Religious Settlements & Toponyms

Buildings for worship and sites for burial are individual expressions of religious faith on the landscape, but there are also extensive examples such as religious communities. Most human settlements serve an economic purpose (see Chapter 12), but some are established primarily for religious reasons.

Utopian Settlements

A utopian settlement is a community built to reflect the ideals of a particular religious or social group. Buildings are sited and economic activities organized to integrate the group’s values into all aspects of daily life. An early utopian settlement in the United States was Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, founded in 1741 by Moravians, Christians who had emigrated from the present-day Czechia. By 1858, some 130 utopian settlements had been established in the United States, in conformance with a group’s distinctive religious beliefs. Examples include Oneida, New York; Ephrata, Pennsylvania; Nauvoo, Illinois; and New Harmony, Indiana.

The culmination of the utopian movement in the United States was the founding of Salt Lake City by the Latter-day Saints (Mormons), beginning in 1848. The layout of Salt Lake City is based on a plan of the city of Zion given to the church elders in 1833 by the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. The city has a regular grid pattern, unusually broad boulevards, and church-related buildings situated at strategic points

Salt Lake City LDS Temple.

Salt Lake City, Utah Grid System

Most utopian communities declined in importance or disappeared altogether. Some disappeared because the inhabitants were celibate and could not attract immigrants; in other cases, residents moved away in search of better economic conditions. The utopian communities that have not been demolished are now inhabited by people who are not members of the original religious sect, although a few have been preserved as museums

Utopian Settlement

The Roofless Church, New Harmony, Indiana. New Harmony was founded in 1814 by Harmonists, people who migrated to the United States to escape persecution in Germany. The Harmonists left Indiana and returned to their first U.S. settlement in Pennsylvania in 1824. They sold New Harmony to a second group of utopians, who were social reformers rather than associated with a religious group. The nondenominational Roofless Church was dedicated in 1960.

Although most colonial settlements were not planned primarily for religious purposes, religious principles affected many of the designs. Most early New England settlers were Protestants called Puritans. The Puritans generally migrated together from England and preferred to live near each other in clustered settlements rather than on dispersed, isolated farms. Reflecting the importance of religion in their lives, New England settlers placed the church at the most prominent location in the center of the settlement, usually adjacent to a public open space known as a common, because it was for common use by everyone.