COMMUNIA, IOWA 241(^5) See Joseph Eiboeck, Die Deutschen in Iowa und deren Errungenschaften
(Des Moines, 1900), 95.
War he recruited a company of soldiers, largely from among
German communists of the city, and marched off as a captain at
the head of his men to join the army of General Taylor. His outfit
smelled no powder and returned from the wars unscarred, but
they received land warrants which could be used to found a
colony.
The region around Koch's Kommunia was a veritable El
Dorado for Utopians. An association from Cincinnati settled near
Guttenberg, Iowa; Pennsylvanians located at Colesburgh, some
fifteen miles away; the Mecklenburgers already referred to, in
cluding several people whom Weitling had known in Hamburg,
founded near-by Liberty under the leadership of Burgomaster
Wullweber. This last colony existed until 1852 when it was sold
for $1,575. In the same region in Clayton County, there was the
short-lived Clydesdale colony, which had been organized in Scot
land under the presidency of John Craig.^5
Communia was located on virgin prairie at the confluence of
the Turkey and Volga rivers, in the southern part of Section 8
of Volga township. It was about six miles south of Elkader in
Clayton County, about fifteen miles from Guttenberg, and about
fifty miles from Dubuque. Elkader at the time had hardly more
than a dozen houses, but it was a booming frontier town, with
interest rates as high as twenty and twenty-five per cent. Gutten
berg, a community of perhaps 150 dwellings had a population
which was rapidly approaching a thousand. Most of the inhabit
ants were Germans, and many were employed in the neighboring
lead mines. To reach Communia, travelers usually proceeded by
steamer to Galena or Dubuque. From Galena, the trip to Clayton
could be made in twelve hours by boat. A wagon road led from
Clayton to Elkader and six miles beyond Elkader was Koch's
colony.
Koch and his party had arrived in 1847 in this beautiful part of
Iowa, noted for deer and wild turkeys, good trout fishing and