Polish/Prussian Bullers: Jeziorka 2

The first Jeziorka post (here) provided a brief history of the 1727 founding of the village by thirteen Mennonite families from the Przechovka (pshe-KHOF-ka) area. It also noted that Bullers—the family of George Buller—lived in the village, as attested by the 1772 Prussian land register and the 1776 census of Mennonites. We ended with several questions that beg to be answered.

• When did George Buller and his family first live in Jeziorka?
• Were they the first Bullers to live in that village?
• Since all the Jeziorka Mennonites leased their land, in what sense was George an Eigentümer (owner)?
• What happened to George after this time?
• What happened to his family?

The Przechovka church book (hereafter PCB) provides a likely answer to the first question. The PCB lists several George Bullers, but only one fits the evidence of the census.

We begin with the first George Buller listed (PCB number 3XXXX), whose name appears above the red line in the scan below.

George’s father was our old friend *** Buller, whom we have dubbed Unknown Buller (PCB number 339 above). The following page shows 3XXXX’s children (359–364).

The column after the names gives the number of the father (here 3XXXX); several columns after that we read the village of birth. All of this George’s children were born in Konopat (Deutsch Konopat, to the southwest of Przechovka), so it is unlikely that he ever lived in Jeziorka.

The second George Buller listed (342 below) is another option. He was the son of Hans (340) and thus the grandson of Unknown Buller. One can see further below that he had two sons: George (350) and Peter (351). Neither the place of birth nor the year of birth is given for either son, so we cannot link George 342 or his sons with Jeziorka. The GRANDMA database records 342’s place of birth as Jeziorka, but it also says that he was born around 1705, which was twenty-two years before Jeziorka was founded. Needless to say, GRANDMA cannot be trusted at this point (although the 1705 date of birth is probably close).

George the third (350 above, son of George 342) has no recorded children, so there are no villages of birth listed in the PCB. Therefore, we cannot say one way or another whether this George ever lived in Jeziorka.

The fourth and last George Buller listed in the main part of the PCB is number 375 in the scan below.

The next page in the church book records that George 375 had four sons, numbers 389–392 below.

Note the place of birth for the four sons: Jeziorken, aka Jeziorka. One further observation establishes the identification of George 375 with the George Buller of the 1776 census. The census indicates (see here) that George and his wife had two sons. According to the church book, George’s sons were born in 1773 (Peter), 1776 (Andreas), 1780 (David), and 1783 (Jacob). In other words, George 375 had two sons in 1776.

In light of the fact that George 375 and family lived in Jeziorka at least between 1770 (the year of his marriage) and 1783 (the year of his last son’s birth) and that George had two sons in 1776, it seems relatively settled that George 375 is the George listed in the 1772 land register and the 1776 census of Mennonites.

When George 375 and his family first lived in Jeziorka is more difficult to determine. Looking again at George’s line (two scans up), we see that George 375 was born in Konopat (Deutsch-Konopat) in 1747 but was married in 1770 in Jeziorka. Since the first leases for the Jeziorka land presumably expired in 1767 (they were forty-year leases written in 1727), one wonders if George acquired an expired lease in order to provide both a household and a living for his developing family. The next Jeziorka post will provide further background that makes this theory even more likely.

So much for the questions about which George is listed in the census and when he began to live in Jeziorka. Were there other Bullers in the village?

Again, the PCB provides evidence. Hans Buller 341, son of Hans 340 and thus also the grandson of Unknown Buller, is said to have been married in Jeziorka in 1731. This would place him later than the original group of thirteen Mennonite families who settled the village in 1727 but close to the later group of twelve families who joined the community in 1732. All of Hans 341’s children (344–349) were born in Jeziorka, which confirms his long-term residence in the village (see below).

No other Bullers are recorded as being born in Jeziorka, and only Ancke Buller (PCB 373) is listed as being married in Jeziorka to Andres Köhn (595). Like George, Andres and Ancke are listed in the 1776 census, along with their two sons and two daughters; interestingly, the PCB has two sons and three daughters for them by 1776. In any event, we can say that Bullers lived in Jeziorka nearly from its establishment in 1727 at least through 1783.

Three questions remain, but there is too much to the story to be recounted in full here. For now, it is sufficient to address the question of how George 375 could be called an Eigentümer (owner), as he was in the 1776 census, even when all the Jeziorka Mennonites leased their land. Steve Fast, co-moderator of the Low German Mennonite Genealogy Forum, writes, “There was no bright line between owning and leasing like we understand today. The translations of the words are only generalized and not very helpful. … Mennonites who were Eigenthuemers held long-term leases (40–90 years) that could be sold, inherited, and renewed.” Although George 375 did not own the land, he did own exclusive, long-term rights to farm the land, so he was accurately and properly designated as an Eigentümer by the census taker.

****

The Low German Mennonite Genealogy Forum is a bulletin board that seeks “to facilitate research into Low German Mennonite Genealogy, from the newest beginner to the most senior expert. And we want to organize the community to push the boundaries of our knowledge and share what we learn with everyone so that we can accelerate our research.” Anyone can read the discussions on the site; in fact, anyone can register to ask questions or to take part in the discussions. Feel free to browse the bulletin board at http://mennonitegenealogyforum.com/forum/index.php. The sections of greatest interest to us are those on Poland-Lithuania, Prussia, and Germany (here) and Russia and (former) Soviet Union (here).

Sources

Klassen, 2009. Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia. Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Zijpp, Nanne van der, and Richard D. Thiessen. 2014. Jeziorka (Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. See here.

Reading recommendation

My before-falling-asleep reading the past several weeks has been an interesting and informative book that relates to the Polish and Prussian years of our family history: Peter J. Klassen’s Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).

The book’s table of contents includes the following chapters and sections:

Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. A Haven in Troubled Times
Chapter 2. A Legacy of Rivers and Dikes
Chapter 3. The Challenges of Urban Settings
Chapter 4. Along the Banks of Poland’s Mighty River
Chapter 5. Bridges between the Netherlands and the Vistula Delta
Chapter 6. Psalms, Sermons, and Congregations
Chapter 7. A House Divided
Chapter 8. Conflicting Loyalties in a Progressive Society
Chapter 9. A Changing Vision
Epilogue
Appendix 1. Selected Documents concerning Religious Liberty
Appendix 2.  Key Events and Dates in Polish History
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

In a full and informative survey and assessment of the book, Steven Schroeder writes that this book “ is the most comprehensive, and widely accessible, examination of the Polish/Prussian Mennonites in the early modern era.” He elaborates:

Utilizing an impressive range of archival resources, Klassen argues that Poland was a safe haven for persecuted Mennonites during the first decades of the Reformation. The author shows how, after Poles invited Mennonites to farm the wetlands of the Vistula Delta, Mennonites were “generally supported by a tolerant political and economic structure [which] allowed [them] to flourish” (46). The author focuses the first five chapters on the economic and political interaction and agreements between Mennonites and the various local governments and ecclesiastical authorities in Royal Prussia (Polish rule) and Ducal Prussia (Hohenzollern rule). The agreements, mostly conducted at the local level, relied on mutual benefit: as long as the Mennonites were of value economically, their “heretical” theology would be tolerated and they would be granted limited privileges. Mennonites could lease and farm the land, set up their own religious congregations and schools, and were exempt from military service. However, Mennonites were always insecure to some degree, as they were not equals with their Catholic and mainline Protestant neighbors. (for the full review, see here)

Chapter 4 is of greatest interest to us, as it discusses the development and expansion of Mennonite communities in the Vistula River basin. Even though this chapter does not mention any Bullers by name, it clues us in to what happened with a certain Buller living in the village of Jeziorka. More on that in a subsequent post.

If you are interested in the Polish/Prussian years of Mennonites in general or of our family history in particular, I highly commend this book. Amazon sells both a hardcover edition and a Kindle edition; the latter is fairly inexpensive and can be read on not just Kindles but an iPad or any other tablet for which Amazon has developed a Kindle app.

Polish/Prussian Bullers: Jeziorka 1

Ten to eleven miles west-northwest of Schwetz (modern Świecie) lay the village of Jeziorka (aka Jeziorken, Kleinsee, and modern Jeziorki). Jeziorka was located far enough from the Vistula River that it was not within the river valley itself (the red A in the map); according to the Polish Wikipedia article on the village, Jeziorka was the only Mennonite village in the Vistula area that was not in the actual valley (see here).

Unlike many other Mennonite villages of that time, Jeziorka did not have a pre-Mennonite history; rather, it was established in 1727 by a group of thirteen Mennonite families from the Przechovka area. Five years later the village added twelve Mennonite families from Culm (Chełmno), roughly twenty-one miles to the southeast. According to Peter J. Klassen, all these settlers “were granted a lease for forty years by the owner, Hedwig von Steffens-Wybczyriski” (2009, 86). Herbert Wiebe agrees in broad terms but clarifies that the lease was made with Frau (Mrs.) Hedwig von Steffens-Wybczyriski with the consent of the guardians of her children (Wiebe 1952, 30). Wiebe adds that the lease was for 1 Hufe (1 Hufe = 30 Morgens = ca. 41.5 acres) of meadow and 19 Morgens (= ca. 26 acres) of arable land that had been damaged by soldiers.

Nanne van der Zijpp and Richard D. Thiessen note that a church was erected early on, in 1743, but the residents of the village “never formed an independent congregation, but were in one congregation with their brethren in Przechovka and Konopath.” The Przechovka church is, of course, the one with which our Bullers were associated.

Today, nearly three hundred years later, the village still exists in a loose form (the houses on each side of the road in the center of the photograph below) and is reported to have around 150 residents, though that seems doubtful.

As we noted previously, Bullers lived in Jeziorka during the latter part of the eighteenth century. For example, both the 1772 land register (see here) and the 1776 census of Mennonites (see here) list a Georg(e) Buller as living in Jeziorka. The 1772 register simply gives his name and location, but the 1776 census adds important details. At the time of the census George had a wife and two sons, and he was a farmer and Eigentümer (owner) whose financial status was schlecht (low).

Still, there are more questions than answers at this point. When did George Buller and his family first live in Jeziorka? Were they the first Bullers to live in that village? Since all the Jeziorka Mennonites leased their land, in what sense was George an Eigentümer (owner)? What happened to George after this time? What happened to his family? Is is possible that George was a direct ancestor of ours?

Fortunately, the Przechovka church book and other historical sources will allow us to fill in some of the details, but that is a task for another post.

Sources

Klassen, Peter J. 2009. Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia. Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Wiebe, Herbert. 1952. Das Siedlungswerk niederländischer Mennoniten im Weichseltal zwischen Fordon und Weissenberg bis zum Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ost-Mitteleuropas 3. Marburg: Johann Gottfried Herder-Institut.

Zijpp, Nanne van der, and Richard D. Thiessen. 2014. Jeziorka (Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. See here.

Polish/Prussian Bullers: the land register of 1772

Before Frederick the Great took a census of all the Mennonites in West Prussia (Poland) in 1776 (see here), he took stock of all the land owners in his newly added territory. The purpose of the survey (or registration) was simple: to “produce the necessary foundation for the introduction of the Prussian taxation system in the new territory” (see further here).

Because the purpose of the register was not to count heads (as in all the people), only the male heads of taxable households are recorded. The original records also list the number of children, but these numbers are not readily available online. Fortunately, the basic information for fourteen Buhler or Buller households in West Prussia is provided by Reuben R. Drefs at the Odessa Digital Library (link above).

Last Name	First Name	Village	Area	County
Buhler	Abraham	Ruckenau	Tiegenhoff
Buhler	Abraham	Tiegenhoff	Tiegenhoff
Buhler	Wilhelm	Tiegenhoff	Tiegenhoff
Buhlern	Wittwe (widow)	Tiegenhoff	Tiegenhoff
Buhler	Jac.	Laakendorf	Amt Elb. Niederung
Buller	?	Sazewka	Cammin
Buller	?	Sazewka	Cammin	Zempelburg
Buller	Adam	Sazewka	Cammin
Buller	Adam	Sazewka	Cammin	Zempelburg
Buller	Adam	Dworziska	Schwetz
Buller	Georg	Jesiorky	Schwetz
Buller	Heinrich	Ostrower Kämpe	Schwetz
Buller	Heinrich	Ostrower Kämpe	Schwetz
Buller	Peter	Deutsch Konopat	Schwetz

Of greatest interest for us are the last five Bullers listed: Adam, Georg, Heinrich, Heinrich, and Peter. These five families lived in the Schwetz area (Schwetz is the village just left of E in the map below), some in villages that we have already encountered: Jeziorka (A), Ostrower Kämpe (F; aka Ehrenthal; modern Ostrów Świecki), and Deutsch Konopat (B/C). The only village new to us is Dworziska (or Divorczieka; German, Wilhelmsmark), which was just to the southwest of the B on the map.

Not only have we encountered some of these villages; we have also already encountered the persons listed. The following list compares several individuals in the 1772 land register with the names given in the 1776 census of West Prussian Mennonites (here):

• 1772 George in Jesiorky = 1776 George in Jeziorken (both Jeziorka)


• 1772 Peter in Deutsch-Konopat = one of two 1776 Peters in Deutsch Konopat


• one of two 1772 Heinrichs in Ostrower Kämpe = 1776 Heinrich in Schwetzerkampen

Only Adam Buller of Dworziska is not included in the later census. One wonders whether he moved or died in the interim. This is not the last we will hear of the other Bullers, however. Future posts will return to the Przechovka church book to flesh out these families even further.

To be clear, we do not know whether any of these Bullers are our direct ancestors. However, we can conclude with relative confidence that they are part of our larger family. The same cannot be known at this time for the other Buhlers and Bullers listed. Although at least one of them was a Mennonite (Abraham of Tiegenhoff is listed in the 1776 Mennonite census), we do not know even that much of the others. Perhaps the Buller surname is not as rare as we thought!

***

For additional background on the 1772 land register, see the introduction by Rueben R. Drefs here.

Polish/Prussian Bullers: background

The Buller family history, like most other family histories, is very much a tangled mess of similar-looking but separate threads. We know which thread we want to follow—that of David Buller (father of Peter D, grandfather of Peter P, and great-grandfather of Grandpa Chris)—but the deeper we dig into the tangle, the more confounding and confusing it all becomes. There is no clear way to trace the one thread that interests us systematically back in time.

Rather, we must approach the task much as we would a storage room stuffed with the accumulations of life over a number of years. To clean out such a room, to bring order to it, we first create a bigger mess as we drag out and pile up different categories of items: clothes for Goodwill here, books for the local library there, kitchen gadgets over there, and all those things that we should have thrown away years ago in the dumpster sitting in the driveway.

With those two images in mind—our family history as a mess of threads that need to be untangled and as a storage room that can be cleaned out only by creating an even bigger mess—let us begin to sort out what we know about our family’s existence in Poland/West Prussia during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries.

To set the stage for the messiness to follow, I ask you to indulge one last rehearsal of some of the basic geographical and historical facts that will be in the background of many of our discussions.

1. The area of our interest is located modern-day Poland, from the Baltic Sea in the north, down the Vistula River basin to the south. For the most part, Mennonites in Poland (there were Mennonites in other countries and regions) lived in the area shown below.

Our specific interest will often focus on the area south of Świecie (German Schwetz), which is identified by the arrow left of center in the map above. This is not only where most Mennonite Bullers lived; it is also where our Bullers lived. For a more detailed map of this area, see here.

2. We do not need to know a great deal of history to explore our family history, but it is helpful to keep in mind that our Bullers first lived within the Kingdom of Poland but then, in 1772, became a part of the Prussian kingdom of Frederick II. This change in political rule did not entail immediate changes, but eventually it created the conditions that led our family and many other Mennonites to leave West Prussia for Catherine the Great’s New Russia.

3. In addition to geography and history, it will be useful to remind ourselves of a genealogical fact, that the earliest known (that is, earliest documented) Buller in the Schwetz area was the *** Buller listed in the Przechovka (pronounced pshe-KHOF-ka) church register.

Unknown Buller, as previously discussed here, was probably born sometime in the mid-seventeenth century, perhaps in the 1650–1660 range. At present, this is the earliest recorded Buller we have for the area, possibly for all of Poland (we will have to explore further before we can confirm the latter). Although certainty will not be possible, we will work from the hypothesis that the Przechovka-area Bullers listed in land leases and other historical documents after 1660 probably are descendants of Unknown Buller and his wife Dina Thoms.

 Now that we have set the broad background of the geographical, historical, and genealogical context, we are ready to dive into the mess of details about Bullers in Poland/West Prussia during the period 1650–1820, that is, from the early days of Unknown Buller until David Buller and family emigrated to Molotschna colony in Russia.

New territory

Exploring our family history requires us to enter a variety of new territories. The history of the times is unfamiliar to many of us, and the script and even the language of key documents is often difficult to comprehend. The geographical setting of our family history is frequently as unfamiliar as all the rest. So, before we proceed further in our trek into the Prussian/Polish period of the Buller family history, we should take a moment to orient ourselves.

If you recall, before Bullers lived in the U.S. we lived in the Molotschna Mennonite colony in New Russia (present-day Ukraine). Before that we lived in the lowlands of the Vistula (Wisła) River in a part of the Prussian Empire, West Prussia, to be exact, modern Poland. The map below offers a wide view of the area of our interest.

The city Gdańsk, Poland, on the shore of the Baltic Sea was known as Danzig during the period in question. Approximately 75 miles south of Danzig lies the area where Bullers lived several centuries ago. The red rectangle shows the rough location of our forebears’ home, which is shown in greater detail below.

The area in the detail map is roughly 20 miles by 14 miles, so essentially the same size as the south half of York County, Nebraska. The most noteworthy feature on this map is, of course, the Vistula River, which cuts across the lower right.

We will zoom in further on portions of this detail map in future posts; for now it is enough to note a number of specific locales.

• The red letter A in the upper left marks the village of Jeziorken (Jeziorka), where the George listed in the 1776 census of Mennonits (see here) is located. 


• The two Peters listed in that census are associated with Deutsch Konopat (B: Greater Deutsch Konopat; C: Lesser Deutsch Konopat).


• The Heinrich in the 1776 census is said to have lived at Schwetzerkamp (E). Heinrich is also linked to Ehrenthal (F) in another source.


• D marks the village of Przechovka, which housed the church where many of the Bullers in the area were members. (See earlier posts on the Przechovka church book here.)

Except for the Jeziorka Bullers, the rest lived and worshiped within a 5 mile radius that extended from Deutsch Konopat on the west to Ehrenthal on the east. We will do well to learn more about all these villages and areas, beginning with Heinrich Buller’s Schwetzerkamp.

Peter P farm 4

Before we go back to eighteenth-century West Prussia (Poland), one more photo from the farm of Peter P and Margaretha Epp Buller.

We have already highlighted Grandpa Chris and his brother Klaas (see here) and their parents Peter P and Margaretha (here); now we turn our gaze toward the buggies in the background.

Looking closely, one can make out three horse and buggies in the background. One can also see two people each in the middle and right buggies. It is impossible, of course, to know exactly who is in the buggies, but we can offer a reasonable guess.

Assuming that the picture was taken circa 1913, it is plausible to think that one of the buggies holds Grandpa’s older sister Margaretha P, who married Klaas Friesen in 1912. Presumably they rode in the buggy to visit her parents’ home. The next-oldest daughter, Katharina, did not marry until 1915, so it is less likely that she and her future husband (Dietrich Quiring) are one of the other couples.

In the lower right of the picture one can see two girls standing on the driveway. The girl on the right is head and shoulders taller than the girl on the left. The girls are no doubt some combination of Sara (born 1899), Elizabeth (1904), and Maria (1908).

Further examination of this detail reveals that there may be one more person previously unnoticed. Look carefully at Peter P and Margaretha at the left of the photograph. It appears that Margaretha is holding a young child in her arms. Peter E was born in 1911, so it is probably not him. Anna was born in October 1913, so it might be her.

If Margaretha is indeed holding a child, this would imply that the picture was taken in 1914, before Anna’s first birthday. Notice that the trees seem to have all their leaves, so it is not later in the year. This almost-overlooked detail may well hold the key to the date of this photo. Certainty will continue to elude us, but for the time being we should probably date this photo circa 1914.

One final item: the two-story house in the background. The photograph below shows that Peter P and Margaretha’s house still stands today in excellent shape, but notice how much the trees have grown in the intervening century!

Peter P farm 3

First a correction, then a new photo.

The previous post identified the two boys as Ben and Grandpa Chris. Dad (Carl) advises me that the older boy is probably Klaas, not Ben. Dad also learned that the original photo came from Don and Margaret Huebert, who made it available to Abe Buller.

And now today’s photo detail.

Standing at the north end of the barn are, it is thought, Peter P and Margaretha Epp Buller, parents of Grandpa Chris. If you recall, both Peter P and Margaretha were born in the Molotschna colony, Peter in 1869 and Margaretha in 1870. They were likely in their mid-40s when this photo was taken, circa 1913. They lived on this farm for another twenty-three years, until they moved to California in 1936. Margaretha died at the age of eighty in 1951, Peter at the age of ninety-five in 1964.

Not a great deal more to say about this detail, except to note the horse and buggies in the background. We will focus in on those next.

Peter P farm 2

As noted earlier, the photograph provided by Abe and Alice Buller contains details that merit closer examination. With that in mind, we begin by zooming in on two boys in a wagon left of center in the 1913 photo. First the full photo, then the detail:

The sharpness of the image is degraded when we zoom in, but we are still able to see two boys sitting on a wagon (a buckboard?) drawn by two horses. The older boy on our left is wearing a light-colored hat; the younger boy on our right may be wearing a dark hat. According to Abe, the older boy is his father Ben and the younger boy is Grandpa Chris. As far as I recall, this is the earliest photograph of Grandpa that we have seen thus far.

The apparent ages of Ben and Chris enable us to suggest a date between 1912 and 1914. Ben was born in 1897 and was thus fifteen in 1912; Grandpa was born in 1906 and so was six at that time. Since it appears that Ben could be fifteen to seventeen and Grandpa six to eight, a 1912–1914 time frame seems likely for this picture.

One final observation just made: a sliding door is clearly visible in the background of the detail above (to the left of the window in the middle). That sliding door is still visible today (see the detail from a 2015 photograph below), even though it was closed off and sided over. We will zoom in on other people and elements in the 1913 photograph in subsequent posts.

Peter P farm circa 1913

Thanks to Abe and Alice Buller (Abe’s father was Ben, Grandpa Chris’s older brother), we have a new photographic treasure to enjoy and to examine: the farm yard of Peter P and Margaretha Epp Buller.

We have already seen the same area in earlier pictures, such as the 1936 photograph of Grandpa, Grandma, and five kids below. (Keep in mind that the 1936 photo was taken looking northeast and the new photo was taken looking southwest. See further here.)

We have also seen how the Peter P farm yard looked earlier this year.

What is new, thanks to Abe and Alice, is a photograph of the Peter P farm yard from over a hundred years ago, probably sometime between 1912 and 1914. More about the date of the photo later.

A few general observations will suffice for today, after which we will zoom in specific details in the photo.

1. The 1913 photo was taken from north of the driveway and east of the barn, roughly where the red arrow is pointing in the photograph farther below.

2. The little silo on the north end of the barn today and visible in the background of the 1936 photo had not yet been constructed in 1913.

3. On the other hand, the shed in the cow lot in 1913 no longer stands in the same spot. Whether it stood in 1936 is impossible to tell.

4. The windmill was located in the cow lot in 1913, but today it is farther south. If you look closely at the picture immediately above you can see the top of the structure (no wheel) between the bins.

5. The house, which stands west and north of the barn, is visible in the background of the 1913 photo and the photo immediately above.

6. The 1913 photo includes a number of people, some of whom we can identify. But that is a post for another day.

Prussian Bullers in 1776

According to the Buller Family Record, David Buller (recall the sequence moving backward in time: Chris > Peter P. > Peter D. > David) was born in 1817 and moved from Prussia to the Molotschna Mennonite colony around the year 1820.

Taking another step back before David, we encounter several Bullers (actually, Buhlers and Büllers) in the 1776 Prussian census. In terms of historical context, after a period of war in which the Poles proved unable to defend their territory, a significant portion of the Kingdom of Poland was divided between the three powers Austria, Prussia, and Russia in 1772. So it was that the area in which our ancestors lived came under the control of the Prussian king Frederick II.

As one way of taking inventory, as it were, of his newly gained territory, Frederick conducted a census of Mennonites living in most parts of the province of West Prussia (Danzig and the Thorn territory were excluded). According to Glenn H. Penner, this census “contains information on 2,638 families and accounts for 12,186 people.”

Listed among the 2,638 heads of households are two Buhlers, three Büllers, and one Butler whose name was actually Buller, according to a later marginal note. Although the actual census documents are not available for viewing online, as far as I know, Horst Penner and others have transcribed the recorded data so that we can learn something of the individuals included. The figure below shows a portion of page 421 in Horst 1978.

The third name listed is Abra. (Abraham) Buhler, followed by Abrah. (Abraham) Buller. Immediately below are Heinrich Büller and two Peter Büllers. Five names below one spies George Butler, but the note in the right margin indicates that Butler is actually a Buller. So much for the names. What else can we learn about these 1776 Prussian Bullers?

The column after the names lists the village of residence, followed by the occupation of the person listed. The six “number” columns that follow list, in order: husband, wife, number of sons, number of daughters, number of male servants, and number of female servants. The last two columns identify the household head’s status as owner or renter and the family’s relative financial condition.

The first Abraham Buhler lived in Alt Schottland, an area just outside of Danzig and thus not in the area of our Bullers, who lived farther south in the Vistula River delta. He was, if you can make out the Fraktur script, a Häker, which Glenn Penner indicates was a proprietor of a general store. His household contained only Abraham and his wife plus a female servant. The E. in the next-to-last column indicates that he was an Eigentümer, that is, an owner (presumably of his house and shop). His financial condition is listed as mm., meaning mittelmässig, “average,” what we might call today middle class.

The second Abraham Buhler lived in Tiegenhof (a village east of Danzig, so likewise some distance from our Bullers). He was a Schuster (cobbler) whose household contained him, his wife, three sons, and one daughter. He was a Mietsmann (renter) rather than an Eigentümer, and his financial status was characterized as s. (= schlecht), that is, low (but not the lowest).

All the Büllers (including George Butler = Buller) lived in the same general area of the Vistula River delta: Heinrich in Schwetzerkampen (or Schwetzer Kampe), George in Jeziorken (aka Jeziorka), and the two Peters in Deutsch-Konopat. The occupation for all four is given as Lw., an abbreviation for Landwirt, or “farmer.” All four are said to have owned their farmland, and all four are characterized as schlecht (low). The four families include husband and wife (no widows or widowers) and between one and seven children. Only the second Peter lists a servant, in this case a female.

We end with a few passing observations and questions.

1. It is interesting that the two Buhlers lived in the Danzig region to the north and the four Büllers were farmers in the area farther south. Is there any connection between these two family-groups, or is it a coincidence that their names appear to stem from the same original name?

2. If these family-groups are related, does the distinction between Buhlers in the north and Büllers in the south shed light on the statement in the Przechovka church register about the first Buller listed, that this was “the first time that this family name appears” (see here)?

3. Does the listing of four Büller families around the Vistula comport with the number of Bullers included in the Przechovka church register (see here)? I think that is worth exploring further.

More questions than answers, as usual, but at least we have added a bit more detail to the portrait of our family’s life in Prussia. As of 1776, there were twenty-one Büllers living in the Vistula River area (eight adults and thirteen children), all of them land-owning farm familes who were not quite middle-class.

***

For additional online resources, see Glenn H. Penner’s introduction to the census list here. He also provides a complete census with additional notes here.

Source

Penner, Horst. 1978. Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben, in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen. Teil 1: 1526 bis 1772. Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein.

Heinrich, we have a problem!

A funny thing happened on the way from Brüttisellen to Lushton (see here for the last post in that series): we lost Heinrich Buller. Allow me to explain.

Last year I was excited to learn that the GRANDMA database (which collects pertinent information about all known Mennonites) included Heinrich Buller, who not only was probably our ancestor but obviously was the same individual as the Heinrich Bühler whose story is told in The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren (see further here). The approximate time and location of the births are identical, and other sources seem to confirm that these individuals were one and the same.

Some time ago for reasons that I no longer recall, I went back into the GRANDMA database, asked for record 273782 (Heinrich’s number above), and was surprised to see an entry for one Anna Zinn. Where was Heinrich? I tried several other search approaches, and Heinrich was nowhere to be found.

I wrote the GRANDMA staff and asked if they could explain, although I had a feeling that I already knew the explanation (people do not disappear from geneaological databases for no reason). They politely replied that Heinrich Buller 273782 has been removed from the database because there is no documentary evidence that he ever existed. He may be nothing more than a plausible fiction.

You are probably feeling some of the dis-ease that I did then, so let me be clear about what we are and, more important, are not saying.

1. There is no documentary evidence for the existence of a Heinrich Buller (note the spelling!) who was born outside of Zurich, Switzerland, in the late seventeenth century and lived for part of his life in Deutsch Konopat, Prussia (Poland).

2. There is documentary evidence for the existence of a Heinrich Bühler who was born outside of Zurich, Switzerland, in the late seventeenth century.

3. Whether or not Heinrich Bühler ever lived in Deutsch Konopat is at present unknown. Horst Penner says that he “probably” did, but the documentary evidence proving that claim is lacking.

So what is the truth of the matter? We simply do not know. I happen to think it plausible that the Hutterite Heinrich Bühler did emigrate to Deutsch Konopat, where he established a sizeable family whose last name sometimer thereafter began to be written Buller. That’s my story for now, but I do not know if I’ll be sticking to it.

In the end, although it is disconcerting not to find Heinrich Buller in the GRANDMA database, nothing really has changed. It is just as plausible now as it was earlier to work from the hypothesis that all the Molotschna–Prussian Bullers descended from the Hutterite Heinrich Bühler. As long as we remember that we are dealing with hypotheses, we can freely and confidently explore all the data that we can uncover. Who knows? Maybe someday documentary evidence of Heinrich Buller (aka Bühler) will come into the light of day.

Source

Penner, Horst. 1978. Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben, in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen. Teil 1: 1526 bis 1772. Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein.

It says “occasional” right there under the title

Okay, lame joke and lamer excuse. I don’t think a nearly four-month gap between posts qualifies as “occasional” by anyone’s definition. Sincere apologies all around! I am going to attempt to resume blogging at least a little over the next days, weeks, and months. Pray that work does not overtake me once again.

The posts will probably be shorter and may be a bit scattered, jumping from one topic to another. The scope is likely to be broader as well, focusing not just on the descendants of Chris and Malinda Franz Buller but also on other Bullers of the distant and recent past.

I plan to start with “Heinrich, we have a problem!” and then begin to think out loud about “Whatever happened to Katja Buller?” In between I will jot a note here about Georg Buller buying land in 1700, recount which Bullers are listed in the Prussian census of 1776, and begin to compile and then note information on all the Bühlers, Buijlers, and Bullers that I can find.

If anyone is still checking and reading, stay tuned!

Katja Buller is indicated by the farthest-right arrow.
This 1930 photograph shows the students and teacher  of the Kleefeld school.

Father’s Day

It was this time a year ago that the idea for the Buller Time blog came to mind, and even though the posting has been embarrassingly sporadic and slim the past two months, we are not done yet. So, in celebration of not only a year of Buller Time (the first post was published here on 15 June 2014) but also of being and having a father, I offer the following rambling thoughts.

One of the early posts had to do with the 2014 Buller reunion (here). This year’s reunion is just six days away, on 27 June. I understand that there will be family from California and Wyoming, along with a nice representation from Nebraska. For further information, see here or contact Steve directly.

This is a blog for the entire Buller family, but I hope you will indulge me for a moment and allow me to send love to those who made me a proud father and an indulgent grandfather: Brooke, Taylor, and Payten. The photo below was taken in Estes Park, Colorado, the day after Christmas 2014.

Without our fathers, both Bullers and those with other last names, there would be no Buller family and certainly no Buller Time blog. I wish I had photographs of all the fathers in our family, but I do not, so I hope it will be adequate to post a few representative photographs of the fathers we honor today and every time we remember who we are.

We begin with Grandpa and his boys (left to right: Wayne, Carl, Daniel), in a photograph taken in 1940. For further details regarding the location and circumstances, see here.

Before Grandpa, of course, was his own father: Peter P. Below we see Grandpa and Grandma (and Matilda) on the right of the photograph, with Peter P and Margaretha two places to the left.

Unfortunately, we have not yet uncovered a photograph of Peter P’s father (Peter D) or grandfather (David), but maybe someday some Buller will find those treasures in a long-forgotten album or a box of neglected pictures. Until then, we end with a non-Buller father who played a vital role in bringing our family from Kleefeld, Molotschna colony, to Lushton, Nebraska: Johann Siebert—also known as Peter D’s father-in-law. For the full story of his fatherly service, see here.

To all our fathers past and present, thank you for making our family what it is. To my own dad, well, this blog’s for you.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton recap

Since mid-February we have been walking (some might say crawling) our way forward from what we think (!) is the Bullers’ earliest known location, a small village outside of Zurich named Brüttisellen. Through a series of seven posts we traveled over 850 miles over the course of roughly two decades in the life of Heinrich Bühler, before arriving in a small village named Deutsch Konopat in the Vistula River delta. The list below links directly to the individual posts. If you prefer a condensed version, see the brief recap below the list.

• From Brüttisellen to Lushton 1
• From Brüttisellen to Lushton 2
• From Brüttisellen to Lushton 3
• From Brüttisellen to Lushton 4
• From Brüttisellen to Lushton 5
• From Brüttisellen to Lushton 6
• From Brüttisellen to Lushton 7

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 1
Heinrich Bühler, born sometime around 1580, lived for a part of his life in the village pictured to the right: Brüttisellen. When he was in his early twenties, he joined the Anabaptist branch of the Protestant Reformation, eventually journeying 450 miles east to a Hutterite Bruderhof in Moravia.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 2
Heinrich’s move to Moravia was motivated by severe persecution of all Anabaptist groups by the state church of Switzerland, the Reformed Church. Although Heinrich fled persecution alongside other Anabaptists, he was different in one important respect: he belonged to a Hutterite community that practiced a sort of communal living and the holding of all possessions in common rather than individually.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 3
Heinrich was not just any Hutterite, in fact; he was a fearless missionary who traveled back to Zurich four times in twelve years in hopes of winning new converts to the Hutterite faith and life. In 1614 he was imprisoned in Zurich’s Wellenberg tower in the middle of the Limmat River and threatened with even worse punishment if ever he showed his face in Zurich again.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 4
So it was that Heinrich returned to his Bruderhof in Wessely, Moravia, on the banks of the March (now Moravou) River, on the border between Moravia and Hungary.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 5
It is likely that Heinrich tended grape vines during his time at Wessely, since he had told the Zurich authorities that that was his trade.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 6
Unfortunately, Heinrich’s peaceful life did not last long, and his world burst into flames with the onset of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618. The troops of the Holy Roman Empire (Catholic) and those of the Bohemian and Austrian nobles (Protestant) warred back and forth across Moravia, leaving a scorched earth in their wake. In early 1621 the emperor’s troops burned Wessely  to the ground. When and how and where Heinrich escaped we can only guess.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 7

We presume that Heinrich and family moved north approximately 400 miles to a village near the Vistula River: Deutsch Konopat, which is where we will pick up the story with the next installment of From Brüttisellen to Lushton.

In the meantime, let’s return to a question that has been left hanging for over a month: In the map below, what are the close-set parallel lines southeast of Deutsch Konopat, northeast of Culm, and elsewhere?

Perhaps the satellite photo below will clarify.

Or maybe we need to zoom in a little, maybe even go to ground-level:

In fact, the close-set parallel lines on the old map are the boundaries of narrow strip fields, some of which remain even today. Although we may think of farmland being divided into 160-acre squares, this was certainly not the case in Europe. In both West Prussia (Poland) of the seventeenth century and the Molotschna colony of the nineteenth century, fields were no more than narrow strips of land. More on this later!

Peter and Margaretha’s farm

In anticipation of a bit more regular blogging activity over the coming weeks, during which we will pick up the From Brüttisellen to Lushton series and take a step back with a recent discovery about Heinrich Buller (plus an update of the birthday list for May and June—where did the month of May go?!), today up a few loose ends by posting the rest of the photographs recently taken of the Peter P and Margaretha farm east of Henderson (number 4 in the first satellite photo below; see here).

The first photo, which is looking west, was taken from the gravel road to the east of the farm with the lens zoomed in on the building. The driveway into the farmstead is on the right side of the photo. The original barn and house are clearly visible in the center (the garage north of the house is not original). The second photo below is taken from the same location but is zoomed in even further.

The next two photographs were taken from the same location as the two above, but without the lens zoomed in. Although both photos are looking generally west, the first is turned slightly to the north, the second slightly to the south.

The final photo, below, was taken from the north end of the barn looking east down the long driveway that connects the farmstead to the county road on the east side of the farm.

A few more photographs to come in the near future, but first I want to recap where we have traveled and get us back on the road from Brüttisellen to Lushton.

A little context

Even those for whom the Henderson, Lushton, and greater York County areas are familiar may not know exactly where our family history took place, where it began and the road it followed. Having now seen Peter P and Margaretha’s barn and house, it is a good time to take a step back, or rather, to take a bird’s-eye view of the area, so we can flesh out, fill in, and refine our mental maps of the Buller family history.

The satellite photograph below offers the widest look, both geographically and chronologically. Easily identifiable left of center is the town of Henderson. The east–west road to the south is County Road 6. Follow that road a little over a mile west of Henderson (just past the first north–south road, which also is the boundary between York County and Hamilton County) and you will see the number 1: this marks the farm that Peter D and Sarah Siebert Buller (Peter P’s father and mother) purchased (80 acres) and homesteaded (80 acres) after they came to the U.S. in 1879.

Go to the next north–south mile to the west, then north 3/8 of a mile and you will see a 2. This is the Friesen Cemetery, where Peter D and Sarah were laid to rest, in 1897 and 1922, respectively (see further here).

Doubling back to Road 6, then east 4 miles, south 1 mile, east 1/4 mile, then south into the field leads one to number 3: the Franz farm where Grandma grew up. The number is just north of the building site, which looks only vaguely like it did when she was a girl. The house still stands, but it has an addition that obscures most of the original structure. No barns or other outbuildings seem to be left.

Number 4 is a little over a mile to the east-northeast. This is the Peter P and Margaretha farm, where Grandpa grew up and where the barn and house of the previous posts are still located. As before, the number is just north of the farmstead. If you want to visit the place on your own, go 4 miles east of the intersection of the Henderson Spur and Road 6, then south nearly 3/4 of a mile, and, finally, west on the driveway to the farmstead.

Our final stopping point on this map is the final resting place for many Bullers: number 5 marks the northwest corner of the Buller (actually, Mennonite) Cemetery. I never realized until several days ago that it is just south of the farm where Grandpa grew up. In fact, one has a clear view of the south end of the Peter P farmstead from the cemetery entrance.

After moving from the Peter D farm west of Henderson to the Peter P farm east of Henderson, our family turned south, as Grandpa and Grandma raised eight kids and a variety of critters on a farm south of Lushton. The photograph below includes two places already noted, to help you orient yourself: the Peter P farm (1) and Grandma’s childhood home (2). Lushton lies roughly 2 miles to the south (and slightly east) of the Franz and Buller farms (3), and Grandpa and Grandma’s Lushton farm is a mile and a half south of that (4).

That is probably enough context for one post. At some point in the not too distant future we will zoom in on Lushton, to mark the places where some of us lived so many years ago, then move in even closer with pictures of family landmarks taken earlier this month.

(BTW, it is still Thursday in Colorado, so this legitimately qualifies as the “tomorrow’s post” promised yesterday.)

The barn is …

the same barn as shown in this previously posted photograph.

As explained in that earlier post here, this is the barn on the Peter P Buller farm, where Grandpa and his brothers and sisters grew up.

I am uncertain when this barn was built, but it must be nearly a century old, if not more. Given its age, the barn remains in remarkable condition, with all but the north end bearing the same original siding and the brick silo still standing.

To the west of the barn, across the current driveway, is the house where Peter P and Margaretha raised their family. Like the barn, the original structure remains in good shape. (Not pictured is an addition to the north [right] that leads to a separate but attached garage.)

We will return to the From Brüttisellen to Lushton series shortly, but tomorrow’s post will put the Peter P farm in geographical context, showing its relation to Peter D’s original farm, Henderson, Grandma’s childhood home, several cemeteries where our ancestors were laid to rest, Lushton, and Grandpa and Grandma’s Lushton farm.

Name that barn 2!

Yesterday’s photograph shows the west side, the southwest corner, and the south end of the barn. The first of today’s photographs shows the east side, the northeast corner, and the north end of the same barn. Note also the brick silo with a metal roof, which makes the identification of this barn certain.

The second photo is from north of the barn looking south.

Tomorrow’s post will identify the barn and show the building west across the driveway.

Name that barn!

This is not the first time the barn pictured below has appeared on Buller Time blog. Can you identify it? This photograph was taken just a few days ago (8 May 2015, at 9:51 AM CDT, to be exact). I will offer an additional clue tomorrow.

Since I am running behind on all fronts, including Buller Time, let me say for now:

• Happy birthday, Payten!
• Happy birthday, Dan!
• Happy birthday, Taylor!