The experiences of Eric Janson and his devotees whom he led out of Sweden to Bishop Hill Colony, in Illinois, are replete with dramatic and tragic details.  Janson was a rugged Swedish peasant, whose eloquence and gift of second sight made him the prophet of the Devotionalists, a sect that attempted to reestablish the simplicity of the primitive church among the Lutherans of Scandinavia.  Driven from pillar to post by the relentless hatred of the Established Church, they sought refuge in America, where Janson planned a theocratic socialistic community.  Its communism was based entirely upon religious convictions, for neither Janson nor any of his illiterate followers had heard of the politico-economic systems of French reformers.  Over one thousand young and vigorous peasants followed him to America.  The first contingent of four hundred arrived in 1846 and spent their first winter in untold miseries and privations, with barely sufficient food, but with enough spiritual fervor to kindle two religious services a day and three on Sunday.  Attacking the vast prairies with their primitive implements, harvesting grain with the sickle and grinding it by hand when their water power gave out, sheltering themselves in tents and caves, enduring agues and fevers, hunger and cold, the majority still remained loyal to the leader whose eloquence fired them with a sustaining hope.  Thrift, unremitting toil, the wonderful fertility of the prairie, the high price of wheat, flax, and broom corn, were bound to bring prosperity.  In 1848 they built a huge brick dormitory and dining hall, a great frame church, and a number of smaller dwellings.  Improved housing at once told on the general health, though in the next year a scourge of cholera, introduced by some newcomer, claimed 143 members.

In the meantime John Root, an adventurer from Stockholm, who had served in the American army, arrived at the colony and soon fell in love with the cousin of Eric Janson.  The prophet gave his consent to the marriage on condition that, if at any time Root wished to leave the colony, his wife should be permitted to remain if she desired.  A written agreement acknowledged Root’s consent to these conditions.  He soon tired of a life for which he had not the remotest liking, and, failing to entice his wife away with him, he kidnaped her and forcibly detained her in Chicago, whence she was rescued by a valiant band of the colonists.  In retaliation the irate husband organized a mob of frontiers folk to drive out the fanatics as they had a short time before driven out Brigham Young and his Mormons.  But the neighbors of the colonists, having learned their sterling worth, came to the rescue.  Root then began legal proceedings against Janson.  In May, 1850, while in court the renegade deliberately shot and killed the prophet.  The community in despair awaited three days the return to life of the man whom they looked upon as a representative of Christ sent to earth to rebuild the Tabernacle.