Harmony, Pennsylvania
Harmony, Pennsylvania, United States
The first of the Harmony Society's three communal towns, founded by George Rapp's Pietist Separatists in 1804-1805, a National Historic Landmark district that completes the library's Harmonist trilogy.
In 1785 in Wurttemberg, the weaver Johann Georg Rapp became leader of radical Pietist Separatists who split from the Lutheran state church; after scouting in America, Rapp's followers bought 5,000 acres and founded Harmony in 1804-1805, the first of their three communal towns. The community grew to roughly 700 people living a communal economy under Rapp's leadership, with celibacy as a central discipline; in 1814 the society sold out and moved to the Indiana Territory, founded New Harmony, and later returned to Pennsylvania at Economy, where the society died out in 1905. The library carries the other two towns already: New Harmony, Indiana and Old Economy Village, and Harmony is where the story begins.
The Harmony Historic District, seventeen acres and ten contributing buildings including the George Rapp House, the 1808 Harmonist Church and the c.1811 Bentle Building, was listed on the National Register in 1973 and designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1974. The original Harmonist Cemetery holds the unmarked graves of about a hundred early Harmonists.
Visiting
The town is walkable and free to wander; the Harmony Museum is open 1-4pm Tuesday to Saturday with guided tours at 1:00 and 2:30 (admission fee, 724-452-7341).
Photo: The town in 1901, [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harmony,_Butler_County,_Pennsylvania_1901._LOC_75693030.jpg), public domain, T.M. Fowler.
Traditions from this region
Traditions historically rooted in this region — offered as background context, not as a claim about this particular place.
Visitor stories