On Feb. 15, 1805, a few dozen German immigrants huddled together in a log house near the Connoquenessing Creek and signed papers creating Harmony, Pa.

They certainly didn’t know it at the time, but they were about to build one of the most successful communal societies in America. These early settlers, and others who followed, worked together as the Harmony Society, creating a community without personal property, sharing equally in the bounty of their labors.

Between 1804 and 1814 they built, from scratch, more than 130 buildings and a thriving trade in agricultural products and woolen cloth.

But the birth of Harmony actually begins a couple decades earlier, in the village of Iptingen, in the Duchy of Württemberg, in what is now southern Germany.

Johann Georg Rapp, often called Father Rapp, was a weaver by trade and a self-proclaimed religious prophet. His studies of the Bible led him to believe things were very wrong with the Lutheran Church that dominated this part of Germany in the late 1700s.

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The church at the time had become an extension of the government. Citizens had to attend Lutheran church services each Sunday — it was the law.

Rapp flouted this law not only by skipping church, but by holding his own religious services in people’s homes, just like the apostles did in the earliest days of the Christian Church.

Father Rapp preached pacifism, another idea not popular with the authorities. He was horrified by endless wars and conflicts that had plagued Europe over the previous generations —many of them pitting one Christian faction against another.

Another tenet of Rapp’s teaching was shared property. He noted that the early Christian apostles shared all their wealth, as noted in the Bible, Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 4, Verse 32: “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any possession was their own, but they shared everything they had.”

Rapp’s activities caused an official investigation of his preaching where, in 1791, he proclaimed to authorities — “I am a prophet and am called to be one.”

This statement, by itself, might not have concerned local leaders, but Rapp was attracting followers, upwards of 10,000 followers, many refusing to serve in the military or attend required Lutheran services.

By 1800, Rapp and his followers, often called Rappites, had worn out their welcome in Württemberg.

Beside government harassment, Rapp saw other, more spiritual reasons to leave Germany — the rise of Napoleon.

Napoleon’s quest for power and the devastation of his conquests were watched with great interest by the self-proclaimed prophet. Rapp felt these were signs that the Second Coming of Jesus was near, and that the end of this world was just around the corner. The Rappites needed to prepare for that glorious event in a new home, where they could practice a pure lifestyle without harassment.

So in 1803, Georg Rapp and two companions sailed to Philadelphia. Traveling west by land, they ended up in Zelienople to inspect a large tract of land for sale.

The land was part of the holdings of another German immigrant, Detmar Basse, the founder of Zelienople.

Father Rapp liked the potential he saw and purchased 5,000 acres of undeveloped land along the Connoquenessing Creek. It was good timing since many of Rapp’s followers had sold their property in Germany and turned the money over to Father Rapp and his son, Frederick.

One hundred and fifty families sailed for America. A first contingent of 40 families arrived at the banks of the Connoquenessing Creek in November 1804, where they promptly build nine log houses to survive the winter.

(Stop a moment to review the math — nine houses for 40 families. There was much togetherness that first winter.)

Fifty more families arrived the next spring.

Frederick Rapp, Georg’s son, laid out the town square and streets (much as they are today) and in commemoration of the unity and brotherly affection they felt, they called their new town Harmony. The Rappites had become the Harmonists.

That year, 1805, they built 46 log houses, a large barn, and a grist mill with a hand-dug mill race nearly three-quarters of a mile in length.

In their spare time, the Harmonists cleared 150 acres of ground for corn, 40 acres for potatoes and 15 acres for meadow. They not only worked hard, they kept excellent records.

All this was done with no wish for personal gain, but rather for improving the wealth of the entire community. Rapp’s plan of communal living, shared wealth and work without thought of personal profit was doing very well.

And the progress continued. By 1809, just five years after that first winter, they had built many new buildings to process their various crops, including a brick warehouse complete with a huge, vault-ceiling wine cellar.

That building today is the Harmony Museum. You can still see the wine cellar the Harmonists built.

The Harmonists needed the warehouse to store their harvest that year: 6,000 bushes of Indian corn, 4,000 bushels of wheat, 4,000 bushels of rye, 5,000 bushels of oats, 10,000 bushels of potatoes, 50 gallons of sweet oil pressed from white poppy, as well as barrels of whiskey and beer, and 4000 pounds of hemp (for rope-making, we presume).

The Harmonists were not all work and prayer. They loved music and played for church services and personal entertainment.

A visitor to Harmony in 1811 recorded many details of a three-day stay in Rapp’s communal settlement. It included a concert performed on “three violins, a bass, a clarinet, a flute and two French horns.”

The city of Pittsburgh would have nothing to compare to this musical ensemble for another decade. (That 1811 article is available in booklet form at the Harmony Museum shop on Mercer Street.)

As successful as the Harmonists were, not everything was harmonious in Harmony.

As their agricultural production increased, they longed for better transportation to sell their products. Back in the early 19th century, Western Pennsylvania roads were often impassable, especially in wet and wintery weather. Plus, the Connoquenessing Creek was barely navigable most of the year.

The Harmonists also had neighbor issues. Their success and prosperity caused jealously and resentment.

The War of 1812 may have also had an impact. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and his sailors marched right through Harmony, in route from Pittsburgh to Lake Erie, where crucial naval battles were fought against the British.

The Harmonists, being pacifists, wanted no part in the war and did not serve. That didn’t win any friends among neighbors who sent their sons off to battle.

So in 1814, their sold their farmland, barns, mills and brick warehouses to another German — Mennonite Abraham Ziegler from eastern Pennsylvania. The Harmonists packed up their belongings and built another community from scratch, New Harmony, on the banks of the Wabash River in the Indiana territory.

Ziegler encouraged other Mennonites to join him in Western Pennsylvania, including the Boyers, the Wises and the Moyers.

They thrived as farmers and built a meetinghouse that still stands on Wise Road, just outside of Harmony. The meetinghouse and its cemetery are on the National Register of Historic Places, both now owned and maintained by the Harmony Museum. Many descendants of those early Mennonite settlers still live in Butler County.

And the Harmonists? They would stay in Indiana for a decade, eventually moving back east to found Economy, just 30 miles from Harmony — a site that was close to large eastern markets and right on the Ohio River for great transportation.

It was there, in what is now the Old Economy Village Historic Site, that the Harmonists died out — all gone by 1905. Their practice of celibacy, started while they were in Harmony, proved to be a greater threat than the end of the world.

Today the borough of Harmony has about the same population as when the Harmonists were there 220 years ago.

And Harmony is blessed to have many Harmonist buildings still in existence, some owned by the Harmony Museum, others by homeowners and businesses that work to preserve their historic charm. Most are in Harmony’s National Historic Landmark District, a designation by the United States Department of Interior that protects the historic architecture and charm of Harmony.

Rodney Gasch is the president and CEO of Historic Harmony Inc., a nonprofit that operates the Harmony Museum and preserves a total of nine historic sites in the area.