Ebenezer Colonies


The Ebenezer Colonies consisted of settlements of Inspirationists in what is now the town of West Seneca near the city of Buffalo in western New York State. The Inspirationists migrated here from Germany in 1843. In 1855, they began to leave for Iowa, where they established the Amana Colonies. By 1865 they were gone.

Christian Metz gathers the Inspirationists in Hesse

After both Michael Krausert and Barbara Heinemann Landmann lost the gift of Inspiration, Christian Metz was left as the sole leader of the Inspirationists.
During the final years that the Inspirationists lived in Europe, the main task facing Metz was moving them from persecution to safety. Persecution came about because the Inspirationists refused to report for military duty, they refused to take oaths, and they refused to send their children to the schools established by the state. The authorities arrested and fined them. Mobs threw stones through the windows of their meeting houses. People on the street assaulted them verbally and physically.
Metz led the Inspirationists to Hesse in Germany, where, for a while at least, they could live and work in peace. In the 1840s, however, peace began to elude them. Revolution was abroad in Europe, and the ruling classes felt threatened by nonconformists. The rulers began to take away, one by one, the Inspirationists' cherished liberties. Parents had to pay fines for keeping their children out of public schools and these fines, especially for families with several children, became unbearable. Rents kept rising, and land became too expensive to buy. The weather turned against the Inspirationists, since excessive heat and drought left them with nothing to gather at harvest time.

The Inspirationists buy land in New York State

Metz and the Elders became convinced of the need for another move. The Elders appointed a committee of four, including Metz, to make a voyage to America. The committee was given full power to act for all the members and to purchase land where they deemed best.
They endured many hardships during their voyage, which lasted almost forty days. They reached the harbor of New York in late October 1842. Their hardships did not cease once they reached land. For three months they suffered winter cold while examining tracts of land in New York State. They inspected and rejected a tract on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. Finally, they signed a contract to buy from the Ogden Land Company at $10.50 an acre. The tract was part of the Buffalo Creek Reservation, formerly owned by the Seneca Indians. The company claimed that the Senecas had sold them the reservation in 1838. Manley suggests that the company's claim was fraudulent.
Shortly after the Inspirationists purchased the tract, Metz delivered a testimony that named the tract "Ebenezer".

Indian troubles

During the following summer, Inspirationists arriving from Germany erected a large meeting house, several school houses and many dwellings, using timber cut from this tract. Unfortunately, some of the Senecas were still living on the tract.
The Inspirationists bought some time by paying the Senecas $900 for a year of peace. During this time, the Inspirationists asked the Ogden Company for a deed, but the Company also lacked a deed - it had not yet sent to Washington the purchase price for the reservation. It was unable to do so until it had in hand the money that the Inspirationists had contracted to pay. The Inspirationists raised $50,000 and sent it to Washington. A few months later, Washington notified the Senecas that they no longer owned the land. The Senecas, however, were in no hurry to leave. They brought their case before the courts of New York, which decided, after a period of several years, in favor of the Ebenezer Community. This decision put an end to the Indian Troubles. The Senecas migrated to the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation in Southwest Erie County.

The Inspirationists migrate to the Ebenezer Colonies, 1843–1844

The Inspirationists did not wait for these legal matters to be decided. In May 1843, they laid out their first village. They built a dam nearby, on Buffalo Creek. The dam had two millraces, which powered a sawmill, a grist mill and a tannery. In less than a year, they laid out two more villages, Upper Ebenezer and Lower Ebenezer; the original village became Middle Ebenezer. Later, they laid out a fourth village, New Ebenezer. Each village had its own store, school and church. In various villages there were sawmills, woolen mills, flour mills and other branches of industry, giving employment to all according to their talents and inclination.
The profits from all these enterprises went to the community as a whole. In a provisional constitution and later in a permanent constitution, the Inspirationists agreed that all land and all improvements, everything with the exception of clothing and household goods, should be held in common. Their decision was supported by scripture:
Their decision was also supported by testimonies delivered by Metz.
Thus the Inspirationists were able to pay for the voyages of members who could not otherwise afford to come to America.
The migration from Europe was substantially finished by summer 1844. More than 800 people had come over. Some Inspirationists remained in Germany. Their ties to friends, relatives and the land were perhaps too strong. Communication between Germany and America ceased by degrees.

The Inspirationists migrate to the Amana Colonies, 1855–1864

The original became as the community kept growing, but then land became hard to get. The rapid growth of the city of Buffalo, five miles away, caused real estate to become so costly that the purchase of additional land in any appreciable quantity was out of the question. In 1851, the Inspirationists lost some of their autonomy when the Ebenezer Colonies in New York State were incorporated into the town of West Seneca. The world was closing in and the thriving city of Buffalo with its worldly influences was too easily accessible to the young people.
In 1854, Metz delivered a testimony: the Inspirationists should direct their eyes to the West in order to find a new home. The Elders hesitated. Metz delivered further testimonies: many opportunities had already been lost; and four representatives should now be appointed to search for a new home in the West.
The Elders appointed a committee of four, including Metz, to make the search. The committee journeyed to the Territory of Kansas, which had recently been opened up for settlement. They spent a month there, inspecting tracts of land recommended by land agents, but they were unable to come to a decision. They returned to Ebenezer, much discouraged.
After more discussions, the Elders appointed a committee of two to go to the new State of Iowa and there inspect the large tracts of land that belonged to the government. Upon reaching the present location of the Amana Colonies, the committee sent back such glowing descriptions that the Elders dispatched a third committee of four who were authorized to purchase land. This committee secured a tract of nearly, more than twice the size of the current tract in New York State. The price of this land was $1.25 to $2.50 an acre if purchased from the government, and $3.00 to $5.00 an acre if purchased from earlier settlers. Thus it was far cheaper than the original tract in New York State, which cost $10.50 an acre. Furthermore, the land was much more amenable to farming.
The Inspirationists laid out the first village in the Iowa tract during summer 1855, on a hillside north of the Iowa River. They called it "Amana", which means "believe faithfully". In the same year, Metz gave a testimony saying the Lord gave His approval of this name. Within another seven years, five more villages were laid out within a radius of six miles from what came to be known as Main Amana: West Amana, South Amana, High Amana, East Amana and Middle Amana.
The Inspirationists sold their land in the Ebenezer Colonies piece by piece, a task which required much time and patience. To their business credit, it is recorded that they were able to dispose of their land and all its improvements, without the loss of a single dollar. They completed their migration to Iowa in 1865, ten years after they founded their first village there.

Vestiges of the Ebenezer Colonies

West Seneca Cemeteries describes the cemeteries of the Upper, Middle and Lower Ebenezer Colonies. The Upper Ebenezer Cemetery has been incorporated into St. Paul's Lutheran Cemetery at 1500 Seneca Creek Road. The Middle Ebenezer Cemetery is located on the grounds of the Burchfield Nature and Art Center, Union Road and Clinton Street. The last Inspirationist was buried here in November 1863. The Lower Ebenezer Cemetery is located on Main Street between Mill Road and Seneca Street. It is also known as the Main Street Cemetery.
Historical Markers contains photographs of two structures built by the Inspirationists. The house at 12 School Street belonged to Metz. Google Maps shows the structure still standing in October 2012. A meeting house built by the group was moved from what is now the parking lot of Fourteen Holy Helpers Roman Catholic Church to its present site, 919 Mill Road. There it houses the West Seneca Historical Society and Museum. Historical Society and Museum contains a photograph of the kitchen display, which includes a colonist scrub board and a mannequin wearing a colonist dress.
The West Seneca Town Seal depicts, among other things, a boundary marker from the Ebenezer Colonies and the Metz home on School Street.
Recipes of the Old Ebenezers tells how the colonists made cream cake, hot potato salad, oatmeal cookies, raw potato dumplings, sauerbraten and fritters.