The majority of the religious communists came from Germany—­the home, also, of Marxian socialism in later years—­where persecution was the lot of innumerable little sects which budded after the Reformation.  They came usually as whole colonies, bringing both leaders and membership with them.[15] Probably the earliest to arrive in America were the Labadists, who denied the doctrine of original sin, discarded the Sabbath, and held strict views of marriage.  In 1684, under the leadership of Peter Sluyter or Schluter (an assumed name, his original name being Vorstmann), some of these Labadists settled on the Bohemia River in Delaware.  They were sent out from the mother colony in West Friesland to select a site for the entire body, but it does not appear that any others migrated, for within fifteen years the American colony was reduced to eight men.  Sluyter evidently had considerable business capacity, for he became a wealthy tobacco planter and slave trader.

In 1693 Johann Jacob Zimmermann, a distinguished mathematician and astronomer and the founder of an order of mystics called Pietists, started for America, to await the coming of the millennium, which his calculations placed in the autumn of 1694.  But the fate of common mortals overtook the unfortunate leader and he died just as he was ready to sail from Rotterdam.  About forty members of his brotherhood settled in the forests on the heights near Germantown, Pennsylvania, and, under the guidance of Johann Kelpius, achieved a unique influence over the German peasantry in that vicinity.  The members of the brotherhood made themselves useful as teachers and in various handicrafts.  They were especially in demand among the superstitious for their skill in casting horoscopes, using divining rods, and carving potent amulets.  Their mysterious astronomical tower on the heights of the Wissahickon was the Mecca of the curious and the distressed.  To the gentle Kelpius was ascribed the power of healing, but he was himself the victim of consumption.  The brotherhood did not long survive his death in 1708 or 1709.  Their astrological instruments may be seen in the collections of the Pennsylvania Philosophical Society.

The first group of Dunkards (a name derived from their method of baptism, eintunken, to immerse) settled in Pennsylvania in 1719.  A few years later they were joined by Conrad Beissel (Beizel or Peysel).  This man had come to America to unite with the Pietist group in Germantown, but, as Kelpius was dead and his followers dispersed he joined the Dunkards.  His desires for a monastic life drove him into solitary meditation—­tradition says he took shelter in a cave—­where he came to the conviction that the seventh day of the week should be observed as the day of rest.  This conclusion led to friction with the Dunkards; and as a result, with three men and two women, Beissel founded in 1728 on the Cocalico River, the cloister of Ephrata.  From this arose the first communistic Eden successfully established