John Humphrey Noyes

Born in Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1811, John Humphrey Noyes studied at Dartmouth before turning from law toward religion. After a powerful conversion experience, he developed a perfectionist theology that taught believers could live free from sin, a belief that put him sharply at odds with many churches of his time.

Noyes is best known as the founder of the Oneida Community, established in New York in 1848 after an earlier community in Putney, Vermont. At Oneida he promoted a communal way of life that included shared property, mutual criticism, and the highly controversial practice he called "complex marriage," which made the group famous and scandalous in equal measure.

However divisive he was, Noyes remains an important figure in the history of American utopian movements. He spent his final years in Canada and died in 1886, leaving behind a story that still attracts readers interested in religion, social experiments, and radical ideas about how people might live together.