fewer persons. In 1804, Rapp was able to secure a large tract of land in Pennsylvania and started his first commune. This first commune, 'Harmonie', (Harmony), Butler County, Pennsylvania, soon grew to a population of about 800, and was highly profitable. At Harmony, the Harmony Society was formally organized on February 15, 1805, and its members contracted to hold all property in common and to submit to spiritual and material leadership by Rapp and associates. In 1807, celibacy was advocated as the preferred custom of the community in an attempt to purify themselves for the coming Millennium. In 1814, the society sold their first town in Pennsylvania to Mennonites for 10 times the amount originally paid for the land, and the entire commune moved out west to Indiana where their new town was also known as Harmony. Ten years after the move to Indiana the commune moved again, this time it returned to Pennsylvania and named their town 'Ökonomie', Economy. The Indiana settlement was sold to Robert Owen, at which point it was renamed New Harmony, Indiana. George Rapp lived out his remaining days in the town of Economy, Pennsylvania, until August 7, 1847, when he died at the age of 89. Early life and family Johann Georg Rapp was born on November 1, 1757, to Rosine Berger and Hans Adam Rapp (1720–71) in the village of Iptingen, northwest of Stuttgart in the Duchy of Württemberg. Rapp was the second child and oldest son of the family. His brother, Adam (born on March 9, 1762), and three sisters, Marie Dorothea (born October 11, 1756), Elise Dorothea (born August 7, 1760), and Maria Barbara (born October 21, 1765) later followed him to America; however, Adam died at sea. Rapp learned the art of wine making from his father, a farmer. After his father's death in 1771, Rapp trained as a journeyman weaver. He also developed an interest in preaching. Vineyards and textiles would become a part of the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial economy in all three of the Harmonite towns that were later founded in the United States. On February 4, 1783, Rapp married Christine Benzinger of Fiolzheim. The couple had two children, a son, Johannes (December 22, 1783 – 1812), and a daughter, Rosine (February 10, 1786 – 1849). Johannes, who trained as a surveyor, died at the age of twenty-nine in an industrial accident. Johannes's name is the only