George Buller in 1700

The Buller chart shown in the earlier post in this series (here) noted that George Buller husband of Dina Thoms lived in the village of Schönsee in 1695. As mentioned earlier, Schönsee was approximately 10 miles to the east–northeast of the Przechowka church, as shown in the map below.

Although we did not see George in the 1705 and 1715 lists in the prior post, he does appear again in records associated with Schönsee. Once again Herbert Wiebe provides the information (1952, 96), in this case the signing of a lease in the year 1700. Wiebe offers the main terms of the lease in German, but it seems more likely that the original was written in Polish. Whatever the language, the gist of the terms were as follows (boldface labels added for clarity):

lessor: Council of Culm

area being leased: 15 Hufen [= 620 acres] [The specific area is identified further as “to the Sandhooves,” but what that means is unclear.]

lessees: Michel Meister (mayor), Georg Buller and Georg Boltz (councilors), and the Nachbarn [neighbors] Ferdinand Hube, David Fot, Andres Decker, and Peter Siewert

term of the lease: 1700–1740

lease payment: 10,000 florin/gulden per year + 1,018 florin/gulden [It is unclear why two amounts are listed.]

secondary terms: the four craftsmen (presumably the same as the Nachbarn)—linen weaver, blacksmith, cooper, and tailor—are permitted to train apprentices but must deliver 3 pounds of wax as a craft money to their guild in Culm

place and date of agreement: Culm town hall, 2 May 1700

place of deposit: Polish certificate, Pergament 322, 34, liber actorum 322,141

A few observations, comments, and questions:

1. It is interesting to see that seven individuals—not all of them obviously Mennonite (e.g., Meister and Boltz)—leased this large plot (equivalent to a square mile) together. Did they plan to farm this land together as a single tract? Would they subdivide it so that each renter had his own smaller farm? Is it possible that they were leasing this land from the city of Culm in order to sublet it to others? Any of these options seems possible.

2. There seems to be a distinction between the first three men (mayor and two councilors) and the last four (craftsmen). One also wonders whether these craftsmen really planned to farm the land they were leasing. Might this imply that these seven leased the plot not as land for them to farm but rather as an investment, subletting the land to others at a profit? This is pure speculation, but it does seem curious to have seven men, four of whom are not farmers as their primary occupation, lease such a large, undifferentiated tract of land.

3. For our own family interests, what is most striking is the recognition that, although George Buller lived in Schönsee in 1695 (the earlier post here) and signed his name to a forty-year lease in 1700, by 1705 he no longer lived in Schönsee—as evidenced by the fact that his name does not appear on the 1705 or 1715 Schönsee lists likewise shown in the earlier post. George was in Schönsee in 1695 and 1700 but gone by the time 1705 rolled around.

Where did he go? Who went with him? How did his relocation affect his forty-year lease? All these questions merit some consideration—and a future post.

Another question also comes to mind: If George was a landowner/lessor in 1695 (as the first list here indicates), then he must have already had a lease in place at that time. When did he make that lease? Recall from the lease above that George was a councilor in the village of Schönsee. This would imply that he had achieved a certain stature by 1700. At the least, he probably had not moved to Schönsee within the previous few years. When might George have moved to Schönsee? We will return to this question as well after we consider one more piece of evidence about our earliest-known ancestor George Buller.

Source Cited

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.