If it wasn’t for a monthly sojourn I’m obligated to make for work, I would have never heard of this place. Located just off of US Route 34, south of Kewanee and north of Galesburg, my interest in this quaint little locale was piqued when I discovered that its history goes back to its founding as a utopian community.
According to the Acorn Guide to Northwest Illinois, written by veteran travel writer, Don Davenport, “Bishop Hill’s founders were Swedes whose religious beliefs conflicted with the state church of Sweden. Led by Erik Janson, a charismatic preacher whom they considered to be a second Christ, 400 immigrants set sail from Sweden in the spring of 1846. From New York, they made their way to Chicago by way of the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes. Preceded by Janson, who went ahead to pick a site for resettlement, the immigrants walked the final 160 miles to Henry County (!).
“By the time they arrived, in late September, Janson had built two log cabins and cut a handful of dugouts into the banks of a ravine. Naming their new home Biskopskulla (Bishop Hill), after a Janson’s birthplace in Sweden, the colonists hurried to add more rough cabins and another dozen dugouts. Barely 18 by 30 feet, with a log front, a sod roof and a fireplace fot heat and cooking, each dank dugout was home to between 25 and 30 people.
“That first winter in Bishop Hill was anything but utopian. Ninety-six of the original colonists died because of inadequate food and shelter.
“The following spring, the survivors began building their version of paradise. Under Janson’s supervision, Bishop Hill flourished. As more immigrants arrived — more than 1,000 in all — massive structures of hand-hewn timbers and handmade bricks were built. The colonists ate and lived together in communal settings, with separate dormitory-style quarters for unmarried men and women. One apartment building known as ‘Big Brick’ contained 96 rooms and two dining halls, where 1,000 people could eat at one time. At the time of its construction (1848–1851), it was the largest building west of Chicago.
“Despite Janson’s murder by a former colonist in 1850, Bishop Hill Colony continued to prosper. Managed by a seven-member board of trustees, the colony produced and marketed linen, furniture, wagons, brooms and farm products. Twenty large commercial and residential buildings grew up around a village green. The colony farms surrounding Bishop Hill covered 12,000 acres. From 1848 to 1861, Bishop Hill was the major commercial center between Rock Island and Peoria.
“It’s recognized today that the early success of the Bishop Hill Colony, described in letters written back home to Sweden, was a significant force in later immigration of Swedes and other Scandinavians to the United States.
“But utopia was short-lived,” according to Davenport. He says that “religious unity declined,” and that “many members left.” By 1861, the charter was dissolved, assets and property divided up among members, and the formerly bustling colony “began a century-long slide into obscurity.”
I find it interesting that Davenport cites religious disunity as the primary contributing factor in mapping the colony’s failure. Failing another revolution, it’s been my contention that the last best hope for the continuation of Christian culture was the founding of pockets of resistance, utopian communities, if you will, that defied secular trends favoring globalization and homogeneity, and instead sought refuge via secession. By opting out, like-souled folks could then begin the struggle to redefine what living communally truly meant. And given the failures of “counter-cultural” models of recent vintage such as the Hippies (non-religious) and the Branch Davidians (religious), along with older examples such as the one detailed here, it goes without saying that a stronger sort of glue is needed to not only bond members to one another, but to secure the means by which the new community is defended, either from the coercive powers of the state, or the corrosive forces of the marketplace. No mean feat, to say the least.
If nothing else, an examination of the shortcomings of the likes of Bishop Hill — or the success of, say, the Amish — provides the remaining hopeful glimpse of what can be done as Babylon collapses all around us.
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