Formed in France by Etienne Cabet, this group comprised many talented and well-educated persons. All possessions were surrendered to a common fund, and all worked for the common good. They landed in New Orleans in 1848 and all applied for citizenship that same year. They settled near Dallas, Texas, where many died of fever, and the others returned to New Orleans. Later that year they moved to Nauvoo, Ill. By 1854 they owned 1,500 acres of land. In 1860, 235 of the group bought 9 sections of land in Adams County, Iowa, four miles east of Corning. Buildings were placed in a parallelogram around a central dining and recreation hall. The school house is now Prescott No. 8, still standing. The colony dissolved in 1895. Its cemetery and three buildings are privately owned, and much of its 2,000 volume library is in the University of Omaha.