Alexanderwohl 11

Right on cue, another Buller pops up as we work our way through the village. In addition to locating this Buller on our family tree, we want to continue to note the varying circumstances under which all the families emigrated to Molotschna. When did they make the journey? What possessions did they bring along? Did they receive a governmental loan to establish themselves in Alexanderwohl or pay for their expenses out of their own funds? With those questions in mind, we turn to Alexanderwohl 9.

Wirtschaft 9

The 1835 census lists only one name for this plot, and he bears all the signs of an original settler:

Buller, Jakob Peter (b. ca.1758)

Jacob Peter Buller was certainly old enough to be an original settler in Alexanderwohl (sixty-three in 1821, when the village was founded), and we know well that Buller was a common last name in the Przechovka church. Further data both confirm our hunch and clarify a few details about Jacob Buller.

According to GRANDMA, Jacob (GM 318737) was actually born in 1760; his estimated date of birth in the census is a few years off, so he was only sixty-one when he emigrated. After bearing him eight children (Anicke, Eva, Heinrich, Lencke, Elscke, Maricke, Jacob, and Sara), Jacob’s first wife Elscke Wedels died in 1809; he remarried, but his second wife, Ancke Pankratzen, passed away in 1813. Consequently, Jacob apparently emigrated as a single person (unless a third marriage took place but was not recorded), accompanied by his two youngest children, who turned twenty-five and eighteen in 1821. Jacob does not appear in any of the passport or visa records documented in Rempel 2007, so we know nothing further about the circumstances of his move.

The easiest way to explain his relation to our family line is via the Buller chart that we have consulted previously. Our line is the one with red names; Jacob’s line is to the right, and he is directly opposite Benjamin Heinrich Buller. Jacob’s father was Peter, whose father was George, whose parents were George Buller and Dina Thoms.

Equally important is Jacob’s relation to other Bullers living in Alexanderwohl. His daughter Maricke, for example, was married to Heinrich Schmidt, and they were the original settlers of Alexanderwohl 5, a mere four houses down the street from Jacob (see the post here). Other close relatives of Jacob will also appear in Alexanderwohl, and we will note them as they do. For now it is enough to add Jacob Peter Buller to the roster of Alexanderwohl’s original settlers: our seventh identification out of nine Wirtschaften, six of whom came from the Przechovka church.

Wirtschaft 10

Two names of equal plausibility, at least at first glance, are given for Alexanderwohl 10:

Schmidt, Andreas Peter (b. ca.1777)
Unrau, David Johann (b. ca.1764)

Both are old enough to be original settlers, and both bear surnames with long-term associations with the Przechovka church. So little is known of Andreas Schmidt (merely the names of his father and mother) that we cannot suggest him as a likely original settler; we do not know when he emigrated to Molotschna or where he first settled, so we must set him aside as a probable candidate, although it remains possible that he originally settled Alexanderwohl 10.

We know much more about David Unrau (GM 87011; PCB 987), who emigrated to Russia at the same time as the rest of the Przechovka church, along with his third wife Catharina/Trincke and their sons Heinrich and David (David’s earlier children were either deceased or married, it seems), as the 17 August 1820 visa attests (Rempel 2007, 173). The Unraus were well off, as reflected in their settlement report:

David Unrau (Давид Унрау), whose family consists of 3 males and 1 female. Settled in Russia in the year 1820. They had with them 800 rubles cash, possessions valued at 406 rubles, 50 kopeks, 1 wagon, 2 horses and 2 head of cattle; wagon, horse or head of cattle cost 316 rubles. Settled at their own expense. (Rempel 2007, 177)

The next entry in Rempel’s 2007 collection is also named David Unrau, but the one described above is almost certainly the resident of Alexanderwohl 10, since the family composition matches exactly that of David and Catharina. Given what we do know about David Unrau and family and what we do not know about Andreas Schmidt and family, the safest, most reasonable conclusion is that David Unrau was a founding settler of Alexanderwohl. Until clear evidence indicates otherwise, we will add him to the list as such.

Wirtschaft 11

The 1835 census entry lists a single name for Alexanderwohl 11:

Schroeder, Heinrich Isaak (b. ca.1769)

The birth year would place Schroder’s age at around forty-two when Alexanderwohl was founded, which is a reasonable age for an original settler. Unfortunately, the surname is not one found in the Przechovka church, and the information provided on his visa (see Rempel 2007, 174) confirms that Schroeder probably did not come from that church. The village listed on Schroeder’s visa, Podwitz, was, to be sure, only six miles east of Przechovka, on the other side of the Vistula River. However, according to Glenn Penner (here), Podwitz Mennonites generally attended the Schönsee church, which seems to indicate fairly clearly that the Heinrich Schroeder family were not members of the Przechovka group.

Nevertheless, since Schroeder did live extremely close to Alexanderwohl’s founders, one cannot help but wonder if he was part of the larger group that emigrated to Russia in late 1820. He secured his visa at the same time (early September) as they did, and he settled in Russia and established a household there in the same year, as the Russian settlement report indicates: 

Heinrich Schroeder (Гейнрих Шретер), whose family consists of 3 males and 3 females. Settled in Russia in the year 1820. They had with them 100 rubles cash, possessions valued at 206 rubles, 60 kopeks, 1 wagon, 1 horse and no cattle; wagon, horse or head of cattle cost 260 rubles. The local administration suggested providing financial aid for the purchase of 1 horse, 2 head of cattle, at a sum of 160 rubles, and also for building a house and establishing the household, at a sum of 489 rubles. (Rempel 2007, 176)

Two final pieces of evidence deserve consideration. First, the 1835 census lists no one else as having resided at Alexanderwohl 11, which might imply that only Schroeder lived there between 1821 and 1835. Second, the census does not list any other location for Schroder (i.e., he appears only once in the census, for Alexanderwohl), which we would not expect if he settled first in some other village and then moved to Alexanderwohl later.

Taking all the evidence together, we can reasonably conclude that Heinrich Schroeder was a founding settler in Alexanderwohl. The fact that he emigrated from near Przechovka but was not a member of that church does add a new wrinkle to our understanding of the origin of Alexanderwohl. Perhaps the Gemeindebericht (community report) overstates things when it claims that “this community … had existed as a church in Prussia for over 200 years.” Of course, the majority of Alexanderwohl’s early settlers did come from the Przechovka church; nevertheless, it may be that Mennonites from other churches in the immediate area accompanied them and then settled alongside them. Only additional research will reveal the extent to which this impression accurately represents the historical reality.

Alexanderwohl’s Original Settlers

Wirtschaft	Settler	GM Number	Notes
1	Martin Jacob Kornelsen	33801	PCB: 1250
	Anna Unrau	32780	first husband: David Buller
2	Heinrich Peter Block	29475	settlement year: 1823
3	?????
4	Peter Jacob Voth	268847	PCB ???
5	Heinrich David Schmidt	32966	PCB 1345
	Maricke Buller	32967	PCB 1355
6	Peter Johann Unrau	60318	PCB 1229; emigrated 1819
7	David Bernhard Voth	60325	Przechovka
8	?? Peter Franz Goerz	819683	to Alexanderwohl in 1826
9	Jacob Peter Buller	318737	PCB 377; emigrated 1820
10	David Johann Unrau	87011	PCB 987; emigrated 1820
11	Heinrich Isaak Schroeder	14829	Schönsee church; emigrated 1820

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.