Herps in Harmony

By Mary A. Hylton

If you’re longing for a bit of peace and harmony in the world these days, take a drive down to Posey County in the southwest corner of the state, approximately 30 miles north of Evansville, to the tiny town of New Harmony. There you just might find a slice of that peace you’re seeking. Every couple of years, my husband and I travel to this beloved destination to restore peace of mind and restoration of spirit. Before we retired, such jaunts became extremely important and even necessary! Even nowadays, since we’ve retired, we still relish the time we spend there. We always return refreshed and mellow. Its name, New Harmony, speaks for itself as we bask in a “new harmony” of spirit that we experience during our visit.

New Harmony, however, is so much more than just a place to retreat for rest and relaxation. To background you a bit, New Harmony is the site of not just one, but two early American utopian communities. The Harmony Society, led by George Rapp, arrived in the United States in 1804 and settled in Pennsylvania before purchasing 20,000 acres on the Wabash River and moving to Indiana in 1814. The Harmonists were religious Separatists from Germany who pursued Christian perfection through every aspect of their daily conduct. They sold New Harmony in 1825 to Robert Owen, a Welsh-born industrialist and social reformer.

Owen, along with his business partner William Maclure, an educator and the “Father of American Geology”, hoped to establish a second utopia that was to be a new moral world based on equal education and equal social status. They brought the “Boatload of Knowledge” to New Harmony, navigating there with many scientists and educators including Entomologist, Conchologist and Herpetologist, Thomas Say. Years after Say’s death, his firefly became Indiana’s official state insect on March 23, 2018. Although their utopian vision eventually dissolved, the creative efforts of the Owen/Maclure period are still evident today.

You may ask, “what does all of this have to do with herps?” Well, among the forty passengers (or “Boatloaders”) was Thomas Say, the Academy of Sciences’ Librarian who was also a renowned American entomologist, conchologist, and…drum roll…herpetologist. His studies of insects and shells, numerous contributions to scientific journals, and scientific expeditions to Florida, Georgia, the Rocky Mountains, Mexico, and elsewhere made him an internationally known naturalist. Say has been called the father of American descriptive entomology and American conchology. He also served as curator at the American Philosophical Society (elected in 1817), and professor of natural history at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1819–20, Say’s official account of an expedition to the Rocky Mountains and the tributaries of the Missouri River included the first descriptions of several mammals and birds as well as reptiles that included: checkeredwhiptail lizard, collared lizard, ground skink, western rat snake, and western ribbon snake.

At New Harmony, Thomas Say carried on his monumental work describing insects and mollusks. Many of the scientific names assigned by Say are no longer accepted. Lists of the former names matched with current scientific and common names are available.

Coming back to the future, it goes without saying that New Harmony is a truly fascinating place. AND…a trek to New Harmony would not be complete without visiting the Working Men’s Institute! It was founded in 1838 and is Indiana’s oldest continuously operating public library. Its special collections and second floor museum are a “must-see.” Free and open to the public, the museum includes exhibits of history, reproductions of art masterpieces and natural history specimens. It’s the natural history portion that contains a wealth of curious oddities (i.e., 8-legged calf-you have to see for yourself) along with various specimens of bird skulls, eggs, an alligator gar, snakes preserved in jars, and amphibian and reptile specimens of yesteryear (see below). New Harmony has something for everyone. Be sure to check it out!