Routes Through Zoar

Introduction

The Society of Separatists of Zoar, often called the Zoarites, were a group of radical pietists who lived in the German Kingdom of Württemberg in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Separatists left for the new world in 1817 after facing persecution from the government and Lutheran church in their home country. Guided by their leader Joseph Bimeler, they founded the town of Zoar in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. The journey left them short on money and resources. To maintain cohesion and keep wealth and labor in the group, they adopted a system of communalism where all property was owned in common. Soon after, they were officially incorporated as the Society. The Zoarites settled in a dynamic, quickly developing frontier state. For the next century, new forms of transportation came to Ohio and made routes through Zoar. The state’s canals and railroads enabled Zoar’s prosperity, but the change they brought also clashed with the society’s practices and values.