Part of what gives the stories
regarding Aquadea credibility - or at least a strong sense of
plausibility in my mind - is that back then (in the mid to late
1800's), Oregon was viewed by most people east of the Mississippi
as something of an Eden, a place of new beginnings and personal
rebirth. To a certain extent I would say that concept of Oregon
still exists - we Oregonians celebrate our diversity... a quality
which some outsiders may think makes us quirky or somehow out on
the fringe.
But for groups of like-minded settlers in the 1880s
and 1890s, looking for a place to establish a community organized
according to how they felt people should live and interact, the
New Eden of the Pacific Northwest must have been a very attractive
destination, no matter what hardships and difficulties might lay
ahead.
The Aquadeans seem to fit nicely
into this concept. While there were at the time apparently a
number of communities being established in the Willamette Valley
by religious groups (the Aurora Colony and New Odessa being the
two most prominent that I have come across), Aquadea was formed by
a group of average folks drawn together not by religion
necessarily but by a shared desire to be free from what they felt
were Society's unfair rules and expectations. Although Uriah and
Henrietta Corts were the supposed leaders of the community,
Henrietta was by most accounts the charismatic driving force
behind their formation, migration to Oregon, and self-exile to the
deep Tillamook forest.
From what I can tell, they came
from a wide range of backgrounds - shopkeepers, laborers, farm
hands - but they were not a group consciously assembled with a
specific mix of skills or experience such as one might need to
carve a community out of the untamed forest and then establish
whatever infrastructure it might take in order to survive for an
extended period of time.
Add to that the fact that Oregon's
Tillamook peninsula experienced one of the most severe snowfalls
and low temperature streaks on record the winter of 1892 and it
probably explains why the small group of ill-prepared Utopia
seekers were lost and never heard from again. Also - and this is
pure conjecture on my part - there were enough of these start-up
communities back then (relatively speaking) which would come
together with grandiose plans and expectations but then quickly
disappear without fanfare that people in the surrounding area
probably didn't give it a whole lot of thought when yet another
group of "crazies" wandered off into the woods, gave up
after a while, and then went back to Pittsburgh (or wherever)
tails between their legs without a formal goodbye.
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