Joseph Michael Bimeler

Background

Joseph Bimeler was born in 1778 in Germany, presumably in Wurttemberg.

Education

Bimeler was self-educated.

Career

For ten years Joseph labored as a teacher among a persecuted sect of Pietists in Germany, living meekly and changing his abode from time to time in order to avoid the eye of the government. He was of lowly origin, had been a weaver, but his intelligence, energy, and character were those of a superior man. In addition he had the spiritual power of a genuine religious leader.

In 1817 he joined a company of about 300 Separatists from Wurttemberg, Bavaria, and Baden, who sailed from Hamburg to find a home in America. A woman mystic named Barbara Grubermann had been their moving spirit, but she died before they left Germany. On the voyage Bimeler doctored the sick, cheered the downhearted, imparted religious and secular instruction, and by sheer force of character made himself their indispensable leader. Thereafter his career was the history of the company. They landed in Philadelphia on August 14, 1817, and were hospitably received and cared for by members of the Society of Friends, who also enabled them, through Bimeler as their agent, to buy 5, 500 acres of wooded upland in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. Bimeler with a few others preceded the main party, cleared ground for crops, built a cabin, and laid out the village of Zoar, named for the little city to which Lot had fled from Sodom and Gomorrah.

Drastic measures were necessary to preserve the life of the colony. In order to pay for their land they agreed that no one was to marry and that husbands were to live apart from their wives. Community of goods was also adopted, although against Bimeler's own judgment. Under his benign autocracy the colony slowly got on its feet and finally reached prosperity. When the land was paid for marriage was reintroduced, Bimeler himself taking a wife. The brewery, flour mill, woolen and linen manufactory, and other communal enterprises throve; ironworks failed to pay, but Bimeler kept the plant in operation for several years so that outsiders employed in it would not lose their livelihood.

Meanwhile he showed himself as successful in guiding the religious life of the community as he was in developing its material resources. No one begrudged Bimeler the mansion which he lived in or the extra comforts that he allowed himself, with the exception of a few malcontents, whose suit to have the property partitioned ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court. The Court in its decision upheld the Society, vindicated Bimeler's administration as "not only not fraudulent but above reproach, " and described him as "a man of great energy and high capacity for business. " After his death he was venerated as one of the saints, and written versions of his discourses took on an almost sacred character; but without his intelligence and driving power the Society stagnated and finally disintegrated.

Achievements

• Joseph Bimeler was one of the leaders of a prosperous communist society of Zoar from 1817 until his death in 1853. In addition to Bimeler's important role in the economic and political matters of Zoar, he was known for his position as minister. After his death, the society published his sermons in a book titled Discourses. And during the existence of the Society no member of the Society was ever convicted of crime; the village jail was used exclusively by visitors.

Personality

Bimeler was lame in one leg, and was disfigured by an enlarged, protruding eye. Toward visitors to the community Bimeler showed himself affable and remarkably open-minded; toward his own people his position compelled him to be somewhat reserved and decisive.

Connections

Spouse:

Dorothea (Huber) Bimeler

References

• Zoar: The Story of an Intentional Community