Saturday, April 4, 2009

Reunion Community

One of my posts a month or two ago was about Alcander Longley and the Friendship Community east of Buffalo in Dallas County. Longley's first experimental communist community in Missouri, though, was located in Jasper County near the present-day site of Oronogo. Also called the True Family Community, the Reunion Community was founded in 1868. At the time, Oronogo was still known as Minersville, and the communist community was located about two miles northwest of the town. The members of the Reunion Community engaged in farming and the nursery business, selling grape vines to the people of Jasper County. Like all of Longley's later communities in Missouri, the Reunion Community was relatively short-lived. By the end of 1871, Longley had returned to St. Louis, and the Reunion Community had disbanded. Longley went on to make several more attempts at establishing a communist community in Missouri, next in line being the Friendship Community, which he started in 1872.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interestingly, Google Books has Reunion Community magazine called The Communist, whose 1st issue appeared in Jan 1868:

I wonder if that was the world's first publication with that name!

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