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Case file s1594 · Secret societies and orders · 1905
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1905
RappHouseOldEconomyPA: The Rapp house in Old Economy Village, Pennsylvania.
RappHouseOldEconomyPA. Lee Paxton. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
15 December 1905 (dissolution of the society)
Place
Economy (Ambridge), Beaver County, Pennsylvania, USA
Field
celibate religious commune
Legal tradition
Articles of agreement of 1805 and 1836 (common property, no claim on withdrawal); escheat
Historical event
Industrial growth of the Pittsburgh region
Secret societies and ordersIndustry and empireNorth AmericaUnited States

The celibate Harmony Society dwindled to eight members, the US Supreme Court refused the heirs a share in 1902, and the last trustees split the fortune with Pennsylvania

Johann Georg Rapp founded the Harmony Society in Pennsylvania on 15 February 1805, with all property held in common. In 1807 the members adopted celibacy. They built Harmony, then New Harmony in Indiana, then Economy on the Ohio River in 1824. Under trustee Jacob Henrici from 1868 the society invested in railroads, oil, lumber, brick works and a savings bank. With no children, membership fell. By 1890 the society's holdings, including about 3,000 acres around Pittsburgh, were alleged to be worth over $4 million. Heirs of former members sued, saying the society had ended and its property should be divided. On 27 October 1902 the Supreme Court ruled in Schwartz v. Duss that the 1836 agreement barred departed or dead members and their heirs from any claim; Chief Justice Fuller dissented. Trustee John Duss sold most of Economy's land to Berlin Iron Works in 1894 and to US Steel in 1902. The society was dissolved on 15 December 1905. Pennsylvania sued for the estate. In 1916, after eleven years, John and Susie Duss and the state split what was left equally. The state used its half to preserve one square block of the town. In 1919 seventeen buildings became Old Economy Village, a state historic site.

What the law took from it

A community that cannot have heirs leaves its property to its last trustees or to the state, and here it went to both.

Sources
  1. Cornell Law School, LIICourt record
  2. phmc.state.pa.usGovernment record
  3. explorepahistory.comPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “The celibate Harmony Society dwindled to eight members, the US Supreme Court refused the heirs a share in 1902, and the last trustees split the fortune with Pennsylvania,” story s1594, https://www.celebrity.estate/harmony-society-1905, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Secret societies and ordersIndustry and empireNorth AmericaUnited States