Promised Land in Monmouth County

Once upon a time in Monmouth County, there existed what some would call an Eden, others would call Sodom and still others would call a pie in the sky dream created by visionaries, or by socialist who wanted to destroy capitalism.  

The people who created utopian communities were considered idealists or fools, visionary or deluded, but no matter what side you came down on, there was no denying that they were looking for a better way of life.

It all played out during the mid-1800s, when there was an utopian community located in Colts Neck, near the border of the Lincroft section of Middletown, called the North American Phalanx.

The NAP operated between 1843 and 1856. According to a 1873 article in the Red Bank Register, it was on some of the most beautiful land in Monmouth County.

And according to Brookdale Community College History Professor, Jess LeVine, it was one of the most successful of the utopian communities that were cropping up all over the country at that time.

Professor LeVine has taught about this community in his history classes and has delved into further research on the topic for a future project. He will be sharing his expertise on the subject at the Monmouth County Historical Association as part of its Historically Speaking lecture series, on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 2 p.m. 

While the Phalanx is known for its successful economic model, his presentation will focus on the personalities involved and the issues that confronted them while they were there.

“There was an interesting mix of what we might call celebrities of the day and the sort of regular folk who inhabited and ran the community on a daily basis,” LeVine explained.

He believes there were two reasons for these communities: one was to deal with the economics of the times. “But it was also part of an overall time of reform movements in America that looked for better ways to live the American dream and to take care of those less fortunate," he said. "Some saw withdrawal as the best way to cope and to set an example for others to follow.”

LeVine noted that in the case of the NAP, the concentration was on individualism and individual wealth building which was something they saw as almost a mania of the times. They were seeking a better way.

He explained: “While that strain of individualism is a huge part of American development and our ideas about freedom, there is also a strain of communalism that is part of our culture as well. So, they banded together to protect themselves, to compete as an economic unit to be more successful, to set an example to others, and to take joy in living together as group, working shoulder to shoulder, looking out for one another.”

LeVine added that this idea was critical. “This is the idea that (Charles) Fourier (French Philosopher) argued," he said "... that not only the project or goal is important, but the sheer joy of the communal experience is the value as well and should be as revered in American society as individualism.”

According to Wikipedia, Fourier's views inspired the founding of the community called La Reunion near present-day Dallas, Texas, as well as several other communities within the United States, including the North American Phalanx in New Jersey and the Community Place and Sodus Bay Phalanx in New York State.

Some Utopian communities had problems with moochers or hangers-on, he said. New Harmony in Indiana is one example of that problem. The other problem involved what LeVine calls “ridiculous economic survival strategies.”

An example of that, he said, is Fruitlands, outside of Boston in Roxbury. It was run by Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott’s dad, who tried to grow fruit to sell to others. The problem was that he included fruit like oranges and lemons which didn’t grow in that climate.

“I think a lot of the story of the NAP is in the people — the lives they lead, the things that bothered them, how they tried to digest and make sense of the changing world around them, and how they worked hard and fought to produce a better world, an example of a higher quality life in that world," LeVine said. "One of the more interesting things is to figure out what the various individuals wanted to get out of the experience and how true to the principles they were.” 

He added that Utopian communities sometimes don't make it because the conditions that caused them to form, change. “If they are formed to deal with an unstable economic climate, and that improves then there reason for being begins to lose steam," he noted. "If they are formed more to an ideal way of life, regardless, then they might develop difficulties based on the people that make them up.  It could be that the people who try these things grow out of them or change their ideas over time.”

Regardless of the cause, the Phalanx community was disbanded by the time this article, that said it was one of the most beautiful spots in Monmouth County, five miles beyond Red Bank, ran in the Register on Oct. 10, 1883:

“The Phalanx is a large tract of land shut off from the country road by a wild and luxurious growth of brush and shrubbery. Once beyond this natural screen the visitor finds himself in a charming, and at the same time an astonishing place. A dam transforms a little brook into a placid lake at the foot of a majestic lawn leading up to a city row of houses, built at right angles to an enormous structure something after the style of a watering-place hotel. Other large buildings are to be seen through the trees … If one did not know the truth, it would be difficult to decide at a glance whether the place was dead and deserted, or whether it still continued a population.”

The article becomes rather imaginative when it talks about the Phalanx community during the time of its viability. The reporter talks about the neglected pond, lawn, and trees as well as the big, hotel-like place that was no longer inhabited.  

He mentions the cottage chimneys, and the occasional man, woman, “or a pair of romping children” that pass from one house to another and the “calls of a ploughman to his sweating horses that rings out through the grove.” To him they all held the echo of another time when the place was full of productive people carrying on various industries.

He says, “And this would be in a general way the truth about the place.”

But the article doesn’t stop at the general outlines of the community. It goes on to detail how they lived and worked and made decisions. “The food was excellent and the cooking elaborate.”

He reports that everybody worked at what he or she could do best, and the pay was regulated partly by the rates of wages elsewhere and partly by the nature of the work and the number employed at it. “It was part of the theory that disagreeable work, such as had to be performed, and yet could not be with pleasure undertaken by anybody, should command the highest pay.”

The article also explains that no matter how silly someone’s idea was, he was treated with respect and his view heard. “The Phalanxers held to what was wholesome, honest and practical all through their cooperation, and there never blew for an instant during their eleven years of existence the faintest breath of scandal there,” it said.

But apparently  there were many people who misunderstood and did not trust the “Phalanxers,” he wrote.

“The simple fact that the Phalanx girls and women wore the Bloomer costume settled this point in the rural mind," the Register story said. "Yet some of the Phalanx women continued to wear that dress long after the colony went to pieces, and it is easy to find today comfortable matrons in fashionable dresses who stoutly assert that the Bloomer is the only dress for women, and that they would don it today if the rest of the world would but withhold judgment…

The Phalanx girls found the short skirt and long trousers the best costume when at work; washing, scrubbing, waiting on table, moving about near machinery, toiling in the fields and elsewhere.”

Although there was still farming going on at the old Phalanx place, on Oct. 6, 1909, there was a notice that the former James Bray Place was sold for $8,500. The farm contained 66 acres, a fine orchard and an asparagus field of eleven acres.

“It was part of the original Phalanx property, and was bought by that concern when the

North American Phalanx was formed. After the dissolution of the Phalanx as an organized body, part of the Phalanx lands were bought by Mr. Bray, and this farm was a part of his purchase.

Professor LeVine teaches courses in American, World and New Jersey History at Brookdale Community College. More can be gleaned from an exhibition that coordinates with his lecture, American Utopia; The History of the North American Phalanx. The exhibition features manuscripts, artifacts and images of the Phalanx.

The lecture is open to the public and admission is free. It will be held in the first floor exhibition gallery at the Association’s headquarters, 70 Court Street, Freehold.

Refreshments will be served following the presentation. Call 732-462-1466 for further information or to let them know that you will attend. The gallery on the first floor of the Museum, where the lecture will be held, is accessible to persons with disabilities. If there are any special needs that require accommodation, please contact the office at 732-462-1466 within 24 hours of the presentation.