In the 19th century along the Erie Canal, new faiths emerged that questioned everything we believed about morality, equality, love, life and death. Burned Over is a feature length documentary film that will focus on the extraordinary history of the Oneida Community, a free-love commune established by the charismatic John Humphrey Noyes, and Spiritualism, which began with two girls talking to a ghost and exploded into an international phenomenon.  

In the Mohawk River valley some saw a second Garden of Eden. It was nicknamed “the Burned-over District” for the fires of spiritual exploration seemed to erupt everywhere. Politically, it served as the headwaters of the abolitionist, women’s suffrage, and temperance movements. Theologically, it was the crucible from which a whole new American spirituality would be forged.

In 1848, John Humphrey Noyes led about 30 followers to the town of Oneida, New York, near the Erie Canal. They came from Vermont where they had lived mostly unnoticed by the locals until the rumors of the group’s unorthodox views on marriage were confirmed. The newly settled refugees went to work building a house and started a variety of businesses to sustain the spiritual life of the commune. All property was shared equally among the members and any clinging to possessions, romantic partners, or even children was discouraged. For the next thirty years, the Oneida Community established itself as one of the most successful and controversial communes in history. They experimented with mutual criticism (a process of brutally open communication), gender equality, and a eugenics program designed to create a spiritually superior generation of “bible communists.” In the 1870s, the commune would have a crisis of succession and would even attempt a conversion to Spiritualism. Noyes himself would flee the Burned-over District when news of his imminent arrest broke, living his last years on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Ultimately the Oneida Community evolved into a completely secular yet hugely successful silverware business.

The same year that Noyes arrived in the Burned-over District, the Fox family of Hydesville was being tormented by late-night thumps that perplexed the matriarch of the family. When her two youngest daughters, Margaret and Kate, began communicating with the sprit responsible, she fetched the neighbors to bear witness. News spread quickly and the small cottage was inundated with hundreds of visitors eager to see the curtain of death breached. The sisters were sent away from the crowds, but the raps followed and their reputation grew. Soon others would report similar experiences and many were drawn to Spiritualism by its lack of hierarchy and the promise of direct access to the spiritual world. The Fox sisters held demonstrations for packed auditoriums and counted some of the nation’s most powerful people as allies. They also faced constant harassment from skeptics who subjected the girls to body searches, trying to find the source of the mysterious “raps.” Eventually the Fox sisters would be left behind by the religion they created. Both sisters would die in their fifties, penniless and supported by old friends in the Spiritualism community.

Burned Over is a sponsored project of New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). NYFA is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization founded in 1971 to work with the arts community throughout New York State and the United States to develop and facilitate programs in all disciplines. To make a tax-deductible donation towards the production of Burned Over, please visit the project’s NYFA page.

Some highlights from beautiful New York State. Footage is from the Oneida Community Mansion House, Rochester, and Niagara Falls.

Burned Over is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.