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Harris subsequently returned to America, settling in the town of Amenia in Dutchess County, New York. He would remain at Amenia for five or six years, establishing a bank, a flour mill, and a vineyard, and gathering around him a small group of devoted religious disciples. Included among the approximately sixty converts were five orthodox clergymen and about 20 Japanese from Satsuma Province. The community—the Brotherhood of the New Life—decided to settle in the village of Brocton, New York on the shore of Lake Erie. Its nature was co-operative rather than communistic, and farming and industrial occupations were engaged in by his followers, numbering at one time about 2,000 in the United States and Great Britain. He professed to teach his community a change in the mode of respiration which was to be the visible sign of possession by Christ and the seal of immortality.
In Brocton, Harris established a winemaking industry. In reply to the objections of teetotallers, Harris said that the wine prepared by himself was filled with the divine breath so that all noxious influences were neutralized. Harris also built a tavern and strongly advocated the use of tobacco.