Economy was a German community where German was spoken and German customs were maintained, although every one also spoke English. As there were but few accessions to the community and from time to time there were defections and withdrawals, the membership steadily declined[18]; but while the community was dwindling in membership it was rapidly increasing in wealth. Oil and coal were found on some of its lands; the products of its mills and looms, of its wine presses and distilleries, were widely and favorably known; and its outside investments, chiefly in manufactories and railroads, yielded even greater returns. These outside interests, indeed, became in time the sole support of the community for, as the membership fell away, the local industries had to be shut down. Then it was that communistic methods of doing business became inadequate and the colony ran into difficulties. An expert accountant in 1892 disclosed the debts of the community to be about one and a half million dollars. But the outside industrial enterprises in which the community had invested were sound; and the vast debt was paid. The society remained solvent, with a huge surplus, though out of prosperity not of its own making. When the lands at Economy were eventually sold, about eight acres were reserved to the few survivors of the society, including the Great House of Father Rapp and its attractive garden, with the use of the church and dwellings, so that they might spend their last days in the peaceful surroundings that had brought them prosperity and happiness.
Lead me, Father, out of harm To the quiet Zoar farm If it be Thy will.
So sang another group of simple German separatists, of whom some three hundred came to America from Württemberg in 1817, under the leadership of Joseph Bimeler (Bäumeler) and built the village of Zoar in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. They acquired five thousand acres of land and signed articles of association in April, 1819, turning all their individual property and all their future earnings into a common fund to be managed by an elected board of directors. The community provided its members with their daily necessities and two suits of clothes a year. The members were assigned to various trades which absorbed all their time and left them very little strength for amusement or reading. Their one recreation was singing. The society was bound to celibacy until the marriage of Bimeler to his housekeeper; thereafter marriage was permitted but not encouraged.