The decline and fall of the Oneida community began when founder John Noyes chose to pass the commune’s leadership onto his son, Theodore. Besides being shy and awkward, Theodore was an agnostic. This change caused a schism in the community with one Communitarian, John Tower, attempting to take control himself. He and a breakaway group ended up abandoning the community for California, there they convinced the state governments to create a new municipality for them, this site was christened Orange County.

Within the commune there grew a heated debate about the age in which children were initiated into sexual relations, and by whom. Alongside this debate was the encompassing one about the practice entirely. Founding members were either old and done, or deceased. Many of the younger communitarians wanted to enter into exclusive, traditional marriages.

The straw of this whole camel’s back was a professor from nearby Hamilton College named John Mears. After learning of the community and its rites he began organizing for a protest meeting against Oneida. He was backed by forty-seven clergymen. John Noyes was soon informed by his closest advisor, Myron Kinsley that a warrant for his arrest in the crime of statutory rape was soon to be issued. Noyes fled the Oneida Community Mansion House and the country in the middle of a June night in 1879. He never returned to the United States. Shortly after, he wrote to his followers from Niagara Falls, Ontario, with the recommendation that complex marriage practices be abandoned.

The community soon broke apart. Some members reorganized as a joint-stock company. Marital partners normalized their status with the partners with whom they were cohabiting at the time of the re-organization. Over seventy Oneida members entered into a traditional marriage in the following year. In the 20th century, the new company, Oneida Community Limited, narrowed their focus to silverware. The animal trap business was sold in 1912, the silk business in 1916, and the canning discontinued as unprofitable in 1915.

In 1947, embarrassed by their progenitor’s legacy, Noyes’ descendants burned the group’s records.

The joint-stock corporation still exists and is a major producer of cutlery under the brand name “Oneida Limited”. In September 2004 Oneida Limited announced that it would cease all U.S. manufacturing operations at the beginning of 2005, ending a 124-year tradition. The company continues to design and market products that are manufactured overseas. The company has been selling off its manufacturing facilities. Administrative offices remain in the Oneida area.