The Birthday of Eternity

John Humphrey Noyes, died April 13, 1886

John Humphrey Noyes founded the Oneida Community in 1848.  

Oneida Community

As a sign of the times, the Oneida Journal changed is name in 1876 to the American Socialist as its emphasis was becoming more social than religious. 

 Noyes was aging, and his son, Theodore, came to the fore. Theodore had gone to Yale, had become a physician, and was taking over the management of the Community. Theodore had nervous breakdowns, he had come to doubt Jesus' divinity, and he even questioned the existence of God. He became interested in spiritualism, and when one small group in the Community in 1876 began revivals, father Noyes quickly put this down. Theodore was not the strongest of leaders, and thus he tried to institute rules and regulations into a community which had always been led by the charismatic and divine authority of his father.  Gradually, by 1878, disillusion was setting within the Community. 

Theodore Noyes

An internal opposition party grew under William Towner and William Hinds. Towner and his wife had come to Oneida from the former Berlin Heights, Ohio, the free sex community, and they did not care for the committee structure which controlled temporary sexual partnerships.  Towner wanted to be free to play the sexual field at Oneida.  There was also growing opposition to Noyes' role as the "first husband" of adolescent girls. Noyes was the one who introduced adolescent girls of twelve or thirteen to sex, just as his wife Harriet and his sister introduced young male adolescents to sex.

Then there was Theodore's protracted love affair with Ann Hobart, a twenty-seven year old member of the group, and this created a new crisis since this violated one of the basic tenets of "Multiple Marriage" which prohibited exclusiveness of sexual relationships.  She and Theodore were now in charge of the Community, and she began to separate for herself some of the more attractive young men from the young women in whom they were interested. The elder Noyes turned against the young woman as a trouble maker, and he and his son Theodore came into conflict. 

Noyes tried to reinstate the old "Complex Marriage" situation, but attitudes were changing within the Community. Then Ann ran off with a dissident member of the group and married him—and Theodore left Oneida to run a Turkish Bath in New York City. 

Outside forces came into play. In the 1870s, Anthony Comstock got Congress to ban any mention of birth control, particularly through the mails, a ban which came down well into the twentieth century.  This ban struck at the basic practice of birth control, a practice which Noyes had always advocated publicly. Then in 1878 John Meers, a Presbyterian minister and a teacher at Hamilton College, and some other clergy, took a public stand against what they saw as concubinage at the Oneida Community. The local newspaper defended the Community against these clerical attacks, stating that the members of the Oneida Community were law abiding citizens who caused no problems in the area. 

The small clerical group continued in their open opposition, and the furor even made national notice.  The February 26, 1879. issue of the nationally circulated Puck Magazine used its front cover to mock clerical opponents of the Oneida Community. The cover cartoon had as a caption: "O, dreadful. They dwell in peace and harmony and have no church scandals. They must be wiped out!" 

On June 23, 1879, in the face of arrest and a law suit, without warning Noyes fled to Canada under the cover of night in his 67th year. He fled Oneida for Ontario, Canada, where the Community had a factory.

With Noyes' departure, his opponents within the Community now demanded constitutional government with elections, the abolition of the "Ascendancy of Fellowship" (the hierarchal structure in which decisions were made by the Elders, including sexual privileges), and the end to all sexual controls in favor of a freedom of sexual privileges.  In August, Noyes wrote back to the Community, stating that it was time to abandon the practice of complex marriage and live in a more traditional manner. 

Niagra Falls

The Community formally dissolved and converted to a joint stock company on January 1, 1881.  Noyes was provided by the Community with a home at Niagara Falls, Canada, a horse, a carriage, and a stipend of $150 a month for life. 

Although Noyes never returned to the United States, he remained a powerful influence over many of his followers. Some even left Oneida to come to the Niagara Falls area. A number of adherents gathered about him at Niagara Falls, and he kept an open-house for Oneidans so long as he lived.  

Noyes died in his 74th year on April 13, 1886, seven years after going into exile.

His body was returned to Oneida and was buried in the Oneida Community Cemetery with those of many of his followers.

Grave of John Humphrey Noyes