During one of the most tumultuous decades in Swiss history, a small group of Vaudois republicans chose to secure their children's familial, cultural and spiritual patrimony by relocating to the New World. In April 1800, at Le Chenit in the Vall?e de Joux, five families framed a compact to organize a communal settlement in the Northwest Territory. Recently discovered, their pact is presented here in its original French and in English translation, along with an accompanying letter; additionally, another letter and an English translation of the compact as prepared by Jean Jaques Dufour in 1801 is supplied. Dufour is considered a founding father of American viticulture, and the Swiss settlers at Vevay, Indiana the first to succeed as commercial winemakers in the territorial United States. Scholars interested in founding documents, early American communes, commercial enterprises, cultural assimilation, and Swiss history in the Napoleonic era may find these documents intriguing.

Switzerland County has its origins in the original wine making Swiss immigrants that migrated into the Ohio River Valley in the early Nineteenth Century. These families were an important part of United States wine making history, as they produced the first commercial wines in the nation. New Switzerland The immigrants named their principal town Vevay, after the Swiss town from which most of them originated. The industrious settlers soon turned the hills and valleys of their new settlement, often called New Switzerland, into productive farms and vineyards. Hay Farming Blight ruined the vines and as wine making declined, Switzerland County became a major hay farming region. Hay presses turned out huge quantities of hay to feed the horses that were vital to the agriculture and transportation needs of the era. Switzerland county indiana, vevay indiana, wine making history, new switzerland, indiana history, hay farming, hay press machine