XLII. The End of Brook Farm

55 1 CHAPTER XLII. THE END OF BROOK FARM. IT only remains to tell what we know of the causes that brought the Brook Farm Phalanx to its end. Within a year from the time when it assumed the task of propagating F ourierism, i. e. on the 3d of March, 1846, a disastrous 'fire prostrated the energies and hopes of the Association. We copy from the Harbinger (March 14) the entire article reporting it: Ii FIRE AT BROOK FARM.-Our readers have no doubt been informed before this, of the severe calamity with which the Brook Farm Association has been visited, by the destruction of the large unitary edifice which it has been for some time erecting on its domain. Just as our last paper was going through the press, on Tpesday evening the 3d inst., the alarm of fire was given at about a quarter before nine, and it was found to proceed from the' Phalanstery;' in a few minutes the flames were bursting through the doors and windows of the second story; the fire spread with almost incredible rapidity throughout the building; and in about an hour and a-half the whole edifice was burned to the ground. The mem bers of the, Association were on the spot in a few moments, and made some attempts to save a quantity of lumber that was in the basernent story; but so rapid 552 AMERICAN SOCIALISMS.

was the progress of the fire, that this was found to be impossible, and they succeeded only in rescuing a couple of tool-chests that had been in use by the carpenters. "The neighboring dwelling-hnuse called the ' Eyry,' was in imminent danger while the fire was at its height, and nothing but the stillness of the night, and the vigi lance and activity of those who were stationed on its roof, preserved it from destruction. The vigorous efforts of our nearest neighbors, Mr. T. J. Orange, and Messrs. Thomas' and George Palmer, were of great service in protecting this building, as' a part of our force were engaged in another direction, watching the workshop, barn, and principal dwelling-house. "In a short time our neighbors from the village of West Roxbury, a mile and a-half distant, arrived in great numbers with their engine, which together with the engines from Jamaica Plain, Newton, and Brooklin,~, rendered valuable assistance in subduing the flaming ruins, although it was impossible to check the progress of the fire, until the building was completely destroyed.

We are under the deepest obligations to the fire com panies which came, some of them five or six miles, through deep snow on cross roads, and did every thing in the power of skill or energy, to preserve our other buildings from ruin. Many of the engines from Boston came four or five miles from the city, but finding the fire going down, returned without reaching the spot. The engines from Dedham, we understand, made an unsuc cessful attempt to come to our aid, but were obliged to turn back on account· of the condition of the rQads. No efforts, however, would have probably been successful in arresting the progress of the flames. The building was divided into nearly a hundred rooms in the upper stories, END OF BROOK FARM. 553 most of which had been lathed for several months, with out plaster, and being almost as dryas tinder, the fire flashed through them with terrific rapidity. "There had been no work performed on this building during the winter months, and arrangements had just been made to complete four out of the fourteen distinct suites of apartments into which it was divided, by the first of May. Itwas hoped that the remainder would be finished during the summer, and that by the first of October, the edifice would be prepared for the reception of a hundred and fifty persons, with ample accommoda tions for families, and spacious and convenient public halls and saloons. A portion of the second story had been set apart for a church or chapel, which was to be finished, in a style of simplicity and elegance, by private subscription, and in which it was expected that religious services would be performed by our friend William H.

Channing, whose presence with us, until obliged to retire on account of ill health, has been a source of un mingled satisfaction and benefit. On the Saturday previous to the fire, a stove was put in the basement story for the accommodation of-the car penters, who were to work on the inside; a fire was kindled in it on Tuesday morning which burned till four o'clock in the afternoon; at half past eight in the eve ning, the building was visited by the night-watch,. who found every thing apparently safe; and at a quarter be fore nine, a faint light was discovered in the second story, which was supposed at first to have proceeded from the lamp, but, on entering to ascertain the fact, the smoke at once showed that the interior was on fire. The alarm was immediately given, but almost before the people had time to assemble, the whole edifice was 554 AMERICAN SOCIALISMS. wrapped in flames. From a defect in the construction of the chimney, a spark from the stove-pipe had prob bly communicated with the surrounding wood-work; and from the combustible nature of the materials, the flames spread with a celerity that made every effort to arrest their violence without effect.

" This edifice was commenced in the SUlnnler of 1844, and has been in progress from that time until November last, when the work was suspended for the winter, and resumed, as before stated, on the day in which it was consumed. It was built of wood, one hundred and seventy-five feet long, three stories high, with attics divided into pleasant and convenient rooms for single persons. The second and third stories were divided into fourteen houses independent of each other, with a parlor and three sleeping-rooms in each, connected by piazzas which ran the whole length of the building on both stories. The basenlent contained a large and com modious kitchen, a dining-hall capable of seating from three to four hundred persons, two public saloons, and a spacious hall or lecture-room. Although by no means a model for the Phalanstery or unitary edifice of a Pha lanx, it was well adapted for our purposes at present, situated on a delightful eminence, which commanded a most extensive and picturesque view, and affording accommodations and conveniences in the combined order, which in many respects would gratify even a fas tidious taste. The actual expenditure upon the building, including the labor performed by the Association, amounted to about $ 7,000; and $ 3,000 more, it was estimated, would be sufficient for its completion. As it was not yet in use by the Association, and until the day of its destruction, not exposed to fire, no insurance had END OF BROOK FARM. 555 been effected. It was built by investments in our loan stock, and the loss falls upon the holders of partnership stock and the members of the Association.

"It is some alleviation of the great calamity which we have sustained, that it came upon us at this time rather than at a later period. The house was not endeared to us by any grateful recollections; the tender and hallowed associations of home had not yet begun to cluster around it; and although we looked upon it with joy and hope, as destined to occupy an important sphere in the social movement to which it was consecrated, its destruction does not rend asunder those sacred ties which bind us to the dwellings that have thus far been the scene .of our toils and of our satisfactions. We could not part with either of the houses in which we have lived at Brook Farm, without a sadness like that which we should feel at the departure of a bosom friend. The destruction of our edifice makes no essential change .in our pursuits. It leaves no family destitute of a home; it disturbs no domestic arrangements; it puts us to no immediate inconvenience. The morning after the disaster, if a stranger had not seen the smoking pile of ruins, he would not have suspected that any thing extraordinary had taken place. Our· schools were attended as usual; our industry in full operation; and not a look or expression of despondency could have been perceived. The calamity is felt to be great; we do not attempt to conceal from ourselves its consequences: but it has been met with a calmness and high trust, which gives us a new proof of the power of associated life to quicken the best elements of character, and to prepare men for every emergency.

"We shall be pardoned for entering into these almost AMERICAN SOCIALISMS. personal details, for we know that the numerous friends of Association in every part of our land, will feel our misfortune as if it were a private grief of their own. We have received nothing but expressions of the most generous sympathy from every quarter, even from those who might be supposed to take the least interest in our purposes; and we are sure that our friends in the cause of social unity will share with us the affliction that has visited a branch of their own fraternity. "We have no wish to keep out of sight the magnitude of our loss. In our present infant state, it is a severe trial of our strength. We can not now calculate its ultimate effect. It may prove more than we are able to bear; or like other previous calamities, it may serve to bind us more closely to each other, and to the holy cause to which we are devoted. We await the result with calm hope, sustained by our faith in the universal Providence, whose social laws we have endeavored to ascertain and embody in our daily lives.

" It may not be improper to state, as we are speaking of our own affairs more fully than we have felt at liberty to do before in the columns of our paper, that, whatever be our trials of an external character, we have every reason to rejoice in the internal condition of our Asso ciation. For the last few months it has more nearly than ever approached the idea of a true social order. l'he greatest harmony prevails among us ; not a dis cordant note is heard; a spirit of friendship, of brotherly kindness, of charity, dwells with us and blesses us; our social resources have been greatly multiplied; and our devotion to the cause which has brought us together, receives new strength every day. Whatever may be in reserve for us, we have an infinite satisfaction in the END OF BROOK FARM. 557 true relations which have united us, and the assurance that our enterprise has sprung from a desire to obey the Divine law. We feel assured that no outward dis appointment or calamity can chill our zeal for the realization of a Divine order of society, or abate our effort in the sphere which may be pointed out by our best judgment as most favorable to the cause which we have at heart."

In the next number of the Harb'hzger(March 21), an editorial addressed to the friends of Brook Farm, indi cated some depression and uncertainty. The following are extracts from it : " We do not altogether agree with our friends, in the importance which they attach to the special movement at Brook Farm; we have never professed to be able to represent the idea of Association with the scanty re sources at our command; nor would the discontinuance of our establishment or of any of the partial attempts which are now in progress, in the slightest degree weaken our faith in the associative system, or our con viction that it will sooner or later be adopted as the only form of society suited to the nature of man and in accordance with the Divine will. We have never attempted any thing more than to prepare the way for As~ociation, by demonstrating some of the leading ideas on which the theory is founded; in this we have had the most gratifying success; but we have always regarded ourselves only as the humble pioneers in the work, which would be carried on by others to its magnificent consurnmation, and have been content to wait and toil for the development of the cause and the completion of our hope.

AMERICAN SOCIALISMS. "Still we have established a center of influence here for the associative movement, which we shall spare no effort to sustain. We are fully aware of the importance of this; and nothing but the most inexorable necessity, will withdraw the congenial spirits that are gathered in social union here, from the work which has always called forth their most earnest devotedness and enthusiasm. Since our disaster occurred, there has not been an ex pression or symptom of despondency among our num ber; all are resolute and calm; determined to stand by each other and by the cause; ready to encounter still greater sacrifices than have as yet been demanded of them; and desirous only to adopt the course which may be presented by the clearest dictates of duty. The loss which we have sustained occasions us no immediate in convenience, does not interfere with any of our present operations; although it is a total destruction of re sources on which we had confidently relied, and must inevitably derange our plans for the enlargement of the Association and the extension of our industry. We have a firm and cheerful hope, however, of being able to do much for the illustration of the cause with the ma terials that renlain. They are far too valuable to be dis persed, or applied to any other object; and with favorable circumstances will be able to accomplish much for the realization of social unity."

This fire was a disaster from which Brook Farm never recovered. The organization lingered, and the Harbin ger continued to be published there, till October 1847 ; but the hope of becoming a model Phalanx died out long before that time. The Harbinger is very reticent in relation to the details of the dissolution. We can only give the reader the following scraps hinting at the end: END OF BROOK FARM. 559 [From the New York Tribune (August, I847), in answer to an allegation in the New York Observerthat H the Brook Farm Association, which was near Boston, had wound up its affairs some time since. "] "The Brook Farm Association not only was, but is near Boston, and the Harbinger is still published from its press. But, having been started without capital, experience or industrial capacity, without reference to or knowledge of Fourier's or any other systematic plan of Association, on a most unfavorable locality, bought at a high price, and constantly under mortgage, this Associa tion is about to dissolve, when the paper will be relnoved to this city, with the master-spirits of Brook Farm as editors. The Observer will have ample opportunity to judge how far experience has modified their convictions or impaired their energies."

[From a report of a· Boston Convention of Associationists, in the Harbinger, October 23, 1847.] " The breaking up of the life at Brook Farm was fre quently alluded to, especially by Mr. Ripley, who, on the eve of entering a new sphere of labor for the same great cause, appeared in all his indomitable strength and cheerfulness, triumphant amid outward failure. The owls and bats and other birds of ill omen which utter their oracles in leading political and sectarian religious journals, and which are busily croaking and screeching of the downfall of Association, had they been present at this meeting, could their weak eyes have borne so much light, would never again have coupled failure with the thought of such men, nor entertained a feeling other than of envy of experience like theirs." The next number of the Harbinger (October 30, 1847) announced that that paper would in future be published in New York under the editorial charge of 560 AMERICAN SOCIALISMS.

Parke Godwin, assisted by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana in New York, and William H. Channing and John S. Dwight in Boston. This of course implied the dispersion of the Brook Farmers, and the dissolution of the Association; and this is all we know about it. The years 1846 and 1847 were fatal to n10st of the Fourier experiments. Horace Greeley, under date of J uly 1847, wrote to the People's JouY1tal the following account of what may be called, Fourieris11z reduced to a Forlorn Hope. "As to the Associationists (by their adversaries termed 'Fourierites'), with whom I am proud to be numbered, their beginnings are yet too recent to justify me in asking for their history any considerable space in your columns. Briefly, however, the first that was heard in this country of Fourier and his views (beyond a little circle of perhaps a hundred persons in two or three of our large cities, who had picked up some notion of them in France or from French writings), was in 1840, when Albert Brisbane published his first synopsis of Fourier's theory of industrial and household Association. Since then, the subject has been considerably discussed, and several attempts of SOine sort have been made to actual ize Fourier's ideas, generally by men destitute alike of capacity, public confidence, energy and means. In only one instance that I have heard of was the land paid for on which the enterprise commenced; not one of these vaunted 'Fourier Associations' ever had the means of erecting a proper dwelling for so many as three hundred people, even if the land had been given them. Of course, the time for paying the first installment on the mortgage covering their land has generally witnessed END OF BROOK FARM.

the dissipation of their sanguine dreams. Yet there are at least three of these embryo Associations still in ex istence ; and, as each of these is in its third or fourth year, they may be supposed to give some promise of vitality. They are the North American Phalanx, near Leedsville, New Jersey; the Trumbull Phalanx, near Braceville, Ohio; and the Wisconsin Phalanx, Ceresco, Wisconsin. Each of these has a considerable domain nearly or wholly paid for, is improving the soil, increas ing its annual products, and establishing some branches of manufactures. Each, though far enough from being a perfect Association, is animated with the hope of becoming one, as rapidly as experience, time and means will allow." Of the three Phalanxes thus mentioned as the rear: guard of Fourierism, one-the Trumbull-disappeared about four months afterward (very nearly at the time of the dispersion of Brook Farm), and another-the Wis consin-lasted only a year longer, leaving the North American alone for the last four years of its existence.

Brook Farm in its function. of propagandist (which is always expensive and exhausting at the best), must have been sadly depressed by the failures that crowded upon it in its last days; and it is not to be wondered that it died with its children and kindred. If we might suggest a transc~ndental reason for the failure of Brook Fann, we should' say that it had natu rally a delicate constitution, that was liable to be shattered by disasters and sympathies; and the causes of this weakness must be sought for in the character of the afflatus ·that organized it. The transcendental afflatus, like that of Pentecost, had in it two elements, viz.; ComAMERICAN SOCIALISMS. munism, and H the gift of tongues;" or in other words, the tendency to religious and social unity, represented by Channing and Ripley; and the tendency to litera ture,represented by Emerson and Margaret Fullec But the proportion of these elements was different from that of Pentecost. The tendency to utterance was the strongest. Emerson prevailed over Channing even in Brook Farnl; nay, in Channing hinlself, and in Ripley, Dana and all the rest of the Brook Farm leaders. In fact they went over from practical Communism to liter ary utterance when they assumed the propagandism of Fourierism ; and utterance has been their vocation ever since. A similar phenomenon occurred in the history of the great literary trio of England, Coleridge, Words worth and Southey. Their original afflatus carried them to the verge of Communism; but" their gift of tongues"

prevailed and spoiled them. And the tendency to litera ture, as represented by Emerson, is the farthest opposite of Communism, finding its SU1n1nZt1n bonzt1n in individu alism and incoherent instead of organic inspiration. The end of Brook Farm was virtually the end of Fourierism. One or two Phalanxes lingered afterward, and the Harbinger, was continued a year or two in New York; but the enthusiasm of victory and hope was gone; and the Brook Farm leaders, as soon as a proper transition could be effected, passed into the service of the Tribune. During the fatal year following the fire at Brook Farm, the famous controversy between Greeley and Raymond took place, which \ve have tuentioned as Greeley's last battle in defense of retreating Fourierism. It commenced on the 20th of November. 1846, and ended on the 20th of May, 1847, each of the combatants END OF BROOK FARM. delivering twelve well-shotted articles in their respect ive papers, the Tribune and the Courier and Enquirer, which were afterward published together in pamphlet form by the Harpers. Parton, in his biography of Gree ley, says at the beginning of his report of that discus sion, "It finis/ted Fourierism in the United States;"

and again at the close-" Thus ended Fourierism. Thenceforth the Tribune alluded to the subject occa sionally, but only in reply to those who sought to make political or personal capital by reviving. it."