George Rapp, in 1791, had stated, "I am a prophet and I am called to be one" in front of the civil affairs official in Maulbronn, Germany, who promptly had the pietist preacher imprisoned for two days and threatened with exile if he did not cease preaching.

To the great consternation of church and state authorities, this mere peasant from Iptingen had become the outspoken leader of several thousand Separatists in the southern German duchy of Württemberg.

In 1798, Rapp and his group of followers had further distanced themselves from mainstream society.

In the Lomersheimer Declaration, written in 1798, Rapp's followers had refused to serve in the military or attend Lutheran schools.

By 1802, the Separatists had grown in number to about twelve thousand and the Württemberg government had decided that they were a dangerous threat to social order.

Rapp had been summoned to Maulbronn for an interrogation and the government confiscated Separatist books.

When released in 1803, Rapp told his followers to pool their assets and follow him on a journey for safety to the "land of Israel" in the United States, and soon over eight hundred people were living with him here.

The initial had move scattered the followers and reduced Rapp's original group of twelve thousand to many fewer persons.

In 1804, Rapp had been able to secure a large tract of land in Pennsylvania and started his first commune.

This first commune, 'Harmonie', (Harmony), Butler County, Pennsylvania, had soon grown to a population of about eight hundred, and is highly profitable.

At Harmony, the Harmony Society had been formally organized on February 15, 1805, and its members had contracted to hold all property in common and to submit to spiritual and material leadership by Rapp and associates.

In 1807, celibacy had been advocated as the preferred custom of the community in an attempt to purify themselves for the coming Millennium.

In 1814, the society sells their first town in Pennsylvania to Mennonites for ten times the amount originally paid for the land, and ...

...the entire commune moves out west to Indiana, where their new town is also known as Harmony.

The Harmonist commune, ten years after the move to southwestern Indiana, moves again, this time returning to Pennsylvania and naming their town 'Ökonomie', Economy.

The Harmony Society’s Indiana settlement, thirty thousand acres (twelve thousand one hundred and forty hectares) of choice farmland, is sold to Robert Owen, at which point it is renamed New Harmony, Indiana.