Alexanderwohl 26

There is something about a lacuna, a gap, that begs to be filled. As those who have been following this series well know, we have identified twenty-seven of Alexanderwohl’s thirty founding settlers, a success rate of 90 percent. Still, the three gaps in our record—Wirtschaften 3, 13, and 25—really beg to be filled, if at all possible.

Fortunately, we may have the means of doing so. The Peter Rempel volume Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828, which we have consulted frequently, lists Mennonite settlements by year (and in some cases also by village), so we may be able to identify the missing Alexanderwohl founders among the 1820 settlers listed.

The process will be relatively simple: we will compare Rempel’s list of names for 1820 with our list of founding settlers, then see if any names of likely candidates remain. What makes this feasible is the small number of family names attested in the Przechovka church at that time: Becker, Buller, Cornels, Decker, Dirks, Frey, Funck, Harpath, Isaac, Jantz, Köhn, Nachtigahl, Pankratz, Ratzlaff, Richert, Schellerberger, Schmidt, Sparling, Tesmer, Unrau, Voth (Voht), and Wedel.

The table below lists all the known settlers of Alexanderwohl and where they are listed in Rempel. We begin with 1820 because that is the year most of Alexanderwohl’s Wirtschaften were settled. We will not limit ourselves to that year, since the unknown settlers may have settled their farmsteads later than that, but 1820 is a reasonable place to start. (We will supply Rempel references for settlers after 1820 in a future post.)

	Founding Settler	Settlement Year	Rempel Page
1	Martin Jacob Kornelsen	1820	175
2	Heinrich Peter Block	1823
3	????	—	—
4	Peter Jacob Voth	1820	177
5	Heinrich David Schmidt	1820	176
6	Peter Johann Unrau	1820	177
7	David Bernhard Voth	1820	177
8	Peter Franz Goerz	1826
9	Jacob Peter Buller	1820	175
10	David Johann Unrau	1820	177
11	Heinrich Isaak Schroeder	1820	176
12	Jacob Jacob Pankratz	1820	176
13	????	—	—
14	Heinrich Peter Unrau	1819	178
15	Jacob Jacob Buller	1822
16	Johann Peter Ratzlaff	1820	176
17	Heinrich Jacob Schmidt	1822
18	Jacob David Schmidt	1819	178
19	Peter Johann Reimer	1822
20	Andreas David Schmidt	1820	178
21	Peter Christian Dalke	1821
22	Peter Benjamin Frey	1821
23	Johann Peter Schroeder	1820	176
24	Andreas Jakob Nachtigal	1820	175
25	????	—	—
26	Heinrich Jakob Buller	1820	175
27	Peter Benjamin Wedel	1820	177
28	Peter Heinrich Voth	1820	177
29	Andreas Peter Schmidt	1820	176
30	David David Unrau	1820	177

A quick glance through reveals that all the 1820 settlers are listed in Rempel. That is nice, but it is not the question of greatest interest. More important, does Rempel list any 1820 settlers in Molotschna who have a last name that would imply that they were part of the Przechovka settlement group?

In fact, Rempel’s list of Mennonite households founded in Russia in 1820 includes entries for three individuals not listed above who could have been among Alexanderwohl’s original founders:

• Jakob Ratzlaff
• David Schroeder
• Jakob Voth

You may wonder why David Schroeder is included, since Schroeder is not one of the names usually associated with the Przechovka church. Quite simply, there were two Schroeders among Alexanderwohl’s founders, Mennonites who lived near but were not members of the Przechovka church. Given the fact that Schroeders were in Alexanderwohl from the beginning, we must consider the possibility that David Schroeder was likewise a founding settler.

We began this post with three gaps; we end with three names. Does this mean that these men were the unknown founders of Wirtschaften 3, 13, and 25? We cannot say at this point, but the possibility that they were is intriguing. The next post in this series will seek to learn more about these individuals so that we can develop a more informed opinion on whether they were or were not the three currently unknown settlers of Alexanderwohl.

Work Cited

Rempel. Peter. 2007. Mennonite Migration to Russia, 1788–1828. Edited by Alfred H. Redekopp and Richard D. Thiessen. Winnepeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society.