Waldheim settlers 5

In an earlier post (here) we examined the “List of Mennonites in Waldheim Who Planted Potatoes and Flax in Spring 1839” (extracted and translated by Glenn Penner) in order to mine it for Buller-relevant information. We discovered that in early 1839 Benjamin II (David’s father) and Benjamin III (David’s brother) planted potatoes for consumption and flax for the weaving of linen. What else one or both may have planted we do not know.

The 1839 list is significant for opening a window on the lives of our family members, but the list is also important for what it tells us about Waldheim’s earliest settlers: the names of the eight original settlers of this Molotschna village. When the evidence of the 1839 list is put together with the other lists we have examined, we are actually able to identify who settled in Waldheim in each of its first four years: 1838, 1839, 1840, and 1841. We begin with the 1839 planting list and the original eight settlers in Waldheim.

The 1839 planting list (which can be viewed in its entirety here) begins with twenty-one numbered names, then continues with fifteen unnumbered names. Thus the first question that comes to mind is: Why are some of the names numbered and others unnumbered? The fact that twenty-one names are numbered points toward the answer. As we have mentioned several times (most recently here), eight settlers were granted Wirtschaften (farms) in 1838 and thirteen more in 1839—a total of twenty-one. Since the planting list reflects the reality of 1839, the twenty-one individuals with numbers are most likely those who had been assigned a Wirtschaft.

Fortunately, because we know all the names of the 1839 settlers from another Waldheim list (see here), we can check our reasonable hyphothesis by comparing the names of the twenty-one people who planted potatoes and flax in 1839 with the list of 1839 settlers.

	1839 Planting List	1839 Settler List
1	Tobias Dirks	Tobias David Dirks
2	Peter Pankratz	Peter Jacob Pankratz
3	Cornelius Wedel	Cornelius Cornelius Wedel
4	Michael Teske
5	Peter Wedel
6	Johann Worwel [Worbel]
7	Peter Nachtigal
8	Cornelius Wedel	Cornelius Cornelius Wedel
9	Heinrich Dirks	Heinrich Johann Dirks
10	Peter Schmidt	Peter Johann Schmidt
11	Jacob Klassen	Jacob Aron Klas [Klassen]
12	David Koehn	David Jacob Kohn
13	Benjamin Buller	Benjamin Benjamin Buller
14	Friedrich Kunkel
15	Benjamin Ratzlaff
16	Christian Teske
17	Peter Sperling
18	Benjamin Wedel	Benjamin Cornelius Wedel
19	David Dirks	David Heinrich Dirks
20	David Koehn	David David Kohn? [or Kol"]
21	Johann Ewert	Johann Heinrich Ewert

The correspondence between the two lists is exact: each of the thirteen 1839 settlers (the right column) appears as a numbered name on the 1839 planting list (left columns). Further, this leaves us exactly eight names of individuals who planted potatoes and flax in 1839. These eight were in all likelihood the original eight settlers in Waldheim, the ones who had received their land allotment in 1838. There is no better explanation at the moment.

The names of Waldheim’s original eight settlers were:

• Michael Teske
• Peter Wedel
• Johann Worwel [Worbel]
• Peter Nachtigal
• Friedrich Kunkel
• Benjamin Ratzlaff
• Christian Teske
• Peter Sperling

This is not the first time we have encountered some of these names, but further discussion of that must await another post. For now, we end by providing a further revision of the 1848 community report (Gemeindeberichte). If you recall, the original read:

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

At this point almost none of the original Gemeindeberichte remains; in fact, the only element of the original that has been found accurate is the statement that Waldheim had eight settlers in its first year. A corrected, expanded version would state:

This village was founded in 1838. That year the following eight landowners settled in it: Michael Teske, Peter Wedel, Johann Worbel (or Werbel), Peter Nachtigal, Friedrich Kunkel, Benjamin Ratzlaff, Christian Teske, and Peter Sperling. Thirteen additional landowners settled in the year 1839; their names were Tobias David Dirks, Peter Jacob Pankratz, Cornelius Cornelius Wedel, Cornelius Cornelius Wedel, Heinrich Johann Dirks, Peter Johann Schmidt, Jacob Aron Klassen, David Jacob Köhn, Benjamin Benjamin Buller, Benjamin Cornelius Wedel, David Heinrich Dirks, David David Köhn, and Johann Heinrich Ewert. Seventeen landowners settled in Waldheim in 1840 and two in 1841, filling the forty Wirtschaften allotted to the village.

The next post will expand the list of names further by comparing the unnumbered names on the 1839 planting list with other lists we have already examined. When we are finished, we will have identified the names of all forty Waldheim settlers for the years 1838–1841.