176 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
only of the "holy cause" for which he had fought so long in Eu
rope and which now at last was coming to fruition on the prairie
of Iowa.
Weitling's first visit to Communia was very pleasant. The fall
weather was marvelous and invigorating. He inspected the neigh
boring country and tramped four miles across the prairie to the
colony of "Liberty," founded by a group of Mecklenburgers.
Though the settlement was then in the midst of difficulties that
eventually caused its collapse, Weitling was delighted with what
he saw and especially pleased to meet again a man and his wife
whom he had known in Hamburg. On October 6, 1851, he moved
on, confident that his colony was on a sound footing and abso
lutely convinced that "animals and men now feel at home there."
In Dubuque a well-attended meeting netted fifteen members
for the Bund and contributions amounting to $33. At Galena,
twelve more were enrolled. In this beautifully situated town Weitling encountered many French Canadians who were employed in
the lead mines or in the lumber camps as modern coureurs-de-bois.
While in Davenport he might have visited the Bishop Hill Colony
of the Swedes, but he did not learn of the location of this religious
community until too late to turn back. Fourteen of the citizens of
Davenport signed membership cards, most of them North Ger
mans from Holstein. The city already had two German lodges,
one of them the Odd Fellows; a Democratic Club; and a German
school.
From Davenport, the traveler proceeded by boat to Nauvoo,
the home of the Icarians. Here he saw the ruins of the old Mormon
temple and visited the followers of Cabet who now resided in the
ghost town which the Mormons had evacuated. For Weitling,
Nauvoo was a place of peculiar interest. He had been introduced
to Cabet's theories in France, and now he found the latter's fol
lowers trying to put them into practice in America. It was not long
before the two prophets of Utopia began to correspond, but a plan
to combine their forces was never realized.
The Icarians had developed their town around the ruins of the