Vintage Zoar, Ohio And Ohio And Erie Canal Postcards

Zoar, a small community in Tuscarawas County Ohio. Zoar was founded by a group of German separatists in 1817. These separatists were originally from an area of Germany known as Wurttemburg. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, they had separated from the official German religion, the Lutheran Church. Separatists faced severe persecution in Wurttemburg, including confiscation of their properties and imprisonment. The group's leader, Joseph Bimeler, whose house is pictured on the two postcards below, decided to bring the separatists to the United States. When the separatists arrived in Philadelphia, they had few resources. The Society of Friends (Quakers) in Philadelphia helped the separatists to find jobs and eventually loaned them the money to buy land in eastern Ohio. Several members of the group traveled west to the land in the fall of 1817 and began to construct the community's first buildings. Ultimately, the rest of the separatists, approximately two hundred in all, arrived at Zoar in the spring of 1818. The separatists chose to name their town Zoar after the Biblical account of Lot, who escaped to Zoar from Sodom in the book of Genesis. 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. Both men and women signed the original document creating the society. Women had equal access to political leadership and had the right to vote in elections. Women also were not prohibited from holding office in the society, although no women were ever elected to these positions. Additional modifications to the society's organization were made in 1824 and a constitution established in 1833. In the decades following the establishment of the Zoar commune, the Separatists experienced economic prosperity. The community was almost entirely self-sufficient and sold any surpluses to the outside world. In addition to agriculture, Zoar residents also worked in a number of industries, including flour mills, textiles, a tin shop, cooper, wagon maker, two iron foundries, and several stores. The society also made money by contracting to build a seven-mile stretch of the Ohio and Erie Canal. The canal crossed over Zoar's property, and the society owned several canal boats. The canal traffic also brought other people into the community, who bought Zoar residents' goods. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the community was quite prosperous.

Excellent video here.


Joseph Bimeler Number one house


Bonus, the cancel is a Doane type 2, dated April 5th 1906.
There is a number 3 in the railroad tracks.



A different view with people sitting on porch.

Nice. And here's an 1849 cover from Zoar (with a nice straightline handstamp) back to Germany. One of only two Ohio towns with straightline stampless markings used abroad (the other is Cleveland).

Wow that is sweet paperhistory!
Here is the hotel, mill, and dam.

Some GPU Ohio and Erie Canal postcards

Two hand-colored canal postcards