Welcome to the Sylvania Association Home Page.

The road side sign was manufactured for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 1948 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the colony. Unfortunately it contains many errors and needs to be replaced. 

1. The name was not the Sylvania Colony.

2. Horace Greeley was not the leader or founder.

3. Brook Farm was founded after the Sylvania Association.

4. The experiment was certainly NOT "utopian" by any stretch of the imagination,

5. It was actually based on the radically different ideas of Albert Brisbane who briefly studied Charles Fourier and Karl Marx.

6.  A July frost did not kill all the crops.  The association actually failed because the

lazy, inexperienced and wilderness challenged members failed to plant the crops in 1845.

     When the association purchased 2300 acres from Mahlon Godley Sr. in 1841, the improvements included a small vacant twenty year old saw mill.  Only the foundation of the mill remains with some of the walls exceeding twenty feet in height.  The walls of the wheel room are in very good condition with very little deterioration.  The mill was unique and designed to allowed water to flow under the water wheel rather than the typical over shoot design.  This allowed for a greater efficiency with water always flowing forward.  The support foundations of the supply flume remain.  Until a few years ago, a portion of the 18-inch diameter main shaft of the water wheel remained in its support structure inside the mill.  The superstructure was destroyed by fire in 1898, but the shaft was not completely burned due to the location deep inside the building.

The flume supports remain outside the mill.              The flume entrance to the wheel room.

Inside the wheel room looking toward the waste weir.  

Outside the building, the supply flume and waste weir are visible to the knowledgeable explorer. There are many other remains located nearby that are becoming difficult to observe except for the foundations and supports of the many building and structures of the association.  The old stone bridge across Taylortown creek, immediately down stream from the mill was washed out in 1955 from flooding of hurricane Diane.  However, the foundations and approach remain intact and in relatively good condition. 

The officers of the organization were:

Thomas W. Whiteley, President

J. D. Pierson, Vice-President

J. T. S. Smith Secretary

Horace Greeley, Treasurer

     Here are some of the basic rules of the Sylvania Association as proposed by Brisbane and approved by the majority of the stockholders.

1.  The association would be a joint stock company with the members investing their labor, capital and talents.  Women could vote at the age of eighteen and men at the age of twenty.

2.  Out of the common product, an equal subsistence portion would be given to each member and the remainder would be divided.

3.  The phalanx would have been a common dwelling with a common dining hall, seven meals a day and free love. 

4.  The emphasis would be on agriculture, but every member would be free to work when and where they chose.

5.  Any person of "character" could become a member of the association, by owing at least one share ($25) and laboring on the domain under the rules of the association. 

6.  Dress and items of wearing apparel could not be regulated by the association and were at the sole discretion of the individual.

7.  A library and "suitable apartment" for public exercise and "amusement" were to be provided. 

8.  Children under the age of ten, the aged and infirm were at the charge of the association.

9.  The association was not allowed to suppress any form of amusement, or exclude wine or ardent spirits from the tables of the association, but was actually required by the bylaws to furnish the same to any members desirous of using them. 

10. The association was not allowed to hire a minister of religion. 

     Does this seem like a recipe for failure? 

     Albert Brisbane filtered the doctrine of the moral inequities of the association and reported a purified version into the receptive mind of Horace Greeley, the New York Tribune and its readers.

     Obviously the other New York newspapers, especially the "Post" and the "Herald", had a field day ridiculing Brisbane and Greeley.  Many of the members were "troubled" children and young adults sent by their parents in hopes that they might make a contribution to a different type of lifestyle.

     The real tragedy of the experiment was the eleven children born of bliss with no family ties at Sylvania.  Three of the children were adopted by their mothers upon the demise of the experiment in free love, but unfortunately eight others were placed in orphanages upon return to New York City in July of 1845.

     Certainly not all of the fault lies in the wayward and worthless young people sent to Pike County in the early 1840's.  A significant portion of the blame should be directed to the parents, who put up the money to send their children away and to the directors of the association for accepting these "members" who could make little contributions to the experiment and proved to be a constant source of trouble and discontent.

     Horace Greeley spoke little of the experiment after the demise.  It certainly proved to be an embarrassment to him personally and to his newspaper.

     Holding that the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant was corrupt, Greeley, in 1872, accepted the nomination for president of the United States by the dissident Liberal Republican party. He was subsequently endorsed by the Democrats but was soundly defeated by Grant in the election. His health failed quickly and he took little part in the Tribune editorship.

     The last words penned by Horace Greeley on November 9, 1872.

"I stand naked before my God, the most utterly hopelessly wretched and undone of all who have ever lived.  I have done more harm and wrong than any man who ever saw the light of day.  And yet I take God as witness that I have never intended to injure or harm anyone.  But that is no excuse."

 

     Horace Greeley died in a mental hospital at Pleasantville, New York on November 29, 1872.

     The community, originally named Godleyville, was referred to as "That Greeley Place" shortly after the demise of the association. It was officially named Greeley in July, 1892, with the establishment of a United States Post Office.  The logging village of Taylortown, organized in 1873 lies about one mile west of Sylvania and present day Greeley.  Most residents of Greeley today know little if anything of the failed experiment in socialized living that occurred here in the early 1840's.