THE JOURNEY

Amana begins in the year 1714 in the province of Hessen, Germany with L. Gruber and J. Rock, inspired leaders. The  Inspirationists grew to central and southern Europe with great support. In 1817 Krausert became active with them and settled with his followers in the Ronneburg Castle, near Frankfurt. The group grew again in 1826-34 under the leadership of Christian Metz and Barbara Heinemann  lived on four leased estates near there. With further religious and political persecution the Inspirationists saw a need to move west to America. They settled in Ebenezer, New York in 1842, set up self-sufficient villages and kept growing, only to move (1843) west again in search of fertile land, timbers, rivers, stone, and clay which they found in the Iowa River valley. This move to Amana took several years but globally from 1854 on, the seven villages were laid out on 26,000 acres and in 1859 became the Amana Society. Below is a beautiful copy of a stone lithograph by Joseph Prestele, Sr. of Amana, depicting the journey from Europe, an interesting one at that. Made for the Amana society, this print copy has been shared by the them, the Amana Heritage Society and private individuals for several books in the US.