Silkville was established in 1870 by a Frenchman named Ernest de Boissière, who was born in 1810 to an ancient French aristocratic family. Boissière espoused radical political opinions inspired by the
utopian socialist philosophy of
Charles Fourier. This put him in danger with
Napoleon III, who
came into power in 1851 and named himself emperor of the
Second French Empire. Soon thereafter, Boissière was forced into exile and moved to America, where he first settled in the port city of
New Orleans. In this new city, he set up a
shipping line. However, because he poured some of his money into supporting orphaned black children, he garnered heavy criticism from wealthy whites; desiring to escape the hostile opinions of his neighbors, Boissière was left with no choice but to leave the
American South. He then decided to move to
Franklin County, Kansas, an area he believed was well-suited for establishing a
utopic community. In 1869, Boissière purchased between 3000 and 3500 acres of land in the county from the Kansas Educational Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church and went about setting up his
intentional settlement. For a time the largest manor in the state, this house boasted sixty-rooms that could comfortably hold between 50100 people. The building was also home to a huge library filled with 2,500 books, tomes, and other volumes. These groves were later joined by hundreds of peach, apple and
ailanthus trees, as well as over a thousand grape vines. To educate the children of the colony, Boissière established a school that, according to author and historian Daniel Fitzgerald, was "the first in Kansas in which the instructors attempted to teach the contemporary world literature of the day". Over the years, many members left. To compensate, Boissière shifted production towards butter, cheese, and the raising of livestock. While this kept the settlement afloat for a few years, Silkville eventually collapsed and its members dispersed.
Remains Today, little remains of Silkville, and only three stone structures survive: the settlement's school house, and two barns. One of the modern day barns was once the settlement's cocoonery, although it was reduced to a one-level building after a tornado damaged the top floor. The aspects of the community seen as most significant historically were its nature as an
intentional community and its practice of
sericulture. ==Geography==