Alasa Farms (Sodus Bay Phalanx, Cracker Box Palace)

The site of Alasa Farms has a long and interesting history. In the early 1820s, it was a Shaker settlement which consisted of seventeen buildings, some of which still stand. In the 1840s, the site was home to members of the Sodus Bay Phalanx, a short-lived utopian community. The site, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was eventually sold to business partners Alvah Strong and Asa McBride, who combined their names to give the farm its distinctive name, Alasa. In the 1960s, part of the site was sold to developers for a residential area, and in recent years, Cracker Box Palace animal shelter and educational facility moved to Alasa Farms.

In the mid-1800s, upstate New York witnessed a proliferation of new religious sects, reform movements, and experimental communities. One such development was the arrival of the Shakers, who were officially known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. Founded in England and led by Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers emigrated to the United States in 1774. In 1826, one group of Shakers purchased 1,400 acres of land on Sodus Bay. Roughly 150 Shakers lived at the site, where they constructed a meeting house, residences, and barns, some of which still stand.

The Shakers continued to live at Sodus Bay until 1836. By that time, plans were underway to construct a canal that would connect Sodus Bay/Lake Ontario with the Erie Canal at Clyde, with part of the canal route going through Shaker property, a prospect that Shakers found intolerable. Consequently, they sold their property and established new communities elsewhere in upstate New York. The canal through their property was never completed.

In addition to new religious groups, upstate New York also became home to a number of experimental communities. One such utopian community was the Sodus Bay Phalanx, which was part of the Fourierist Utopian movement. Fourierism was a philosophy developed by an eccentric French thinker, Charles Fourier, and stressed the need for communities to break away from the idea of private ownership. The communities would instead adopt a model of living that was more communal in nature, in which the community worked to provide economic support and individual fulfillment to all residents. Fourier coined the French term “phalanstere,” which combined phalanx and monastery, and in the United States, phalanx—the transliterated version of “phalanstere—” became the name for Fourierest communities.

For a time in the mid-1800s, Fourierism was one of the leading movements for social reform in the United States, with at least 300 "intentional communities" established in the northeastern United States. The movement emerged among Quakers, and like mainstream Quakers, members of the Sodus Bay Phalanx were socially progressive. Many of them were active in anti-slavery activities, supported women suffrage, and advocated for prison reform, temperance, and Native American rights. But it was perhaps their open-mindedness that ultimately led to the decline of the Sodus Bay Phalanx; within roughly two years, the community disintegrated, torn apart by religious dissension.

After the failure of the Sodus Bay Phalanx, roughly 1,300 acres were auctioned off, and in 1924, much of the tract was reorganized as Alasa Farms. The curious moniker was formed by combining the first names of business partners Alvah Strong and Asa McBride, who turned the land into an experimental agricultural facility. At one time, it was one of the largest farms in Wayne County. Alasa Farms was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

In 2009, the Main House, one of the original Shaker buildings, was badly damaged in a fire.In the years since the fire, there have been two significant developments at the site. One is the ongoing restoration of the fire-damaged Main House. The other is the 2011 purchase of the site by Cracker Box Palace, a nonprofit animal shelter and educational facility.

Sodus Bay Phalanx, Free Thought Trail . Accessed June 13th 2022. https://freethought-trail.org/trail-map/location:sodus-bay-phalanx/.

History of Alasa Farms , Cracker Box Palace . Accessed June 13th 2022. https://www.crackerboxpalace.org/history-of-alasa-farms.

Fox, Rosa . Way Back When in Wayne County: New Marker Celebrates Alasa Farms' Distrinctive History , Finger Lakes Times . June 12th 2022. Accessed June 13th 2022. https://www.fltimes.com/lifestyle/way-back-when-in-wayne-county-new-marker-celebrates-alasa-farms-distinctive-history/article_188dc2ac-9fcd-524b-806f-56f436a45572.html.