Accordingto the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples of Christ “had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men as every man had need.” Never in American history was this scriptural passage so influential as in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Scores of communal societies sprang up over the country, religious, non-religious, celibate, and free-love. The Shakers were communists, as were the followers of Jemima Wilkinson. When Joseph Smith first rode into the Susquehanna Valley to find the silver mine for Josiah Stowel, he went into the
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