In 1862 the followers of Jacob Hutter, a Mennonite martyr who was burned at the stake in Innsbruck in the sixteenth century, founded the Old Elmspring Community on the James River in South Dakota. During the Thirty Years' War these saintly Quaker-like German folk had found refuge in Moravia, whence they had been driven into Hungary, later into Rumania, and then into Russia. As their objection to military service brought them into conflict with the Czar's government, they finally determined to migrate to America. In 1874 they had all reached South Dakota, where they now live in five small communities. Scarcely four hundred all told, they cling to their ancient ambition to keep themselves "unspotted from the world," and so have evolved a self-sustaining communal life, characterized by great simplicity of dress, of speech, and of living. They speak German and refrain entirely from voting and from other political activity. They are farmers and practise only those handicrafts which are necessary to their own communal welfare.
While most of these German sectarian communities had only a slight economic effect upon the United States, their influence upon immigration has been extensive. In the early part of the last century, it was difficult to obtain authentic news concerning America in the remote hamlets of Europe. All sorts of vague and grotesque notions about this country were afloat. Every member of these communities, when he wrote to those left behind, became a living witness of the golden opportunities offered in the new land. And, unquestionably, a considerable share of the great German influx in the middle of the nineteenth century can be traced to the dissemination of knowledge by this means. Mikkelsen says of the Jansonists that their "letters home concerning the new country paved the way for that mighty tide of Swedish immigration which in a few years began to roll in upon Illinois and the Northwest."
The Shakers are the oldest and the largest communistic sect to find a congenial home in America. The cult originated in Manchester, England, with Ann Lee, a "Shaking Quaker" who never learned to read or write but depended upon revelation for doctrine and guidance. "By a direct revelation," says the Shaker Compendium, she was "instructed to come to America." Obedient to the vision, she sailed from Liverpool in the summer of 1774, accompanied by six men and two women, among whom were her husband, a brother, and a niece. This little flock settled in the forests near Albany, New York. Abandoned by her husband, the prophetess went from place to place, proclaiming her peculiar doctrines. Soon she became known as "Mother Ann" and was reputed to have supernatural powers. At the time of her death in 1784 she had numerous followers in western New England and eastern New York.