John Humphrey Noyes

1811-1886. Religious and social reformer. Born in Brattleboro, Vermont, he graduated from Dartmouth College (1830), and after conversion, studied at Andover Theological Seminary and Yale Divinity School. Developing perfectionist and adventist views contrary to Calvinism, he was ousted from Yale and the ministry when he pronounced himself sinless in 1834. He established two communes-at Putney, Vermont (1840-48), and Oneida, New York (1848-81)-to practice and propagate his ideas of perfectionism, biblical communism, complex marriage, male continence, population control, mutual criticism, and education. Under public pressure he emigrated in 1876 to Niagara Falls, Ontario, where he died. His classic History of American Socialisms (1870) was based on wide acquaintance with contemporary communitarians.