testified that after a two years trial of this law of life she would have no other.”

“Only one violation of the rule of nonresistance was reported during the day. That was when J.C. rudely repulsed the suggestive advances of Gussie, the head mosquito. J.C. is a mild mannered man with a faraway look, who never has shaved. He is called J.C. because he was so christened by Fra Elbertus Hubbard of East Aurora, N.Y., from whose thought works he was sent to Spirit Fruit farm ‘on suspicion.’”

Concluding with a brief description of the Spirit Fruit dwelling - “a handsome structure, 70 feet wide and 92 feet long, with large rooms, including an assembly room and the men’s den, and spacious halls,” the Tribune noted that the house “just happened,” “because it had no designers except the six men and seven women who built it. Honoré Jaxon, a former member of the colony, wanted to design the building, but Beilhart preferred to let it ‘just happen.’”33

of 210

These mid-summer high-jinks, however harmless, threatened to prove costly to the Spirit Fruit Society. Within a week of the highly publicized housewarming, Thomas H. Quayle, secretary of the Lake County Law and Order League, threatened to probe affairs at the colony by dropping in without notice. Dr. Quayle, a local version of Anthony Comstock, was a Lake Forest “reform minister” who had thus far been content with rooting out “blind pigs” - illegal drinking establishments - and was reported as being “anxious about Spirit Fruit.” Not yet decided whether the Society “is an eye sore or a beauty spot,” Quayle nonetheless instinctively “shied at the peculiar ideas of marriage that prevail at the Spirit Fruit farm and he simply shivers in his shoes, to use a metaphorical expression, whenever he hears that there are two children at Wooster Lake, who, it is alleged, were born out of the prescribed form of wedlock.” Quayle had met Jacob’s brother (presumably Noah, the Chautauqua actor, then living in Chicago) and reported that he “detests his mode of life and is sorry that he ever took it up.”

For once, however, a newspaper was about to do Jacob Beilhart a favor. Having reported this much, the Waukegan Sun continued, “Secretary Quayle does not know the row ahead of him if he undertakes to be the man with the hoe.” Jacob, it appears, had made a few friends since moving to Lake County and, according to the Sun, his neighbors “would resent to the utmost attempts to get the county rid of him and might even rise en masse and prevent any contemplated raid. They aver that any wrong thought of the colony is a misconception and a misunderstanding and that Beilhart is all right all the way through as are his people.”

There seems to have been support for the Society even in Waukegan, for “One of the queer things of the day is the attitude of Waukeganites who visited the Spir[i]t Fruit farm last Sunday. They are actually with Beilhart and would be incensed were any effort made to dislodge him.” The Sun estimated that Jacob had “a hundred strong friends in Waukegan, and of this hundred which visited his place, the SUN force has yet to hear a word of abuse directed at him. He seems to have scored a hit by his conduct although as a matter of fact few if any of his visitors agree with his ideas or teachings.”34

In a masterly response, which the Waukegan published in full, Jacob answered his critics:

I note in your paper of June 20th an article headed, “Quayle will probe Spirit Fruit Farm.” Whether the gentleman mentioned ever heard of “Spirit Fruit Farm” or ever gave a serious thought to the matter, or will ever visit it, makes no difference as far as my purpose in writing this is concerned. However, I wish to make a few statements which I think due the honest people of Lake County. This is not to check the misrepresentations concerning us, for we expect them to continue, and they do no harm so far-as I know, but there are some who wish to know our position and not a few of these are among your readers.

of 210

Spirit Fruit cares not for notoriety but it does court investigation for it believes itself to hold and live up to principles of life which might benefit even reformers and assist them in their efforts to benefit human conditions.

Let me hereby extend an invitation to officials of Lake County as well as to all reformers who seek the betterment of human conditions and all ministers of the gospel to visit Spirit Fruit Home at any hour of the day or night. They are welcome to come unannounced. None of our doors are ever locked and no offense will be taken on account of their intrusion.

Furthermore, Spirit Home will give any “reformers” of Lake County board and lodging free of charge who will come and live with us for one week. All we ask is that they allow each of us to be perfectly honest with them in our attitude toward them and they be the same toward us. We have found perfect honesty to have the same effect on hypocrisy as the gold cure has on the alcohol habit.

We will not promise to deliver a “reformer” at the end of the week but will insure as good or better a citizen as we took in ...

We only desire that the truth be known for there are enough honest people in any community who will be glad to accord the right to their neighbor to differ with them in ways and means to a betterment of the human race.

We do not desire to build up a large following; do not desire to establish a colony on a large scale; we do not urge our ideas on any one; do not seek converts. We are kept quite busy teaching and helping those who have been the victims of a false society and who cry for deliverance from that which is worse than physical slavery. Only as people ask for our help or ideas do we give them...

Society is honeycombed with hypocrisy. By her artificial demands she gives birth to criminals, then persecutes or kills them for being what she made them. Society sets up false standards which none obey except on the surface of things.

Society is only enamel on the face which is very thin, yet this false color is demanded while the true nature is covered and given no chance to come to the surface and express itself. Let’s have a change. Let’s be what we are and see if we will not like the net results better.

There must be some system of life where there is not so much suffering demands; not so large a percent of the virtue of womanhood sacrificed; not so many children forced into the world under the most adverse conditions.

I have no time to criticize the existing order. I only know the net results are not satisfactory [to] those interested in it.

of 210

I do not ask for the same privilege for open investigation of the private lives of those who spend their time correcting the sins of their neighbors. Their system seems to make necessary many practices which I do not care to witness.

Spirit Fruit Society lives open and above board and believes in calling things by their right name. If a member of Spirit Fruit Society wants a drink of beer he does not go in the back door of the saloon. Beer is not as harmful as hypocrisy. If he desires to say “damn it” he does not deceive his neighbor by saying “darn it” or “O pshaw.”

The weakness of any person or nation is found in the number of laws they have made for themselves which they do not obey in spirit.

We have ceased making laws for our neighbors. We plead guilty in the past to the “gnat and camel” act; with the “beam” in our own eye we did not doubt our ability to locate and remove the “mote” in the eye of our neighbor. We are after the “camel” and the “beam” now. We have them located and quite well under control.

Spirit Fruit makes this statement because we live up to our ideals and are not ashamed of our lives. A hypocrite does not feel at home here. Not that we have attained human perfection or are always able to comply with life’s perfect law, for we are yet in the school of experience, but the desire to find the perfect way is uppermost and prompts our actions; therefore we do not fear that an honest man or woman would condemn us.

We did not see fit to disturb society by this “camel-hunt” so we left it and literally “took to the woods” and if we succeed society will come to us; if we fail, we will harm no one, for we pay our own bills and leave no refuse for others to clean up.

If Spirit Fruit Home can do even a little to give freedom to womanhood and help to bring about conditions where children will have a right to be born well and be surrounded by parents who dwell together because they love and not because public opinion compels them, thus keeping their placid minds free from the influence of hatred and discord; if we can secure for woman protection from the brute who is created by false society, who overpowers her in the street as well as to protect her from the man who contracts for her for his rights for his life to subject her to his will and desires regardless of her feelings of attraction or repulsion at the time; if we can help even a little toward this end we are willing to take what comes to us from all sources.35

The rest is silence, at least as far as Secretary Quayle is concerned, for he did not pursue his investigation of the Spirit Fruit Society. July, 1907, found him probing the “blind pigs of the aristocratic suburb” of Lake Forest and threatening to make beer wagons an additional target. Twenty years later, Rev. Quayle was still active as head of the Lake County Law and Order League but had turned his

of 210

attention to defeating a law legalizing boxing and wrestling in Waukegan.36

It appears that the Rev. Quayle did have a representative visit the farm some time in June, but the most that was discovered was that the men occasionally swore and told barroom stories in the presence of the women. As the Chicago Tribune observed, “This is regarded as indicating bad taste, but is not indictable.” Quayle seemed to be stymied: “I think the place ought to be wiped out, but I don’t know just how it can be done. I have talked it over with several people and we’ll keep watch on the community and try to get evidence.” As in Ohio, the state authorities were more cautious. State Attorney Leslie Hanna indicated that there had been no complaints against the colony and that he was not endeavoring to secure evidence. “I should want plenty of evidence,” Hanna added.37

Kate Waters and Buster Knowdell (Courtesy of Robert J. Knowdell) at Ingleside.

The Waukegan newspapers continued to deal generously with Jacob and the Spirit Fruit Society. The Independent of June 21, 1907, provided its readers with a sympathetic account of “the sorrow of Jacob Beilhart’s life,” namely Louema’s “defection.” Wistfully looking to the west (“where lie the fields of Kansas”), Jacob “hopes for the coming of the woman who could not believe as he does.” Explaining to the reporter that the two children “grew to be the bar to our attunement” because Louema could not accept that they were the property of the colonists (“She used to

of 210

take the children, lock herself in the room with them, fondle them, cry over them, play with them for hours.”), Jacob recalled how he finally decided that Louema was unfit to live the communal life and told her to go. “Since then there has been a pain in my heart.”

Mary Beilhart, Buster and Evelyn Gladys, and friend, at Ingleside. Photo courtesy of Robert J. Knowdell

Correctly noting that the Beilharts were still legally married, the reporter got a few other facts skewed, having Louema “keeping house for her brother at some point in Kansas, on a great ranch.” Observing that Jacob’s favorite at the Wooster Lake colony was Virginia Moore, the reporter then dipped his quill in saccarhine and wrote “However, Beilhart listens for the tread that may never come nearer to him in life, and mourns for the gentle voice that said ‘yes’ to his boyish love back in Ohio where he dreamed his plan of bettering the human kind.” It is difficult to know how much of this misleading concoction is due to deceit - deliberate or inadvertent - on Jacob’s part and how much due to the reporter’s ignorance and carelessness; but there is ample evidence by Jacob’s own testimony to suggest that the version provided here was patently self-serving. 38

A few weeks later, Jacob gave vent to his feelings about marriage, in a lengthy letter solicited by the Waukegan Sun. Discursive to the point of irrelevance, didactic, inconsistent, and in places clumsy to the point of unintelligibility, Jacob’s letter is not particularly well written and contains few ideas he had not already expressed more clearly elsewhere. “A good government ... is one where there are few demands made, and these demands must always be in harmony with nature, and then the demands must be enforced.” “Everything travels along the path of least resistance. Man is no exception to this rule.” “Under some environments the pressure for selfishness and self gratification predominates, and

of 210

in this case the pressure of his environment should be on the side of his higher ideals so he will more readily live up to them.” Laws are necessary because not all men are at the same stage of spiritual evolution. Monogamy is the natural expression of people at a certain (presumably lower) state of evolution, consistent with the dividing of property and excluding others from that which we desire most; polygamy is the same in principal, but gives man possession, instead, of several women as his personal property. “Sex is the fountain of all life and the law of like begetting like is an established fact. The stream cannot flow higher than its source.” Religion and superstition have prevent rational thinking about sex and are ultimately responsible for prostitution, crime, and related ills.

Making brief pitches for eugenics and sex education, Jacob then explained that he had decided he could best serve his fellowmen by working out “the problem” on a miniature scale. To conduct his experiment, he thought it best to get away from “society and her possessions” so that he would not in any way influence her or be influenced by her. The result was the Spirit Fruit home.

Reverting to the subject of marriage, “Marriage is no more sacred than birth or any other thing which comes up in one’s life.”

The only God who sanctions the mating of two persons is the Law of Love that attracts them and makes them feel they can be happy only in each other’s company. If nature’s laws are violated and this attraction no long holds them, then there is no God that binds them, and any offspring created without this attraction is unnatural. The act is prostitution of that which is highest in woman, and the offspring is greatly wronged by its parents, and but few under such conditions can possibly be good citizens or care for the welfare of their fellows.

Jesus Christ is referred to only obliquely: “As I look over the history of the world I see that nature defied law and custom when she desired to bring forth a man who was to move the world along. At least there are many all along the line, who, if not immaculately conceived, at least had no legal father.”

Jacob does expand here upon his belief that marriage laws serve a useful purpose: “Slaves by nature cannot be benefitted by being given liberty. Liberty must be grown into and not bequeathed to one by a person or a state. Those who will not or cannot control their own natures must be controlled by others. Those who will not do their duty but force it upon others must be compelled by outside force of some kind to support themselves and the result of their actions.” “Let the marriage laws govern those who cannot govern themselves ... While people can not be honest and do right because it is right, they must be restrained by law, but society should see to it that a thing is right before it is enforced.”

How can society or state afford to pay the price nature exacts for men and women being forced to live together and bringing forth unwanted children whose parents have no love or attraction for each other? Jacob’s answer includes the

of 210

familiar themes of mastering one’s desires, eradication of selfishness and hypocrisy, loving one another, non-resistance and acceptance of whatever happens.39

This turgid epistle seems to have satisfied the newspaper; at least they published no more literary contributions from Jacob. A month later, however, the Sun did publish a photoessay on the Spirit Fruit Colony - “Sights and Scenes at Wooster Lake: Snap Shots at Life as Lived in a Spirit Fruit Colony. Beilhart at Home.” In addition to the inevitable though nonetheless charming portrait of baby Evelyn Gladys - “Abala” as she was nicknamed, from her childish attempts at pronouncing “Evelyn,” - and a view of “Spirit Fruit Castle,” there are several more interesting photographs, including a view of the “Colony at Dinner (unfortunately only Jacob, Nihal Singh, and Mrs. Young are identifiable), a remarkable photograph of Virginia Moore operating the printing press, an imposing portrait of her mother, “Mrs. B.S. Young,” a view of two men “Making Cement Blocks,” and a picture of “Saint Sing[h]” watching Jacob lean on a shovel. The brief accompanying text provides nothing new in the way of information about the Society, though it is interesting in that it mentions “The substitution of perfect knowledge of the sex relations for ignorance and its accompanying vices,” a point not explicitly made in Jacob’s earlier writings. The article also mentions that “Beilhart has made himself solid with the neighboring farmers and such is the peace and respectability of his colony, accused of free love though it sometimes is, that county officials and reformers never penetrate its precincts. Visitors come to scoff and remain to admire.”40 All in all, Jacob was having a much easier time with the local press than he did when the Society was in Lisbon and Chicago.

In December, 1907, there was a brief flurry of unfavorable publicity when Belle Norris left the Ingleside colony precipitately. As the Chicago Tribune put it, “The attraction of spirit fruit, free love, and the mystical philosophy of Jacob Beilhart proved less powerful for Miss Belle Norris than the importunities of a young Chicago art student.” Frank C. Pease, “a dashing young soldier” who had served in the Philippines and was currently taking courses at the Art Institute of Chicago, visited the Society at Ingleside for about a week. A week, apparently was more than enough, for Pease declared that “It would drive an ordinary man insane to live a year with that man Beilhart and his everlasting metaphysical, philosophical, abstruse, absurd tommyrot.” He considered it the best act of his career “to have rescued that beautiful girl from that bunch of dreamers.”41

Alas, while Belle reportedly renounced the teachings of Beilhart and “embraced the doctrine of materialism, in which Pease is a believer,” this altogether splendid young couple soon parted. Belle went to New York to be reconciled with her family, and Frank Pease dropped out of the Art Institute and moved to Washington, D.C., c/o General Delivery. “She is not in love with me,” he wistfully told the newspaper, though it is not entirely certain that that is why he moved to Washington, D.C., and only confuses the question of precisely why Belle Norris, “the ‘Flower’ of the Spirit Fruit Cult” finally fled the shores of Wooster

of 210

Lake. As with the beautiful “Blessed” Herbeson, Belle Norris disappears completely, and at this point we can only wonder what became of these two remarkable young women.42

With the departure of Belle Norris, “The mantle of ‘Flower’ of the spirit fruit colony, which was worn by Virginia Moore before Belle Norris grew out of girlhood into a fascinating woman, has fallen back upon Miss Moore.” Whether Jacob, either consciously or unconsciously, did favor Belle or “Blessed” Herbeson over Virginia is an interesting question with important ramifications, but a question that must remain unanswered.43

Total population of the Ingleside Spirit Fruit colony at this time is given as thirteen - five women, six men, and two “love children.” The women would be Mary Beilhart, Virginia Moore, Charlena J. Young, Emily Leonhardt, Kate Waters; the men included Jacob, Eugene Clarke, David Stanforth, Edward Knowdell, Baltzer Young, and probably B. Frank Lewis, Charlena Young’s brother. There is some question as to when Frank Lewis joined the colony, though he is was definitely living there in l910.

In addition to the daily routine of operating a large farm, the Society continued to host numerous visitors and friends from both the Chicago area and further. Among the notables, Clarence Darrow was a frequent visitor and would dandle young Buster Knowdell on his knee during the evening gatherings. It is possible even that Emma Goldman visited Wooster Lake. Although membership in the Society did not increase, the spacious Spirit Fruit House allowed for extended summer visits, and the old farmhouse was occasionally rented to Chicago friends.45

While the Ingleside colony was experiencing what would prove to be, in retrospect, its happiest days, its sister colony at Wellesley, Massachusetts, was continuing to draw attention. The voluble Frederick Reed, not content merely to practice what Jacob preached, seemed bent on preaching a little himself. “We believe in the omnipotence, the omnipresence and the omniscience of God,” said Reed to the Boston Post. “My neighbor, who is a carpenter, leads the material life. Professor Royce and Professor Palmer of Harvard, and many other great leaders in thought and scholarly attainments, live upon the intellectual plane. I and others who come to Overbrook live within the manifestations of the spiritual plane. That is, we have no will except through the spirit. We are absolutely illogical, irrational, fanatical. We admit our iconoclasm.” Less circumspect than those Jacob would have used, these words certainly reflect a more aristocratic attitude than Jacob’s. Comfortable in the fact that he was one of the elect, Reed proclaimed that “The public cannot understand us and consequently they resort to abuse.”

Overbrook, too, had its “priestess,” in the form of “the wealthy and beautiful young woman,” Caroline B. Norwell [sic], who left “all the luxuries of a wealthy home,” in the face of bitter denunciations by her prominent Bostonian family, to join the Overbrook colony. Attempts to identify Caroline as the daughter of Henry Norwell, of Shephard, Norwell, & Co., a Boston dry goods firm, have been

of 210

unsuccessful, as have efforts to learn anything about the antecedents of Carol B. Noel. Becoming “deeply interested in the philosophy of Emerson and Browning, the teachings of whom, together with those of Jacob Beilhart, are consistent with the life enjoined upon members of the new cult,” Caroline became a frequent visitor at Overbrook, became convinced that it represented the ideal living, and finally chose to become a permanent resident, against the opposition of her family.46

The life Caroline found at Overbrook was truly a curious mix of the plebeian and the patrician. “One of the strangest features of the cult is the disregard of its adherents concerning material things.” As at Ingleside, funds came from a common pot: “At Overbrook there is a drawer in the sideboard of the dining room named the ‘Widow’s Cruse,’ which is serenely held to be the self-accumulating repository for all the funds that may be necessary for the expenses of the society. Each member of the cult holds the sublime belief that funds when needed will always be found here, and yet Mr. Reed ingeniously [ingenuously?] declares that he neither knows nor takes thought how the money is obtained that usually is to be found in the ‘cruse.’” As an example of the manner in which Spirit provides, Reed cited the previous Sunday’s dinner. When Mrs. Reed’s parents came to visit from Waterbury, Connecticut, the spirit moved them to bring along a chicken, which providentially sufficed for dinner. “Singularly enough,” the Boston Post noted, notwithstanding that the adherents of the cult profess to give no thought to sordid wealth, Overbrook, both within and without, seems to lack nothing that wealth can procure to add to its beauty and luxury.” To drive hone its point, the Post noted that throughout the residence “the polished oaken floors are spread with costly rugs and tapestries. Each modern convenience that adds to comfort and convenience has been provided. Massive tables littered with the magazines of the day, cushioned easy chairs, fantastic couches, beautiful pictures, every article of costly furnishing that denotes taste, culture, and wealth.” In short, there was not much left for Spirit to provide.

Reed, “the wealthy classmate of a Governor and a President [Governor and later Ambassador Curtis Guild, President Theodore Roosevelt],” seemed happy in emulating Jacob, rising at 5:30 in the morning to milk the cows and feed the chickens before the morning meal. “Then until nightfall he spends his time in the pine groves that cover his property, felling trees and cutting them into firewood.”

Although Jacob reportedly visited the new colony “whenever the spirit manifestations move him to do so” and was then received with the most profound and flattering hospitality, it is not known how often such visits (ere. Deeply involved in construction of the Ingleside home, Jacob could not have made frequent trips to Wellesley, and Reed remained his own master. By 1907, a lengthy account of the Overbrook Settlement quotes Reed extensively but makes no mention whatsoever of Jacob and Spirit Fruit. Described as the founder of the sect, “a man unkempt, unshaven, dressed in ragged homespuns, laboring like a cart horse winter and summer, and enjoying physical comforts which the ordinary

of 210

navvy would scorn,” Reed was apparently happy overseeing the 70 acre estate and the five men and women who comprised the “Overbrook Settlement.” “Winter and summer the inmates labor for the common weal, working at whatever they may turn their hands to in the general good. It is not an easy life, and the rewards look pitifully small from ordinary standards. But these people do not judge by ordinary standards. They have all lived well, travelled widely, and enjoyed the society of intellectual people. And now they are happy and contented in the estate of farm laborers and scullions. It is all in the point of view.”47

The only cloud on the horizon appeared to hover in the vicinity of the spires of nearby Wellesley College where college officials were reportedly concerned about its students being attracted to the Overbrook colony. According to Reed, the college authorities would not even let his own niece visit him. Although Reed eschewed newspaper publicity, he arose from his milking-stool when a Boston Herald reporter pointed out that it must have been Universal Spirit (in the immediate form of his editor) that had prompted him to come asking for information. Culture and refinement breaking through every rent in Reed’s homespuns, according to the Herald reporter, it was clear that he was in deadly earnest as he presented the basics of Jacob’s philosophy, in his own words and essentially as his own.

After abandoning his teaching at the Boston Latin School and establishing the Overbrook Settlement, Reed found that his former friends, among who he included James Russell Lowell, no longer understood him and his wife. “Our friends, visiting us and meeting these people, became estranged from us, until today I do not know of one person of my old social life that counts us in. We are ‘out of it.’ I have felt in my heart that the members of my old university affiliations did not understand what I am doing, and so I have let that life pass, also ... I am now surrounded by people with whom in my old life I would have had nothing to do.”

Reed stressed the omnipresence of God and the passiveness of members of his group, though his ideas seem considerably more fatalistic than Jacob’s. “Man cannot do wrong, in this sense. He cannot get outside the scheme of things. It may be a crime in the eyes of society, but according to the plan it is right. The assassination of President McKinley was regarded at the time as an atrocious crime by millions of people in the United States. Yet it was right in the scheme of things. Czolgolz did not know that, but God did.” Possibly with the intent of shocking his audience further, Reed maintained that if he were prompted to do something that he knew was a crime, he would do it. He hastily added, however, that the likelihood was very small that he should ever have to commit a crime and, in any case, he had not been fitted for crime by ancestry and training. He was also firmly in Jacob’s camp when it came to marriage: “... the present domestic relations are not satisfactory. The movement toward a tentative period, trial marriage, will lead to a readjustment. This is a reasonable deduction. We believe thoroughly in a man and a woman living together until such time as they have solved the problem for which

of 210

they came together. But the fact that they are together today does not entail that they be together tomorrow.”

Reed did not shrink from possible martyrdom. “I know by history that no man ever stepped aside from the beaten path of conservatism who was not crucified, either on the old wooden cross or on the cross of public opinion. We are repeating the experiment ... Of course we are iconoclasts. Jesus was a great iconoclast, and the order which he advocated superseded the one he found on earth. But the people who are stoning us forget all this.”

Although this group of iconoclasts numbered only five, Reed assured the reporter that each year many hundreds visited Overbrook for advice, remaining a week or two at a time. “All are welcome. The place belongs to ‘God.’”

Curiously, in view of his thoughts on marriage, Reed cited the example of “a western man, wealthy and a married man ... living with a mistress. He knew that he was doing wrong. His conscience troubled him, and he wanted to escape from the toils that held him. He came here for help, came and brought his mistress.” While Reed felt that society would have told him to welcome the man but not the mistress, Reed flew in the face of convention and let them both stay at Overbrook. The point he wished to make - that those of his neighbors who would criticize him because he entertained a man and his mistress are unaware that he persuaded the man to leave his mistress and go back to his wife - dwindles into insignificance beside the enormity of the contradiction between his expressed belief about marriage (“If a man and a woman felt that they would be better apart, if they thought that their mission together was ended, I would tell them to do as they felt.”) and his actions in the case he cites. It would be all the more remarkable if, as seems very likely, this “western man” was Irvin Rockwell and his secretary, Lallah Rookh White. Rockwell’s first marriage ended in an amicable separation, and “Rock” eventually married Lallah Rookh. This second marriage proved truly idyllic, and it is disheartening to think that Reed might unwittingly have prolonged the unhappiness of these three people by convincing Rockwell to go back to Dolly and try again. On the other hand, if the “western man” was Herman Kuehn, who spent so much time following Eva Barrett around the Lisbon Spirit Fruit farm in 1904, perhaps Reed’s meddling was to a good end, for Kuehn seems to have abandoned his “affinity” and by 1907 was a paragon of marital fidelity, to judge by his testimony in the sensational Chicago divorce trial of Parker H. Sercombe’s friend, Professor Oscar L. Triggs.48

Regardless of the identity of this “western man,” Frederick Reed obviously enjoyed dispensing advice. Perhaps, since everything that happens is for the best and is pretty much foreordained, he placed no great importance on his role as spiritual advisor; however, from the scant evidence available, one gets the impression that he thought whatever he had to say was very important. If Reed’s ancestry and upbringing made him unfit for crime, it also made him unfamiliar with hard physical labor, and, try though he might, he could develop blisters but

of 210

not calluses. Unquestionably a bit of a poseur, perhaps the most remarkable feature of Frederick Reed’s association with Spirit Fruit is that it lasted as long as it did, fully a decade, during which time he seems sincerely to have tried to emulate Jacob, though according to his own lights.

In March and April of 1908, Jacob ventured back to Chicago to deliver a series of Sunday evening addresses in the Masonic Temple and at the Chicago Anthropological Society. He could not have chosen a more inopportune time to launch his series of lectures. On the morning of March 2, 1908, Harry Averbuch, a recent Russian emigré, three months in the country and barely able to speak English, was shot to death by Chicago police chief George M. Shippy after Averbuch had allegedly attacked him in his home. The official story, which under the circumstances would be difficult to refute, is that Averbuch, upset over the cancellation of Ben Reitxnann’s hobo parade the previous week, attempted to assassinate Shippy, who then killed the youth in self-defense. Averbuch’s sister believed that her brother had been framed, and there naturally was some support for this theory in the radical press. Emma Goldman, scheduled to speak in Chicago on March 6th, believed that the boy was innocent and claimed that, in any case, he was not an anarchist. Jacob’s view, suggested by his remark that “When Chief Shippy shot his imaginary assassin the vigilance of the police force knew no bounds,” may be close to the mark. Whatever the truth in the matter of Averbuch’s death, the net result was to reinforce public sentiment against anarchists. Mayor Busse left matters entirely in the hands of the police, who threatened to revoke the license of any public hall that permitted anarchists to speak. Consequently, “Red Emma” was unable to find a place to speak in Chicago, and her March 9th presentation was cancelled. As for Jacob, when his first meeting, scheduled for the same day, was closed by the police, he went to Assistant Chief Scheuttler, who was in charge of the police crack-down on public speaking. Jacob admitted that at his open meetings sometimes “there were those present who did not agree with the government and things as they are, and some things quite anarchistic were said.” No doubt more concerned with keeping track of Emma Goldman and other political anarchists, Scheuttler, after a few days, gave Jacob permission to speak and to disseminate his pamphlets. Jacob viewed this as an example of “what the proper spirit will do with men, no matter if they are police,” though in part it must have been due to the fact that Emma Goldman, unable to speak publicly, left Chicago after attending Averbuch’s funeral. The seven day’s wonder of the Shippy assassination attempt dropped from the public’s ken almost as quickly as it had arisen, and Jacob was left to deliver his lectures.49 Leading off with a speech on “Nonresistance,” he followed this up with successive talks on “Egomania,” “Obedience,” “Passive Resistance, “Marriage and Divorce,” “Race Survival,” and “Ready for the Social Evil.” Except for listings of his talks in the Sunday Tribune,” however, the press ignored Jacob. If Jacob indeed had hoped to convert the world to his way of thinking, the lack of publicity his Chicago meetings received must have given him pause. There is no evidence as to how well attended his presentations were, but they certainly did not create the public interest stirred by

of 210

his initial appearance four years earlier.

Publication of Spirit Fruit and Spirit’s Voice was continuing, although few copies from this period are known to have survived or to have been reprinted. In September, 1908, Jacob updated and reprinted “Very Personal.” In addition, occasional tracts were produced at Ingleside, such as “Anarchy, Its Cause, and a Suggestion for Its Cure,” which appeared in March, 1908, possibly to serve as a handout during Jacob’s Chicago lectures. Dated March, 1908, “Anarchy” is not among the titles listed for Jacob’s 1908 Chicago lectures, but the topic for the April 26th meeting is not given, very possibly because of the sensitivity of the Chicago police on that subject. At this juncture, “anarchy” was not a word to be bandied, and Jacob used it infrequently, usually only to deny that his teachings were anarchistic. In fact, his philosophy was essentially anarchistic, allowing man to obey his individual urges; but the term had become so charged, politically and socially, that even to present one’s beliefs qualified as “bombless anarchy” was dangerous. In his “Anarchy” pamphlet, Jacob basically makes a plea for non-resistance. By starting with a rather idiosyncratic definition of anarchy (... I do not refer to it in the broadest sense but more particularly to that Anarchy that causes a man - whether he be rich or poor, to defy law and order and set his will or desire against others who may not be doing things to suit him ....Anarchism means to put your interest as a separate self above and against the interest of others.”), Jacob equates it with violence against the established order and is readily able to oppose it. Pointing out the poor examples that government, the wealthy, priests and the clergy, and the legal profession provide for the poor and uneducated, Jacob asks if a government can blame its “children” if they apply the sane principles to their own government when they think it is untrue and acting against their interest. The root of the problem is “ego-mania,” and the cure is non-resistance and a renunciation of selfishness. 50

To say that “Anarchy” is not one of Jacob’s more readable essays is to be kind. It may in fact have been hastily written in order to take advantage of the timeliness of the topic, although it contains no reference to the events surrounding the Shippy affair. The last printed word we have from Jacob is better written and, appropriately, deals with the subject of marriage and divorce. Published within a month of his death, “Marriage and Divorce” appeared in Elbert Hubbard’s The Fra, suggesting that Jacob and “Fra Elbertus” continued their acquaintance well after Jacob’s visit to East Aurora. There is some evidence that Hubbard visited the Spirit Fruit home at Ingleside, as well, on at least one occasion. In Jacob’s brief essay, he tackled no less formidable an opponent than Cardinal Gibbons, who in a recent article with the same title had made the mistake of admitting that “Every law has its occasional inconveniences, and I admit that the law absolutely prohibiting divorce may sometimes appear rigorous and cruel.” Jacob, with the simplicity- and directness that characterized him, asks what is gained by enforcing such a law. Further, “does the granting of a divorce to a person, allowing them to separate from one with whom they no longer enjoy life, make any one worse? Would the refusal

of 210

to grant such a right to separate make any one happier? Would enforced cohabitation and bringing children into the world without the influence of Love, or even attraction, better the world either spiritually, mentally or physically?

Having amply demonstrated his mastery of the rhetorical question, Jacob switches to the imperative, with considerable effect - “Ask your stock breeder, for he knows the law and is not prejudiced by religion. It happened to be to his interest to discover the law, while it is to the religionist’s interest not to discover it. The former would starve to death if he acted on the suggestion of the priest or clergy.” And, as he has indicated earlier in the article, the clergy would starve if it did not keep people in ignorance: “What would the Clergy and Priesthood do if people really found out that they could get close enough to their God to settle all differences between their lower and higher natures, and instead of keeping up a constant warfare between the two, they could establish peace and give both natures a right to express at the proper time, and Law would be fulfilled? I say, what would become of the army of non-producing men who are keeping the people in ignorance of Nature and her Laws, making them believe that they have a wicked, sinful nature constantly with them, and that this nature is evil, and God hates it, and only as they confess their guilt and observe certain rules established by the church can they hope to be saved?”

It was evident to Jacob that the church is simply a business interested in self-perpetuation, and he had his experience at the Battle Creek Sanitarium to prove it. Just as Dr. Kellogg reputedly wanted Jacob to give up faith-healing because the San would go out of business if all of the sick were healed, so did the church have an interest in keeping people ignorant: “By all means keep up enforced child bearing by parents not mated by Nature’s law, for woe is the institution of the church if we give children a chance to be born into the world under natural and perfect conditions, for surely these children will think, and they will love their fellow men, and they will have the audacity to question the things which have been, and even be bold enough to try to make their peace with their own God without hiring somebody specially prepared for that purpose.” For Jacob it was a question of the church on one side and common sense, Nature and man’s evolution on the other. As for Cardinal Gibbons’ remark that the Church has delivered woman and set her on high, Jacob could not take it seriously and concluded his essay with one of his homely analogies: “The church causes evolution in the same way the mother causes her boy to eat jam - by telling him he must not.”51

Jacob made his points forcefully and made them well, but there was little time left for him to spread his gospel, and it is believed that this article is his last published effort. On November 19, 1908, on returning to Ingleside from a business trip to Chicago, Jacob became seriously ill. He had had bouts with severe pain before and probably passed off this attack as simply another trial to be borne. The following morning, however, a doctor was summoned from nearby Gray’s Lake. By Saturday, Dr. J.B. Foley of Waukegan had been called in consultation, and it was decided that Jacob was suffering from appendicitis. An appendectomy on

of 210

Sunday, November 22nd, disclosed that the appendix was normal, by one account; by another, it had ruptured and the infection was widespread and untreatable. Jacob lingered until Tuesday, November 24th, 1908, dying at about 1:15 in the afternoon. The official cause of death is given as peritonitis and pancreatitis. 52

A somewhat colored version of Jacob’s death is given in Jacob Beilhart Wrote And Lived Teachings of Spirit Fruit and Voice: “On the third day of illness he was asked if a physician should be sent for and he answered, ‘Do whatever you wish; I think I have suffered all that is necessary.’ After the physician came, he said that Jacob had suffered intensely and was greatly changed. The next day an operation was begun, but the blackness of the intestines showed that nothing could be done. When told that the doctor said he could not live, Jacob smiled but said nothing. The next morning after the operation he seemed better and had some cheerful words for each one in the Home. During his illness he expressed no faultfinding, complaint, discontent or regrets. 53

Understandably, the members of the Spirit Fruit Society were devastated by Jacob’s death. A simple funeral was held on the morning of November 28th, attended only by a small group of about thirty, members of the Society and friends from Chicago. Evelyn Hastings recalls, “I was only 8 years old when he died and do not remember hearing any discussion about funeral or burial. The funeral was attended by many friends from Chicago but no neighbors as far as I know. The service was composed of eulogies by people close to the group but no music or religious ceremonies.” Among those attending were Irvin Rockwell, Robert Wall, Dr. Bitters, Mrs. Depue, Mrs. Relph, Mrs. Ames, Mrs. Mimsella, and Miss Lillian Herman. Jacob was buried in a metal and glass coffin, in an unmarked grave on a knoll overlooking Wooster Lake. Contacted by an inquiring reporter from the Waukegan Sun following the funeral, Virginia Moore, broke down and was unable to continue the interview, turning the telephone over to Irvin Rockwell, who stated that “Mr. Beilhart has died but has not passed away. There is no sorrow existing at the colony today. We did not weep because of his earthly death but we are wont to believe that he will still lead on his hosts from his higher position which he now holds.” In referring to Jacob’s death and burial, Virginia Moore is quoted elsewhere as saying, “It is nothing but clay now, and it might just as well be put in a hole somewhere. We did not admire the flesh. It was the spirit, the spirit that still lives.

Reaction to Jacob’s death outside the colony was mixed. The Highland Park, Illinois, North Shore Newsletter was glad to learn of his demise, “because it means the death of one of those immortal [sic] cults which have struggled into being under the leadership of certain ‘affinity’ prevents [perverts?], those who seek to abolish the ordinanced law of marriage, substituting in its stead the debasting [sic] anarchistic doctrines of ‘free love.’” The Tribune was remarkably kind and objective: “Jacob Beilhart was an intelligent, hard working man of 42, who all his life had struggled to find a satisfactory scheme of existence. Impatient of the shams of society, he had tried one religion after another till he struck out along a new

of 210

path, the principal guidepost of which was the theory of non-resistance.” Most sympathetic was the Waukegan Sun, which published two editorials on his death. Without contending that Jacob was correct in his theories, the editor “wished to pay tribute to what was a modest, unassuming spirit that had the courage to live out its own convictions in regard to life and living.” Suggesting that the Wooster Lake colony might now dissolve, the editor believed that, even so, “the gentle spirit of Jacob Beilhart, content with little, never complaining, always ready to meet and treat his fellows in fairness and simplicity, will long be remembered in this world.” Continuing, “His directness, his thorough honesty, his incapacity for selfishness or wrong treatment, all these entitle him to a meed of praise in spite of his weird habits of thought. He builded as he thought he knew, and because every man differs in- his estimate of the ideal, none should condemn him.” Having known Jacob for three years, though differing in every point from Beilhart’s opinions and theories, the editor yet felt the need to pay tribute to this man, “who after all loved humankind and did his mite, pitiful though it may be regarded, to elevate the race.” Several days later, a second editorial described Jacob’s beliefs and concluded that “Beilhart was just another dreamer, but he differed in possessing the courage to live his dream and died seeing it, according to his own estimate, a success.”55

There was no question of disbanding the Society following Jacob’s death, as was made clear the day after his death. Initial rumors that “Brother David” Stanforth would lead the Society were denied. Eventually, Virginia Moore was elected president and ex officio treasurer. Irvin Rockwell was chosen as secretary.56

It was also made clear that the Society would continue as it had, “under the direction of Jacob’s spirit.” In fact, the day following Jacob’s death, “Ma” Young announced that she had received a spirit message from him naming Virginia as the new leader. As for rumors that Louema Beilhart would travel from Kansas to claim the Beilhart estate, these seem to have been totally unfounded. In any case, Jacob had no estate, and no will was probated.57

At this point in time, newspaper accounts generally give the number of residents at the colony as nine, apparently including Evelyn Gladys and “Buster.” Those mentioned by name are Virginia Moore, Mary Beilhart, Baltzer and Charlena Young, Emily Leonhardt, Eugene Clarke, Edward Knowdell, David Stanforth. Fred Mann is listed as a “visitor” and not a member of the Society. The Manns, a German family from Detroit, Michigan, where they operated a pickle factory, were particular-friends of Mary Beilhart, and were to keep in touch for years after the Society left Ingleside.

of 210

The barn built at Wooster Lake in 1908, as it appeared shortly before its destruction about ten years ago. (Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren)

One of two strapping sons, Fred Mann, had developed tuberculosis and lived at the Ingleside farm for a year or so, his condition gradually worsening, before moving to Phoenix, Arizona, where he died a few months later. 58

With Jacob’s death, publication of Spirit Fruit and Spirit’s Voice ceased, though life at the farm continued. A large, concrete block barn, erected in the space of five months, between April and August, 1908, was nearly complete when Jacob died, and finishing it undoubtedly occupied the members of the Society for a period. Measuring forty by eighty feet, the barn was as unique in its way as was the Spirit Fruit domicile. A bank barn featuring a red tile gambrel roof and dormer-like extensions over the two doors, the structure was ornamented by stringcourses and quoins of contrasting concrete block.

Financially, the Society must have been in fairly good shape, for the Columbiana County Court of Common Pleas had finally permitted the sale of the Lisbon farm in June, 1908, for $3200. In all probability, part of this money went toward payment of the 141 acre tract purchased by the Society from James B. and Lucinda Brown in April, 1909. Purchase price was $9870, with a $500 down payment, the balance to be paid within five years at 6% interest.59

Spiritually and intellectually, there was some continuity, for upon Jacob’s death Linnie “Ma” Young had immediately assumed the role of amanuensis for Jacob’s spirit. Together, she and her daughter, Virginia Moore, did much to ensure that the small band of believers did not dissipate at this time. Robert J. Knowdell recollects that Mrs. Young “possessed unmistakable clairvoyant capability and immediately assumed the role of ‘the Voice of Jacob,’ presumably from his reincarnate abode... I am not myself thoroughly convinced as to the authenticity of

of 210

what transpired, all I can be certain of is what I actually witnessed. She was a kindly and capable, but poorly educated woman, obviously incapable of consciously performing the feats she accomplished while in a trance. I don’t recall that there was ever a day from 1908 to at least 1925 that she did not sit for a half hour or so, with eyes closed, and write rapidly, without hesitation, in longhand and in the exact style and vernacular in which Jacob spoke and wrote when living!60

In March, 1909, the Society lost another member, with the death of Baltzer Young. Recalled by Robert J. Knowdell as “very old, feeble, and somewhat senile,” Young probably was never an active member of the Society, certainly not as important a member as his wife, who happened to be some twenty years his junior. A brief obituary in the Lake County Independent refers to him as a relative of Jacob, noting that he “filled no particular place at the colony, but was called as one of the family.” According to the Independent, “There will be no funeral services at the colony or no grieving for there they live and die as the birds.” Young’s body was returned to Lisbon for burial.61

Following Baltzer Young’s death, his widow spent some time at Irvin Rockwell’s estate in Bellevue, Idaho, as did Kate Waters. Both are listed as housekeepers there in the 1910 federal census, taken May 7, 1910. “Dolly” Rockwell and the children are not listed, although Lallah Rookh White is.62

Extended visits by Society members to Rockwell’s estate seem to be the only basis for occasional references to a Spirit Fruit colony in the West. As early as 1904, serious thought seems to have been given to moving the Society to Bellevue. At least Herman Kuehn, “the Anarchist, recently converted to Beilhart’s cult” and left in charge of the Chicago branch while Jacob, Rockwell, and Blessed Herbeson visited Lisbon in late May, 1904, had this idea in mind should the authorities force the Society to leave Chicago.63 And as late as 1907, the Waukegan Sun reported that Rockwell was establishing a “House of Spontaneous Love” in magnificent style in the “spirit fruit” castle on mining properties in South Dakota. According to the Sun, Rockwell had come to the aid of the free love followers in South Dakota and taken the leadership of the colony.64 Upon reflection, the Society members wisely decided that farming was more attractive than mining.

Linnie Young and Kate Waters are also listed as “inmates” of the Spirit Fruit Society farm on the Illinois census for 1910. The other members are Virginia, Eugene Clarke, David Stanforth, Ralph Galbreath, Edward Knowdell, B.F. Lewis (Linnie Young’s brother), Emily Leonhardt, Evelyn Gladys Galbreath, and “Buster” Knowdell 65

At some point following Jacob’s death, Virginia Moore and Eugene Clarke became lovers, and by March, 1909, when the Society purchased the Brown property, Clarke had replaced Rockwell as Secretary of the Society. On May 12, 1911, Virginia gave birth to a son at Mercy Hospital in Chicago. A month premature, the baby died a few minutes after birth. The death certificate lists Eugene H. and Virginia Clarke as parents, and it is possible that they had gone to

of 210

Chicago to avoid a repetition of the scandal that had plagued the Society following the births of Evelyn Gladys and “Buster” in Lisbon, Ohio. There is no evidence that the couple ever actually married.

By this time, the members of the Society had determined to sell the Ingleside farm and move to California. The Sunday editions of the Chicago Record- Herald and the Chicago Tribune for January 15, 1911, both carried a small advertisement for a “Beautiful Illinois Farm, 231 acres suitable for stock raising or as a sanitarium site. The description leaves no doubt that this is the Spirit Fruit farm - 32 room house, steel and concrete barns - and the terms - “Best offer gets it - suggest that the members were determined and eager to leave. A very similar advertisement appeared in the County Independent of January 20, 1911, though it is a little more specific - “The main dwelling contains twenty-eight rooms, four bath rooms and closets, laundry, hot and cold water, steam heat, acetyline gas plant. Tile and hardwood floors throughout and complete hard wood finish. The farm also contains an eight room brick cottage with bath room; suitable for summer cottage or manager’s residence. Electric power line installation can be made this year.” Suggested uses were for “gentleman’s summer residence and fancy stock farm” or for “country club with everything the ‘Real Country’ provides.”

The reasons for removal of the Spirit Fruit Society to California remain speculative. R.J. Knowdell conjectures that financial difficulties, but this does not seem to be very likely, for the Society had not only paid off the debt on their original purchase at Wooster Lake before Jacob died but was also able to purchase the adjoining Brown tract of 141 acres in 1909. This additional land was paid for by the time the Society eventually left Illinois in 1914-15, so that financial problems do not seem to have been the cause. Undoubtedly Ingleside continued to harbor sad memories of Jacob’s death, even though the group held daily communication with Jacob’s spirit. The Society’s leader, Virginia Moore gave two reasons for the proposed move: “This northern Illinois climate is not exactly suited to the kind of farming we wish to do, and besides we are badly hit with the western fever. California is to be the favored spot.” She was also certain that Jacob would approve of the projected move 67

As for choosing California in particular, the newspapers of the day were filled with favorable articles describing the state’s “incomparable climate,” “great undeveloped resources,” the “marvelously fertile” soil “capable of producing crops of fabulous dimension,” and the “practically illimitable” acreage. Backing up such claims by the California Development Board, was the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which provided “facts like these”:

Within a radius of five miles in the Sacramento valley I saw every product in the temperate and semi-tropical zones which I could call to mind. Apples and oranges grown side by side, as did the oak and almond trees. There were olives from the south and cherries from the north... A date palm seemed equally at home with an alfalfa meadow. Figs and tokay grapes were

of 210

apparently as much in their element as the fields of wheat and barley, or the rows of Indian corn, some of the stalks of which measured fifteen feet in height.

“To share in these glorious possibilities California invites the world,” and if members of the Spirit Fruit Society did not read this article in the Chicago Tribune, they certainly read similar ones enough to make them “smitten with the western fever.”

Asked if members of the Spirit Fruit farm would divide the proceeds of the sale and go their separate ways, Virginia made it clear that the six men and six women would remain together and continue their method of community life, though a specific spot in California had not yet been selected.69

A disquieting element was the necessity of the Society denying any relationship with the notorious “Church of the Absolute Life,” a Chicago cult founded around 1906 by Evelyn Arthur See and by this time under investigation by the Chicago authorities. See had established a “Junior Commonwealth” of young girls and boys - mostly girls - at his headquarters at 2541 Racine Avenue. His theories a curious blend of perfectionism, race betterment, and eugenics, See was educating or “purifying” neighborhood children, indoctrinating them in the teachings of his “Absolute Life” revelations, with the help of Mrs. Lucille Bridges, who conducted a kindergarten class for the younger members of the Junior Commonwealth. After having undergone eight years of self-purification himself, See expected to purify the children by a slow process, driving anger, jealousy, malice, hatred, envy, and every species of selfishness from the personalities of his students. “As the instruction progresses they will approximate perfect spiritual types. As they grow in years they naturally will be drawn toward each other and will wed. Their progeny will have no evil in them.” At this juncture, only See and Mona Rees had reached the requisite state of perfection. Mrs. Bridges’ daughter, Mildred, seventeen years old, was close behind, however, having undergone a two-year-long period of purification and penance, and was to be the second mother of the new, pure race. Both Mona and Mildred lived with See, and all three admitted what were and generally still are considered improprieties, apparently relying on the text, “To the pure in heart, all things are pure,” a maxim that did not quite excuse their behavior in the eyes of the Chicago police.70

It was not long before See drew the attention of the Chicago authorities. He landed in jail; there then followed a remarkable charade involving the search for a mysterious and, as it turned out, completely imaginary witness. There were enough real witnesses, as well as See’s self-incriminating writings in his manuscript “Book of Truth,” to convict him, and he was sentenced to one to fifteen years in jail for contributing to the-delinquency of a minor. An incredible and fascinating story in itself, the vicissitudes of Evelyn Arthur See and his Church of the Absolute Life cannot be chronicled further here; but his story does touch upon the Spirit Fruit Society in several ways. Most serious is a statement attributed to the Chicago

of 210

Tribune, to the effect that See had been associated with Jacob Beilhart and that the police believed See had “conducted a recruiting agency for his fellow ‘prophet.’” The charge was branded as untrue by the Lake County Independent, as it no doubt was, although the Chicago police do appear to have suspected a connection.71

On the other hand, it is virtually certain that Jacob knew See personally and was familiar with his beliefs. Although there is no reason to believe that Jacob agreed with all aspects of See’s philosophy, there were basic ideas that the two men held in common, such as race improvement through selection - See simply seems to have been more eager to put such theories into practice. See’s wife, the former Mrs. Agnes Chester, who by this time was taking legal action against him, was the Christian Scientist involved in the 1896 Kalamazoo, Michigan, trial at which C.W. Post had testified, and it may be that Jacob knew her from his Christian Science days in Battle Creek. It is evident from testimony at Mrs. Chester’s trial that she was well known in Battle Creek and may even have been involved in Post’s “healing,” so that it is very likely that Jacob, too, knew her at that time. Furthermore, during her separation from See, Agnes Chester See stayed with a Mrs. Florence Lawrence, who also happened to be estranged from her husband. Mrs. Lawrence, it develops, was a leader in a new cult, along with her sister, Mrs. Densie Herendeen, presumably the same Derisie Herendeen who had visited the Spirit Fruit farm in Lisbon in 1904. The “Happiness Circle,” as the Lawrence-Herendeen “cult” was called, believed in “absent treatment,” by which it was possible for deserted wives to win back their husbands’ affections. Mrs. See left her husband when the “spirit” ordered him “to carry on certain relations with his girl and women followers that his wife called improper,” and it does not seem probable that she particularly wanted to win back her husband’s affection; but, in any case, the “Happiness Circle” was unalterably opposed to the Church of Absolute Life, and Densie Herendeen proved to be a very willing witness for the prosecution in Evelyn See’s trial. Mrs. See herself proved a remarkably effective agent in convicting her husband when, armed with a restraining order, she hired a safe-cracker, went to the Absolute Life “temple,” and confiscated enough of her husband’s writings to make See’s conviction a near certainty.72

In May, 1911, while See was being tried for “kidnapping” one of his youthful members, the Lake County Independent suggested that the See cult might purchase the Spirit Fruit farm. “Is another cult coming?,” the newspaper blithely asked its readers. The basis for this surmise was a statement by See’s lawyers to the effect that while there were as yet no definite plans for See to locate at either Wooster Lake or at Zion City, “the time was not far distant when they would consider a proposition of purchasing the Spirit Fruit farm and locating there.” Of course, by this time, the Spirit Fruit Society had already entered into an agreement to sell the two farm tracts to a Charles R. Carpenter of Racine, Wisconsin. The indenture, made April 11, 1911, lists all twelve members of the Spirit Fruit Society: Virginia Moore, Mary Beilhart, Emily Leonhardt, David B. Stanforth, Eugene H. Clarke, Edward J. Knowdell, Linnie J. Young, Kate Waters, Ralph Galbreath, Lallah

of 210

Rookh White, Irvin

E. Rockwell, and Richard Fischer. Of particular interest is the fact that Kate Waters and Lallah Rookh White’s statement was notarized in Blame County, Idaho, suggesting that they were still living at the Rockwell estate. Irvin Rockwell’s statement was notarized in Lake County, Illinois, but that of Mary Rockwell was notarized in Cook County, indicating that the Rockwells, though still married, were probably still living separately. As for Richard and Mary Fischer, this deed remains the only document associating then with the Spirit Fruit Society. Robert Knowdell refers to Fischer as “R.M. Richards of Sweetheart Soap Co.,” a frequent visitor and financial supporter of the Spirit Fruit Society, but this deed record suggests Fischer was, for at least a brief time, a full-fledged member of the Society.74

Some sort of difficulty in carrying out the sale of the Ingleside farm ensued - most likely Carpenter was unable to raise all of the purchase money - and the indentures made in 1911 were not actually filed until June, 1913, when Carpenter bought only the first tract, the 90 acres containing the house and farm buildings. A year later, the Society sold the second tract, of 141 acres, to two local men, William Wilmington and John W. Hart, of Lake County, Illinois, though the purchase price is not given.75

Members of the Reed colony at Wellesley, Massachusetts, were also eager to move to California. In late 1912, Reed announced that he, his wife, “and a few faithful followers” would leave for California, where they would be joined by the “Beilhart faction of the ‘Spirit Fruit’ believers, who are forsaking their headquarters in Ingleside ... to assist in the establishment of the new centre.” No particular location in California had been selected, but Reed was certain it would be California: “I need to get into the wilds where I can achieve things out of doors, and California is the place I have selected for the purpose. That State is rapidly becoming a centre for modern faiths and cults and I believe in time it will be the centre of the world for true thought and religious belief.” Reed’s ego seems to have gotten the upper hand while he was being interviewed, and members of the Ingleside colony surely would have been surprised to read that “Upon the death of Jacob Beilhart ... Reed became the leader of the cult. He made frequent visits to Ingleside and has been in constant touch with his followers there.”76 As matters transpired, only Frederick and Rachel Reed, along with Carol Noel, would move to California.

With the sale of the Ingleside property, the surviving members of the Spirit Fruit Society prepared for the move. Only essentials were taken, the rest of the Society’s possessions, including the farm animals and the printing press, being sold at auction. Loading their remaining possessions into a railroad car, the Society members bid good-bye to Wooster Lake, surely with mixed feelings of sadness and anticipation, and started for their new home in California.77

of 210

NOTES 1. Lisbon Buckeye State, November 3, 1904; East Palestine Reveille-Echo,

October 6, 1904.

2. This description would place the site near Joliet, Illinois, though there is no other indication that Jacob planned to settle in that area. Another brief reference suggests that he may have considered buying property in the vicinity of Wheaton, Illinois. Although very likely coincidence, “Blessed” Herbeson and her mother were living only a few miles from Wheaton, in nearby Glen Ellyn, Illinois, in 1910.

3. Lisbon Buckeye State, December 1, 1904.

4. Ibid., December 22, 1904.

5. Libertyville Lake County Independent, December 23, 1904.

6. Regrettably, this case has been missing from the files of the Columbiana County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas since before June, 1977, when I originally checked for it. The records have since been microfilmed and the originals destroyed, so that even if the case file was simply misfiled there is no possibility of its being found and refiled correctly. According to the Appearance Docket, Louima’s petition for alimony was filed December 15, 1904. Jacob was served with a summons on the same day and filed an answer on January 2, 1905.

7. Quoted in the Salem Republican-Era, December 22, 1904. There are no known extant issues of the Lisbon Ohio Patriot for this period.

8. Ibid, March 23, 1905. Columbiana Co., Ohio, Circuit Court Journal 43: 433. See also, Lake County Independent, October 27, 1905. Grant (The Old Northwest 9(1): 30) incorrectly states that Jacob and “Loeuma” were divorced.

9. Waukegan Daily Sun, December 17 and 19, 1904.

10. Ibid. December 28, 1904.

11. Cleveland Leader, June 20, 1905. Lake Co., Illinois, Deed Records, No. 111263, filed March 30, 1907. See also Jacob’s “Additional Account,” reprinted in Jacob Beilhart: Life and Teachings, p. 93-122, hereafter cited as “Additional Account.”

12. Lisbon Buckeye State, January 26, 1905.

13. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren, November, 1973. See also, “Additional Account,” p. 103-104.

14. Spirit Fruit 7(3): 1. A copy of this issue and that of Vol. 7, no. 9 (July, 1906) are preserved in the William A. Hinds Collection, George Arents Library, Syracuse University.

of 210

15. Waukegan Daily Sun, May 26, 1905.

16. Ibid.


18. Lisbon Buckeye State, June 22, 1905; East Palestine Reveille-Echo, June 29, 1905.

19. Waukegan Daily Sun, October 11, 1905.

20. Ibid., March 23, 1906. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, May 8, 1979.

21. Ibid., June 20, 1906.


23. Jacob Beilhart, letter to Wm. A. Hinds, March 14, 1907. I have quoted from a copy of the original kindly sent me by Mark F. Weimer, Syracuse University, rather than the edited version published by Hinds.

24. William A. Hinds, American Communities and Cooperative Colonies (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1908), p. 556-562; typescript letter to Jacob Beilhart, March 18, 1907. Hinds Collection, Syracuse University.

25. Lake County Independent and Waukegan Weekly Sun, April 5 1907.

26. Ibid. May 24, 1907.

27. Ibid., June 7, 1907.

28. Ibid., June 27, 1907.

29. Ibid. June 7, 1907.

30. Ibid. June 14, 1907; St. Nihal Singh, 1909, “American Newspaper: Its Secret Methods,” Living Age 260: 720-725, 799-804.

31. Lake County Independent and Weekly Sun June 14, 1907.

32. Ibid. June 21, 1907.


34. Waukegan Sun, June 20, 1907; Lake County Independent June 21, 1907.

35. Waukegan Sun, June 25, 1907; reprinted in Lake County Independent June 28, 1907.

36. Waukegan Sun, July 15, 1907, and March 21, 1927.


38. Lake County Independent, June 21, 1907.

39. Waukegan Sun, July 9, 1907.

40. Waukegan Sun, August 17, 1907.

of 210

41. Chicago Tribune, December 5, 1907. The story also appeared in the Kenosha Evening News and the Lisbon Buckeye State.

42. Mary Mclsaac, Archivist, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, letter to author, February 17, 1987, indicates that Pease was enrolled and studied figure drawing at the Institute during December, 1907.

43. Lisbon Buckeye State, December 12, 1907.

44. 1910 U.S. Federal Population Schedule, Grant Township, Lake Co., Illinois, p. 249. Emily Leonhardt (1852-1939) was a German emigrant who learned of Jacob while operating an embroidery store in Charleston, South Carolina (1900 U.S. Federal Census, Charleston, S.C., E.D. 82, Sheet l2B, Prudence A. Finn, Charleston County Library, letter to author, November 5, 1986). Although Leroy Henry cites Emily as having lived at “the Home for two years,” (Jacob Beilhart:, Life and Teachings, p. 13) Emily’s association with Spirit Fruit was much longer-lived, for she continued with the colony in California.

45. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, October 23, 1978. Same, to Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren, November 11, 1973, recalling “a constant flow of visitors” at Ingleside.

46. Boston Post, February 4, 1906. When Frederick Reed quit his job at the Boston Latin School, he briefly worked as a clerk in a local dry goods store, very possibly that of Shepherd, Norwell, & Co., though attempts to identify a Caroline B. Norwell have been unsuccessful.

47. Ibid.

48. Boston Herald, June 27, 1907. On Rockwell, see H. Roger Grant, “An Idahoan Experiences Utopia: Irvin E. Rockwell and the Spirit Fruit Society,” Idaho Yesterdays, 29(1): 24-25.

49. “Very Personal,” p. 46-48. The attack on Chief Shippy is described in a Chicago Tribune “extra” edition of March 3, 1908.

50. Jacob Beilhart, Anarchy, Its Cause, and a Suggestion for Its Cure [S.l.: s.n., 1908)

51. Jacob Beilhart, “Marriage and Divorce,” The Fra, October, 1908, p. 13-14.

52. Chicago Tribune, November 25, 1908; Lake County Independent, November 27, 1908; Waukegan Sun, November 24, 1908. Lake Co., Illinois, Clerk’s Office, Death Record. Curiously, the death record, for Jacob Beilheart, gives the date of death as the 23rd. The time of death agrees with newspaper accounts, although Grant (“A Gentle Utopia,” p. 61, and “The Spirit Fruit Society: A Perfectionist Utopia in the Old Northwest, 1899-1915, p. 33) repeatedly places it in the morning of the 24th. Grant’s version also differs from contemporary reports in having Jacob go by train

of 210

to Waukegan for medical attention and surgery.

53. Jacob Beilhart Who Wrote And Lived the Teachings of Spirit Fruit and Voice [S.l.: s.n., n.d.]

54. Evelyn Hastings, letter to Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren, July 24, 1978. Pat Best, Waukegan, Illinois, letter to author, July 17, 1978. Notes in possession of Mr. and Mrs. Bowgren. Waukegan Sun, November 28, 1908. Except for Rockwell and Wall, most of these people remain unidentified. Dr. Bitters is possibly Henry G. Bitters, a Chicago druggist. November 24, 25, 27, 28, and 30, 1908. November 25, 1908. See also Leetonia, November 27, 1908, Lisbon, Ohio, and Battle Creek, Michigan, Journal,

55. Waukegan Sun, November 24, 25, 27, 28, and 30, 1908. Chicago Tribune, November 25, 1908. See also Leetonia,Ohio, Reporter, Buckeye State, and Battle Creek, Michigan, Journal November 26, 1908.

56. Chicago Tribune, December 1, 1908. Buckeye State, December 3, 1908. Lisbon, Ohio,

57. Chicago Record-Herald, January 15, 1911. County Independent, January 20, 1911. Lake

58. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, March, 1980.

59. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to Mr. and Mrs. Burton Bowgren, November, 1973. Columbiana Co., Ohio, Deed Records, No. 27886. Alliance, Ohio, Review, June 30, 1908. The purchaser was Robert W. Lange, of Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania, a retired merchant. Lake Co., Illinois, Deed Records, Doc. No. 121732, filed April 1, 1909.

60. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren, August 12, 1978.

61. Lake County Independent, March 12, 1909. Lisbon, Ohio, Buckeye State, March 19, 1909. According to the Buckeye State obituary, the Youngs had moved to Ingleside only two years previously.

62. U.S. Federal Census, 1910, Blain Co., Montana, Broadford Precinct, E.D. 61, Sheet 11A.

63. Chicago Evening American, May 30, 1904.

64. Waukegan Daily Sun, June 12, 1907.

65. U.S. Federal Census, 1910, Lake Co., Illinois, Grant Township, p. 250.

66. Death Certificate, City of Chicago, No. 12850.

67. Lake County Independent, January 20, 1911.

68. Chicago Tribune, “California Now Land of Promise,” January 20, 1911.

69. Lake County Independent, January 20, 1911.

of 210

70. Chicago Daily Tribune, January 6-14, 1911.

71. Chicago Daily Journal, January 7, 1911. Lake County Independent, January 7 and 20, 1911. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 21, 1911.

72. Lake County Independent, February 3, 1911. See also Cook Co., Illinois, Circuit Court, Chancery Case File No. 304461.

73. Ibid., -May 19, 1911. See’s trial and tribulations are chronicled in the Chicago newspapers of the day. See particularly the Chicago Record-Herald for January 7-9, 11-14, 31, February 2, 4-5, March 18, April 2, May 12, June 19-24, 26-30, July 6-16, November 10, and December 31, 1911.

74. Lake Co., Illinois, Deed Records, Doc. Nos. 147733, 147734, and 147735, filed June 11, 1913. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowqren, November, 1973. Richard Fischer emigrated from Germany in 1885, at the age of twenty, married a Texas girl, and moved his family to Boston shortly before the turn of the century. The Fischers may have learned of Spirit Fruit through Frederick and Rachel Reed. Richard Fischer is listed as a “commercial traveller” in Springfield, Massachusetts, directories from 1908 through 1913, and is listed as a travelling salesman. 1910 Federal Census, Hampden Co., Massachusetts, E.D. 645, Sheet l3A.

75. Ibid., Doc. No. 153985, filed June 30, 1914.

76. Boston Post, November 22, 1912.

77. The few details available regarding preparation for the move to California are provided by Robert Knowdell in an annotated copy of his March, 1980, letter to me later provided H. Roger Grant. See Grant, “A Gentle Utopia...” The Pacific Historian 30(3): 62, 69.

of 210

CHAPTER IX

HILLTOP Sixty-five years after the fact, Robert J. Knowdell vividly recalls the

remarkable contrast provided by the snows of a midwestern winter, the cross-country train trip climaxed by the ascent of the Sierra Nevada, tunnel-like snowsheds and thirty foot snowdrifts and, then, the sudden encounter with the sunshine and verdure of the Sacramento Valley.1 During the winter of 1914-15, while the other members of the Society accomplished the move from Ingleside to California, Mary Beilhart and her two children revisited Ohio. There, considerable time was spent at the home of Mary’s brother John Michael, who had sold the family farm and moved to Leetonia shortly after the death of his first wife.2 By 1914, brother Noah Beilharz was married, well established in Chautauqua work, and living in Chicago. Noah spent a few days visiting with Jonas and Michael in April, 1914, but it does not appear that he and Mary met. His wife, however, visited Leetonia in December, at which time Mary and the children were surely there.3 Besides Jonas and Michael, the only other immediate relative remaining in the area was sister Susannah, wife of Frank Esterly, of Columbiana.4 Although the columns of the Leetonia Reporter contain numerous references to various Beilhart family activities during this period, Mary’s three month visit went completely unmentioned, possibly because of the family’s sensitivity about the lingering notoriety of the Spirit Fruit Society and the illegitimacy of “Buster” and Evelyn. Such reticence was perhaps just as well, for a month or so after Mary and the children left for California, in February, 1915, the Reporter gave Percy A. George, founder of the “Kingdom of God” in nearby Alliance, Ohio, this headline: “High Priest of Free Love Cult Goes Free; No Evidence of Any Crime Could Be Obtained,” indicating that “free love cults” still provided good copy in Leetonia. 5

During the three month visit to Leetonia, while young Buster Knowdell was marveling at the wonders of Uncle Mike’s harness shop, a “balky little Metz friction-drive runabout,” and the spectacle of Cherry Valley Furnace, one of Leetonia’s two, peripatetic iron furnaces, which had just gone into blast again across the hollow, the remnants of the Spirit Fruit Society were attempting to adjust to southern California. 6 Initially, the group settled in Los Gatos, on the east slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains, where they leased an olive pickling and canning plant that had closed down the previous season. Replete with kitchen, mess hall, and farm laborers’ cabins, the Los Gatos site provided shelter and employment for the members while Ralph Galbreath and Frederick Reed scoured the countryside for a more suitable, permanent home for the Society. In the mean time, Society members picked, packed, and pickled upwards of 200 gallons of ripe olives, which they continued to enjoy for the next four years.

of 210

Although Ralph Gaibreath possessed considerable mechanical skills and agricultural knowledge, the remaining Spirit Fruit men in general were ill-equipped to select a suitable farm site. Their ultimate choice provided a spectacular view of Monterey Bay and the Pacific but left much to be desired in other respects. Edwin Knowdell’s son describes the property thus: “80 acres of worn out pasture land isolated on a hilltop not even accessible by any kind of established roadway, just a 1/4 mile of rutty wagon tracks up a ravine which circled the hill and approached it from the far side of where the lane from the county road ended. Aside from the fences which surrounded it, not a stick of improvements of any kind, not even a source-of water!”

Hilltop Ranch, as it became known, consisted of 79.65 acres of poor, shallow soil located approximately three-fourths of a mile north of the City of Soquel, Santa Cruz County, California. The tract was purchased by the Society from Hugh McWhinney, March 25, 1915, being “the unsold portion of the ‘Sub-division of the Dakan Ranch.’” The agreement specified a purchase price of $100 per acre, $7965, to be payable within five years.7

According to Robert J. Knowdell’s recollections, “Once the Hilltop property was secured, the menfolk gathered tools, clothing, mattresses and bedding and took all on the train to Capitola, where they hired a drayman to deliver them and their cargo to the site. Next, Teddy [the Society’s workhorse] was bought (with harness), and construction of the water sled achieved with the oak cask they had brought from the cannery, having previously arranged to get water from the friendly Taylors [neighbors]. Material for construction of the dining tent had been bought and ordered delivered to the site, and they literally camped out, sleeping on mattresses on the ground in a somewhat sheltered circle of redwood trees until the tent was habitable. Then several of the women came to relieve the men of the cooking and household chores as well as to assist with construction. From then on ... the tent complex took shape rapidly. Next, of course, came the kitchen tent, and then as soon as a bedroom tent was completed it was occupied, providing more hands to share the tasks that lay ahead.” By the time Mary and the children rejoined the Society in California, all of the members had moved to Hilltop from Los Gatos. In an extended passage, Robert Knowdell describes his introduction to Hilltop Ranch:

After an overnight stop at San Francisco to change from the Santa Fe to the Southern Pacific railroads, we arrived at the Capitola depot about noon. Capitola at that time was a quaint tourist town with a permanent population of about 500 (15,000 would more aptly describe it now!), situated around a beautiful swimming beach on the western shore of Monterey Bay and about two and one-quarter miles from ... Hilltop Ranch. It was a warm sunny day and in every direction our gaze was met by a profusion of fresh greenery and colorful flowers. We marveled, for the first time, at the many beds and borders of majestic yellow and white Calla Lilies and fragrant Freesias.

of 210

We were met and welcomed by my father, and then as he watched our luggage being loaded on the hand cart from the express car he said he was relieved to see that there were only two large suitcases besides the smaller one my mother kept always in the overhead locker above our seats ... as he thought we could manage everything in one trip on foot. He said that walking was our only choice, since the group’s inventory of conveyances at that time consisted of one very tired and feeble workhorse named Teddy and a wooden dirt sled. (We were soon to learn that the combination was vital to the group’s existence because to the sled was lashed a 50 gallon wooden open-topped olive cask, and Teddy’s daily chore was to drag it down the ravine, amid a cloud of dust, to our nearest neighbors, the Taylor family, who generously gave us a barrel of their hard, rusty well water. And, as I soon discovered the hard way, Teddy was never broken to saddle! He would always be in a lather after reaching the top with what water remained.)

At any rate, my Father took the two large cases, my mother the small one, while my sister and I divided up the blankets, pillows, and heavy over-garments, and our pilgrimage began. We paused many times to puff and gaze at the strange and beautiful countryside which was, over the years, to become so familiar, until sadly, in the last ten years much of it has been built on or paved over! The sun beat down warmly and although it was a revelation to us for that time of year, it did contribute to a degree of discomfort before our journey ended, because we three arrivals were still wearing our heavy winter undergarments commensurate with that season in the eastern and mid-western states. And the last quarter mile from where the lane ended was a switchback footpath of about 25 degree ascent through knee high volunteer oats dotted with open ground squirrel burrows.

Upon arriving at the top of the hill, which [was] comprised of about 12 acres of fairly level pasture land, looking out over the Great Pacific, we were rewarded with a marvelous breathtaking view of almost the entire thirty mile wide Monterey Bay and the land areas meeting its shores. Then, turning landward, we saw the strange and seemingly out-of-place cluster of white tents - nine bedroom units approximately seven by ten feet, in a semicircle. Each equipped with cots, a washstand with washbowl and pitcher, a corner curtained off to hang clothing and of course that then commonly used device for nocturnal convenience normally concealed under the bed. Centrally located was a kitchen tent about ten by fourteen feet, with an ornate Wedgewood wood-burning range, complete with a warming oven above and firebox coils leading to a thirty gallon water tank beside it. A copper topped double tier worktable with bins and drawers beneath ran centrally nearly the full length of the enclosure. There was a set of galvanized washtubs and a hand wringer (which I became well acquainted with) and a large galvanized double sink and drainboard. Clotheslines were to the south of a canvas fly covering a four foot planked passageway connecting a twelve by twenty foot

of 210

dining tent. The dining table was of rough planing, maybe four by sixteen feet, covered with oil cloth. it was surrounded by rough wooden benches with sanded tops treated with linseed oil. There was a moderate-sized sheet-metal trashburner for heat. It and the faithful old kitchen Wedgewood were the only fixed sources of heat. However, there were about six portable Perfection (smelly) circular wick heaters, which could reduce the chill and dampness of a bedroom tent as well as heat a vessel of water for bathing. Needless to say, most retired early, especially during the cold wet months.

Each tent had an elevated rough redwood floor and four foot high sides and above that a flimsy two by two foot wood framework to support the canvas sides and pitched roof. No windows - just a Dutch-type door with a “Celloglass” upper panel to emit [sic] daylight, augmenting that which filtered through the canvas. The natives couldn’t understand how we endured the four severest winter months for two years with such minimal protection and comfort - they knew we had to be crazy! But to us, once climatized, who were accustomed to the severe eastern winters and hot humid summers, it seemed but a trivial inconvenience by comparison.

Our approximately 300 foot elevation above the surrounding countryside made it possible for us to experience many entire winter seasons without the temperature dropping to the frostline, and the summers ranged normally between the 60s and 80s, thus enabling us to raise many subtropical plants and trees. I believe the most trying times during the approximately two years we lived in the tents were the few occasions when the fierce ocean-borne torrential squalls swept in from the Pacific without warning (since there was no radio and we had no phone or newspaper). I recall the worst storm striking in the middle of the night. The wind was gale force and the rain came monsoon-like and practically horizontal. It tore the tie-down ropes that secured the canvas tops from their fastenings, requiring all hands to pitch in (in nightclothes) and hold, or attempt to secure, ropes or torn canvas, mostly in the dark, as I think there were only three lanterns, one of which blew out and refused to be relit. It seemed that in minutes the ground was ankle-deep mud, making it difficult to keep ones footing (some didn’t!) against the wind, which spent itself to a reduced level in about two hours and about daylight, when it appeared we were no longer in danger of losing our entire housing facility, someone built a fire in the dining tent trash burner and we all huddled around it, drenched and chilled to the bone. As circulation became reestablished, we began making sorties to our respective tents in search of dry clothing, much of which was soaked as a result of torn roofs, and some bedding suffered a similar fate. Dry foot wear was similarly scarce. Luckily, the sun mercifully appeared the following afternoon and the process of drying soggy clothing and bedding began. And repair of the structural damage dragged on for the better part of a week. Some top canvas and framework required replacing but luckily the kitchen and dining tents

of 210

survived unscathed!

That experience taught us how vulnerable we were, considering our elevation and the total lack of any windbreak between us and the sea, so an early spring project was to secure several dozen wild eucalyptus seedlings and to plant them about six feet apart around the rim of the hill between our tent site and the sea. That precaution proved a wise investment, as they are fast growing and begin to put out lateral foliage not less than eight feet from the ground, thus preserving our panoramic view of the Bay. So, while they matured to the point of protecting the tents several years too late, they did serve us well by providing a future protection for the permanent buildings and gardens which followed, as well as providing a continuing source of firewood (if split while green), for we found that if several staggered tallest ones were cut about two feet above ground each year, the stumps would immediately resume their ascent skyward. After countless cuttings, that stand of trees still stands today as a landmark which can be spotted from miles around.

Those canvas enclosures were to become our only protection from the elements for most of the two following years, becoming known as “Tent City.” They were gradually vacated and dismantled as our permanent housing slowly took shape. One reason I say slowly is because the only outside help ever hired was drilling of the well. All other structural work was provided by hand by the members, male and female alike. But of course that undertaking was not new to them, considering the Ingleside complex constructed in a like manner, and I’m sure funds were limited, since the completion of many nonessential projects were not completed for some years.

Gradually, the Ranch took shape. A full basement was dug by hand, much of it in sandstone bedrock, for the topsoil was only about a foot and a half thick. An unusual feature in this area, the basement and concrete floor, along with the plain, odd dress of the Society members, would suggest to some Soquel residents during World War I that the Spirit Fruit Society must be a nest of German spies.8 Next, the floor and walls were lined with a hand-mixed mortar, a center beam raised, supported by green redwood posts set in the concrete floor. Floor joists and subfloor were laid and covered with a double layer of heavy tarpaper in order to provide a temporary roof for the basement enclosure, which was then partitioned by sheeting suspended from wires. This created about nine bedroom enclosures, and the trashburner was installed at the bottom of the stairway to offset the dampness of the green concrete floor and walls.

Occupancy of the limited shelter provided by the basement area was limited to the more elderly members; but by the second autumn the framework of the main section of the house, including the roof and exterior sheathing, was completed. Canvas curtains created from the dismantled bedroom tents were used to partition this above ground area, as well, although a few of the tents were left intact for several years and used for storage of farming equipment until outbuildings and a

of 210

barn could be erected. When finished, the central portion of the house included four bedrooms (two at each end) and a spacious kitchen and dining room. By the end of the second winter, nearly all of the members were sleeping in either the basement or the ground floor of the house, and the interior ceilings, walls, partitions, cabinet work, and trim were completed during the following rainy season.

By this time, too, a 160-foot deep well had been drilled in a ravine about eighty feet below the level of the hilltop. This proved to be an ample source of remarkably soft water, far superior to well water available to the Taylors and other neighbors, and the Society was able to return the initial favor by providing the Taylors with drinking water. A pump and a second-hand Fairbanks-Morse engine forced the water through a three inch pipeline up hill to a two-story water tower and 1000 gallon redwood water tank. Because the tank was about 45 feet above ground, it provided a reasonably good gravity flow for the kitchen sink as well as for the laundry trays on the open back porch and tubs and drain in the basement, where a De Laval cream separator, churn, and wooden washing machine were located. As outbuildings for livestock were constructed, the water line was extended to a chicken house, watering trough, and pig wallow. Several years later, a small bathroom was built over the outside stairway to the basement and an old free-standing tub was installed and equipped with a cold water faucet and a drain to the outside flowerbed. At first, hot water was carried in pails from the kitchen range. Eventually, hot water coils in the kitchen range firebox were piped to a thirty-gallon water tank and from there to the kitchen sink, the back porch laundry trays, and the bathtub. Much later, a Sears-Roebuck chemical toilet was placed in the bathroom, but this was generally used only at night or during inclement weather, for the two outdoor privies were less unpleasant to use than the indoor alternative.

After completion of the main section of the house, two wings were added at right angles to either end. Each of these wings contained two bedrooms, on a level two steps below the main portion of the house. Three sides of each room had high, inward - and upward - swinging windows that could be hooked to the ceiling, while the fourth side had a door one step above ground level. An exterior stairway and landing led to a door to the upper floor. The only heating for the building remained, during the twelve years the Society occupied the house, the old Wedgewood kitchen range, with the portable Perfection kerosene heaters used to take the chill off bedrooms during the winter or in tines of illness.

As soon as relative completion of the ranch facilities permitted, a continuing effort was undertaken to make the colony as nearly self-sufficient as possible. A small dairy herd was developed and, as the group had wisely brought along the cream separator, churn, butter molds, and similar equipment from Ingle-side, a ready market was quickly developed for all the butter, milk, cream, buttermilk, and cottage cheese that the Society could supply. Eventually, a Holstein bull (“of questionable pedigree but an excellent reputation” was acquired. Beginning with a dozen White Leghorn hens, the Society bought two used kerosene incubators,

of 210

quickly building up the flock. Mary Beilhart took particular interest in supervising the chickens, and young “Buster,” less enthusiastically became the official “scraper of the roosts and cleaner of the laying nests.” With a laying flock of over one hundred hens, the Society joined the Santa Cruz Egg Producer’s Association and had no difficulty in marketing their total output.

In later years, rabbits were raised on a large scale, for both meat and pelts, reaching a population of more than five hundred. Kale and barley were raised primarily for rabbit food. During the second summer of peak production, however, a record hot spell killed nearly half of the rabbits in a single afternoon, and rabbit husbandry was drastically curtailed. Both cows and goats provided milk as well as meat. Among his varied accomplishments, Dave Stanforth was an experienced apiarist and was lucky enough to capture two wild swarms during the second year of the Hilltop colony; these eventually grew to five swarms and provided enough honey to market. During the course of farming activity at Hilltop, Robert Knowdell believes that the members must have experimented with virtually every type of crop and domestic animal or fowl amenable to the environment - as well as with a few that proved to be unsuitable. Throughout World War I, this included raising white navy beans, since there was a demand for them by the military. Raising them was also considered a patriotic contribution, which perhaps helped offset local suspicions about the Ranch being occupied by German spies. Additional details about the farming are provided in Knowdell’s account:

An essential variety of farm equipment and machinery was gradually acquired and a husky work team to operate them. Maize and sorghum were grown for ensilage, corn, fava beans, soybeans, grains, hay, and kale, as well as alfalfa for stock and chicken feed and also as soil conditioners. A used manure spreader was also purchased. The threshing and hay bailing operations, as in the east, were an annual community effort participated in by surrounding neighbors requiring that service - the equipment and operator were jointly hired while the labor was provided by all involved and the meals (four a day) were provided by the family being served. Peanuts and popcorn we raised were luxury items but in those days the country abounded with wild foodstuffs free for the taking. There were wild nuts and berries, trout and steelhead salmon from local streams and ocean fish could be caught form the cliffs and beaches or the piers at Capitola and Santa Cruz. The beaches abounded with Pismo clams and at low tide abalone and mussels (in season) could be taken from the rocks and wharf trestle pilings. About the only local game available consisted of quail, doves, pheasants, wild pigeons, tree squirrels, cottontail and jack rabbits. In season, we gorged on forest and field mushrooms and snow white puffballs larger than grapefruit, that seemed to appear over night! They dotted the pasturelands and are actually more flavorful than mushrooms, when picked morning fresh. Strangely, the natives hereabouts believed that puffballs were poisonous and watched in horror for us to sicken and die ... But we had no need to worry, as Ralph’s botanical

of 210

knowledge enabled him to distinguish safe varieties, just as he had always done back east, where there was a much wider variety to choose from. What we couldn’t use fresh, we dried and canned.

The Hilltop Ranch home from the northwest. A snapshot taken by Virginia Moore (Courtesy of Robert J. Knowdell)

As more horses, wagons, a buggy, and additional equipment were acquired, the construction of a new road became imperative. With the help of a horse drawn scraper, this was built along the opposite side of the hill, with a switchback about seventy-five feet below the crest. Following a natural wash, however, the road became a seasonal nuisance, as rainy weather turned it into a small river, making it impassable by cars for weeks at a time. Creek gravel had to be hauled up the hill to fill in the ruts. Once the road was negotiable, an orchard of sixty Alberta peach trees was planted along the slopes on either side. Another long term project was a cave dug into the north side of the hill, about fifty feet below the summit. About four feet wide and six and one-half feet high, the cave went straight into the hillside for about fifteen feet, then turned left for another thirty-five feet. Dug entirely with pick and shovel, the cave proved a valuable asset for storing all sorts of root vegetables, as well as squash, pumpkins, apples, and other provender.

In addition to the selling of products of the Ranch, income was derived from some of the men working for local orchardists, doing pruning, thinning, and harvesting in season, while some of the women worked in tourist-oriented establishments during the summer months. Too young yet to appreciate fully the gravity of the Society’s financial situation, “Buster” Knowdell and Evelyn Beilhart were nonetheless keenly aware of the difficulty the Society had in finding funds for school supplies, dental care, clothing, and the like. If not indoctrinated with all of Jacob’s teachings, the children surely learned the importance he attached to the work ethic. Strict frugality and self-denial were mandatory, and young “Buster” dreamed of the day when he could begin contributing to the Society financially. His first effort came as the result of a large truck garden developed by Ralph Galbreath and Kate Waters. With more garden produce than the Society could use,

of 210

“Buster” trained his pet dog, Jackie, to pull a light, two-wheeled cart, with shafts and a harness designed so that if the dog wished to disengage himself he needed only to sit down and raise his head. (Jacob would have approved.) Canvassing Soquel and Capitola’s residential areas on his bicycle provided a change of pace from the after school and weekend chores of hoeing, weeding, and watering, and “Buster” rapidly built up a substantial clientele for the garden surplus as well as for the Ranch’s fresh eggs and butter. (Only Nucoa margarine was used at the Ranch, as it was only half the cost of butter.) In retrospect, Knowdell would wonder what percentage of the orders were made out of compassion for Jackie, who stood patiently while the customer’s order was sorted out of the cart. Eventually, in about the third year of the Society’s life at Hilltop, “Buster” succeeded in saving enough money that, “with a little help from the family,” he could purchase a sturdy bicycle with paper racks and bins. He began working an eight mile paper route for the Santa Cruz Evening News and, the following year, developed a route for the News’s new rival, the Santa Cruz Buster’s motorized bicycle gave way to horse power during the rainy weather that made the dirt and gravel roads of area unnavigable by bicycle.

Even with such concerted efforts by all the members of the Spirit Fruit Society, the Society made little headway in paying of f the principal, barely being able to keep up with the interest payments. In retrospect, Knowdell doubts that complete self support was ever achieved at Hilltop. As from the Society’s beginnings in Ohio, reliance was placed upon the financial contributions of well-to-do friends. Chief among these were Irvin E. Rockwell, who continued to visit the Society at Hilltop occasionally, though both his interest and his financial support undoubtedly lessened as he became more deeply involved in Idaho finance and politics. Donations derived from readers of the Society’s newspapers had ceased, of course, with cessation of Spirit Fruit and Spirit’s Voice, following Jacob’s death. During the California years, Benjamin F. Moore, Virginia’s brother, seems to have been the Society’s chief financial “angel.” After the sensation of his youthful photographic con game had died down, Frank married and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he gradually developed a highly successful photographic studio.9

Moore’s Cleveland company apparently got into financial difficulty shortly before the 1929 stock market crash, and Moore left the firm, although the company name was retained by the new owners. At the time that the Spirit Fruit Society faced one of its greatest crises, however, Frank Moore was able to help and did so generously.

With the death of Hugh McWhinney, in August, 1918, ownership of Hilltop Ranch passed to his wife, Norah Florence McWhinney (two-thirds) and daughter, Catherine Elizabeth McWhinney (one-third).10 Although the original agreement was still in effect at the time of McWhinney’s death, the Society clearly was not able to complete payments, and, in March, 1921, (a year after the full purchase price was to have been paid by the Society), Norah McWhinney Ballantine and her husband sold the land to Cora Hallaway, who established her right to the property

of 210

in the Santa Cruz Superior Court.11 Although this decision has been described as “based on technicalities,” it would seem to be a clear-cut case of the Society not been able to fulfill its part of the original agreement.12 It is noteworthy, in this respect, that the Society made no attempt to defend their claim. Fortunately, at this juncture, Virginia’s brother, Frank Moore, was able to step in and purchase Hilltop Ranch from Hallaway, for an undisclosed amount of money.13 Although Frank and Gertrude Moore were forced to mortgage the property in 1926, they successfully paid off the indebtedness, allowing the remnants of the Spirit Fruit Society to remain at Hilltop for a few more years.14

The requisite concentration on eking out an existence at Hilltop unquestionably took its toll on the spiritual development of the Society’s members. The members still looked to Virginia Moore and her mother, “Ma” Young, for spiritual guidance, and “Na” Young continued the daily sessions of meditation and spirit-writing communication with Jacob, following the noon-day meal. Too, Sunday afternoons were still reserved for general discussion of theological or philosophical topics. Nonetheless, the simple struggle for existence had become and was to remain such a challenge that the spiritual cohesiveness and dedication of the group inevitably weakened. Rather rapidly, the group began to disintegrate.

Because the Society did not proselytize or seek new members, the two children were readily able to consider the group as an extended family. Further, there seems to have been a deliberate effort on the part of Society members not to attempt rearing Buster and Evelyn to continue the colony, so that the children’s upbringing was relatively normal. Both attended local schools and seem to have been generally accepted in the community. Evelyn, in fact, was president of the student body at Santa Cruz High School. While still in high school, Evelyn met Bert Hastings at a dance, the couple quickly fell in love, and when Bert joined the Navy with the United States’ entry into World War I, the two married - Bert going to boot camp, and Evelyn continuing her schooling. When Bert Hastings was assigned to a teaching position at the University of California at Berkeley and Evelyn graduated, she left Hilltop permanently to join her husband.

Even earlier, probably in 1916, Frederick and Rachel Reed had realized that life at Hilltop was too rigorous for them physically. Disenchanted, the Reeds moved to Los Angeles, California. Still possessed of considerable property in Wellesley, Massachusetts, property which he had retained throughout his association with the Spirit Fruit Society, Reed was no doubt in the best position, financially, of any of the Society’s remaining members.15 The Reeds moved to Riverside, California, where Frederick taught high school until his retirement.

of 210

Remnants of the Spirit Fruit Society in 1917. From left to right: Carol Noel, Charlena Young, Kate Waters, Buster Knowdell (in front of David Stanforth, Virginia Moore, Eugene H. Clarke, Evelyn Galbreath, Edward J. Knowdell, and Mary Beilhart. (Courtesy of Robert J. Knowdell)

Contributing greatly to the psychological disintegration of the Society was the appearance of a domineering Englishman, William L. Wilsdon, in early 1918. A stocky, florid, bearded man with a dominating personality, Wilsdon had resided in California for many years. Somewhere along the line, Wilsdon had picked up a side-kick, Charles W. Ritchie, a Canadian who joined Wilsdon in a real estate business and generally served as his factotum. Ritchie is described by Robert Knowdell as “a docile, child-like man ... totally dedicated to being Wilsdon’s hand-and-foot servant.” Familiar with Jacob’s writings, Wilsdon proclaimed himself Jacob’s emissary and quickly took command of the dwindling band of naifs. In addition to being philosophically inclined to give newcomers the benefit of the doubt, the remaining members of the Society were probably more than willing to accept such a Messiah. Having gained their confidence, Wilsdon systematically began to destroy their lifestyle and attack their beliefs. His methods, as recalled by Robert Knowdell, suggest an adept at mind control:

For example, perhaps out of jealousy, or a sense of threat to his own intentions, once he had gained their confidence, he declared the voluminous reams of Ma Young’s writings were pure rubbish and demanded that the former practice be stopped and that all of Ma’s writings be destroyed! The astonishing thing is that they subserviently complied without protest and subsequently allowed him to monopolize that former after-lunch period to

of 210

brutally harangue, scold, belittle, and embarrass them! He delighted in discovering the likes or preferences of individual members and then insisting that they do the opposite. He preached that this was to cleanse the soul and body of personification of self. But I realize now he was systematically destroying their abilities to reason and judge so that he might dominate them completely

Ralph Galbreath and Emily Leonhardt were fortunate enough to leave the Society before Wilsdon gained complete sway, moving to North Hollywood together in 1918 or 1919. There Ralph quickly found employment as a manager of a nursery. Saving enough money for the down payment on a small farm plot and shanty near Newhall, California, Ralph and Emily moved there and worked to establish a fruit orchard and truck farm. Robert Knowdell’s father was one of the first to leave in reaction to Wilsdon’s mean-spiritedness. “Uncle Billy,” as he insisted the children call him, somehow learned that Ed Knowdell had an aversion to facial hair and forthwith insisted that he grow a full beard while he worked at summer employment in a Soquel grocery. Knowdell grudgingly complied, although he detested the beard, until son Robert one day remarked that it looked silly. Rebelling, Ed Knowdell shaved, packed his belongings, and moved to San Francisco, where he quickly found a job as a journeyman plumber, living in a single room and sending a portion of his earnings to Mary Beilhart.

A snapshot taken at Hilltop Ranch in 1921. From left to right: Adolph Wagner, Mary Beilhart (holding her granddaughter, June Hastings), Charlena Young, Virginia Moore, Kate Waters, David B. Stanforth, Evelyn Gal- breath Hastings, Stella Farrar, Eugene Clarke, and Edward Knowdell. In foreground, Evelyn Hastings’ daughter Mary Frances. (Courtesy of Robert J. Knowdell)

of 210

Not long afterward, Dave Stanforth followed suit - this would be about 1919 - to lease a fruit orchard and eventually to buy a fruit farm of his own, although he appears to have owned it for only a few years.16 This rapid diminution in membership left only the aging Eugene Clarke of the original male members of the Society. True, “Uncle Billy” and Charles Ritchie were available, but it is doubtful that they performed much, if any, of the routine farm work. Still another blow came in 1920, when Mary Beilhart left the Society to live with her son-in-law and daughter, Bert and Evelyn Hastings, who had moved to Santa Cruz. The invitation to join the Hastings must have seemed a godsend to Mary, whose delicate health was failing. Kate Waters, too, attempted to get away from Wilsdon’s tyrannical presence, by reentering the teaching profession. After her long absence from teaching, considerable time and effort was required to meet the requisite educational laws in California, but the indomitable Kate eventually passed the teaching requirements, only to find that the one teaching job available in the county was teaching grades one through four in the remote rural community of Bonny Doon, some twelve miles into the Santa Cruz Mountains from Soquel. Undaunted, Kate accepted the position, and young Robert Knowdell drove her to her rented cottage in Bonny Doon a week before the fall school term started. After forty years away from teaching, Kate had to confront not only vast changes in the curricula but a perceptible change in the student-teacher relationship. Bonny Doon, California, was a far cry from Holton, Kansas, and student incivilities, along with the isolation due to her inability to drive took their toll on Kate’s spirit, forcing her to resign at mid-semester. Discouraging though the experience must have been, the experience proved valuable to Kate, for it gave her the inner strength and self-respect necessary to stand up to Wilsdon on her return to Hilltop. She later confided to Robert Knowdell that she had come to realize she had a mind far superior to Wilsdon’s and could easily defeat the bully when it came to a direct confrontation. As a consequence, upon Kate’s return to Hilltop, Wilsdon quickly learned to avoid her completely.

The arrival of a newcomer to Hilltop eventually spelled the end of Wilsdon’s domination of the group. William Large, a tall (6 feet 2 inches), strapping Irishman of about fifty years when he appeared upon the scene, around 1922, fell in love with Virginia, who reciprocated his feelings, a situation that Eugene Clarke apparently accepted. William Large possessed a ready Irish wit and a friendly disposition but was quick to anger when antagonized, and it was not long before Wilsdon’s abusive tactics got the better of him. Large, who finally confronted Wilsdon at the dinner table - a longstanding tradition within the Spirit Fruit Society, as it happened - forced him and his sidekick Ritchie to leave Hilltop. The dramatic confrontation was related by Kate Waters to Robert Knowdell, who by that time was no longer living at Hilltop and who rarely visited the ranch during the Wilsdon regime. Allowing for some natural distortion due to the passage of years and the fact that this is a second-hand account to begin with, Knowdell’s version of Kate’s eye-witness account is well worth quoting:

of 210

….Billy [Wilsdon] had always sat at the head of the table, replacing Virginia when he first took charge. As we all gathered at the dinner table, Large walked calmly to the head and seated himself, waving his hand for the rest to be seated. We all complied, except Billy, who stood florid with rage,... [and] bellowed at Large: “For a stupid, skinny Irishman, you have a hell of a lot of guts!” The response was instantaneous. Large leaped from his chair, nearly upsetting the table, and walked to within inches of Billy, staring down into his watery eyes and saying, “You pitiful fool, haven’t you the sense to know that the time for your presence here has long since come and gone? Dead silence followed, as we all sat in silent approval, and watched those beady eyes, which had stared everyone down for too long, wavered and well with tears which ran down his cheeks. I could hardly believe it. Then Large stepped back and said, “Virginia and I have decided you are to be given a choice: either you vacate this premise within 24 hours, or I will personally throw you down the hill and your belongings after you!” Then he took Billy by the arm, as if to lead him to a chair, saying, “Sit down and enjoy your last meal with us.” But Billy jerked away and bolted into the kitchen, and a moment later we heard his bedroom door slam. Large then helped Virginia from her chair and led her to the head of the table, saying, “Please assume your rightful place and as long as I am here, it will never be threatened again.” She sat down, with tears in her eyes, and no one spoke or moved until she said, “Please, let us rejoice and enjoy this meal together.”17

For sheer drama, this account cannot be improved upon, and it doubtless is a relatively accurate description of the event. The following day, Virginia drove Wilsdon and Ritchie to Santa Cruz and gave them fifty dollars from the Society’s dwindling funds. Wilsdon and Ritchie continued to live in Soquel, where they were engaged in real estate, until their deaths.18

Following the departure of these scalawags, the remnants of the Spirit Fruit Society resumed some semblance of normalcy. Robert Knowdell, Mary Beilhart, and other former members or friends of the Society began visiting more frequently. According to Knowdell, “A great burden had been lifted and ... some semblance of that previous fellowship had become re-established.” Yet, things could not be the same, for the group’s numbers had been drastically reduced, and time inevitably had taken its toll both physically and psychically. Even with William Large to perform the heavier farm labor, the Society members were not able to make the ranch produce as it once had, and it became increasingly difficult to meet payments on the mortgage, property taxes, and insurance. The removal of Wilsdon and Ritchie from Hilltop provided only a brief interlude of peacefulness and fellowship, however, for in addition to their own declining fortunes, the Society members were forced to deal with Virginia’s irreversible deterioration in health. Virginia had developed uterine cancer, which required visits to San Francisco for expensive radium treatments that were extremely painful and worse than ineffectual.

of 210

In this dispiriting situation, the few remaining members of the Society agreed that they would have to sell the farm equipment and livestock, allow foreclosure on the mortgage, and leave Hilltop Ranch for more suitable living arrangements. In November, 1928, Frank and Gertrude Moore sold the Hilltop property to Theodore and Aymee Skallerud, a retired Soquel fire chief and his wife. The remaining members of the Spirit Fruit Society again auctioned everything but personal belongings and some household goods and prepared for their last move, to a small, run-down house in Soquel.

of 210

NOTES 1. Unless otherwise noted, information in this chapter is derived from Robert

J. Knowdell’s typescript account of the later years of the Spirit Fruit Society, a 26- page letter written to me in March, 1980.

2. East Palestine Revei1le-Echo, February 4, 1904; Salem News, November 24, 1952.

3. Leetonia Reporter, April 10, 1914; November 28, 1914; December 11, 1914.

4. Columbiana Ledger, January 30, 1930; June 19, 1942.

5. Leetonia Reporter, April 2, 1915.

6. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, August 25, 1978.

7. Santa Cruz Co., California, Recorder, Agreements 13: 373-376.

8. Mrs. Cedelia Duff, cited by Mrs. Sara A. Bunnett, letter to author, April 27, 1987.

9. Despite statements made by Knowdell that Moore spent his entire life working for the Eastman Kodak Co., being vice-president in charge of the company’s Hawaii Division, this does not appear to be correct. Frances G. Staines, Employee Benefits, Eastman Kodak Co., letter to author, November 4, 1986. Eleanor Au, Hawaii State Library, has kindly checked Honolulu city directories from 1910 through 1940 but finds only one listing, for B. Franklin Moore, photographer, Royal Hawaiian Hotel, in the directory for 1933-34.

10. Santa Cruz Co., California, Deed Records 290: 426- 431.

11. Ibid., 305: 393-397.

12. H. Roger Grant, “A Gentle Utopia: The California Years of the Spirit Fruit Society, 1914-1930,” The Pacific Historian 30(3): 64.

13. Santa Cruz Co., California, Deed Records 306: 228- 229.

14. Ibid., 143: 324-325

15. Norfolk Co., Massachusetts, Deed Records, Grantee Index. In a power of attorney dated September 12, 1916, Frederick and Lilian Rachel Reed give their residence as Los Angeles, “formerly of Wellesley.” ibid., 1371-1602.

16. Santa Cruz Co., California, Recorder’s Office. Trust Deeds 13: 445-451; Official Records 29: 314-315. Stanforth is listed with the other members of the Society in the 1920 Santa Cruz county directory. His farm in Highland Precinct was purchased in August, 1922.

of 210

17. Knowdell’s version of Kate Water’s account of Wilson’s last supper at Hilltop is quoted from H. Roger Grant’s “A Gentle Utopia...” The Pacific Historian 40(3): 67-68, apparently derived from annotations Knowdell made to his March, 1980, letter to me.

18. Ibid. The account of Wilson and Ritchie’s departure as given by Grant is inaccurate in so far as it implies that the two left the area. (“... Virginia drove a defeated Uncle Billy and Ritchie to the bus station in Santa Cruz... Virginia handed Wilsdon fifty dollars in precious cash for their travel and immediate living needs.” Wilsdon and Ritchie are listed in 1922, 1926, and subsequent directories, along with their real estate business, and may have maintained a separate residence through-out the period of their association with the Spirit Fruit Society. William Wilsdon died February 11, 1931, in Santa Cruz; Ritchie, a year later, March 31, 1932. Santa Cruz Co., California, Death Records.

of 210

CHAPTER X

SOQUEL AND AFTER The small house along the Soquel-San Jose Road, in Soquel, which became

the last home of the Spirit Fruit Society, had been occupied by the little town’s only physician and veterinarian, Albert F. Davis, who died in July, 1928. As a consequence of the building’s very dilapidated condition, rent was low. Another attractive feature was the proximity of the post office, the library, stores, and other conveniences; all were within walking distance, and the remnants of the Spirit Fruit Society, now without transportation, found the location far more convenient than the isolated ranch.

Robert Knowdell visited the group in Soquel on several weekends, only to find them in despair, traumatized by Virginia’s rapidly worsening condition. By this time, Virginia was bedridden and in constant agony. Morphine administered by Kate Waters only partially reduced the pain, and Virginia’s system eventually became immune to the opiate. In her agony, Virginia begged Kate to administer a lethal dose, a request which must have caused considerable torment for Kate but one which she could not bring herself to perform, though sorely tempted. Virginia died early on the morning of June 7, 1930, at the age of fifty. The brief obituary notice appearing in the Santa Cruz Sentinel notes only that “many friends” were present at the funeral held at Chase Mortuary. The officiating clergyman was Rev. Joseph C. Carpenter of the First Methodist Church.1

The last home of the Spirit Fruit Society, Soquel California, as, it appears today (Courtesy of Sara Bunnett)

of 210

Virginia’s release from pain no doubt brought a measure of relief to the few remaining Spirit Fruit Society members, but her death also made obvious the fact that that the group could not continue living together as it had for nearly a quarter of a century. Each member was forced to try to determine his or her own future, as best they could. Virginia’s mother went to reside with her son Frank, in the Los Angeles area, where he had retired because of ill health. Despite financial reverses suffered in the 1929 stock market crash, Frank Moore had paid much of Virginia’s medical expenses during her illness and continued to provide for “Ma” Young, who lived with him and his second wife, Gertrude S. Moore, for a while, before it became necessary for her to enter a nursing home. Charlena J. Young died of stomach cancer, in Canoga Park, California, May 17, 1935, at the age of 86. At her request, her remains were cremated and the ashes scattered. 2

Kate Waters had had an offer to become cook and housekeeper for a small group of friends in San Francisco. All were active business people, including two married couples, two spinsters, and a bachelor who had banded together for economic and social reasons. All had visited Hilltop on numerous occasions and were mildly interested in the Spirit Fruit Society. Their experiment in communal living was short-lived, however, due in large part to the Great Depression, and Kate soon found herself without a job. Fortunately, she and another inmate of the San Francisco enclave, Ethel Garlick, saw their way to joining their fortunes and moved to Santa Cruz, renting a cottage very near Robert Knowdell. The arrangement proved amicable for everyone, with Robert teaching Ethel to drive, Kate gardening, and Ethel plying her trade of seamstress. The arrangement continued much the same following Robert Knowdell’s marriage to Ruth Taylor (daughter of the Frank Taylors, who had been such helpful neighbors during the days at Hilltop), and Kate and Ethel enjoyed a contented existence in Santa Cruz until Kate’s death in l941.3

With the final disbanding of the Spirit Fruit Society, Eugene Clarke initially joined his brother, who worked for The Prairie Farmer, probably back in Chicago, and found some work in advertising as late as June of 1929. Eugene’s brother had provided him with a regular monetary allowance during the latter days of the community, much of which Eugene spent on his first love, stamp collecting. Robert Knowdell also recalls that Clarke “was probably the least productive” of the group,” with “an aristocratic flair which gave the impression that he felt himself above the mundane endeavors of farming.” Already experiencing the effects of age to a considerable degree by the time the Society dissolved, Clarke died on March 22, 1932, of bladder cancer, aged 76 years, while living in a rest home in Oakland, California.4

Mary Beilhart lived with her daughter and son-in-law, Evelyn and Bert Hastings for many years and in 1923 moved with them to Los Angeles, where Bert Hastings worked for the county sheriff’s office until retirement. A few months before her death, Mary required institutionalization, and she died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Jolenta Manor Sanitarium, in Los Angeles, May 7, l946. 5

of 210

Mary’s youngest brother, Noah Bielharz, after graduating from the King School of Dramatic Art in 1901, joined Louis J. Alber’s Ideal Entertainers, married a professional singer, Jane Hudson, and played on the Chautauqua and Lyceum circuits as a character actor and elocutionist for many years. With the waning of vaudeville and Chautauqua, Noah gave presentations at various conventions, men’s organizations, and high schools, toward the end handling his own bookings from his home in Dayton, Michigan. Declining health necessitated a move to Maitland, Florida, in the autumn of 1954. A plaintive letter written on his 86th birthday, indicates that Noah continued to miss his Michigan home. The last of Jacob’s brothers and sisters, Noah died November 12, 1959.6

So far as is known, the longest-lived of the Society’s members was David Stanforth. After losing his farm, Stanforth presumably continued to work in the orchards and vineyards of southern California. His last years were spent in Vacaville and Imola, California, where he worked as a cook. Stanforth kept up an irregular correspondence with Evelyn Hastings over the years, even after the Hastings had moved to Missouri, and when Evelyn visited California following her husband’s death in 1955 there were tentative plans to visit Dave Stanforth. This was not to be, however, for the strain of revisiting the scenes of her girlhood proved to be too much, and Mrs. Hastings was forced to cut short her stay, without making the anticipated visit to Dave. Stanforth died February 1, 1960, at Napa State Hospital, in Imola, California, aged 96 years.7

Irvin and Lallah Rookh Rockwell lived relatively happy lives, lives marred mainly by the deaths of their two young sons in 1915 and 1920. The couple continued to live at the estate in Broadford, Idaho, in a house designed by Rookh. Upon her death in 1940, “Rock” published an elaborate memorial volume that attests to his undiminished love for her. Rockwell continued to support his first wife, Mary “Dolly” Rockwell, and it is possible that they never actually were divorced. “Dolly” was to spend nearly forty years of her life in an Idaho state mental hospital, dying nearly eight years after her husband, in 1960. 8

Some of the Society members seem simply to have disappeared. William Large, for example, who had become utterly devoted to Virginia, vanished completely. Carol Noel went first to Riverside, California, to join Frederick and Rachel Reed, and later lived in the Pasadena area, but details of her subsequent history remain unknown.

The Reeds themselves continued to live in Riverside, where Frederick taught high school until his retirement. Although the first to leave the Spirit Fruit Society after it removed to California, the Reeds retained their interest in Jacob Beilhart and his teachings. Rachel died in April, 1944; Frederick, a few months later, in September, l944. 9

Ralph Galbreath and Emily Leonhardt lived physically active but contented lives for many years, first near North Hollywood, where Ralph’s knowledge of horticulture soon led to his managing a nursery, and later on to their own small

of 210

truck farm near Newhall, California. For a while, Ralph supplemented their income by working as a custodian at a nearby powder magazine. On at least one occasion, around 1919, they befriended Robert Knowdell, then a teenager with no place to live during the summer between eighth grade and entering high school. Ralph and Emily kindly took him in for the summer, and Robert worked a morning newspaper route to help pay for his expenses. For many years the Hastings and Mary Beilhart would occasionally visit with Ralph and Emily. In 1926, Emily developed trigeminal neuralgia and suffered from a number of other diseases for the rest of her life, dying June 20, 1939, in Newhall. Ralph eventually married an English woman, a Quaker, as it happened, whose formal religious beliefs must have been consistent with those of his childhood if not with those of his adult life. Lilian Galbreath survived her husband, who died on an extended trip east, while visiting his daughter, Evelyn Hastings, July 5, 1954. He is buried in Lebanon, Missouri.10

Ralph Galbreath, late in life, ca. 1945 (Courtesy of Beulah Bell Converse)

Ralph and Emily, are probably primarily responsible for the survival of much of Jacob’s writings, for during the l920s they are believed to have made available copies of Spirit Fruit and Spirit’s Voice to Leroy Henry, who reprinted many of them, along with other valuable Beilhart literature, at his Freedom Hill Pressery. Preferring the name “Freedom Hill” Henry, Leroy Henry was born in Indiana in 1867, and after a brief attempt at a medical education (“I attended the Hygienic Medical College in St. Louis, but accepted a diploma from an allopathic college which makes me a regular physician, though I practice irregularly - whenever I get a patient.”) lost his health. While searching for it in “a hygienic colony in Tennessee,” where he “lived, or rather existed, one winter on two unsalted meals a day of nothing that ever squealed,” Henry met the social utopian J. William Lloyd. On the advice of Lloyd, Henry went back to Indiana, hired himself out in a market garden, and regained his health through hard physical labor and “mental therapeutics.” By 1913, Henry was living at Lloyd’s communal settlement at

of 210

Freedom Hill, near Burbank, California, printing pamphlets that mixed homely philosophy with more radical ideas, homily with humor, all presented in a straight-forward manner not unreminiscent of Jacob, though Jacob never evidenced much of a sense of humor. Henry’s ideas were similar to Jacob’s, too - “If we can’t become skillful enough to get what we want, maybe we can become simple enough to want what we get” - “Perhaps we never will get to heaven until we see it right around us in overalls.” - and by 1918 Henry definitely was familiar with Jacob’s writings, as he cites him along with Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, and the Bible.11

In 1925, “Freedom Hill” Henry published Jacob Beilhart: Life and Teachings, a 170 page octavo volume containing selections from Spirit Fruit and Spirit’s Voice, as well as a reprinting “Very Personal,” Elbert Hubbard’s essay on Jacob, and brief reminiscences by Emily Leonhardt, Ralph Galbreath, and Frederick and Rachel Reed. Leroy Henry’s adulatory introduction leaves no doubt as to his estimate of Jacob: “As far as I have learned he is the only person since Jesus who has, in his everyday life, actually lived the teachings of Jesus.” And, “If you want flattery or fine literary style, read something else. If you want to learn the Truth, written so you can understand it, read Jacob Beilhart.” Of the 173 essays that Jacob published in Spirit Fruit and Spirit’s Voice between 1899 and 1907, Henry reprints only six. With enough money to pay only for the printing of the first volume, Henry expected to make enough profits on the first volume to pay for a second. Henry calculated that Jacob’s writings would provide enough material for two dozen books, and he hoped to be able to publish two or three volumes per year. In fact, he was able to publish only two more volumes of this size, each containing approximately 220 pages and each containing about twenty of Jacob’s articles, culled from the earlier issues of his two newspapers. Although the latest of these compilations known to the author is Love Letters From Spirit To You, published by Henry in 1929, Robert J. Knowdell indicates that Henry’s publishing activities continued as late as the l940s. Despite “Freedom Hill” Henry’s belief that the Beilhart literature would be read “thousands of years from now,” time has not dealt kindly with Jacob’s writings. Few copies even of Freedom Hill Henry’s collections of Jacob’s writings appear to have survived, and those are seldom read by anyone.12

of 210

The destruction of the Spirit Fruit Society home at Lisbon, Ohio, March, 1969 (Courtesy of Rex Teagarden)

Time has laid its hand heavily, too, upon the various homes of the Spirit Fruit Society. The Beilhart farmhouse, where Jacob was born and where the Society had its inception, still stands in good condition, a modern front porch being the only conspicuous change. And, surprisingly, the run-down frame house in Soquel, where Virginia Moore died and where the last few members of the Spirit Fruit Society lived until her death, has been restored for offices. But the old brick seminary building at Lisbon is no more. Long a local landmark, the dilapidated structure was deliberate burned in March, 1969, for expansion of the adjacent county fairgrounds. To a boy in the late l950s, the author can recall, the abandoned, empty house, sheltered by a few old white pines, held an air of mystery; but thoughts about it were usually forgotten during the walk from the parking lot to the midway.

of 210

Sunnyside Sanitarium in the 1920s, the remodelled Spirit Fruit Society home at Wooster Lake (Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren)

A view of Wooster Lake from the steps of Sunnyside Sanitarium. Jacob’s grave lies just to the right of the clump of oak trees at the far right edge of the lake. (Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren)

Traces of the colony do remain at Wooster Lake, most notably the concrete block mansion that the Society members worked so laboriously to erect. After the Society left Ingleside, the farm was used for a variety of purposes, primarily as a health resort and a sanitarium. The main building was badly damaged by fire on at least two occasions, in 1929 and 1936, and was extensively remodelled.13 Although the present structure is mildly reminiscent of the original building, only the

of 210

concrete block foundations remain the same. The structure stands abandoned and decaying, with much of surrounding grounds grown up in brush. Possible uses for such a building do not loom large, particularly in the face of insurance costs and the real estate value of the land on which it sits.

In the autumn of 1973, Robert Knowdell visited Wooster Lake, after an absence of nearly sixty years, and later wrote to the caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren, “Of course the house, except for the general outline, is totally different - yet strangely similar in many respects, and we appreciated your kindness in showing us through. But the beautiful grounds, the lake, the old barn and especially those magnificent trees, grown so majestic with time.. .” The trees, an impressive grove of shagbark hickories, still stand on the south side of the main building, but the concrete block barn, having become delapidated and hazardous, was dismantled about five years ago. The old frame barn, in which the Spirit Fruit men slept while the main house was under construction, burned to the ground years before the Bowgrens became caretakers of the estate in 1947. The original farmhouse, used as a dormitory for the Spirit Fruit women was restored and served throughout the life of the resort and sanitarium but is no longer standing.14

Jacob’s grave, with Wooster Lake in the background. Opened in 1947 to confirm the location of the grave site (Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren)

Jacob’s grave lies in an area of the grounds that has been allowed to grow up in weeds and brush, though Mr. Bowgren has carefully kept the spot mowed and a glimpse of Wooster Lake can still be seen from the grave site. When the Bowgrens became caretakers for the property in 1947, Mr. Bowgren had the grave excavated in order to make certain of the location. The workmen found a metal and glass

of 210

coffin, which was left undisturbed. Today, the only marker is a pair of the Society-made concrete blocks, serving as head and foot stones, particularly appropriate in view of Robert Knowdell’s recollection that following Jacob’s death a low, rectangular wall of these concrete blocks, three or four courses high, was erected around Jacob’s grave. Still in place when the farm was abandoned by the Spirit Fruit Society in 1915, the blocks were not mortared and gradually disappeared over the years. In 1978, partly as a result of the author’s interest in the Spirit Fruit Society, some suggestion to have the grave marked permanently was made by a local historian. This was not done, however, which is perhaps just as well, for Jacob, consistent with his philosophy, clearly preferred that his grave not be marked.15

Hilltop Ranch, where the Society spent the longest period of its existence, fared well while occupied by the Skalleruds, but after their death the property passed to other hands, and, in the spring of 1981, the house was deliberately destroyed in a training “burn” conducted by the Soquel Fire Department. Today, if one climbs to the end of Hilltop Road, the site is overgrown with poison oak and other weeds, with only a trash-filled cellar hole, the remnants of a small patio, a palm tree, and a few plants run wild marking the site. Of course, the beautiful view of the Pacific remains. 16

Hilltop Ranch, engulfed in flame and smoke at the Soquel Fire Department’s “practice burn” (Courtesy of Sara A. Bunnett)

of 210

NOTES 1. Information provided by Mrs. Cedelia Duff, Mrs. Sara Bunnett, letter to

author, April 29, 1987. Santa Cruz Co., California, Death Record, filed June 9, 1930. Santa Cruz Sentinel, June 10, 1930.

2. Los Angeles Co., California, Death Record 6670, filed May 21, 1935. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, March, 1980.

3. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, March, 1980. Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 22, 1941.

4. Ibid., Alameda Co., California, Death Record 808, filed March 23, 1932.

5. Ibid. Los Angeles Co., California, Death Records, No. 7802, filed May 8, 1946.

6. 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Cook Co., Illinois, E.D. 425, Sheet 12B. Undated letter to author from Anna Blair Miller, Hebron, Ohio. Telephone interview with Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Habel, Galien, Michigan. Letter from Noah Beilharz to Mr. and Mrs. Habel, August 9, 1958. Noah played the Leetonia opera house on at least one occasion, July 3, 1903. but was described only as “too well known here to need an introduction; he is an old Leetonia boy and has delighted local audiences in the past.” Leetonia Reporter, July 7, 1903.

7. Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, March, 1980. Napa Co., California, Death Records, No. 126.

8. Irvin E. Rockwell, Lallha Rookh White Rockwell (Bellevue, Idaho: s.n., 1940. Don Haacke, letter to author, December 18, 1987.

9. Ibid. Riverside Co., California, Death Record 38768, filed August 3, 1944.

10. Ibid. Los Angeles Co., California, Death Record 6161, filed June 22, 1939. Telephone interview with Beulah Bell Converse, March 23, 1987. Laclede Co., Missouri, Death Record 19479, field July 8, 1954. Lilian Galbreath died November 9, 1962, Los Angeles Co. Death Record 20981. 218 219

11. Leroy Henry, Happy in Hell (Burbank, Calif.: Freedom Hill Pressery, 1924). See also his Freedom From Fond Friends (Burbank, Calif.: Freedom Hill Pressery, 1919) and Miserable in Heaven (Roscoe, Calif.: Freedom Hill Pressery, 1927).

12. Jacob Beilhart Who Wrote And Lived the Teaching of Spirit and Spirit Voice (S.l.: s.n., n.d.). Robert J. Knowdell, letter to Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren, August 12, 1978. Love Letters From Spirit To (Roscoe, Calif.: Freedom Hill Henry, 1929).

13. Roy E. Lucke, 75th Year History of the Fox Lake Volunteer Department, 1908-1983 [S.l.: The Department, 1983].

of 210

14. Robert J. Knowdell, letters to Mr. and Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren, November, 1973, and August 12, 1978.

15. P. Best, letter to author, July 17, 1978. Robert J. Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren, Knowdell, letter to Mr. and August 12, 1978.

16. Sara A. Bunnett, letter to author, April 27, 1987.

of 210

CHAPTER XI

CONCLUSION “The average communard is as simple and as complex a personality as the

rest of humanity.” - Barry Shenker.

Musing about Jacob and his followers, whether beside his grave at Wooster Lake or in front of a word-processor, after reviewing the meager and often ambiguous evidence that has survived, one must admit to a considerable admiration and respect for him and his band of gentle, genuine, and ingenuous communalists.1

Had its members lived and worked during the 1960s, it is doubtful that the Spirit Fruit Society would, at first glance, be distinguishable from dozens of similar intentional communities. And, viewed through the distorting prism of the 1960s, it might be easy to dismiss this small group of Jacob’s followers as merely a precocious band of flower children, nipped in the bud by their leader’s premature death and by their own reluctance to recruit new members. Yet, there are as many striking differences that immediately come to mind as there are similarities. Drugs, race, and international war are three major factors with which the Spirit Fruit Society did not have to contend. We may surmise that, because of his Adventist background as well as for other reasons, Jacob would not be receptive to drug use, neither for recreational purposes nor for the expanding of one’s consciousness. Jacob undoubtedly valued clarity over ecstacy, a preference that certainly sets him apart from many - though by no means all - of the Sixties’ seekers. His views on compulsory military service are made quite clear in his writings, where he specifically states that individuals should follow their conscience in such matters. As for race, Jacob does not seem to have referred to the question at all. Despite the anti slaver tradition of the region in which he grew up, blacks remained so sparse in rural eastern Ohio that one wonders if Jacob even saw a black person before he reach adulthood. In any case, racial inequality was not a problem with which he had to deal. In short, the Spirit Fruit Society was not simply an anachronistic portent of radical things to come: it was an integral part of its time and can be understood only as such.

There have been various attempts to categorize Nineteenth and Twentieth century communitarian groups, none entirely successful. Fogarty, for example, has defined three categories of utopian communes: cooperative colonizers, charismatic perfectionists, and political pragmatists. By his definitions, the Spirit Fruit Society would be representative of the second and most common type, the charismatic perfectionists. Members of such groups shared a world view that was “based on the potential personal sanctity of the membership as a whole and/or based on the personal sanctity, special gifts, or power of a forceful leader.” Charismatic perfectionist groups typically belonged to the Spiritualist or Millennialist tradition. All well and good, but the Spirit Fruit Society, at least under Jacob’s leadership, did not emphasize the Spiritualist or occult component of its thought, nor was there

of 210

any strong notion of “personal sanctity” attached either to individuals or to the group as a whole. Conspicuous was a tolerance of the ideas of others, an attitude that further set apart Jacob’s band from most charismatic, religious groups. The latter aspect definitely distinguishes the philosophy of the Spirit Fruit Society from that of the Millennialist tradition and its modern-day fundamentalist Christian counter-part. Furthermore, like Fogarty’s “cooperative colonizers,” the Spirit Fruit Society, as judged by Jacob’s writings, showed little or no interest in economics or political philosophy. The most Jacob seems to have envisioned is numerous small, virtually self-supporting, egalitarian, cooperative groups; how these groups would relate to one another was not dealt with. Also similar to Fogarty’s “cooperative colonizers, Jacob, in so far as his philosophy of non-resistance permitted concern about anything, seems to have been concerned with contemporary social problems such as equal rights for women and eugenics or race improvement.2

Veysey (1973), in a major attempt to determine the nature and extent of continuity between recent communes and earlier such expressions of cultural radicalism, has distinguished between two types of intentional communities - the anarchistic and the religious mystical. Jacob Beilhart’s creation, again, seems to fall between or to partake of both such categories. Despite Jacob’s disavowal of Anarchy, which he (along with most of his contemporaries) equated with violent resistance to authority, his philosophy partakes much of individualistic, non-violent or philosophical anarchism. His opposition to coercion in any form, his emphasis upon individual freedom of thought and action, his belief in sexual equality, his lack of interest in political activism, and his fundamental belief in the goodness of man, all place him well within the American anarchistic tradition.

Even more clear is the presence of religious mysticism in Jacob’s belief, although the derivation of particular elements of that mysticism may remain murky. The omnipresence of “Universal Spirit,” with, ideally, a gradual self-development leading to increased individual realization of the Divine and ultimate union with the Divine are all mystical elements of Jacob’s philosophy. Although there is no certain proof, Jacob surely was influenced by mystic elements of Quaker thought, either during his boyhood or through association with Ralph Galbreath during the period immediately prior to formation of the Spirit Fruit Society. Jacob’s familiarity with Seventh-day Adventism, Christian Science, New Thought, and Theosophy is well documented.

Summarizing the differences between the two radical communal traditions that he has identified, Veysey states that “In terms of group organization, anarchism always promotes a loose, voluntaristic, unstructured pattern of living. Mysticism, on the other hand, usually implies the presence of a guru, and therefore a much more leader - oriented and well-defined plan of everyday existence.” Again, the Spirit Fruit Society clearly partook of both traditions. The Spirit Fruit Society remains unusual in that it was anarchistic and egalitarian in practice yet religious and mystic in philosophy. Thus, even the crude distinction between “religious” and “secular” communities that Hine (1953) uses in his study of

of 210

California utopian groups is not entirely applicable when one looks at the Spirit Fruit Society. (Surprisingly, Hine’s survey of California communitarian groups includes no mention of Hilltop Ranch, an indication perhaps of how far from the public eye the Society retreated following Jacob’s death and the removal to California.)3

Kanter (1972: 3-8) has recognized three distinct critical attitudes that have served as the initial impulse for utopian efforts in the United States - the religious, the politico-economic, and the psycho-social - and suggests that these bases for the utopian vision form a chronological sequence in America. The earliest utopian settlements were primarily religious or spiritual in impulse and perforce Christian, usually modelled on the communism of the primitive Christian church. These were truly “separatist” and escapist groups, highly critical of the evils of the mainstream society surrounding them. Communal aspects of such a group were secondary to its spiritual ideals, and such groups often centered around a charismatic leader. The Shakers, the Harmony Society, Amana, Zoar, and Oneida all fall in this religious utopian tradition. Kanter’s politico-economic utopian tradition emerged as a reaction to the dark side of the Industrial Revolution and sought a refuge from the evils of industrialization, competition, economic inequality, and depersonalization. Directly traceable to Enlightenment thought, this utopian tradition was anarchistic and anything but narrowly religious in nature. The Owenites and the Fourierists represent this trend, which most often resulted in deliberate attempts to invent economic communities in which both production and the political structure are jointly controlled by all of the membership. Kanter considered her third tradition, the psychosocial, most characteristic of the intentional communities developed in the l960s and 1970s. The most amorphous of her three “social critiques,” this last attempts to counter the alienation and loneliness attributed to modern society, industrialization, and bureaucratization, by fostering self-actualization or personal growth. The end result is the development of numerous small, extended-family communes, both urban and rural, which promote greater intimacy and fuller human development.

Kanter recognizes that there are many groups that have grown out of all three traditions and that all three utopian traditions have much in common. Quite obviously, The Spirit Fruit Society partook of all three of these trends. It developed on a religious base, and its communal aspects developed of necessity rather than being “planned” as a social experiment; however, while the Society did coalesce around a single charismatic leader, the group was neither rigidly structured nor authoritarian. To a considerable degree even before Jacob’s death, it appears that individual problems, problems between individual members, and problems facing the Society as a group were openly discussed at the dinner table. A delicate balance between individualism and unselfishness was maintained by the members, presumably due in large part to the maturity of the members of the Society but also due to the individualistic anarchism inherent in Jacob’s philosophy. Unlike Kanter’s first type of commune, the Spirit Fruit Society was not truly separatist and

of 210

condemnatory of the mainstream society surrounding it. The Spirit Fruit Society was more open than most such Nineteenth century groups and was reluctant to condemn others who happened to think differently. While Jacob’s group was escapist in so far as it wished to avoid the distracting and potentially dangerous glare of publicity, Jacob did continue to teach up until his death.

In its anarchistic faith in the individual, the Spirit Fruit Society resembles Kanter’s politico-economic utopian strain. Rather than reacting against the dehumanizing effects caused by the industrialization of the age, however, the Spirit Fruit Society seems simply to have avoided the entire problem. Few if any of the members had ever been subjected to the spiritual impoverishment under which the nineteenth century factory worker labored, and their ignorance of this aspect of life is surely indicated by the fact that they briefly considered moving to Idaho and working in Irvin Rockwell’s silver mines. That a wealthy mine owner could be one of Jacob’s staunchest and most generous supporters has in itself a certain irony; but neither Jacob nor Rockwell seems to have had difficulty in accepting the situation. Rather than prefiguring the atavistic “return to the land” that characterized so many communal groups of the l960s and l970s, Jacob and his followers for the most part had never left it. Virtually all of them had grown up in a rural environment and probably were more comfortable in such a setting. (Frederick Reed, of course, is an exception; but he, all in all, might best be viewed as a latter-day Brook Farmer or Fruitlander whose enthusiasm always tended to exceed his experience.) Nor is it entirely certain that Jacob left Chicago as a protest against the social and economic inequities of city life. His prime motivation surely was to escape the unfavorable publicity that had pursued him from Lisbon, which he succeeded in doing by moving to Wooster Lake. A secondary consideration may have been the realization that the Society could probably not become self-sustaining in the city, given the particular skills of the Society members; but there is no reason to believe that the Society’s removal to Wooster Lake was a deliberate rejection of any particular aspect of urban life other than the lack of privacy. Significantly, at Wooster Lake, while Jacob continued to attract “Simple Lifers” such as Parker Sercombe, he deliberately kept them at a distance. Kanter’s psychosocial utopian tradition, characteristic of the late 1960s and early 1970s burst of community- building, is preoccupied with assuaging the individual’s feelings of loneliness and alienation, and opts for “personal growth” over traditional social achievement. As such, this tradition shares a central element of the Spirit Fruit Society’s philosophy, one which Robert Knowdell has emphasized as the primary attraction for men and women such as Kate Waters and Ralph Galbreath, individuals who had suffered intensely in mainstream society and had been compelled to reject orthodox theologies.4

However one may classify the Spirit Fruit Society, the group remains unique by virtue of the manner in which its founder created a viable intentional community out of an essentially Spiritualistic mystical base and a radical anarchistic social philosophy. When logic and personal anguish led ineluctably to radical conclusions

of 210

such as the equality of women, non-resistance, and the irrelevance and frequent injustice of legalized marriage, Jacob followed the dictates of his conscience. Keenly aware that his small band of communards, however right in theory, could in practice exist only by sufferance of the larger society in which it existed, Jacob did not hesitate to temporize and equivocate when unwelcome and harmful publicity roused the moral watchdogs of this larger society. In practice, the Spirit Fruit Society’s philosophy of non-resistance translated into a healthy reluctance to confront or taunt its antagonists. In the long run, this almost instinctive reluctance undoubtedly helped to assure the survival of the colony.

Why then did the Spirit Fruit Society decay? Evelyn Hasting’s summation is accurate as far as it goes: “They just faded away. Over a period of years, for lack of strong leadership and income the people left to make their own way.”5 Yet the lack of strong leadership was not of their doing, and the final dissolution of’ the faithful remnant was certainly not of their choosing. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the decline of the Spirit Fruit Society following Jacob’s death is the realization that as members left, they were compromising not only the idealism and commitment which had sustained the group for so many years but were also each admitting their own personal failure and formally announcing, as it were, the moment, if not the precise nature, of their particular compromise with reality.

In most cases, we cannot be certain why a given individual left the Society. Some surely left against their will; but, not knowing what afterward became of Mrs. Bailey, “Blessed” Herbeson, and Dora Greenlee, we can only wonder why they did not eventually return. Many who were associated with the Spirit Fruit Society never actually made the ultimate commitment of joining the group, so that, however great their attraction to Jacob and his teachings, the “Home” remained for them simply a place to visit, a pleasant place to spend a summer weekend - or a summer. To others, the communal group remained little more than a curiosity. It is doubtful that Warren G. Harding remembered more of it than “Blessed” Herbeson’s pretty young face, if that much. And surely the free-thinking Clarence Darrow, though he may have dandled the young Robert Knowdell upon his knee, could not have abided much talk of spiritualism during his visits from Chicago. On the other hand, in those long ago days before the invention of air conditioning, people might well have been willing to curb the strength of their convictions, at least on social occasions, particularly if it meant a cool respite along the shores of Wooster Lake.

To be sure, many visitors who undoubtedly admired Jacob’s philosophy and way of life were simply too involved in business, politics, or other activities to see their way to joining the Spirit Fruit Society - too caught up in Teddy Roosevelt’s “strenuous life” to renounce it for Edward Carpenter’s “simple life.” This may have been all to the good, for the Society thus decreased the likelihood of an internal struggle for leadership developing between Jacob (or his successor) and any ambitious, opportunistic new member. When this misfortune did occur years later, the Hilltop Ranch colony was poorly equipped to meet it. Wilsdon, of course,

of 210

probably would not have been a match for Jacob; but Jacob, by that time, was long in his grave and the aging band remaining in the commune were no match for the clever con man. We need look no further than twenty miles from Wooster Lake, to Zion City, for an example of what a shambles an ambitious neophyte could make of a much grander charismatic religious enterprise, although it would be a disservice to Jacob to compare him personally to J. Alexander Dowie. Irvin E. Rockwell is perhaps the most obvious example of a person who was tremendously drawn toward Jacob’s teachings yet could not dissociate himself from multitudinous (and, in his case, immensely profitable) business activities sufficiently to allow himself to join the Spirit Fruit Society. He appears to have used the “Home” at Lisbon and later at Wooster Lake primarily for rest and relaxation, and, following his estrangement from Dolly Rockwell, the farm served as a convenient rendezvous with his secretary, Lallah Rookh White. Rockwell agreed with Robert Wall’s remark that “This is the society of ‘To Hell with care,” a not quite accurate interpretation of Jacob’s belief that acceptance of his philosophy would banish care. Care, perhaps, but not necessarily toil. Because Jacob not only did not mind hard physical labor but at times actually relished it and in any case always appreciated its value, this is a distinction he would have been careful to make. Not to disparage an unquestionably sincere interest in Jacob, his thought, and the well-being of the other members of the Spirit Fruit family on the part of Rockwell, his wife, and his lover, it still remains obvious that some parts of Jacob’s philosophy naturally were inevitably more appealing to Rockwell and Lallah Rookh than were others. In view of his unhappy domestic situation, “Rock” and “Rookh” undoubtedly found Jacob’s views on marriage both congenial and convenient. As well they might, for Jacob’s beliefs had been developed from somewhat similar circumstances.

A number of other people must have been drawn to the Spirit Fruit Society in large part because of its radical views on the marriage contract, if not because of its related views on sexual equality. This seems to have been true not only of Rockwell but also of Eugene Clarke, Herman Kuehn, and probably Robert Wall. Jacob’s views on the equality of women surely proved immensely appealing to the likes of Mary Beilhart, Kate Waters, Belle Norris, Mrs. Bailey, Dora Greenlee, and others. It is considered very probable that Mary Beilhart’s views on this subject may have influenced Jacob’s own during the formative years preceding the incorporation of the Spirit Fruit Society.

Still other men and women must have been drawn to the Society for different reasons: Charlena Young, Martha Miller, and Ralph Galbreath because of an interest in Spiritualism, for example. All undoubtedly were influenced by Jacob’s personal attractiveness, but it is doubtful that this was the predominant factor in many cases, with the possible exception of Virginia Moore. Reading between the misleading lines of newsprint, it is evident that the precocious “Blessed” Herbeson had been exposed to Spiritualism well before she met Jacob, an important factor even though the intensity of her conversion undoubtedly owed much to Jacob’s

of 210

charisma and to her youth.

Whatever the initial reason or reasons for someone taking up with the Spirit Fruit Society, the perceived benefits were not always sufficient to reconcile the person with other aspects of the communal life. The most painful example of this surely is Louema Beilhart, though it is interesting to contemplate that had Louema been able to continue life in the Society, her son may very well have been educated to succeed Jacob.

Quite definitely, some people left or drifted away from the Society when their problems proved soluable in a more socially acceptable manner. Although Irvin Rockwell continued to keep in touch with Society members after they moved to California, his marriage to his beloved Lallah Rookh, as well as their mutual acceptance of Christian Science, surely lessened the emotional and psychological bonds this couple had with the Spirit Fruit Society. (Rockwell’s increasing prominence in Idaho politics may also have played a role in his distancing himself from the Society.) Likewise, it is surmised that Herman Kuehri at some point tired of chasing Eva Barrett (Rogers) about the Lisbon Home and returned to his wife - at least by the time he testified in Oscar Triggs’ divorce, Kuehn would appear to be the paragon of marital orthodoxy.

Others left because they could not subjugate their own egos to that of Jacob for the good of the Society. It appears, for example, that Honore J. Jaxon had little more to do with the Spirit Fruit Society after Jacob refused to let him design the new home at Wooster Lake. Given Frederick Reed’s patrician background and his statement that he was the leader of the Society following Jacob’s death, it is possible that he found it difficult to accept Virginia’s leadership when the Overbrook group joined the Society in California. This must remain surmise, however, and it is possible that the Reeds did leave early on primarily or entirely because of Rachel’s blindness and Frederick’s admitted inability to develop calluses.

For these and various other reasons, the flock gradually diminished. As there was no effort to try to continue spreading Jacob’s philosophy by either the written or spoken word, there was little likelihood of the membership being enlarged by new converts. Ineluctably, a point must have been reached beyond which the members of the family would not have welcomed a new member, for to admit additional people would inevitably disturb the delicate psychic economy of the group. But with Jacob’s death, the group must also have lost, to a large extent, any sense of purpose beyond that involved in its day-to-day existence. Even Ralph Galbreath, who had some intellectual pretensions in his youth, seems to have lost any desire to share his opinions outside the fold. It is possible that Sundays at Wooster Lake did continue to serve as a forum for advanced thought; but if so, it also seems likely that the leadership came from Chicago visitors rather than from members of the Society. It may well be that Jacob’s spiritual legacy was sufficient to meet the needs of the Spirit Fruit Society’s members.

of 210

With the disappearance of a charismatic leader, there remain only his (or her) ideas; all the rest consists merely of relics and the gradually diminishing memories of the first generation of the faithful. And unless the death of the leader can be made a ritualistic part of the groups continuing existence, it is natural that the absent founder of such a group will come to play less and less of a role in sustaining the community. Many such charismatic religious groups never survive the death of their founder. One of the most remarkable features of the Spirit Fruit Society is the fact that such a small group was able to continue for twenty years after the passing of the Society’s founder.

Unquestionably, the quickness with which “Ma” Young began receiving messages from Jacob through her spirit-writing was a major reason for the continuation of the Spirit Fruit Society following his death. Initially no doubt a great satisfaction to those of the members who did believe in Spiritualism, the practice gradually assumed the role of a daily ritual that served to help unite the members of the group long after the pain of Jacob’s death had eased. Further, there seems to have been no dissenting voice at the selection of Virginia Moore as Jacob’s successor. It would have been surprising had there been, for the choice was a natural one, regardless of whether Jacob, on either side of the grave, had designated a successor.

Unfortunately, while the choice of Virginia Moore was logical, acceptable to all of the members, and all in all the best possible choice under the circumstances, Virginia did not possess the requisite leadership abilities necessary to supplant Jacob in the emotions of the commune. It took a remarkable person to accomplish as much as Virginia did, and it seems certain that without her exceptional gifts the Society would not have continued much beyond Jacob’s death. The success with which Virginia and the rest of the group were able to maintain the Society in the face of overwhelming physical and economic hardship is an impressive achievement; but throughout the rest of its life, emotionally and spiritually the Society simply treaded water. Group commitment, though it continued to be reinforced by mechanisms such as shared moral principles, sacrifice, mutual criticism, and ritual, was undercut by the lack of a new spiritual leader.

Despite the apparent success the Society had in overcoming the loss of their founder and leader, that the members essentially underwent a long period of emotional and spiritual stasis - a period in which they were simply waiting - is evident from the ingenuous eagerness and (no doubt) the relief with which they accepted the new Word of William Wilsdon. Considered from this point of view, the Society’s continued reliance upon supernatural contact with Jacob proved a mixed blessing.

Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the Society’s history, however, is not Jacob’s seemingly premature death nor even the inability of the surviving members to cope with their second encounter with charisma. During that long period of waiting, the Society successfully avoided the self-destructive peril of internal

of 210

dissension and the external threat of seduction by materialistic imports (if only because they could not afford them!). Its members continued to live their lives together, committed to a shared value system, which they not Only professed but practiced. It is in this sense that the Society can be regarded as being a decided success. To consider only one aspect, Lauer and Lauer (1983) have noted a marked disparity between the ideology and the reality of nineteenth-century American communal societies in regard to sex roles, but the Spirit Fruit Society does seem to have approached and sustained true egalitarianism, most notably in the acceptance of a woman as Jacob’s successor but also in the division of labor. Men and women alike had worked in making the concrete blocks for the Wooster Lake home, for example, and at Hilltop the members performed tasks which they preferred or for which they were best suited. The members were truly cooperative in this and other respects, any differences of opinion being settled at the dinner table. The Spirit Fruit Society remains one of the few exceptions to the Lauers’ observation that in most such groups “the authority structure belied the ideology of equality.” 6 On this level, the Spirit Fruit Society continued to work long after Jacob’s demise and might have continued well beyond the banishment of Wilsdon, were it not for a third, more implacable enemy, time, ageing, and the death of the other members.

Having successfully faced the crisis of its leader’s death, the Spirit Fruit Society failed to provide for its continuance by recruiting new members. There is no evidence to indicate whether this was a conscious decision or not. It may have been due simply to the lack of people interested in committing themselves to the Society, along with the Society’s passive philosophy of non-resistance. So small was the group, however, that the loss of only a few members, whether by defection or death, was critical. Although the cost of ignoring this gradual attrition of the membership must surely have become apparent by the time the Society moved to California, nothing was done to counteract it. Fate, too, played a hand. Had William Large joined the group before William Wilsdon appeared upon the scene, that entire unhappy episode might not have occurred. Wilsdon undoubtedly was responsible for the departure of many of the members of the Hilltop family. Although there is no way of knowing, quite possibly the Society might have remained strong enough to have survived even Virginia Moore’s death, had the group not been so seriously damaged by Wilsdon’s manipulation.

of 210

Significantly, none of the members of the Spirit Fruit Society who felt compelled to leave ever renounced the Society or Jacob’s teachings. Nor was the group ever rent by doctrinal or philosophical disagreements. It must be remembered, too, that members of the Spirit Fruit Society, like members of most such “social experiments,” did not view their way of life as an experiment - it was, for them, a way of life. While changing circumstances inevitably required modifications in that way of life, the group retained throughout and even beyond the life of the Society a shared value system. However little or however much the particular elements of that value system have to do with the longevity of the Spirit Fruit Society, it is difficult today to find fault with them. In a post-Synanon, post-Jonestown age, when the value, relevance, and beneficence of intentional, alternative communities is so readily questioned and denied, the Spirit Fruit Society exemplifies the fact that such groups can work and have worked, if only for a little while.

of 210

NOTES 1. Mark Holloway, Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America,

1860-1880 (New York: Library Publishers, 1951): 217.

2. Robert S. Fogarty, “American Communes, 1865-1914,” Journal of American Studies 9(2): 145-162. As Kantner (1972: 228) notes, the question of intergroup coordination and cooperation has never been addressed in the prior history of utopian communes and today is being addressed only in a limited way by the Kibbutz Federation. Some individualist anarchists anticipated a system of decentralized local communities of small size but none of the resultant social “experiments” proved viable enough for inter-community cooperation to become a reality.

3. Laurence Veysey, The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Counter-cultures in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). Robert V. Hine, California’ Utopian Colonies (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1953).

4. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972). Robert J. Knowdell, letter to author, August 25, 1978: “He [Jacob] understood that before anyone would be ready to make those sacrifices and adopt that lifestyle they would have had to experience tragedy, disillusionment, or at the very least, extreme dissatisfaction with their former life. And I’m quite sure all of the members qualified in that respect.”

5. Evelyn Hastings, letter to Mrs. Burton C. Bowgren, July 24, 1978.

6. Jeannette C. Lauer and Robert H. Lauer, “Sex Roles in Nineteenth-century American Communal Societies,” Communal Studies 3: 16-28.

of 210

APPENDIX A

BEILHART GENEALOGY For convenience, genealogical data available on Jacob’s parents, siblings,

nieces, and nephews are presented below. No concerted effort has been made to fill in the obvious gaps in this record.

John b 26 Nov 1830 Wurttemberg d 26 Nov 1872 m Barbara Slutter (Schlotterback) she b 25 Aug 1826 Ohio d 5 June 1894

1)George b 15 Sept 1852 d 10 Dec 1887 Cullman Co., Ala. m Louisa E. Ginther 2 Nov 1876

John Frederick b 23 Jan 1879 d 1 Apr 1949 Birmingham, Ala. Annie m - - Brown Mary E. b May 1883

2)Barbara b 1854 m Samuel Bailey 14 to Alabama d 1882 Clarance b 1877 Ohio Mary b Nov 1879 Ohio

3)Emma b 25 Sept 1855 m Jacob Burk 19 Feb 1880 he b 1855

4)Susannah b 10 Dec 1858 d 14 June Esterly 17 Jan 1886 Ethel

m Edward Bierman m William Kenreich

5)Johannes b 1859 d 1863 Sept 1876 moved 1942 in Franklin E.

6)Jonas S. b 5 Sept 1860 d 17 Jan 1928 m Louise (Christene) Gerken 22 June 1882 Lancaster, Ohio. she d 20 Aug 1936

Archie H. b Apr 1887 John F. b 2 July 1884 Logan, Ohio d 2 Jan 1960 Leetonia Stella May b Oct 1885 m George C. Johnson William M. b Apr 1887 George G. b Nov 1888 Karl J. b Dec 1890 Catharine B. b Feb 1897 m - - Hoffman

of 210

7)Hanna b 8 Oct 1862 d 23 Sept 1952 Los Angeles in Conrad Frederick Burk 19 Feb 1880, he b 1867

?Christena b 1885 Ralph b 1888 Ohio Floyd b 1890 Kansas Estella b 1891 Kansas Earl b 1897 Kansas Gladys b 1905 Kansas Carl b 1908 Kansas

m Boyd Coffman

8)John Michael b 10 Jan 1865 d 24 Nov 1952. m 1) Mary Alice Elder 13 Feb 1890 she d 1904 m 2)Dorothy A. Whan 27 Dec 1905 she d 18 Nov 1937 Leetonia

9)Jacob L. b 4 Mar 1867 d Ingleside, Ill. 23 Nov 1908 m Louema Blow 24 Feb 1887, Princeton, Kansas she d 31 Oct 1934

Denver, Colo,

10)Mary b 21 Sept 1869 d 7 May 1946 Los Angeles, Calif. Evelyn Gladys b 28 Aug 1900 Lisbon, Ohio Robert J. Knowdell b 13 May 1904 Lisbon, Ohio d 4 June 1987 Santa Cruz,

Calif. Universal Spirit.

11)Noah b 9 Aug 1872 d Maitland, Fla. 12 Nov 1959 m Jane Hudson 1905

of 210

APPENDIX B

Ohio Spirit Fruit Society

Constitution and RegulationsArt. 1. We believe there is one Universal Spirit, which pervades all things,

and acts out thro’ nature, the various qualities which compose it.

This Universal Spirit is impersonal in its essence.

What is called nature and natural law, is the external expression of this Universal Spirit.

The law of this external expression, is the way this Universal Spirit manifests, under various conditions. So that in studying nature, we are studying Universal Spirit.

By obeying nature’s law, on the various planes of expression, we are obeying the laws or will of Universal Spirit

Art. 2. We believe this Universal Spirit is more than what is to be seen in the external world of material creation.

That this Universal Spirit is the essence of all wisdom, love and intelligence. That all actions in nature are harmonious if understood. That this Universal Spirit can never act other than harmoniously.

Art. 3. We believe that man is the highest external expression in this manifestation of Universal Spirit. That physically and mentally, he is the most complex in his organization, and therefore capable to express a larger amount of Universal Spirit.

That man, when considered as he will be, when finally perfected, is a complete expression of Universal Spirit.

But as yet, man is simply an undeveloped “plant” which has not manifested the final fruit, which he is to produce.

That as the plant is not the grain or fruit, which it is to bear, so man is not, at his present unfoldment, what he is to be when perfected; and as the plant is not governed by the laws which govern the ripe fruit of it, so man, in his present state is not under the same laws which will govern him after he arrives at full fruitage.

Art. 4. We believe that man in his present stage of unfoldment, is selfish, emotional, and religious by nature, all of which is good for unfoldment. That the state nourishes and protects his selfish interests, and the church his emotional and religious nature.

of 210

We believe that the law of Universal Spirit is in all things and will govern from within, and that external laws of state and society are a general expression of the nature of those who enact them.

Art. 5. We believe this world is a school which is adapted to teach man all he should know while in the world, and if he is true to nature within and without, he will reach the fountain of all wisdom and power, which has been implanted deep within himself, and which, when reached by gradual fulfillment of all laws which lead up to this point, will bring man in the full fruitage and then he will be conscious(?) of the Universal Spirit and will express its perfection on a small scale.

Art. 6. We believe that men should obey the laws of justice on all planes of life, and should do unto his fellows as he desires they do to him, because in reality no one can get away from the law of life, which compels a man to reap just as he sows. So really all we do to another, we do unto ourself. This law of reaping as one sows, teaches him not to harm his fellows.

Art. 7. We also believe that the law, in a man on a low scale of unfoldment, is not able to counteract his selfish tendencies which would cause him to obey his passions and impulses, and this makes it necessary for external restraint to be brought to bear on him. So that if a man will not obey his highest sense of right without external restraint, he should be restrained by external law. This is supplied by the laws of state, society and church. Therefore we believe in just punishment for those who do not obey their highest sense of right in their relation of man to man, and in the imaginary punishment inflicted by the church, on those who do not obey their moral sense of right; which imaginary punishment consists for the disapproval of their deity, and suffering punishment after death; all of which serves to restrain those whose desires of selfishness exceed their desire to be just and true to their highest ideal.

Art. 8. We believe that the social laws are adapted to the needs of society, and that the marriage law is wise, and so long as a man will not master his animal nature of passion, and bring all into subjection to his highest conception of justice, he should be compelled to obey by external law.

That no one has a right to be free from law, until he is obedient to it without restraint.

That while man is selfish in his nature, and has not reached the state of unfoldment where he has desires to live only for the good of all; while he desires to gather to himself what he calls his own, and separate it from that of his neighbors, and is more interested in that he calls his own, that so long as he obeys this part of his nature, he should be compelled by external law to deal justly and give his neighbors all rights he takes for himself. So if he desires to have rights exclusive, he must allow his neighbor to have the same. Therefore we believe that the laws as they stand today, as a general thing, are good for those who live under them, and that as man unfolds into higher parts of his nature, these laws will be modified to

of 210

suit his growth.

Art. 9. We also believe that when one, by experiences passes through the various stages of unfoldment, they reach a nature in them which desires to reverse the natural order of selfishness and the desire to cease their efforts to take to themselves anything, or exclude others from it. They desire to unite with others who have reached the same plane, and follow the desire to help their fellow mortals. They learn that the real joy in life is not to receive by effort put forth to obtain for themselves, and exclude others, but rather that the amount of their joy consists in the amount of joy they can produce for others.

That Life ceases to be an effort to get to one’s self comfort here and hereafter, but just the reverse is true, that true joy consists of self forgetfulness, and expending all one’s energies to assist others in obtaining greater joy and happiness. That instead of desiring to build up ourselves, and obtain glory, recognition and honor, we unite with others and recognizing all as members of one body, and feel our interest in all and all our efforts go to build up the body as a whole, and not each member building up himself.

Art. 10. We believe that the Bible is a book which gives us an illustrated history of the growth of man, from stage to stage, and in it are to be found laws that apply to all the various grades which man passes through.

We also believe that the character called Jesus Christ is a representative of the perfect man who has reached this unselfish nature in man. That his life is illustrative of how one may expect this completed life to express itself. That he was the Divine man which is a type of all who unfold and reach perfection. This is the full fruit which man is to attain. But we also believe that the selfish man cannot, in his present state, obey the teaching or imitate the life of Jesus. But when he outgrows the selfish nature, he will finally reach that part which he will find will express itself as the same nature did in Jesus Christ.

Therefore we believe that as one reaches this part of their nature, which desires the good of all, and does no longer desire to exalt Self, or protect selfishness, but desires to unite with others who have like desires, and thus work together to help their fellow mortals obtain like liberty. That it is according to the law of Universal Spirit in them to have all things in common, and be free to obey the Divine Spirit within them. To spend their energies to assist others who desire their help, to outgrow the selfish nature, and enter the unselfish Universal Spirit; thus completing the growth and producing an image and likeness of the seed from which it came, which is Universal Spirit.

of 210

Believing the foregoing to be a true view of Life, we, who have incorporated ourselves as Spirit Fruit Society, with the object of the society as follows: “To teach mankind how to apply the Truths taught by Jesus Christ, to daily life; to disseminate a practical knowledge of the principles which pertain to man’s spiritual, social, mental and physical perfection. Believing that selfishness is the one great hindrance to human happiness, we desire to unite as one, and assist others in eliminating this element from their nature by practicing unselfishness in our own lives by helping others.”

“All work or teaching done by members of the society shall be done in the name of the society rather than in any personal name.”

of 210

APPENDIX C

THE POST CONNECTION When Louema Beilhart left Jacob in February, 1900, she was never to see

him again, and it is unlikely that Jacob ever saw either of the children, Harry Harvey and Edith, again. Yet, the future of Louema and her children remains an important and interesting aspect of Jacob’s life, if not an integral part of the history of the Spirit Fruit Society.

After a brief visit to Battle Creek, Michigan, where Louema consulted with C.W. Post, she and the children returned to La Cygne, Kansas. Although specific details of the understanding between Post and Louema are not known, it is certain that C.W. supported her and the children until his death. The 1905 Kansas state census lists L. Beilhart, ten-year-old Harvey Post, and nine-year-old Edith Beilhart. Written in pencil, the schedule entry for Harvey shows an erasure for the last name, and it is evident that the census taker started to write something else, presumably “Beilhart,” but was corrected before getting much past the initial letter. Louema at this time owned one house and lot in La Cygne, valued at $2150. The lot had been purchased the previous year.1

By 1909, her young son, who had adopted the name John Harvey Post at his father’s request, was attending Winona Academy, in Winona, Indiana. According to C.W. ‘s subsequent letter of application to Culver Military Academy, the school which John Harvey next attended, the boy’s record at Winona Academy was very good until he “became disgusted ... with the run-down condition of the school.” His reports then showed demerits for such offenses as “wrestling in the hall” and smoking in his room. C.W. took him to task on a visit to Battle Creek, and John “responded very handsomely,” his reports showing marked improvement; but C.W. decided to take him out of school and have him spend some time on the Post ranch in Texas. Then, after a bout of work as a carpenter at Post City, Texas, John returned for a visit with his mother in La Cygne. 2

In his initial letter to the Culver Academy, C.W. explained the situation thus: “He is a young man I have taken to educate, and by agreement with his mother, have allowed him to take my name and expect to rather see him thru to a good start in life. His mother, a widow, is Mrs. L. M. Beilhart of Lacygne, Kansas. She and her husband cared for me some years ago during a long period of illness and I know the boy to be well born and a very promising chap.” If Louema, who is said to have been in love with C.W. Post all of her life, ever had any thought that he might eventually marry her, this must have ended in 1904 when C.W. married his secretary, Leila Young, twenty years his junior, only a few weeks after Ella Post had secured a divorce on grounds of extreme cruelty.3

John Harvey entered Culver Military Academy on September 18, 1910, attended the Academy’s Naval School during the summer of 1912, and graduated from the Academy June 5, 1913. 4

of 210

John Harvey Post, from the 1913 Culver Military Academy Roll Call (Courtesy Culver Military Academy)

His official address was the Post Inn at Battle Creek, but John Harvey made frequent visits to his mother and sister at La Cygne, sometimes meeting them in Kansas City to visit with his aunt and uncle, Burt and Mabel Huffman. On several occasions Louema saw Noah Beilharz in Kansas City and even in Chicago, but it is not known whether John Harvey ever met his uncle. The young boy’s summers were generally spent in Texas, where C. W. was developing Post City, and at La Cygne. Christmas was usually spent with his mother. 5

According to the 1913 Culver year book, Roll Call, John Harvey Post, nicknamed “Post Toasties,” was known principally “for his wonderful skill in tickling the strings of the guitar.” “A great lover of the ‘fair sex,’ John Harvey made a hobby of sharp-shooting and was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. His class picture shows a light-haired young man with broad forehead, prominent ears, and other physical features shared with his father.6

Following his graduation from Culver in 1913, John Harvey Post entered the Colorado School of Mines, and Louema and Edith also moved to Denver. Renting the home in La Cygne, Louema and Edith left for Denver in early July, 1913, where Lou M. Beilhart is listed in Denver city directories until her death, in 1934. The La Cygne property was sold in April, 1916, at which time she was living in Denver. John H. Post attended the Colorado School of Mines for only a year, from

of 210

September, 1913, to March, 1914, and he did not graduate. It was in early March, 1914, that the critically ill C.W. Post made his sensational railroad dash from his winter home in Santa Barbara, California, to the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. Operated upon for appendicitis, Post returned to California to recuperate; but a scant two months later, faced with the fact that he had cancer and, according to knowledgeable accounts, the fact that his young wife was unfaithful, Post shot himself, May 9, 1914. 7

John H. Post was remembered in C.W.’s will. Dated November 3, 1913, Post’s will left “2% of the money in banks, bonds, mortgages, and bills receivable of which I shall die possessed” to “my foster son, John H. Post,” to C.W.’s son-in-law, E.B. Close, and to the eight members of the Postuin Cereal Co. “Cabinet.” John H. Post’s share amounted to approximately $150,000, though as late as 1920 he received a payment of $5830.43 from various stocks and bonds. Nonetheless, the total amount was nothing like the estimated $30,000,000 in property inherited by Marjorie Post Close. John Harvey Post gained control of his inheritance when he came of age in August, 1915, an occasion that called forth an interesting article in the Battle Creek press. “I took the name of Post at my adoptive father’s request. I am interested in life and all its possibilities. I am going to Ohio to take a commercial course in business, and then return and enter the building, investment and loan business. I have no intention of marrying, and care nothing for racing or the white lights of Broadway.” All in all, as the newspaper proclaimed, Post was “a model youth,” if a bit smug and immature. The newspaper got a few facts wrong, attributing C.W.’s introduction to Christian Science to “John L. Beilhart, father of the adopted boy,” and having John H. graduating from Culver Military Academy “only a few months ago.”8

Whatever his views on racing and the lights of Broadway, John H. Post must have changed his ideas on marriage, for on March 15, 1917, he married Anna J. Rist, of Fort Collins, Colorado, in Washington, D.C. The couple returned to Colorado, where Post was influential in merging the Scholtz and Mutual Drug companies, becoming vice-president of the new firm. In 1918, their only child, Charles W., was born, named for his grand-father. Baby Charles almost drowned, at the early age of three years, when he fell into an irrigation ditch near Loveland, Colorado. Only the quick action of his mother, who jumped into the ditch, got the boy to shore, then managed to carry him to a nearby farmhouse, saved his life. A physician instructed Anna Post by telephone on how to resuscitate the unconscious child. When this first marriage ended in divorce three years later, young Charles continued to live with his mother, who remained on close terms with Louema Beilhart.9

Louema, during this period, had become attracted to Divine Science, a body of religious tenets which shared a number of similarities with Jacob’s teachings, including the surrender of self, the omnipresence of God - “All is Spirit” - and an emphasis upon healing through the revelation or realization of the oneness of all things with God. Jacob and Louema, in fact, had studied Divine Science early on

of 210

during their Battle Creek days. Begun by three sisters, Alethea Brooks Small, Fannie Brooks James, and Nona Lovell Brooks in the late l880s, Divine Science was joined by a second group led by Mrs. Malinda E. Cramer, of San Francisco, who had been healed after many years of invalidism, and had incorporated the Home College of Divine Science in 1887. Mrs. Cramer came to Denver to teach, “but her teaching was so profound that only advanced students could understand her, consequently she never had a large number in her group.” With Mrs. Cramer’s death in 1907, Denver became the headquarters of Divine Science activities. According to her grandson, Louema continued to be very active in the Denver church until shortly before her death. Louema’s continued interest in divine healing and her refusal to take medication probably led to her premature death. Near the end, apparently feeling that Divine Science was not working for her, she changed to the Methodist church. Lou Beilhart died of congestive heart failure at Denver General Hospital on October 31, 1934, at the age of 67.10

By this time, John H. Post had remarried, to a divorcee, Mrs. Julia Clifford Mills. Mrs. Mills was born in New Orleans, where she married Jacob Mills in 1909, and the couple were divorced in Denver in 1923, on grounds of non-support. For a time Mrs. Mills managed various apartment houses and worked as a manicurist. She and Post were married in June, 1927. The John H. Post inheritance had by now largely disappeared, and Louema, apparently in the belief that the information, if properly handled might prove useful, told John H. and Julia Post the entire story of her relationship with C.W. Post. In hindsight, while her son’s reaction might seem to have been predictable, it is also easy to envision Louema’s horror when he proceeded to see his lawyer about the possibility of reopening the Post will. To prevent any such scandal from occurring, Louema methodically destroyed virtually all of her personal papers, preserving only a small calendar or datebook now owned by her grandson. John H. Post may have gone so far as to contact Marjorie Merriweather Post regarding the matter, but he does not appear to have received any additional funds from her or the Post estate.11

Following his mother’s death, John H. Post worked as an illustrator and draftsman for the Colorado Department of Highways. During the throes of the Great Depression, times were understandably difficult for the Posts, and Edith Beilhart’s mental condition was such that Post had her committed to the Colorado State Hospital at Pueblo, Colorado, in August, 1936. There she spent the next twenty-five years of her life.12

In the autumn of 1938, Post received an appointment to the Bonneville Dam Project and later worked as an electrical engineer in the chemical electrical department of the General Electric Co. at Hanford, Washington. Post developed lymphatic carcinoma while working at Hanford and retired in 1959. He died January 27, 1962, leaving an estate of approximately $43,000. Julia Post, the informant on his death certificate, gave his father’s name as “Joseph Beihart” and his mother as “Lulu Bleau,” the latter error possibly due to the influence of Mrs. Post’s New Orleans girlhood. Julia Clifford Post survived John H. Post less than a

of 210

year, dying in November, 1962.13

Most sad, however, was Edith’s end. Released from the Colorado State Hospital on her own recognizance - less than a month after her brother’s death - Edith found a home with Mrs. Grace Beck, of Canon City, Colorado. When Julia Post died, she left Edith a bequest of several thousand dollars. The State Hospital, when informed of the bequest, petitioned the Denver County Probate Court to appoint a Conservator so that Edith could receive her inheritance but also enclosed a claim for the entire amount, to defray the State’s expenses in keeping Edith for twenty-five years. The hospital accountant pointed out that by state law, if Edith’s assets exceeded $1000, she would lose her $110 per month old age pension, and the court allowed the State Hospital’s claim. On the afternoon of August 17, 1964, Edith and another passenger were critically injured in an auto accident while being taken for a ride by Mrs. Beck. Edith suffered multiple injuries, including several fractured ribs. While she was hospitalized, steps were taken to have her recommitted to the State Hospital, but she died, September 9, 1964, before this could transpire.14

of 210

NOTES 1. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986. Kansas State census,

1905, La Cygne, Linn Co., p. 101. Linn Co., Kansas, Deed Records, No. 63, recorded November 12, 1904.

2. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986, according to whom. “... on March 18, 1902, Harvey Harold Beilhart became John Harvey Post, and C.W. announced that the little boy was his foster son.” C.W. Post, letter to Co. A.F. Fleet, July 18, 1910. La Cygne Journal, July 22, 1910: “Mrs. Lou Beilhart and daughter, Miss Edith went to Kansas City Friday... They were accompanied home by her son, Harvey Post, who had just returned from a visit with relatives in Post City, Texas. Harvey has been attending school in Winona Lake, Indiana, the past year.”

3. C.W. Post, letter to Col. A.F. Fleet, July 13, 1910. It is possible that the announcement of Post’s second marriage, November 17, 1904, precipitated Louema’s petition for alimony from Jacob Beilhart, which was filed a month later, December 12, 1904. On Post’s second marriage, see Battle Creek Daily Moon, November 17, 1904.

4. Penny Pare, Culver Military Academy, letter to author, December 4, 1986.

5. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986. La Cygne Journal, June 16, August 18, September 29, December 22, 1911; January 5, 1912; January 10, 1913. There is no evidence that John Harvey Beilhart ever had any contact with the Spirit Fruit Society after Louema and the children left Lisbon, Ohio. However, at the time the Society first contemplated selling the Wooster Lake home, the Chicago Daily Journal reported that “Besides Miss Moore, those who hold official positions in the strange colony are Mr. and Mrs. .H. Young, mother and stepfather of “Bob” [Virginia Moore], Harry Beilhart, son of the founder of the institution, and Emily Leonhardt.” Evelyn Hastings (telephone interview with author, November, 1987) states that Harry Beilbart never visited Ingleside.

6. Roll Call 1913, p. 66.

7. La Cygne Journal, June 27 and July 4, 1913. Catherine T. Engle, Colorado Historical Society, letter to author, September 17, 1986. Linn Co., Kansas, Deed Records, Louema Beilhart to J.T. and Margaret Goss, Deed No. 83, filed April 13, 1916. Colorado School of Mines, Records Office, letter to author, January 29, 1987. Battle Creek Daily Moon, March 5, 1914. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986.

8. A copy of Post’s will is in the C.W. Post Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “John H. Post Is A Model Youth,” newspaper clipping dated August 26, 1915, in the Willard Library, Battle Creek. The newspaper remains unidentified (Marlene A. Steele, letter to author, April 4, 1987).

of 210

9. Washington (D.C.) Post, March 14, 1917. Denver Post, November 7, 1921. Denver District Court, Divorce Records, Case 92126, filed December 15, 1925, divorce granted August 6, 1926.

10. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986, and January 16, 1987. Divine Science, Its Principle and Practice (Denver, Cob.: Textbook of Divine Science, 1952). State of Colorado, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Death Record 9205. Denver Post, November 2, 1934.

11. Arapahoe Co. Colorado, Certificate of Marriage, filed July 1, 1927. Denver District Court, Divorce Records, Case No. 81371, filed January 11, 1923, granted August 24, 1923. Denver city directories, 1922-1926. Mrs. Myra S. Ratay, letter to author, March 2, 1987. Charles W. Post, letter to author, November 5, 1986.

12. Culver Military Institute alumni file on John H. Post. Edith Beilhart’s commitment papers are included in her estate settlement, Denver Co. Probate Court, Case No. 57625.

13. Ibid. Washington State Dept. of Health, Death Certificate, State File No. Division, Death Certificate, State File 34. Oregon State Health State File No. 15814

14. Denver Co. Probate Court, Case No. 57625. Canon City Daily Herald, August 18, 1964. State of Colorado, Death Certificate, No. 11945

of 210

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS Battle Creek City Directory. Battle Creek, Mich.: Kellogg Publishing Co., 1893.

Beilhart, Jacob. Anarchy, Its Cause, and Suggestion for Its Cure. Ingleside, Ill.: [s.n.], 1908.

Love Letters from Spirit to You. Compiled by Freedom Hill Henry, from “Spirit’s Voice.” Roscoe, Calif.: Freedom Hill Henry, 1929.

Campbell University. Fifteenth Annual Catalogue of Campbell University, 1896-1897. Holton, Kans.: Campbell University, 1896.

Campbell University Students’ Directory. Holton, Kans.: Campbell University, 1890.

Carson, Gerald. The Cornflake Crusade. New York: Rinehart & Co., 1957.

Directory of All Business and Professional Men of Columbiana County, O. Conneaut, Ohio: Watson & Dorman, 1898.

Egerton, John. Visions of Utopia. Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1977.

Fogarty, Robert S. Dictionary American Communal and Utopian History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980.

Fremont, Donatien. Les Secretaires de Riel. Montreal: Les editions Chantecler Ltee, 1953.

Harvard Alumni Directory. Boston: Harvard Alumni Association, 1926.

Healdsburg College. The Fifth Annual Catalogue of Healdsburg College. Healdsburg, Calif.: College Press, 1888.

Henry, Leroy. Freedom from Fond Friends. Burbank, Calif.: Freedom Hill Pressery, 1919.

Henry, Leroy. Happy in Hell. Burbank, Calif.: Freedom Hill Pressery, 1924.

Henry, Leroy, ed. Jacob Beilhart: Life and Teachings. Burbank, Calif.: Freedom Hill Pressery, 1925.

Henry, Leroy. Miserable in Heaven. Roscoe, Calif.: Freedom Hill Pressery, 1927.

Hinds, William Alfred. American Communities and Cooperative Colonies. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1908.

Hine, Robert V. California’s Utopian Colonies. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1953.

Holloway, Mark. Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in American, l680-

of 210

1880. New York: Library Publishers, 1951.

An Illustrated and Historical Directory Battle Creek, Mich. Battle Creek, Mich.: Kimball-Holmes Publishing Co., 1895.

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Commitment Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972.

Keyser, I.N. The Esterly Pioneers Their Contemporaries . [S.l.]: Mary Allen Keyser, 1937.

Knight, George R., ed. Early Adventist Educators. Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 1983.

Mack, Horace. History Columbiana County, Ohio. Philadelphia: D.W. Ensign & Co., 1879.

Major, Nettie L. C.W. Post: The Man the Hour. Washington, D.C.: Judd & Detweiler, 1963.

Marion County 1979 History. Marion, Ohio: Marion County Historical Society, 1979.

Martin, James J. Men Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827-1908 DeKalb, Ill.: Adrian Allen Associates, 1953.

Massie, Larry B., and Peter J. Schmitt. Battle Creek: The Place Behind the Products. Woodland Hills, Calif.: Windsor Publications, Inc., 1984.

Membership Seventh-day Adventist Church Battle Creek, Mich., As It Stood May 13, 1891. Battle Creek, Mich.: s.n., 1891.

Post, C.W. The Modern Practice: Natural Suggestion, or, Scientia Vitae. Battle Creek, Mich.: La Vita Inn Co., 1894.

Reichert, William O. Partisans of Freedom: A Study in American Anarchism. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1976.

Rockwell, Irvin S. The Story the American Falls Dam. New York: Hobson Book Publishers, 1947.

Roosevelt, Theodore. The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. Selected and edited by Elting E. Morison. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952.

Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1976.

Spalding, Arthur Whitefield. Origin and History of Seventh-day Adventists. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1961.

Stanley, George F.G. The Birth Western Canada: History a of the Reil Rebellions. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1936.

of 210

University of Chicago Alumni Council. Alumni Directory. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1919.

Veysey, Laurence. Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Counter-cultures in America. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

Worman, John. Salem Township History and the Story of Leetonia. [S.1.: s.n., 1976]

ARTICLESBeilhart, Jacob. “Marriage and Divorce,” The October, 1908, p. 13-14.

Bender, Nellie Wenner. “Campbell University History.” Undated typescript, Beck-Bookman Library, Holton, Kansas.

Fogarty, Robert S. 1975. “American Communes, 1865-1914,” Journal of American Studies 9(2): 145- 162.

Fogarty, Robert S., and H. Roger Grant. 1980. “Free Love in Ohio: Jacob Beilhart and the Spirit Fruit Colony,” Ohio History 89(2): 206-221

Grant, H. Roger. 1983. “Prairie State Utopia: The Spirit Fruit Society of Chicago and Ingleside,” Chicago History 12(1): 28-35.

----.1983 “The Spirit Fruit Society: A Perfectionist Utopia in the Old Northwest, 1899-1915,” The Old Northwest 9(1): 23-36.

----.1985/1986. “Spirit Fruit: ‘Jacob’s’ Ohio Utopia,” Timeline 2(6): 18-27.

----.1986. “A Gentle Utopia: The California Years of the Spirit Fruit Society, 1914-1930,” The Pacific Historian 30(3): 54-70.

Murphy, James. 1961. “Old Spirit Fruit Farm Near County Fairgrounds Recalled,” Salem, Ohio, News August 22, 1961.

Murphy, James L. 1979. “Jacob Beilhart and the Spirit Fruit Society,” Echoes 18(7): 1,3.

Shenker, Barry. Intentional Communities: Ideology and Alienation in Communal Societies. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.

Smoot, Joseph G. “Sidney Brownsberger: Traditionalist,” p. 72-94, in Early Adventist Educators, George R. Knight, ed. Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 1983.

Van Buren, A.D.P. 1884. “History of the Churches in Battle Creek,” Report of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan 5:310-324.

of 210

INDEX [Page numbers have not been updated in this edition]

(Underline entries indicate photographs.)

Alliance, Ohio, 185 Ames, Mrs., 167 Anarchism, 3, 101, 139, 164-165, 222-223 American Falls Dam, 99 Anderson, Rev. James P., 76-77, 104 Anti-slavery, 11 Averbuch, Harry, 163

Bailey, Barbara Beilhart, 13, 235 Bailey, Mary G., 62, 64-66 Bang, Andrew C., 109-111 Bang, Anna, 109-111 Barienfleth, C.E., 110 Barrett, Eva (or, Eva Rogers), 101 Bartlett, Rev. W.A., 91 Battle Creek, Michigan, 22, 25-43 Battle Creek Sanitarium, 26, 27-29 Beardslee, Charlotte, 35-36 Beck, Grace, 248 Beilhart, Barbara Slutter, 9, 12, 13, 235 Beilhart, “Buster,” See Robert Knowdell. Beilhart, Edith, 42, 62, 243, 245, 248 Beilhart, Evelyn Gladys, See Evelyn Beilhart Hastings Beilhart, George 13, 235 Beilhart, Harry Harvey, See John H. Post. Beilhart, Jacob, xii, 97, 103, 105, 106, 109, 111, 114, 236; and alcohol, 112, 131;

birth, 9, birthplace, 8, 214; in Battle Creek, 22, 25-43; in Chicago, 89, 92,-93, 102-103, 112, 125, 165-166; and Christian Science, 32-35; and the clergy, 3, 107, 166; creates Spirit Fruit, 51-52; death, 166-168; education, 12; and faith healing, 28-29; funeral; grave, 216-217; at Ingleside, 125-158, 140, 164, 166-167; and journalists, 3, 106; in Kansas, 17-18, 20-21; and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, 28, 166; in Lisbon, 57, 61-68,79-80, 93-96, 104-108, 119; marriage, 17, 21; and marriage, 53, 77, 104, 138, 141-142, 154-156, 165; and Virginia Moore, 53; and parents 12; and Charles W. Post, 29-30, 34-40, 42-43 ; and Frederick and Rachel Reed, 116-117; and Seventh-day Adventism, 17-21; and spiritualism, 29; and Theosophy, 29; vegetarianism, 29; thought, 2, 34-35, 40-41, 62-63, 75-76, 104, 106-107, 134, 141-144, 148- 151, 154-156, 164-166; work ethic, 12-13, 228

Beilhart, Johannes, 235

of 210

Beilhart, John, 9, 11-12, 235 Beilhart, John Michael (“Mike”), 13, 185, 236 Beilhart, Jonas S., 13, 185, 235 Beilhart, Mary, 3, 40, 49, 54, 57, 68, 69, 97, 108, 114, 145, j, 157, 169, 176, 185, j,

201, 202, 204, 209, 211, 236 Beilhart, Michael, 11 Beilhart, Olive Louema Blow, 17, 18, 19-20, 21-22, 36, 39, 51-52, 54, 57, 62, 72,

125-126, 153, 169, 243- 247 Beilharz, Jane Hudson, 209 Beilharz, Noah, 13, 40, 49-50, 50, 54, 69, 147, 185, 209, 236, 245 Bellevue, Idaho, 99, 171 Bitters, Dr., 167 Blake, George, 72 Blow family, 17 Bonesville, Ohio, 11, 49 Borah, William E., 99 Boston Investigator, 69-71 Boston Latin School, 117, 118 Boston Herald, 160 Boston Post, 158 Bowgren, Burton C., Mr. and Mrs., 215, 216 Brady’s Lake, Ohio, 49 Bridges, Lucile, 174 Bridges, Mildred, 174 Brown, James, 170 Brown, Lucinda, 170 Brownsberger, Sidney, 18, 26 Bunnett, Sara A., 207, 217 Burk, Conrad Frederick, 13 Burk, Emma Beilhart, 13, 235 Burk, Hannah Beilhart, 13, 236 Burk, Jacob, 13

Campbell University, 101 Capitola, California, 187, 196 Carpenter, Charles. R., 176 Carpenter, Edward, 212 Carpenter, Rev. Joseph C., 208 Chambers, L. Dyo, 21 Charcot, Jean Martin, 39 Cherry Valley Iron Furnace, 185-186 Chicago Anthropological Society, 138, 163 Chicago Chronicle, 112-115 Chicago, Illinois, 89

of 210

Chicago Evening American, 76, 93, 100-101, 138 Chicago Federation of Labor, 98 Chicago Medical School, 102 Chicago Record-Herald, 172 Chicago Tribune, 139, 144-147, 152, 164, 168, 172 Christian Science, 30-33, 102 Church of the Absolute Life: See Evelyn Arthur See. Church of God Cincinnati Enquirer, 92, 106 Clarke, Carrie Latta, 98 Clarke, Eugene H., 92, 97, 98-99, 109, 157, 169, 171-172, 176, 199, 209 Cleveland Plain Dealer Cleveland Leader, 77-78, 95, 129-131 Close, E.B., 245 Colorado School of Mines, 245 Columbiana, Ohio, 13, 185 Converse, Beulah Bell, 211 Cool Springs, Ohio, 9-11 Coxey’s Army, 89 Crane, Arthur, 112 Crawford, Ellis, 73 Culver Military Academy, 243-245

Dakan Ranch, California, 186 Dalziel, William, 125, 127 Dalziel, Matthew J., 127 Darrow, Clarence, 139, 157 Davis, Albert F., 207 Denver, Colorado, 245, 247 Depue, Mrs., 167 Des Moines (Iowa) Register and Leader, 74-75 Devil’s Den, Ohio, 11 Divine Science, 246-247 Dixon, Joshua, 9 Dowie, John Alexander, 126-127, 135 Duffer, Rose, 92, 96, 97, 108, 114

East Aurora, New York, 115 East Palestine Reveille-Echo, 104, 107, 131 Esterly, Frank, 13, 185 Esterly, John Michael, family, 9-10 Esterly, Susannah Beilhart, 13, 185, 235

Farrar, Stella,

of 210

Farrell, George T., 77-78 Fischer, Mary Fischer, Richard, 176 Fogarty, Robert S., 222 Foley, Dr. J.B., 166 The Fra, 165 “Free Love,” 68, 78, 104 Freedom Hill, California, 212

Galbreath, Celestia Fox, 68-69 Galbreath, David, 11 Galbreath, Lilian, 211 Galbreath, Parker Pillsbury, 68-69 Gaibreath, Ralph, 62, 68-71, 97, 105, 1Q2, 114, 125, 171, 176, 186, 195, 196, 200,

210-212, 211, 223, 229, 230 Gard, R. Max, 4 Garlick, Ethel, 208-209 George, Percy A., 185 Gibbons, Cardinal, 4, 167 Goldman, Emma, 3, 74, 139, 158, 163 Gorsuch, A.C., 96, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 114 Greenlee, Dora, 112-115 Gregory, Elizabeth K., 31-32, 37 Gregory, M.H., 20 Grice, Charles L., 95 Guild, Curtis, 159

Hallaway, Cora, 197-198 Hanish, Ottoman Zar Adusht, 91 Hanna, Benjamin, 9 Hanna, Leslie, 152 Hanna, Marcus A., 9, 73-74 The Happiness Circle, 175 Harding, Warren G., 227 Hart, John W., 176 Harvard University, 117 Harvard Law School Hastings, Bert, 198, 202, 209 Hastings, Evelyn Beilhart, 5, 171, 196, 198, , 2.21, Hastings, Mary Frances, 2.21 Hastings, June, 201 Hawkinson, George, 92, 96, 97, Heald, William, 9 Healdsburg, California

of 210

Healdsburg College, 18-19 Hearst, William Randolph, 76 Heaton, Samuel, 11 Henry, LeRoy (“Freedom Hill”), Herbeson, Catharine “Blessed”, 108, 110 Herbeson, Sadie, 93 Herbeson, Stewart H., 92, 95-96 Herendeen, Densie, 102, 175 Herman, Lillian, 167 Highland Park (Illinois) North Shore News1ette, 160 Hilltop Ranch, California, 186-204, 217-218, fl2 Hinds, William Alfred, 132-134 Holmes, Jesse, 61 Holmes Seminary, 61 Holloway, Mark, 1, 4 Howe, M.K., 40 Hubbard, Elbert, 76, 115-116, 147, 165

Ingleside, Illinois, 125-158, 164-173, 176-177, 214-215

Jaxon, Honor& Joseph, 89-91, 91, 138, 147, 229

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 223-226 Kellogg, Dr. John Harvey, 25-26 Kniepp, Father Sebastian, 39 Knowdell, Edward, 73, , 109, 114, 157, 169, 171, 187- 188, 196, 199, 200-201,

2.21 Knowdell, Robert (“Buster”), 4, 75, 102, 114, j, 153, 158, 169, 171. 172, 176, 185-

188, 193, 195, 196-197, 198, 200, 203, 204, 207, 215-216 Knowdell, Ruth Taylor, 208-209, 211 Kuehn, Herman, 92, 100, 100-101, 162, 171, 229

La Cygne, Kansas, 17, 243, 245 Lake County, Illinois Lake County Independent, 118, 135, 136, 139-143, 171, 172, 174-176 Lake County Law and Order League, 147, 151 Large, William L. (“Billy”), 202-203, 204, 210 La Vita Inn Company, 33, 35-36, 38-40, 42-43 Lawrence, Florence, 175 Leetonia, Ohio, 13, 19, 185 Leetonia Reporter, 185 Leonhardt, Emily, 157, 169, 171, 176, 200, 210-212 Lewis, Benjamin F., 157, 171 Lisbon, Ohio, 57, 61-80, 213

of 210

Lisbon Buckeye State, 64-68, 72-73, 104-107, 108-109, 125 Lisbon Ohio Patriot, 78, 125 The Living 138 Lloyd, J. William 212 Los Gatos, California, 186 Lowell, James Russell, 160 Lower, Mathias, 9 68, , 22, 123, i2, 169, 202, 209, 210, 211, 226 4, 212-213 3, 92-

96, 94, 23, 1QI, The Prairie Farmer. 209 Quakers. See Society of Friends Quayle, Thomas H., 147-148, 151

McKinley, William, 73-74, 161 McWhiriney, Catharine Elizabeth, 197 McWhinney, Hugh, 186, 197 McWhinney, Nora Florence, 197 Mann, Fred, 169-170 Marlatt, Ira, 107 Mazdaznan Society (Chicago), 91 Miller, Martha, 62, 63-64, 229 Mills, Grace, 92, 97, 98 Mimsella, Mrs., 167 Minneapolis Journal, 98 Minnie Moore Mine, 99 Moore, Benjamin F. (“Frank”) , 56-57, 197, 204, 208 Moore, Gertrude, 198, 204, 208 Moore, Virginia, 50-56, 55, 72, 108, 110, 154, 157, 167- 168, 169, 171-173, 193,

198, 201, 203-204, 207- 208, 231 Moore, George S., 50, 54-57 Municipal Ownership League (Chicago), 98

Neigh, Samuel, 11 Neutral, Kansas New Thought, 115 Newhall, California, 201 Noel, Carol B., 114, 158-159, 176, , 210 Norris, Belle, 73-75, 97, 108, 110, 125, 156-157 Norris, Charles, 74 Norris, Rev. John, 73, 112 Norwell, Caroline B.: See Carol B. Noel Norwell, Henry B., 158

Ottawa, Kansas, 17 Overbrook, Massachusetts, 5, 117, 158-162

Pease, Frank C., 156-157 The Philistine

of 210

Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, 73 Post, Anna J. Rist, 246 Post, Charles W., 25, 29-36, 243-246 Post, Charles W. (1918- ), 246 Post, Carroll, 30-31 Post, Ella Merriweather, 30, 31, 36, 244 Post, John Harvey, 38, 62, 243-248, 244 Post, Julia Clifford Mills, 247, 248 Post, Leila Young, 244 Post, Marjorie Merriweather, 31, 246, 247 Post City, Texas, 245 “Postum Cereal,” 39 Potts, W.S., 78, 125-126 Rankin, Almira, 61, 72 Reed, Frederick, 114, 116-118, 158, 159-162, 176-177, 186, 198-199, 210, 212,

225, 229-230 Reed, Rachel, 114, 116-117, 176-177, 198-199, 210, 212, 230 Reitmann, Dr. Ben, 139 Relph, Mrs., 167 Ritchie, Charles W., 199-200, 202-204 Riverside, California, 199 Rockwell, Irvin E. (“Rock”), 90, 92, 97, 98-100, 111, 115, 162, 167-168, 169, 171,

176, 197, 210, 225, 228, 229 Rockwell, Mary (“Dolly”) Searing, 92, , 162, 176, 210

Rockwell-Wabash Company, 99 Rogers, Eva. Eva Barrett. Roosevelt, Theodore, 90, 159 Ryan, Rev. J. Keene, 76-77, 93, 97, 138

St. Louis Exposition, 115, 118 Salem (Ohio) Daily Herald, 108 Salem (Ohio) Republican-Era, 126 Santa Cruz, California, 194, 196, 198, 202, 204 Santa Cruz Sentinel, 208 Santa Cruz Evening News, 196 Santa Cruz Surf, 196 See, Agnes Chester, 32, 175 See, Evelyn Arthur, 32, 173-176 Sercombe, Parker H., 138-139, 145-146, 162, 226 Seventh-day Adventism, 17-18, 25 Shenker, Barry, 221 Shippy, George N., 163 “Simple Lifers”, 145, 226 Sihgh, Saint Nihal, 138, j4Q, 144 Sitts, Frank, 113 Sitts, Mrs. Frank, 112

of 210

Skallerud, Theodore and Aymee, 204, 217 Slutter, George, 10 Smith, C.W., 40 Society of Friends, 9-10 Soquel, California, 106, 196, 204, 207-209 Spirit Fruit (publication), 51, 62, 112, 128, 164, 170, 197, 212 Spirit Fruit (religion): “goo,” 90; statement of beliefs, 67-68, 71-72 Spirit Fruit Society: barn at Ingleside, 170, 216; in California, 185-209; in

Chicago, 89-92; constitution, 77, 237-241; dissolution; farming, 62, 73, 79, 193-196, 204; houses, 61, 128-129, 130, 133, 133, ji,l47, 191-193, 193, Q2, 2J, 214, 215, all; incorporation, 71-72; at Ingleside, 125-158, 167-177, 214-215; in Lisbon, 161-80, 172; mutual criticism, 140, 224; officers, 71, 169, 172

Spirit’ Voice, 62, 128, 164, 170, 197, 212 Spiritualism, 29, 70 Stanforth, David B., 62, 71, 97, 109, 125, 157, 169, 171, 176, 201, 201, 209-210 Stevens, Abel, 118 Stevens, Franklin, 117 Swedenborgianism, 56

Taylor, Frank, family, 187, 188, 208 Teagarden, Rex, 213 Theosophy, 29 Thorn, T.M., 20 Tomorrow, 139 Triggs, Oscar L., 162

“Universal Life.” See Spirit Fruit (religion) University of Chicago, 101

Vallandigham, Clement L., 107 Van Buren, Anson, 25 Veysey, Laurence, 222

Wagner, Adolph, aQ. Wall, Anna, 92, 97, 98, 108 Wall, Mildred, 97, Wall, Robert G., 89, 92, 97, 98, 109, 111, 167 Waters, Kate, 92, 97, 101-102, 108, 114, 125, 157, 171, 176, 196, 199, 201, 202,

203, 207-209 Waukegan (Illinois) Daily Sun 118, 126-127, 128-129, 131- 132, 139-140, 140,

147, 156, 167-168, 171 Wellesley College, 118, 160 Wellesley, Massachusetts, 198-199

of 210

Wheaton, Illinois, 125 White, Ellen G., 18, 25-26 White, Jeannette, 92, 96, 97, 108, 114 White, Lallah Rookh, 99, 162, 171, 176, 210, 229 Whitman, Walt, 212 Wilmington, William, 176 Wilsdon, William (“Uncle Billy”), 199-200, 202-204, 231 Winebrennarianism, 11 Wooster Lake, Illinois: See Ingleside, Illinois

Young, Baltzer S. (“Pa”) , 57, 61, 114, 145, 157, 169, 171 Young, Charlena (“Ma”) Lewis Moore, 54-57, , 72, , 145, 157, 169, 170-171, 176, 198, 199, 200, 2&i, 208, 228, 230

Zion City, Illinois, 135

of 210

The Reluctant Radicals - James Murphy

Documents

Transcript of The Reluctant Radicals - James Murphy