Franztal 14

The 1848 Gemeindebericht proceeds from the naming of the village, which was suggested by one of its original founders, Elder Benjamin Ratzlaff, to a brief description of others who populated Franztal at its establishment in 1820. The focus in the paragraph is primarily on the groups involved, not the individuals.

The first fifteen families of this village formed a single party in their immigration but did not have a leader. Of the others involved, some traveled with the large party whose leader was the now long-deceased elder Ohm Franz Goerz, and some also came to the country in small parties without a leader.

first fifteen families … formed a single party. The blog series Przechovka Emigration from late 2018 examined this group in some detail, and our conclusions at the end (see here) correspond, in general, with the statement given here. We identified seventeen possible Franztal settlers from the party of thirty-two who traveled from Przechovka to Molotschna in 1819, but several individuals were widowed at the time or shortly after arriving in Molotschna (Jacob Becker widow). Without knowing how the community report counted those cases, we can only approximate the membership of this group of fifteen families. The table below lists fifteen families, the first fourteen of which are fairly certain (for the complete list of the traveling party of thirty-two families, see the end of the post here). Franztal originally had only twenty-four Wirtschaften with associated land; the asterisks below indicate  households that did not include an allotment of land. Only nine of the original twenty-four Wirtschaften were settled by members of this party from Przechovka.

Wirtschaft	Settler Name	GM	Comment
3	George Nachtigal	42260
6	Peter Ratzlaff	47815
8	Tobias Schmidt	61594	married the widow of Jacob Becker
10	Peter Abrahams	46631	not in Przechovka church book
11	Kornelius Richert	48300
14	Peter Block	32253	from Montau, not Przechovka
17	Peter Becker	32099
19	Adam Ratzlaff	4327
22	Peter Unrau	61701
25*	Heinrich Ratzlaff	47821	joined by widowed sister, Anna Pankratz?
26*	Peter Becker	32122
27*	Benjamin Ratzlaff	47884	moved to Rudnerweide 2 in 1827
27*	Adam Ratzlaff	47882
27*	Peter Frey	35807	moved to Alexanderwohl 22 in 1821
??	widow Ratzlaff		possibly settled in Franztal

did not have a leader. In the midst of trying to identify the people who constituted Franztal’s earliest settlers, we should not lose sight of the fact that we have learned something new about the 1819 immigrants: unlike the more famous 1820 group that established the village of Alexanderwohl, the 1819 party made their journey without a designated leader.

large party whose leader was … elder Ohm Franz Goerz. Another portion of Franztal’s original settlers had traveled to Molotschna under different circumstances: in a party with a named leader, the elder Franz Goerz (or Goertz). The elder in view here was Franz Heinrich Goerz (GM 61901), who emigrated from Rudnerweide in West Prussia in 1819, the same year as the first Przechovka group (see Rempel 2007, 133). Goerz himself did not settle in Franztal but in Rudnerweide, the village 2 miles to the east; of course, the Gemindebericht does not claim that he settled in Franztal, only that some in his traveling party did so. A spot check of Rempel’s visa and settlement records confirms the fact that some in the same party did settle in Franztal (e.g., Peter Abrahams, Peter Daniels, Peter Janzen); however, a full reconstruction of the Franz Goerz party and the eventual destinations of all its members remains a desideratum.

long-deceased. The German word verewigte more specifically means “immortalized,” but in context the sense seems to be that Franz Goerz was deceased, not that he was immortalized, unless the idea is that he was enjoying his eternal reward. In fact, Goerz passed away in 1835, which means that he had been dead for thirteen years when the community report was written.

small parties without a leader. In addition to the large parties associated with Przechovka and Elder Franz Goerz, Franztal’s original settlers also included various people who had traveled in small, leaderless parties to their new home. These individuals must remain unknown until Franztal’s original settlers are first identified and then examined to determine when and from where they migrated. Since Rempel lists twenty-seven families who settled in Franztal in 1819, we should be able to compile such a list of original settlers at some point. For now, however, we will keep our attention focused on translating and offering a commentary on the 1848 Franztal Gemeindebericht.

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.

For the complete Franztal Gemeindebericht in German, see here.

For a brief introduction to the 1848 Gemeindeberichte, see here.