Meet the Icarians of Cloverdale

Cloverdale has had a rich and colorful history, but perhaps the most unexpected bit of color might have been the six-year existence of a commune run by French anarchists from 1881 to 1886 just south of town on what is now Asti road. They were followers of French revolutionary philosopher Etienne Cabet, who had gotten sideways with the restored Bourbon Monarchy, as anarchists are wont to do. He was exiled by King Louis Phillippe I ("The Citizen King") and moved to London, where he started the Icaria movement.

Monsieur Cabet would have occupied the lower left corner of one of those two-axis political quizzes that infest Facebook: a full collectivist in economic terms, a full libertarian in terms of individual liberty. In a nutshell, Cabet believed that humans could, without laws or leaders, live harmoniously together while sharing the means of production. This requires, I don’t need to say, a very utopian vision of human nature. You might be surprised to know that this was not an uncommon school of thought in the 19th century – there were actually quite a number of attempts at a utopian society elsewhere in Sonoma County – but I digress. Mr. Cabet and his followers eventually moved to the US in 1847 and started several "Icarian Communities" (‘All citizens enjoyed everything in common, no personal ownership, no aristocracy’) near Dallas, and then in the land in Nauvoo, Illinois abandoned by the Mormons when they moved to Salt Lake City. The Icarians financed their Nauvoo operation with a whiskey distillery. Although they themselves were teetotalers, they didn’t have a problem with selling it to the local drinking population.

After the Civil War, things got tough in Nauvoo, and the Icarians began to split into factions. One faction, led by Armand Dehay and Jules Leroux) came out to Cloverdale, and bought the 885 acre Bluxhome Ranch (near the intersection of Asti and Airport Road) for the non-aristocratic sum of $15,000. They set to work building a community hall and then a school. After that, a grist mill, a vineyard, a winery, and a peach orchard. Some twenty-five families lived in communally built and owned houses, while their children lived in the schoolhouse and were allowed to visit their parents on Sundays. According to an excellent article by Gerald French in the Aug 31, 2016 edition of the Cloverdale Reveille,

"Materials were provided for settlers to build houses, which they did not own. The children were raised by the community and lived in the schoolhouse. On Sundays they were allowed to visit their parents.

Everyone was required to speak, read and write only the French language. All ate the same food, wore the same clothes and all had an equal voice in government. Women were allowed to speak, but could not vote. Families were allowed to have their own garden."

Hmm. Now what was that about personal freedom again? Qu’elle contradiction! Yeah, well. YOU try it. You try to start a utopian commune and see how far you get. Again, there are numerous examples of attempts in Sonoma County history. Most of them are started by a person or persons with a vision, resources, and generosity, and most of them end when either the benefactor’s resources run dry or are co-opted by "something for nothing" opportunists, a species not anticipated by Cabet and his followers. Or maybe it was anticipated, and all that "voluntary conformism" they practiced was their defense against same.

At any rate, the Icarian experiment in Cloverdale ended after six years for the most prosaic of reasons: an economic depression. Crop and land values cratered, and took down farmers of all political persuasions. The communal land was divided into individual farms, and the Icarians, by land large, went their separate ways. However, the Dehay family and many other Icarian descendants still live in Cloverdale!

Many thanks to Gerard French for his excellent article, and to Gaye Lebaron on general principles. Any important Sonoma County history I write, now or ever, will have her high in its list of sources.

Email Tom Austin at [email protected]