Ditto Lonesome E.J. there BTW. Lovely post Elijah Browning.

"Joseph Beilhart, a scarcely known spiritual philosopher, with a small group of friends and family, established a commune that continued for many years after his death, built a large and comfortable home where they all lived together, and believed in the early 1900's,"

Wasn't there something of a flush of those kinds of 'alternative' spiritual (albeit essentially Christian) communities at that period?
I'm sure Kellogg himself created one. I wonder what the general ferment was that inspired them?