South Dakota Bullers 2

The previous post introduced a family of Bullers who settled near Parker, South Dakota, and whose history is narrated in a book titled Life Story of Heinrich Buller and His Wife Agnetha Duerksen Buller, which was authored by their son William B. Buller. The post identified Heinrich and Agnetha in GRANDMA, where we learned that Heinrich was born at Piaski bei Gombin, a village associated with the Deutsch Wymsyle Mennonite church.

In 2016 we devoted considerable time to learning about the Deutsch Wymsyle church, with particular emphasis on the Bullers within it. This raises the question, of course, whether we encountered or even discussed Heinrich Buller, who was born 25 July 1834 in a village whose residents attended that church. The short answer is that we encountered Heinrich as we surveyed his birth family but did not discuss him in particular.

A post titled “Bullers in Deutsch-Wymysle 8” (here) discussed two Buller families, one of which was headed by Benjamin Buller. The relevant entry from the Deutsch Wymsyle church book for that family is shown below (at the risk of becoming repetitive, I note again that this is a reconstruction of the church book, not the original, which was destroyed in a fire).

The entry for Benjamin lists two wives (Agatha Görtz, 119; Helene Görtz, 121) and four sons. The first son listed (120) is named Heinrich; he was born on 25 July 1834 in Piaski. This clearly is the Heinrich Buller we are investigating. 

Exploring the family further in GRANDMA, we find the same information, with one exception. Note that GRANDMA lists an additional son for Benjamin and his first wife, Agatha Goertz, a son not listed in the Deutsch Wymsyle church book. We shall return to this son, who was named Wilhelm, in a later post.

For the moment, we have gone as far as we can. We confirmed our identification of Heinrich Buller GM 28413/DW 120 as the person in view. We also confirmed his birth in Piaski bei Gąbin (Gombin), that is, the village Piaski in the district Gmina Gąbin, whose seat was the city Gąbin (see the note below).

We also learned that Heinrich’s father Benjamin was born in Brenkenhoffswalde. This was one of the Neumark villages listed in the previous post, which tells us that, although Heinrich’s family line was ultimately descended from George Buller and Dina Thoms of Przechovka, they were part of the group who came to Deutsch Wymsyle via the Neumark colony and not directly from Przechovka, as others in Deutsch Wymsyle had done.

Now that we have positively identified Heinrich Buller and learned something about his heritage, we are ready to turn to Life Story of Heinrich Buller and His Wife Agnetha Duerksen Buller, which will fill in a number of details about this family.

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Note: The Wikipedia article on Piaski (here) gives a different location for the village than that shown in the Breyer map cited in the previous post. That article places Piaski closer to Gąbin, only 4 miles northeast of the district seat. Assuming that the article is correct (Google Maps agrees), Piaski was located even closer to the Deutsch Wymsyle church than indicated in the Breyer map. The satellite view below shows Gąbin in the lower left, Piaski in the upper right, and Deutsch Wymsyle (modern Nowe Wymyśle) less than a mile to the southeast. For a closeup look at the modern village, see here.