The previous post in this series concluded that one of the three previously unknown Alexanderwohl founders was Jacob Heinrich Ratzlaff. This post will look at two additional candidates in an attempt to determine if one or both of them might also be Alexanderwohl founders.
1. David Schroeder
Earlier we reproduced the following settlement report for this individual:
David Schroeder (Давид Шретер), whose family consists of 5 males and 3 females. Settled in Russia in the year 1820. They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 303 rubles, 2 wagon, 1 horse, 2 head of cattle; wagon, horse or head of cattle cost 505 rubles. The local administration suggested providing financial aid for the purchase of 1 horse at a sum of 50 rubles, and also for building a house and establishing the household, at a sum of 589 rubles. (Rempel 2007, 176)
Fortunately, additional information is available for Schroeder, beginning with a visa from the same time frame as many of the Alexanderwohl-bound Przechovka group.
David Schroeder from Podwitz, his wife Anna, son Peter 8 (b. ca. 1812), David 5 (b. ca. 1815), Heinrich 4 (b. ca. 1816), Johann 2 (b. ca. 1818), daughter Anna 9 (b. ca. 1811), Sarah 6 months (b. ca. 1820). Passport from Marienwerder issued on September 9, 1820. (Rempel 2007, 174)
There are obviously five males and three females in this family, so it is safe to assume that these two records relate to the same family. In addition, the names of David’s wife and children match those given for GRANDMA 282690, which allows us to learn more about this individual.
In fact, David Schroeder was the brother of Johann Peter Schroeder of Alexanderwohl 23 (see here). These two Schroeder brothers both hailed from Podwitz, which was six miles east of the Przechovka church. None of the Schroeders of Alexanderwohl (see also Heinrich Isaak Schroeder of Wirtschaft 11 here) were members of the Przechovka church; they were residents of the same general locale who worshiped at a different Mennonite church.
One final piece of evidence is available: the listing of the David Schroeder family under the heading of Alexanderwohl 32 in the 1835 census. On the male side of the ledger are recorded the names of David and all four sons, three of whom died before the census: David in 1827, Heinrich in 1825, and Johann in 1823. David’s wife Anna is also listed, but there is no mention of the two daughters.
Typically we would infer that his listing at Alexanderwohl 32—that is, beyond the thirty Wirtschaften that Alexanderwohl comprised—indicates that David Schroeder was landless. There is no compelling reason to change our normal mode of thinking: in all likelihood, David Schroeder was landless in 1835.
However, that does not mean that he had been landless since he first arrived in the village in 1820. Indeed, the evidence of the settlement report above clearly indicates that he was given funding to establish a household. As is explained in Rempel 2007, “The founding of a household meant that a particular family had received the 65 desiatinii of arable land and a place in the village to establish its home. It also meant that the family had been granted monies for building materials, as well as tax concessions for a specified period” (1).
According to the settlement report, David Schroeder founded a household in 1820, and it was almost certainly in Alexanderwohl that he put down his roots. Thus we can conclude that David Schroeder was one of Alexanderwohl’s founding settlers but that sometime between 1820 and 1835 he gave up or lost possession of his farmstead and joined the landless residents at the end of the census and on the margins of the village.
2. Jacob Voth
We begin again by reproducing the 1820 settlement report:
Jakob Voth (Якоб Фот), whose family consists of 1 male and 1 female. Settled in Russia in the year 1820. They had no cash. They brought possessions valued at 200 rubles, no wagon, no horses and no cattle. The local administration suggested providing financial aid for the purchase of 1 wagon, 2 horses, 2 head of cattle at a sum of 270 rubles, and also for building a house and establishing the household, at a sum of 586 rubles. (Rempel 2007, 176)
Unfortunately, no visa corresponding to this settlement has yet surfaced, so we do not know the name of the female (probably Jacob’s wife), which would help us to identify further this Jacob Voth. However, we have already encountered a Jacob Voth in our review of the census, and one wonders if the 1835 Jacob Voth might be the Jacob Voth who settled in 1820.
Specifically, in our discussion of Alexanderwohl 4 (here), we noted that Peter Jakob Voth, the original settler of that farmstead, had a nephew Jacob David Voth who apparently lived with him in 1835. The complete listing for Jacob David Voth’s family included a wife named Elisabeth and three daughters, ages nine, six, and one, and two sons, ages four and one. The oldest child, in other words, was born around 1826, six years after the family emigrated to Alexanderwohl (the census indicates that Jacob emigrated in 1820). Therefore, if Jacob and Elisabeth were married in Przechovka before the 1820 emigration, they would have had one male and one female in their family at that time, a perfect match with the report of the settlement document.
This does not yet settle the matter, however, since the 1835 census lists another Jacob Voth who emigrated to Russia in 1820 and settled first in Fürstenwerder and then at Elisabethtal 24 (in 1823, if I am reading the census translation correctly). Oddly, this information is given only in the Elisabethtal section of the census; Jacob Abraham Voth does not appear anywhere in the Fürstenwerder section (contra the statement in GRANDMA 51926). This raises questions about whether Jacob Abraham Voth actually owned a Wirtschaft in Fürstenwerder; if he did not, then he certainly was not the 1820 settler Jacob Voth mentioned in settlement record above.
In the end, we cannot identify the 1820 settler as Jacob David Voth with certainty, but we can say that he fits the settlement profile better than any other candidate known to us. Until we identify some other person who has a stronger case for being a founding settler of Alexanderwohl (we will continue to look for other possibilities), we will consider Jacob David Voth one of the thirty original settlers. All the gaps are filled—at least for the time being.
* Note: If Jacob David Voth was a founding settler, it is worth noting that he no longer owned land in 1835, fifteen years after emigrating. We can only imagine what circumstances brought Jacob Voth, and David Schroeder before him, to this state. It seems that land ownership may have fluctuated more than I would have imagined, with families becoming landed, then landless, then landed once again. Are there any records of land transfers in Molotschna through the first half-century of its existence that would shed further light on this phenomenon?
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.
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