Janson had been a very poor manager, however, and the colony was in debt.  In order quickly to obtain money, he had sent Jonas Olsen, the ablest and strongest of his followers, to California to seek gold to wipe out the debt.  Upon hearing of the tragedy, Olsen hastened back to Bishop Hill and was soon in charge of affairs.  In 1853 he obtained for the colony a charter of incorporation which vested the entire management of the property in seven trustees.  These men, under the by-laws adopted, became also the spiritual mentors, and the colonists, unacquainted with democratic usages in government, submitted willingly to the leadership of this oligarchy.  A new era of great material prosperity now set in.  The village was rebuilt.  The great house was enlarged so that all the inhabitants could be accommodated in its vast communal dining room.  Trees were planted along the streets.  Shops and mills were erected, and a hotel became the means of introducing strangers to the community.

Meanwhile Olsen was growing more and more arbitrary and, after a bitter controversy, he imposed celibacy upon the members.  This was the beginning of the end.  One of the trustees, Olaf Jansen, a good-natured peasant who could not keep his accounts but who had a peasant’s sagacity for a bargain, wormed his way into financial control.  He wanted to make the colony rich, but he led it to the verge of bankruptcy.  He became a speculator and promoter.  Stories of his shortcomings were whispered about and in 1860 the peasant colony revolted and deposed Olaf from office.  He then had himself appointed receiver to wind up the corporation’s affairs, and in the following year the communal property was distributed.  Every member, male and female, thirty-five years of age received a full share which “consisted of 22 acres of land, one timber lot of nearly 2 acres, one town lot, and an equal part of all barns, houses, cattle, hogs, sheep or other domestic animals and all farming implements and household utensils.”  Those under thirty-five received according to their age.  Had these shares been unencumbered, this would have represented a fair return for their labor.  But Olaf had made no half-way business of his financial ambitions, and the former members who now were melting peacefully and rather contentedly into the general American life found themselves saddled with his obligations.  The “colony case” became famous among Illinois lawyers and dragged through twelve years of litigation.  Thus the glowing fraternal communism of poor Janson ended in the drab discord of an American lawsuit.

In 1862 the followers of Jacob Hutter, a Mennonite martyr who was burned at the stake in Innsbruck in the sixteenth century, founded the Old Elmspring Community on the James River in South Dakota.  During the Thirty Years’ War these saintly Quaker-like German folk had found refuge in Moravia, whence they had been driven into Hungary, later into Rumania, and then into Russia.  As their objection to military