Memoirs of Waukesha County. From the earliest historical times to the present with chapters on various subjects, including each of the different towns, and a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in the county, prepared from data obtained from original sources of information.

              228 MEMOIRS  OF  WAUKESHA  COUNTY
The following account of the Owenite settlement was written by Mrs. Lucy E. Strong, of Waukesha, and published in the early part of 1889. As the statements in regard to the experiment are as true to-day as at the time this was written, it is included in the story of Waukesha county's settlements.
"During the second quarter of the 19th century, Robert Owen was the leader of English Socialism. His theory, which he considered highly practicable, was that about 1,200 people be given from 1,000 to 1,500 acres of fertile land. On this a large square shelter was to be built, and all the Socialists were to live within the same inclosure. Each family was to have a private apartment, but the meals were to be cooked and eaten in common. Parents were to take entire charge of their children until they were three years old, respectively, when the community was to have chage of them, the parents seeing them only at meals and other designated times. They were to have a quali¬ fied person at the head of each community who was to have super¬ vision of its members.
"In 1825 there were two bodies of Socialists who made an attempt to carry out Owen's theories. One under Abram Coombe settled near Glasgow, and the other under Owen's individual supervision came to Indiana and established itself at New Harmony. Within two years these had failed, as four subsequent ones under Owen did, before his death in 1858.
"During the agitation which was carried on by the advancement of Owen's opinions in the publication of his 'New Basis of Society,' and his letters in the 'New Moral World,' a little colony of Socialists under the immediate leadership of Mr. Hunt (former editor of the 'New Moral World' and a disciple of Robert Owen), made preparations to come to America.
"Like the rest of the Socialists they thought the present state of society was to be revolutionized and a new social era was to begin. As they wished to hasten the 'good time coming,' and thought that their little colony could do more good in a new country like America than in an older nation where custom had a firmer stand, they decided to come to Spring Lake, not far from North Prairie, in Waukesha county, to begin their work of changing the social course of the world.
"In 1843, twenty socialist families left England to take up their abode in what was then the far west. The men were all mechanics or members of learned professions who knew nothing of farming, but were come out with their families to start a socialistic community on the banks of a beautiful little lake in the town of Mukwonago, of which friends who had already crossed the ocean had sent back seductive accounts.
"When they arrived at Mukwonago they were heartily welcomed by many of their old friends who had preceded them from England. They were hospitably entertained by their loyal-hearted countrymen while they were constructing the rude dwellings which w€re to shelter them during the coming winter. Their work, when finished, con¬ sisted of one large log house, in which most of the families lived, and