Waldheim settlers

Since we have already compared the 1839 list of arrivals in Waldheim with the 1833 list of those who wished to relocate from Ostrowka to Molotschna (i.e., Waldheim) (see here), our need to examine the list in greater detail is limited. That being said, there is one important historical witness to which we may compare the 1839 list: the 1848 Gemeindeberichte (community report) for Waldheim.

We translated and examined the Gemeindeberichte over the course of several posts (here and here), so there is no need to return to it in detail. We should point out, however, what the community says about the founding of the village:

This village was founded in 1836. That year eight landowners settled in it, twelve in the year 1838, and twenty landowners in 1840.

The 1839 list offers slightly different information. In the notes to the list (i.e., notes original to the list, not added later) we read, in Steve Fast’s translation:

In 1838, 8 families were settled in Waldheim colony and for them upon dividing already pri__d with land of 520 desiatin and received? to their possession? 13 families with their allotment of land of 845 desiatin to consist in the colony of Waldheim in general 21 families of land _______ with allotments of total land of 1365 desiatin.

Several discrepancies should be noted.

1. According to the Gemeindeberichte, the first Mennonites settled in Waldheim in 1836. The 1839 list seems to date that event to 1838. The only possible way to harmonize the two is to understand the 1839 list to be saying merely that eight families were living in Waldheim in 1838, with no indication of when they arrived. That seems a forced understanding of what the text says. Further, the following discrepancy simply cannot be harmonized, which calls into question attempts to harmonize the two documents with regard to Waldheim’s establishment date.

2. The Gemeindeberichte reports that the second group of settlers were given land in 1838; this list, which is explictly concerned with the second group (since it lists their names), dates their arrival to 1839.

3. The Gemeindeberichte claims that the second group consisted of twelve families; the 1839 record lists thirteen heads of household.

Of course, we should also note that the two sources agree that eight settlers arrived during the first year of Waldheim’s existence. It is also important to consider the internal consistency of the 1839 list. That is, the 1839 list records the number of settlers and the amount of land distributed, and all the figures provided reflect a 65-dessiatine allotment to each family: 8 x 65 = 530; 13 x 65 = 845; and 21 x 65 = 1,365.

So which of these two documents are we to believe? In my view, the document closest in time to the events it reports should be preferred. To put it bluntly, the 1839 list is correct, the Gemeindeberichte mistaken. A document written on 24 November 1839 is more reliable about the events of 1838 and 1839 than one written nearly ten years later, one that may well have relied on people’s memories, not written records. The composers of the 1839 list, Oberschultz (district mayor) Johann Regier (see the GAMEO article here) and his scribe ???? Reimer, presumably knew when the first eight settlers had arrived, and they would not have mistakenly stated that those settlers had been in Waldheim for one year when they actually had owned property in Waldheim for three years. Johann Regier was district mayor over that entire period, and he was responsible to know who received which land and when.

Likewise, Regier and Reimer list thirteen names on the 1839 list, not twelve. They obviously know who is to receive land at the beginning of the following year, and they correctly counted thirteen of them. With twenty-one landowners allotted land by the end of 1839, there remained space only for nineteen additional landowners, since the village was limited to forty Wirtschaften. Once again the Gemeindeberichte is mistaken when it states that twenty families received land in the third year of emigration.

In sum, we have every reason to trust the 1839 list of arrivals and good reason to doubt the 1848 Gemeindeberichte when it is contradicted by more reliable records. The upshot of all this is that we need to correct, I believe, the standard account of the founding of Waldheim as follows (changes in bold font):

This village was founded in 1838. That year eight landowners settled in it, thirteen in the year 1839, and nineteen [?] landowners in 1840.

We do not need to suspect everything else written in the Gemeindeberichte—unless more reliable sources give us cause to do so. If nothing else, this episode serves as an excellent reminder that we should view all of our historical reconstructions as tentative, subject to revision and correction as additional evidence requires.