Ch. 1
The New York Times
Monday, October 15, 2005
P. Auster
Luddite Community Hidden For
Twenty-Two Years
While writing this article I spoke to many friends about the idea of a hidden community, of a group of more than a hundred men, women, and children living undetected for more than twenty years. In each case my friends voiced astonishment to the point of disbelief. The argument went like this: In the 21st century, in a world so populated by humans, it would be impossible for any man, any animal for that matter, to remain hidden, undiscovered and undisturbed. Over the last ten thousand years we have touched down on every shoreline, pushed our way through every forest, hacked our way through billions of trees. We have planted our flags on every part of the globe, and if it is out there to be seen, one of our billions of delegates has seen it.
Most of my friends, however, are not scientists, and the scientists know what’s what. In truth, humans still only inhabit a tiny fraction of habitable land across the planet. I’m not talking about deserts and frozen tundra. Thousands upon thousands of square miles of habitable land remain unsettled by permanent residents. If you doubt this fact, fly over the forests of New York State, of Vermont, of Pennsylvania, of Colorado and California. If you haven’t gotten your fill, you can fly over Alaska, Canada, or Australia, or the endless acres of untouched forest in Russia. But space and remoteness are only half the answer. For the hunter gatherer tribes of the Amazon and the peoples of Papua New Guinea, there was no master plan to go unnoticed well into modern times. Being invisible to the world was simply a byproduct of living in such remote, expansive areas of the world. But combine seclusion and remoteness with a willful intention to hide and deceive, and you get the community of Sundown.
In 1963, a Columbia professor by the name of Conrad Orchard brought his family and seventy-five professionals to the deep interior of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. This isolated pocket of forest was known to local rangers as Sundown.
Doctors, engineers, biologists, chemists, architects, and other experts gave up their worldly possessions for the chance to start over, to create a new society. They would eat only what they could hunt, catch, or grow. They would birth three to four children for each couple. They would use pre-industrial revolution techniques to build their homes and make their clothes. They would avoid the chaos and stress of the modern world.
They would return to Eden.
Conrad Orchard organized these men and women. He spoke of the beauty of simplicity, the benefits of nature, and the poisons of present-day society. He promised his new friends he would work with them to create a tight-knit community, where the interests and responsibilities of all would be shared.
But Conrad Orchard was lying.
Orchard was a scientist first and foremost. He conducted research and created experiments to prove or disprove his hypotheses. From the very beginning, Sundown was meant to be Orchard’s greatest experiment. His goal? To prove the incalculable damage the modern world has wrought against humankind since the agricultural revolution. And for this experiment, Orchard trampled the ground of ethical behavior. He chose to sacrifice the health and well-being of his children for data. He used them. He broke their spirits and bones to test their resolve.
How did Orchard use his children? How did he deceive his neighbors, and how did this entire community deceive the world for two decades? Before I continue, I want to thank the person who sacrificed herself to resurrect the people and downfall of Sundown. Ultimately she was not able to finish piecing together this story, and so I will do my best to write the final chapter.
Thank you, Della.
As for Conrad Orchard and the community of Sundown, the wheels fell off when ….
