New Zoar Meeting House photograph   Save
Ohio Guide Photographs
Description: Caption reads: "New Zoar Meeting House." The brick meeting house was built by the Society of Separatists of Zoar in 1853. When the Society of Separatists of Zoar was dissolved in 1898 the former members of the Society formed an Evangelical church which held services in this building. A group of separatists from Germany, eventually known as Zoarites, established the small community of Zoar in Tuscarawas County in 1817. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, they had separated from the official German religion, the Lutheran Church. 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. In exchange for their work, the society would provide for them. In the decades following the establishment of the Zoar commune, the separatists experienced economic prosperity. Due in part to influences from the outside world and the death of original residents, in 1898, the remaining members decided to dissolve the society, and its property was divided among the Zoarites. It was an end to the communistic experience at Zoar.  View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B02F01_020
Subjects: Tuscarawas County (Ohio); Zoar, O; Society of Separatists of Zoar; Zoar (Tuscarawas County, Ohio)--History--Pictorial works
Places: Zoar (Ohio); Tuscarawas County (Ohio)