Surveyors photograph   Save
Ohio History Connection Property Files
Description: This photograph shows surveyors posed with their equipment in Zoar, Ohio, in 1898. The village was surveyed at this time to determine how property would be divided among members when the Society of Separatists of Zoar dissolved their communal economic system. Led by Joseph Bimeler (sometimes spelled Bäumeler) in 1817, a group of Lutheran separatists left the area of Germany known as Wurttemberg and eventually established the small community of Zoar in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. The community of Zoar was not originally organized as a commune, but its residents had a difficult time surviving in 1818 and early 1819. As a result, on April 19, 1819, the group formed the Society of Separatists of Zoar. Each person donated his or her property to the community as a whole, and in exchange for their work, the society would provide for them. Additional modifications to the society's organization were made in 1824 and a constitution established in 1833. In the decades following the establishment of View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: P365_B14F11_01
Subjects: Zoar (Tuscarawas County, Ohio); Society of Separatists of Zoar; Laborers; Communal societies; portrait photography
Places: Zoar (Ohio); Tuscarawas County (Ohio)