For a little more than 80 years in the 19th century, Tuscarawas County was home to a communal society known as Zoar.
Historians are still piecing together what happened after it disbanded.
“Zoar Village was founded by the Separatists of Zoar,” said Tammi Shrum, site director of Historic Zoar Village. “They came here in 1817 from Germany. They were fleeing religious persecution in the bottom Wartenberg area of Germany.”
In 1819, they voted to become a communal society, she said.
“Anything that you had, you gave to the society, but in return, you got everything that you would need,” she said. “We should all live together as … one family in God's name, all brothers and sisters in Christ is how they felt about it.”
Society members grew crops and sold furniture and dairy products. They even grew hops for beer and bread, she said.
They had very little contact with people outside of the society.
“If it wasn't like, through a trade basis or something with their industry, a lot of times they didn't have the interaction with the outside,” Shrum said. “They really kind of kept in their own little bubble.”
Zoar saw several decades of economic prosperity after members helped build seven miles of the Ohio & Erie Canal through the area. Because the society viewed men and women as equals, women worked alongside the men to hand dig the canal.
“After that, they were able to pay off all of their land debt,” Shrum added. “So, they had a really prosperous time for about 20, 30 years.”
Descendants of the society include Stephen Buhrer, who eventually became a popular mayor of Cleveland, Shrum said.
Over the years, particularly during the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 20th century, interest in joining the society declined, Shrum added.
“Society is going rampant outside of Zoar, with automobiles starting to come in, photographs, just all these amazing, like this technological boom at the end, at the turn of the century,” Shrum said. “Some of the people in the society felt like they were missing out, so more and more started to move out, move away, not join up the society.”
Members voted to dissolve the society in 1898 - and that’s when Zoar’s history gets a little murky, she said.
“The state started buying some of the buildings, but why were they up for sale? What happened to the people after the society was dissolved?” Shrum said. “The garden was a tennis court at one point, so, who made it a tennis court? Who changed it back over to a garden? It’s just kind of questions like those.”
Local historians are actively researching these questions, she said.
Today, the village is a National Historic Landmark District, with many buildings still intact and open for tours during the warmer months.
“It’s just such a unique part of Ohio’s history,” Shrum said. “There’s really not really any other place like it in Ohio.”
