ON TOUR FOR THE CAUSE 177
old Romanesque temple built by followers of Joseph Smith. An
imposing structure with emblems of the sun, moon, and stars on its
pillars, it had running springs inside. Behind this central struc
ture they had erected a two-story house, some 150 feet long, with
a kitchen built into an ell. Upstairs there were rooms for twenty
couples, ten on each side of a long gallery. Downstairs was a large
hall where the French presented their theatrical entertainments,
concerts, and dances and transformed the American Sabbath into
"the Parisian Sunday." Weitling welcomed such evidences of the
Continental spirit in Puritan America. Some of the members of the
colony were living in houses recently abandoned by the Mormons.
The children of the colony, at the age of two, were taken from
their parents to be given a communal education, but were permit
ted to visit their homes on Sunday afternoon. They seemed to be
entirely happy with that arrangement.
Weitling was delighted with the high intelligence, the moral
tone, and the self-sacrificing spirit which he found among the
Icarians, but he was greatly disappointed by their slow economic
progress. Though the community of 300 was nearly three years
old, only half the required number of houses had been finished,
and many colonists worked on a rented farm and lived in rented
houses. The main community farm of 700 acres was five miles
away from the settlement and was leased, not owned by the
colony. The workshops were widely scattered, and the colony
lacked skilled artisans. Sickness, unfriendly neighbors, and fre
quent floods added to the colony's difficulties and helped keep the
standard of living low. No beer or wine was available, but the dis
tillery was in full operation to supply the men with their regular
allotment of whisky. The colony had little sugar; butter and eggs
were scarce; milk was available only for women and children; the
coffee was poor; the meat supply, however, was adequate. Nurs
eries and vineyards had been planted, and the livestock was in
creasing. Weitling noted that the women of Nauvoo were not ex
pected to work in the fields, as in the German colonies of Ebenezer
and Zoar. The Icarians held regular weekly meetings and pub-
barré
(Barré)
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