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GU I D E to Y E L L OW S P R I NG S | 2O22 – 2O23 77 giously advertised “healing waters” under the care of a physician. Even before Antioch Col- lege (1852) and the Little Miami Railroad (1845), Yellow Springs had a thriving resort business. Because of the naturally cold waters of the Yellow Springs and the area’s “salubrity of air,” both a hotel and a water cure operated in the Glen by 1850. Improved transportation brought on by the railroad and the pro- gressive reputation of the college — particularly that of the pioneering educa- tor turned college president Horace Mann — made the water cure’s location all the more advantageous to the Nichols’ plans. In early 1856 they published a circu- lar announcing their new “School of Life, Progress, and Harmony,” which they named for the singing statue on the Nile River that, according to legend, greeted the sunrise each day with music. They didn’t need to send the copy they mailed to the president’s office at Antioch. Mann knew their work all too well, and was none too pleased at the prospect of their arrival. By this time the Nichols were already noted and notorious for their published avocations of free love in their journal Nichols Monthly. In 1855 Mrs. Nich - ols’ autobiographical novel Mary Lyndon first appeared, receiving harsh reviews — including four full columns in the New York Times entitled “A Bad Book Gibbeted” — for its attack on the institution of marriage. Dr. Nichols had fur- ther given a series of lectures in Cincinnati on “Free-Love, A Doctrine of Spiritualism.” Free-love and spiritualism were, in fact, only the latest of the Nichols’ interests, which also included vegetari- anism, hydropathy, phrenol - ogy, Swedenborgianism, Fourieristic socialism and women’s rights. They gravi - tated to intellectual trends like gadflies. Mann, though generally reformist in his outlook, was opposed to free love. He regarded their plan as “the superfoetation of diabol- ism upon polygamy.” As the head of a new college already beset with crippling financial difficulties, the last thing he needed was a free love colony in his neigh- borhood. To make things worse, Antioch students, who already patronized the Water Cure for meals, began frequenting the institute and reading the Nichols’ books, on sale at the college book - store downtown. As the number one moral guardian of Antioch, Mann saw it as his responsibility to drive the Nichols and their followers from Yellow Springs before they influenced his students to “rush into licen- tiousness.” He convened a public meeting at the Meth- odist Church for the purpose of denouncing the Nichols and appointing a committee to prevent their taking con - trol of the Water Cure. Other indignant locals tried to prevent Memnonia from opening. After Mann’s failed attempt to influence the owner of the Water Cure, a Dr. Ehrmann of Cincinnati, to deny the Nichols their lease, the previous tenant’s wife barricaded herself inside the main house when the land- lord arrived to evict them. When confronted by a mob of 40 villagers who showed up to defend their besieged neighbor, Ehrmann fled, run - ning all the way back to Xenia along the railroad track. The Nichols fought back, using Mann’s own weapon of choice — language — to great effect. Dr. Nichols attacked the “Calvin of that Modern Geneva — Yellow Springs” from the pages of his monthly, warning “if any 937 . 319 . 0100 antiochcollege.edu/wellnesscenter An oasis of health and wellness for the college and the community One Morgan Place Yellow Springs, OH Located on the Antioch College campus on the corner of E. South College and Livermore Streets mminde jberman mmindesign@aol.com humerusjkb@aol.com DESIG ILL USTRATION innovative design solutions web, print& identity iconic illustration & cartoons 937.767.2330 mminde@ ysnews.co ber ancartoons@ gmail.com Now at Village Artisans & Urban Handmade i de jminde Custom Jewelry & Repair Art & Office Supplies Unfinished Creations 243 Xenia Ave. • 937-767-7173 Precious & Semiprecious Stones