John Humphrey Noyes

Noyes, John Humphrey (1811–86), U.S. religious reformer. He preached a Christian doctrine called perfectionism, which taught that people could regain their innate sinlessness and become perfect. Noyes, believing that the way to achieve perfection was through communal living, founded the Oneida Community (1848) in New York. When this attempt at creating a Utopia failed (1879), mainly because of outside opposition to the practice of polygamy within the community, Noyes fled to Canada.