Ohio History Journal

ROBERT S. FOGARTY AND H. ROGER GRANT

 

Free Love in Ohio: Jacob Beilhart

and the Spirit Fruit Colony

 

 

During the closing years of the nineteenth century, Americans

frequently read newspaper and magazine reports of a new wave of

communitarianism. Just as individuals of good hope united in the

antebellum period to create the Bethels, Zoars, Fruitlands, and

other utopias, colony building likewise flourished after the Civil

War, particularly during the cataclysmic depression of the mid-

1890s. While these latter-day communitarians might be divided

conveniently into secular and sectarian categories-as so often

occurs with utopian groups of the 1830s and 1840s-a more precise

classification would distinguish those who were cooperative colon-

izers, political pragmatists, and charismatic perfectionists. Gener-

ally, the cooperative colonizers and the political pragmatists showed

little or no interest in organized religion. The former emphasized

economic cooperation and seemed uninterested in political ideolo-

gies, while the latter sought to test and popularize pet reform

schemes. Political pragmatists, unlike cooperative colonizers,

usually de-emphasized the notion of "community" with its homoge-

nized lifestyles; their overriding concerns centered instead on dis-

covering immediate or lasting relief from hard times and the ex-

ploitive qualities of American capitalism.¹

Of the three types, colonies of charismatic perfectionists were

the most numerous. Such settlements were either based on the

potential personal sanctity of the membership or on special gifts

 

 

Robert S. Fogarty is Associate Professor of History at Antioch College

and is Editor of the Antioch Review and H. Roger Grant is Associate Pro-

fessor of History at the University of Akron.

 

 

1. See Robert S. Fogarty, "American Communes, 1865-1914," Journal

of American Studies, 9 (August, 1975), 145-62; and H. Roger Grant, "The

New Communitarianism: The Case of Three Intentional Colonies, 1890-

1905," Indiana Social Studies Quarterly, 30 (Spring, 1977), 59-71.

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Spirit Fruit Society                                   207

or powers of a forceful leader. Members commonly worked within millennialist or spiritualist traditions. Utopian organizations of this type proved the most durable; their individual histories can be measured in years, not months. Yet heavy dependence upon one central figure frequently caused difficulties. Indeed, the annals of

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208                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

American utopianism contain scores of examples of colony decline

following the founder-leader's death. One representative, yet pro-

vocative illustration of turn-of-the century charismatic perfection-

ism is Jacob Beilhart and his Spirit Fruit Society.

The chronicle of Spirit Fruit is largely the story of "Brother"

Jacob. Born on March 4, 1867, on a farm in Columbiana County,

Ohio, Jacob Beilhart grew up in a mixed religious environment.

His father belonged to the German Lutheran church while his

mother adhered to the Mennonite faith. The ten Beilhart children,

however, were christened and confirmed as Lutherans.² "Religion

was always a very sacred thing to me," Beilhart reflected in 1903.

Lacking much formal schooling during his youth ("Work was

about all I received as an education"), he left the farm when he

was seventeen to work in a brother-in-law's harness shop in

southern Ohio.³ When the relative moved to Kansas a year later,

Beilhart accompanied him.

Apparently not much interested in the harness trade, Beilhart

became a shepherd shortly before his twentieth birthday. The

Kansas family for whom he worked were Seventh-day Adventists.

"They read the Bible to me and I could see that I had not read it

right before; and on many doctrinal points, . . . I could see that

they were right in their beliefs." Beilhart quickly embraced the

new faith: "I accepted their doctrine in its entirety."⁴

A zealous convert, Jacob Beilhart dedicated himself to the

church. In time he abandoned the farm to serve the Adventists

full-time. He initially disseminated their denominational literature

in western Kansas, but subsequently moved to Colorado. As he

later recalled, "I broke all the records of all the canvasses which

they ever had selling the books-thirty orders in a day being the

highest mark, while I took fifty." After a winter term at an Ad-

ventist college at Heildsburg, California, Beilhart embarked on a

preaching career, first in Ohio and then in Kansas. He excelled in

his new vocation, yet he terminated it. "Two years of preaching

alternately with another man, meeting every evening, and then one

season alone," he wrote, "brot [sic] me to the time when the

'Brethren' decided they needed me in more difficult fields to

teach their doctrines, so they decided that I should go South."

 

2. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Reel T623-1248, sheet

39; William Alfred Hinds, American Communities (Chicago, 1908), 556;

and Jacob Beilhart, Life and Teachings (Burbank, California, 1925), 20-21.

3. Ibid. 21.

4. Ibid., 22-23.

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Spirit Fruit Society                                         209

 

But he refused, deciding "that I would preach no more until I could

do something besides talk."⁵

A burning desire to help the sick led Beilhart to enroll in a

nursing program at the Seventh-day Adventist Sanitarium in Battle

Creek, Michigan. Tired of preaching, he found his new work

meaningful. After completing the course of study, which em-

phasized natural and rational health remedies, Beilhart remained

at the sanitarium, becoming a staff nurse associated with the in-

stitution's founder, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, one of the nation's

leading health propagandists and the originator of flaked cereals.⁶

While employed at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, Beilhart

underwent another religious transformation, one which led him

to sever his ties with the Seventh-day Adventists. Continual Bible

study convinced him that the sick could be made better, even cured,

through prayer rather than diet. In an autobiographical sketch,

he related the event that established his reputation as a faith-

healer:

One day I was called to see a sick girl who had heard me tell of my

faith in healing by prayer. She had typhoid fever and was very sick.

Doctors had but little hope for her. I went to see her, and she asked me

to pray for her to be healed. This I did, annointing her after the in-

structions of James, 5:14. She was healed immediately; the temperature

going from 1041/2 to about normal in a few minutes. She got up and

dressed, drank milk, and retired for the night in about an hour.⁷

This one incident changed Beilhart's life. His continued faith-

healing activities and his rejection of the Adventists' strictly vege-

tarian diet ("My stomach would not digest the grains and vege-

tables") caused sanitarium officials to ask for his resignation.

Shortly before he left, Beilhart had nursed C. W. Post, later the

wealthy food manufacturer but then operator of Battle Creek's

La Vita Inn, an institution for healing by the practice of mental

suggestion. Beilhart claimed that is was Post who introduced him

to the healing potentials of Christian Science. Yet, subsequent in-

struction in this faith left him dissatisfied.⁸ Like other charismatic

perfectionists, he experimented with more than a single religion.

After Christian Science he studied Divine Science, Spiritualism,

 

5. Ibid., 24-25.

6. Ibid., 25-26; See also Raymond J. Cunningham, "From Holiness to

Healing: The Faith Cure in America, 1872-1892," Church History, 43 (De-

cember, 1974), 4.

7. Beilhart, Life and Teachings, 27-28.

8. Ibid., 31-35.

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210                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

and Theosophy, but none kept his interest. "I soon settled down to

this," Beilhart remembered later; "all these theories are very

nice, but it is hard work to run the universe when you know as

little about it as any of these folks seem to know who claim to

be teachers."⁹

While groping for the true religious perspective, Jacob Beil-

hart remained in Battle Creek. He and his wife, Loruma, whom

he married in 1893, had two children: Harry, born the next year,

and Edith, who came nineteen months later. Harness-making and

odd jobs sustained the household.¹⁰

By the late nineties Beilhart became even more obsessed with

religion. Calling his faith the "Universal Life," he developed a

philosophy that blended aspects of the various doctrines he had

encountered, particularly Christian Science. He repeatedly argued,

for instance, that "Jealousy, doubt, and fear of losing love, are the

causes of more disease than all the healers can ever cure.^"11 Yet,

unlike disciples of Mary Baker Eddy, he abjured materialism.

Private property should not be held. "Oh! do you know the joy

of willingly giving up all that self holds dear?" Rejection of

possessions, according to Beilhart, became one means of achieving

the "Fruit of the Universal Spirit."¹²

At a time of intense national political activism when such

issues as free silver, trade protection, tax reform, and municipal

ownership of utilities split the country, Beilhart remained apolitical.

A true religious perspective rather than any particular political

scheme was his secret to happiness: "You may speak of socialism;

you may speak of [Henry George's] single tax or no tax at all;

you may depend on good law makers and good executors to carry

out those laws; you may have all material things, the necessities

of life, in common. All these things will not give you peace.^"13

Resembling some contemporary religious zealots, who likewise

had messages to share, Jacob Beilhart decided to launch an inten-

tional colony in 1899. By "living in community," he also hoped

to attract attention to his new-found positive faith. The colony

"is practically our work shop, our demonstrating station."¹⁴ And

9. Ibid., 35.

10. Ibid., 43; The Buckeye State (Lisbon, Ohio), December 22, 1904;

and Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Reel T623-1248, Sheet 39.

11. Beilhart, Life and Teachings, 47.

12. Ibid., 58.

13. Ibid., 75; See also Jacob Beilhart, "Anarchy, Its Causes, and a

Suggestion for Its Cure," pamphlet, Illinois State Historical Society,

Springfield.

14. Beilhart, Life and Teachings, 71.

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Spirit Fruit Society                                      211

 

like many other utopians, he started a publications program to

promote his beliefs. Between 1899 and 1907 Beilhart and his

small band wrote, printed, and distributed two periodicals,

Spirit Fruit and Spirit's Voice.

Beilhart selected a colony site on the outskirts of Lisbon,

Ohio, seat of Columbiana County. As he described it in the June

1899 issue of the Spirit Fruit: "The Home... contains five acres

of good ground with plenty of fruit trees, a fine spring of water,

and a large fifteen-room brick house, in need of repairs.^"15 He

probably picked this particular location because it was in the im-

mediate vicinity of his boyhood home. Also, the Columbiana

County area boasted a sizable population of Spiritualists, indivi-

duals who might find Jacob's teaching appealing. The site, more-

over, was inexpensive; it was accessible to both steam and electric

interurban railways, and the climate was temperate.¹⁶

Spirit Fruit drew few to its communistic fold. The dozen or so

residents came mostly from outside Ohio, particularly Chicago,

a city where Beilhart regularly conducted meetings. From Chicago

he attracted an unlikely pair: Robert G. Wall, a former labor

leader, and Irwin E. Rockwell, the wealthy president of Idaho

Consolidated Mines, who was later to emerge as the Society's

"financial angel."¹⁷

The Spirit Fruit Society received its official incorporation

under the laws of Ohio as a religious organization in 1901 "to teach

mankind how to apply the truths taught by Jesus Christ." Yet

neither this document nor extant colony records explain the govern-

ing procedures. Beilhart probably made all important decisions,

as well as most of the minor ones. Internal splits that often

haunted cooperative and political pragmatist communities were

absent from the Beilhart utopia and the Spirit Fruit colonists at

first enjoyed a peaceful relationship with neighbors. Residents

seemingly knew or cared little about this tiny religious settlement

in their midst, and the Lisbon newspaper paid it scant attention.l8

About two years after Spirit Fruit was launched, however,

rumors began to spread in Lisbon of "unusual proceedings" at the

colony. Some believed that it had become a "free-love" nest. When

a child, Evelyn Gladys, was born out of wedlock to Beilhart's thirty-

 

 

15. Spirit Fruit (Lisbon, Ohio), June, 1899.

16. See The Buckeye State, December 13, 1900.

17. Ibid., June 2, 1904; November 3, 1904; and The Lakeside Annual

Directory of the City of Chicago (Chicago, 1900), 1610.

18. The Buckeye State, April 11, 1901.

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212                                      OHIO HISTORY

one year old sister Mary, local moralists sought to bring legal action against the group. But the Lisbon Buckeye State reported that "the society has been able so far to prevent outsiders from obtaining any proof that would enable them to take action against them."19 Coinciding with the "Love Child" incident was the "abduction" of the wife of a prominent Chicago physician. A Dr. Bailey, who thought his spouse was visiting in the East, hired investigators to find her when she did not return home, and finally learned that his missing wife had joined the Lisbon utopia. He tried to have family members persuade his wife to come home, and failing that, he sought unsuccessfully a writ of habeas corpus. Still undaunted, Dr. Bailey hired legal counsel to prepare papers to have his wife declared to be of "unsound mind." Mrs. Bailey was soon brought before a county common pleas court in Lisbon and when confronted with the prospect of being declared mentally unsound, she reluct- antly agreed to return to her husband. The Chicago press dramati- cally described the final episode in the alleged abduction:     19. Ibid., June 2, 1904; See also ibid., November 26, 1908.

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Spirit Fruit Society                                     213

 

As they were at the [Erie] station and about to leave the city, Beilhart

made his appearance to bid the woman good-bye. When the husband as-

saulted him and slapped him in the face several times, Beilhart offered

no resistance but rather extended the other cheek. The incident ended

without further violence and the Doctor and his wife left on the train.²⁰

 

Although Jacob Beilhart and the Spirit Fruit Society

weathered these early storms, they proved harbingers of future

difficulties. The turning point for the utopia came in 1904, when

extensive journalistic "exposes" and mounting local opposition

made life uncomfortable for the colonists.

In May 1904, Chicago journalists once more focused attention

on the Society. Reporters visited its city branch (rented rooms on

Clark Street); although their accounts correctly noted that Jacob

was a "tireless worker," their main thrust was the colorful and

sensational. The group was labeled a "fantastic'" religious sect.

To underscore such a claim, journalists attempted to show that

Beilhart, whom they said claimed to be the "Messiah," held un-

conventional ideas. They asked him, for example, if he believed

in divorce, and he answered:

 

We pay absolutely no heed to institutions that man has established....

But I will say that if I were married to a woman whom I hated I

should not hesitate to seek out my proper affinity. If I did otherwise,

according to our belief, I should be practicing hypocrisy.²¹

 

The Lisbon Buckeye State seized upon the Chicago revela-

tions. The June 2 issue carried the headline: "'SPIRIT FRUIT'

SOCIETY HAS TAKEN CHICAGO BY STORM," and the next

edition contained the damaging story of Katherine "Blessed"

Herbeson, which was to receive national attention. Once again

Beilhart had attracted a Chicago woman to the colony, in this

case a "beautiful, well-educated, musical and independent" eigh-

teen-year-old. When family members learned of her new associa-

tion, her lawyer-father and a brother-in-law travelled to Lisbon

to retrieve her. Again, Beilhart did not resist. Nevertheless, the

press gave the impression that the Spirit Fruit Society either

"abducted" innocent females or was at least guilty of brainwash-

ing them. Even though the Buckeye State stated that "Mr. Beil-

hart seems to think that this additional episode ["Blessed" Herbe-

 

20. Ibid., June 2, 1904.

21. Quoted in ibid.

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214                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

son] is only one more link in the chain that is going to give pub-

licity to his religion and cause it to spread to all parts of the

earth," talk of a special grand jury investigation must have given

him pause.²² Moreover, two weeks after the initial local coverage,

the paper reprinted "A Warning" that angry Lisbonites had cir-

culated on printed cards:

 

Wanted-Fifty good women, over twenty and under fifty years of age;

also fifty good honest-hearted men with families, to meet upon the

Square when called upon, and go to the Spirit Fruit farm and tell them

to take their departure at once or take the consequences, as tar is cheap

and feathers plentiful.²³

 

Beilhart reacted this time. This passive advocate of peace and

love decided to leave temporarily for the safety of Chicago. During

his stay there he probably reassessed the future of the Lisbon

colony. By November 1904, the Buckeye State reported that "he

has about decided to sell the community home here and buy another

location."²⁴ More unfavorable publicity came in December when

his wife Loruma sued for divorce. The Youngstown Telegram, for

example, argued that this "proves that the peculiar brand of

religion in the 'Spirit Fruit' cult is wrong, for the religion that

causes domestic woe and strife has a yellow streak in it some-

where."²⁵

Unhappiness with the local milieu led to the start of the

liquidation of the Ohio utopia in late 1904. The process continued

throughout most of the next year. In August 1905, Jacob, for the

Society, mortgaged the Lisbon property for $3,000. Yet, Spirit

Fruit did not dissolve; it merely relocated.²⁶

The Buckeye communitarians selected Ingleside, Lake County,

Illinois, as the new home for their utopia. Forty-five miles north-

west of Chicago and twenty miles west of Lake Michigan, the

location in Grant Township on Wooster Lake enjoyed close access

to the mainline of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad,

important as a means of communication since Beilhart planned to

continue operations of his Chicago branch. Much larger than the

Lisbon holdings, the Society's Ingleside acreage totalled ninety

 

22. Ibid., June 9, 1904.

23. Ibid., June 16, 1904.

24. Ibid., November 3, 1904.

25. Quoted in ibid., November 22, 1904.

26. The Daily Sun (Waukegan, Illinois), August 17, 1905; The

Buckeye State, October 5, 1905; and Beilhart, Life and Teachings, 100-03.

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Spirit Fruit Society                                       215

acres of the "finest land." Soon the colonists rented an adjoining

farm, and by 1908 they either owned or leased 300 acres of "well-

tilled" real estate.²⁷

By summer 1906, the thirteen utopians-eight men and five

women-had created an impressive physical setting. The colony

boasted fine crops and a pure-bred dairy herd, but its showpiece

was the main building. In June a reporter from the nearby

Waukegan Daily Sun described the dwelling, then under con-

struction:

 

The home of the society is planned on massive lines. Large concrete

blocks have been formed in moulds and these are raised by means of an

elevator run by horse power to the top of the wall.... To go around

the building which when completed will contain forty rooms, full seven

hundred feet of wall has to be laid. As many tiers of walls and cross

walls compose the entire structure, some idea of the work these quiet

artisans must do to raise "Spirit Temple" from its foundation and

make it a house of abode can be gained.

Practically all the work so far is of concrete. The basement floors, the

fireplaces, even the ceilings crossed with massive iron beams are of

arched cement. And by no means will the building be an ill one to look

upon. The design is as original and unique as the society itself.²⁸

 

Beilhart and his Spirit Fruit compatriots worked hard. For-

tunately, there were no dronish members in their midst. Only

sketchy evidence tells of the daily rounds of the Ingleside settle-

ment, but one newspaper account suggests that members voluntarily

labored at the gigantic house-building task and sustained their

farm. Although Beilhart apparently continued to make the de-

cisions, he did not act autocratically. For instance, he told a re-

porter, "I give a yell and then if any of the boys feel like getting

up to help it is all right, but if they don't, nothing is said."²⁹

Except for the rigors of farming and construction, life ap-

parently was pleasant for the colonists. Visitors sensed a strong

esprit de corps. "It is clearly the intention of the people to im-

prove the property," concluded the Cleveland Reporter; "flowers

and shrubbery are being planted, and the site of the building is

one of rare natural beauty, overlooking one of the most charming

Litte [sic] lakes in the country."³⁰

 

27. The Cleveland (Ohio) Leader, June 20, 1905; and Hinds, American

Communities, 558-59.

28. The Daily Sun, June 6, 1906.

29. Ibid., June 1, 1905.

30. The Cleveland Leader, June 20, 1905.

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216                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

Historically, intentional experiments headed by a single indi-

vidual usually proved fragile; Spirit Fruit was no exception. The

fatal blow occurred in 1908. Stricken with appendicitis on Novem-

ber 19, Beilhart was rushed by train the next day to Waukegan

for an emergency operation. Although the surgery was termed

"successful," unfortunately the ruptured appendix prevented

treatment. Jacob Beilhart died early on the morning of November

24, 1908, at the age of forty-one and was buried in an unmarked

grave at the Wooster Lake colony.³¹

While a Waukegan paper carried a front-page story with the

headline "Beilhart Colony Not To Be Dissipated; Members To

Remain in Same Mode of Life," the community lost its vitality.³²

"After [Jacob's] death his work ceased," wrote a follower in the

mid-1920s. "There was no one to take his place and may not

again for many centuries."³³ Yet Jacob's nephew remembered that

despite the loss of its leader, the colony did not die immediately.

"Miraculously, they remained together, in diminishing numbers,

for 21 more years.... The group had diminished ... to eleven, and

the impact of the great depression was upon us-there was no-

where left for them to go but their separate ways.... "³⁴ Thus

the Beilhart commune at last melted away.

The story of the Spirit Fruit Society differed little from other

contemporary charismatic perfectionist experiments. The colony

was based on the teachings of a single individual, it never attracted

a sizable following, and it was ephemeral. Like some other colonies,

Spirit Fruit encountered external resentment; indeed, in this case

to such an extent that it was forced to relocate. Furthermore,

Jacob Beilhart's sincerity and persistent labors at creating a utopia

resemble the efforts of many other founders of religious societies.

Several prominent themes run through the eclectic philosophy

of Jacob Beilhart, and they represent more than the isolated facts

of his career as prophet and colony organizer. He both saw and

presented himself as a redeemer who could save men and women

from selfishness, what he called "ego-mania," that "strips man of

all but the mere pretense of caring for the welfare of his nation

 

31. The Daily Sun, November 24, 1908.

32. Ibid., November 25, 1908.

33. Quoted in introduction to Jacob Beilhart, Spirit Fruit and Voice

(Roscoe, California, 1926, vol. 2), 9.

34. Letter from Robert J. Knowdell, Santa Cruz, California, to Mr.

and Mrs. Bowgren, Antioch, Illinois, November 11, 1973. Irwin E. Rockwell,

Beilhart's financial supporter and follower, sold a portion of the Illinois

land in 1912; by that time he had moved to Idaho.

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Spirit Fruit Society                                 217

or race."35 Beilhart wanted "to make men become men and to free women." Both sexes were shackled by convention, by an inability to let their higher natures (their true selves) find an out- let. There was a "spirit voice" within each person and it was "Jacob" who could draw it out. In short, his simple message was: "Be a Man, Be a Woman."36 The appeal was libertarian and erotic. Men and women could be as free as he was. Beilhart had known loneliness and pain, but by yielding to his true nature had found pleasure and happiness. One of his followers later described the process Beilhart had ex- perienced: "To him, severe physical pain was the caress of God, cleansing him for the clearer sight of the universal harmony and a keener appreciation of joy. Sickness was God's own surgical operation removing outgrown conditions and cleansing the inner eye to see what IS."37     35. Beilhart, Life and Teachings, n.p. 36. Ibid., 92-93. 37. Ibid., 9.

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218                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

In the words of Beilhart himself, he had a dual nature-part

male, part female. When he was six his father died and thus he

became "well acquainted" with his mother: "She gave me my

nature and a great deal of trouble it made me." She imparted to

him a feminine and sensitive conscience that would not let him

be as selfish as those in his company. Beilhart wrote in his

spiritual autobiography that he "seemed to have developed the

feminine side of my nature first, and only in later years did the

real manhood become uncovered."³⁸    What that real manhood

consisted of is ambiguous, but it seems obvious that it contained a

strong homoerotic element. In fact, Beilhart's world views resem-

ble those of Edward Carpenter, the English socialist and writer.

It was Carpenter who in the 1890s first wrote about and dared to

have published essays on homosexual love in Homogenic Love

(1894) and Sex, Love and Its Place in a Free Society (1894).³⁹

There is in Beilhart the notion of the "Androgynous Superman," a

phrase coined by Emile Delavenay to describe both Carpenter and

D. H. Lawrence.⁴⁰ According to Delavenay, this heroic figure was

both a seer and a redeemer who had resolved within himself the

contradictory passions implicit in every individual. Such a "Super-

man" not only "accepted the world and all its contradictions," but

was able to encourage, like Walt Whitman, "individuals dwelling

in personal darkness."⁴¹ Whitman in Song of Myself had defined

the unique that this new man played:

 

Through me forbidden voices

Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and

I remove the veil

Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigured.

 

Jacob Beilhart's message was reassuring to followers and one

that promised security and freedom: "You need not fear when all

 

38. Ibid., 41, 44.

39. Edward Carpenter, Homogenic Love (London, 1894); Civilisation:

Its Cause and Cure (London, 1897); Love's Coming-of-Age (Chicago, 1902).

See also W. H. G. Armytage, Heavens Below: Utopian Experiments in

England, 1560-1960 (Toronto, 1961) for a discussion of Carpenter's con-

nections with English utopian experiments at St. George's Farm in Totley,

the Norton Colony at Sheffield, and the Fellowship of the New Life in

London.

40. Emile Delavenay, D. H. Lawrence and Edward Carpenter: A

Study in Edwardian Transition (New York, 1971).

41. Ibid., 191ff.

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Spirit Fruit Society                                     219

 

is dark, and you cannot see, and do not know what to do. For then

you may know that I in you will know just what to do and how

to do it."⁴² His appeal was to private self locked inside a body

that yearned to be free, but was fearful of the consequences of

such freedom. As a lover Beilhart promised to be gentle, to accept

fully and without reservation his bride: "Do not shrink when I

touch you with my Love. While you are in pain or darkness, look

for me. I am there. I will surely meet you if you will let me in."⁴³

This is, of course, a paraphrase of the closing section of "Song of

Myself."

The Whitmanesque and heroic sexual pose is repeated when

Beilhart refers to himself as the "masculine nature that lives in

the feminine nature that she may become free."⁴⁴ Through the

seer and lover a woman was set loose and became free to explore

her "spirit voice" and to bear spirit fruit. That masculine appeal

of Beilhart's earned for the colony the title "free love," though he

protested that it meant nothing more than the epigram that

adorned one issue of Elbert Hubbard's The Philistine: "I believe

that love should be free, which is not saying that I believe in

free love."⁴⁵ However, the scandals in Ohio and the sensational

accounts in the Chicago newspaper lent credence to the view that

free love was practiced at Spirit Fruit.

Much of Jacob Beilhart's appeal was directed toward women

-as was Carpenter's-and their special needs. It was the

"feminine" that Carpenter idealized. This yielding, passive, and

non-competitive ideal Beilhart placed in opposition to the harsh,

corrupt, and destructive natural order man had created. Women

were kept in bondage by "jealousy, fear and doubt"; yet they

could be saved by the "unselfish love of Man" with a love that

encouraged "absolute abandonment, absolute non-resistance." Beil-

hart wrote: "Let him [man] not bind her for one moment and she

will become free."⁴⁶ Once free, this "spirit fruit" will blossom and

find true freedom.

Edward Carpenter believed that his mission in the world was

to free man from custom, to establish him in freedom with

"whomever he may choose." Jacob Beilhart's aim was much the

 

 

42. Beilhart, Life and Teachings, 163.

43.  Ibid., 170.

44. Ibid., 53.

45. Elbert Hubbard, The Philistine, June, 1905.

46. Beilhart, Life and Teachings, 76-77.

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220                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

same in that he wanted his followers (even though he denied any

desire to have disciples) to "relax and become non-resistant," to

allow the natural forces within them and the world to move them,

to feel comfortable with their impulses. His role was to encourage

openness and his career after 1897 was directed toward that goal.

A millionaire and laborer joined hands with him in the colony, his

sister had an illegitimate child, women left their families to join

"Jacob" at Spirit Fruit, and for his labors he was nearly mobbed

and driven from one midwestern state into another. This fate was

similar to that of the Berlin Heights, Ohio community, founded in

1857, which was hounded out of the state in the 1860s.

After Beilhart's death some of his writings were published by

a longtime disciple, "Freedom Hill Henry," as Jacob Beilhart:

Life and Teachings. J. William Lloyd, the anarchist editor of The

Free Comrade and author of the utopian romances, The Dwellers

in Vale Sunrise and The Natural Man, headed the Freedom Hill

group, located on an estate near the San Fernando Valley. Lloyd

had advocated the adoption of rural decentralization and coloniza-

tion in the nineties and was an exponent of sexual radicalism

throughout his career. Although he was Beilhart's contemporary

and shared similar ideas, there is no evidence that they knew each

other.⁴⁷

Jacob Beilhart and his Spirit Fruit colony reveal a good deal

about free love in America. This seemingly isolated colony in

Ohio and later in Illinois was part of an emerging social and sexual

movement that drew its inspiration from native American, Euro-

pean, and Eastern sources. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whit-

man inspired radicals in New Jersey and Kansas; Edward Car-

penter and William Morris suggested social plans for political

anarchists and mystical entrepreneurs; and Oriental philosophies

like Theosophy and Vedantaism led individuals and groups to adopt

a path laid down by adepts and seers.⁴⁸

Beilhart was a seer for a small band. He preached that is was

possible to alter one's consciousness and to live a perfect life within

his aura and the boundaries of a select community. He was not

 

47. For a discussion of Lloyd and his utopian ideas, see Laurence R.

Veysey, The Communal Experience (New York, 1973).

48. See Veysey, The Communal Experience for an outstanding dis-

cussion of the anarchist tradition and Hal Sears, The Sex Radicals

(Lawrence, Kansas, 1977) for the Moses Harmon circle in Kansas in the

1880s. For an excellent introduction to free love in America, see Taylor

Stoehr, Free Love in America: A Documentary History (New York, 1979).

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Spirit Fruit Society                                            221

alone in the late nineties when he tried his experiment where

"human nature, motives and feelings are treated [here] as a

medical school treats human anatomy." When he died, the

Waukegan Daily Sun said that "he was one of the gentlest and

unassuming of men," and that after residing three years in the

area had farmer friends who "would have fought in his behalf."⁴⁹

Such is the stuff of Midwestern free lovers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

49. The Daily Sun, November 24, 1908.

Perhaps the best eulogy to Jacob Beilhart can be found in the words of

a fellow communitarian leader, Elbert Hubbard, founder of the Roycroft

Colony in East Aurora, New York:

Here is what I think of Jacob: If there were enough men like him in

mentality and disposition we would have the millennium right here and now.

Jacob does not believe in force. He has faith-more faith than any man

can think of at this moment. He has faith in God, and God is us-God

is Jacob, and Jacob is a part of God. God wouldn't be God without Jacob,

and Jacob acknowledges this himself.

Jacob wants nothing and has nothing, and so he is free to tell the

truth. He deceived no one-disappoints nobody, excepting possibly the

people who want something for nothing.

Jacob accepts life, accepts everything, and finds it good ....

Jacobs works with his hands, and works hard-he does good work.

No one can meet him without realizing his worth-he has nothing to hide.

He does not seek to impress. He is a healthy, fearless, simple, honest, in--

telligent, kindly man. Therefore, he is a great man. But being free from

subterfuge and hypocrisy, he is, of course, eccentric.

Jacob is a bearer of glad tidings-he brings a message of hope, good-

cheer, courage and faith. He affirms again and again that God, which is

the Everything is good-he puts in another 'o' and spells it Good.

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