Lichtfelde Village History #1: Background

In 1848, Eugen Kaspar von Hahn, chairman of the Guardianship Committee that oversaw the Mennonite and other settlements of foreign origin in South Russia, ordered the settlements to prepare a history (called Gemeindeberichte) of each village. The mayor (schultz) and other officials of Lichtfelde prepared the history for their village, which had been founded in 1821. Since my 3-greats-grandfather Gerhard Abraham Fast #62896 (b. ABT 1788) was one of the original settlers, I will examine the report in detail to see what we can learn about the history of the village and his life. But we will start with some background to the village.

(An online reprint of all the village histories can be found at the Odessa3 collection).

The Molotschna Mennonite Colony, of which Lichtfelde was a part, was founded in 1803 by Mennonite immigrants from West Prussia. Because the Prussian government had restricted their rights to own and inherit land as long as they remained non-resistant and refused to serve in the Prussian army, many of them immigrated to the south Russian steppe. They founded nineteen villages there in the years 1803-1806. But then the immigration slowed dramatically as Prussia eased the restrictions on land ownership and as the Napoleonic Wars made international migration more difficult, and only one new village was founded in the next thirteen years.

1821 Map of Europe, showing migration from West Prussia to south Russia. Source: Lavoisne's 1821 map of Europe.

 

The Prussian government had relaxed restrictions on Mennonites' purchasing royal land during the Napoleonic Wars to raise money, but after winning the war in 1815 they had reinstated the restrictions. Moreover, patriotism surged in Prussia in the years after the victory, so Mennonites were under increased pressure to serve in the military. So beginning in 1818, Mennonite migration from Prussia to Russia surged again. and another twenty villages were founded over the next five years. One of these was Lichtfelde. [Mark Jantzen, Mennonite German Soldiers: Nations, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772-1880 (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame UP, 2010) 94-95.]

We will begin a detailed analysis of the Lichtfelde report in the next blog post.

(h/t Bob Buller and his Buller Time blog, where he has analyzed several village histories.)

Another Mystery

Here's another mystery about the same Gerhard Abraham Fast #62896, my 3-greats-grandfather.  He was born in West Prussia about 1787, and moved to Molotschna Colony in 1817.  He appeared in the 1835 census in the village of Lichtfelde at farm #16 at age 48.

Gergard" Abragamov" Fast" household, 25 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Lichtfelde village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #16.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 333R-334.  Accessed on microfilm from California Mennonite Historical Society, Fresno, California.

But then sometime in the 1840s, Gerhard Abraham's wife, Elisabeth Driedger #62897, appears as as the Widow Fast in the Alexanderwohl church membership list.  Below is a snippet from that church book, listing Abraham Sperling, Catharina Fast, and Widow Fast as members.  I'm sure it is she because the membership numbers show her as #251, the mother of Catharina Fast #250, who married Abraham Sperling #249, which fits the family information.  Moreover, there is only one Fast family in Lichtfelde at this time. So Gerhard Abraham must have died by this point.

Membership record of Abraham Sperling, Catarina Fast, and Witwe Fast, members 249-251, Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church, Alexanderwohl, Molotschna Mennonite District, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, Russia, Kirchen Buch der Gemeinde zu Alexanderwohl, no page.  Accessed at http://mla.bethelks.edu/archives, microfilm chr_17, congregation #15, "Russian Book," frame 16 on 25 July 2013.

The 1847 Molotschna voter's list also shows her as Widow Fast in Lichtfelde.  Here is her line from the tabulation of the votes from Lichtfelde village:

Witwe Fast [Widow Fast] entry, 12 November 1847, Wahlliste der Dorfsgemeinde Lichtfelde [Election List for Lichtfelde Town Meeting], Lichtfelde village, Molotschna Mennonite District, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, Russia, Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Fond 6, Inventory 2, File 10510, p. 47.  Accessed at Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, Hillsboro, Kansas.

The line reads "Witwe Fast," which means Widow Fast, and then it shows the candidates for whom she voted for village mayor and district administrator.  Again, a record shows that she was a widow, which means that her husband Gerhard Abraham must be dead.

Now here is the mystery - in 1874 when he would have been 86 years old, Gerhard Abraham wrote a letter to his son Jacob, my great-great-grandfather to bid farewell to Jacob as he prepared to leave for America.  Here is the first page of the letter:

Letter, Gerhard Abraham Fast to Jacob Fast, 14 February 1874.  Copy held by Viola (Fast) Funk of Corn, Oklahoma.  A Fast cousin in Oregon sent a copy to Minnie Fast who sent a copy to David D. Fast.

Clearly the name Gerhard Fast has been added in another hand to the letter, but the content of the letter makes it clear that it was written by Gerhard Abraham Fast, who should have been dead for three decades at this point.  What is going on?

I have only one clue - a clue that I discovered in the Alexanderwohl church book.  Gerhard Abraham's son Gerhard was baptized at Alexanderwohl on 31 May 1843.

Baptism record of Gerhard Fast, 31 May 1843 O.S., Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church, Alexanderwohl, Molotschna Mennonite District, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, Russia, Kirchen Buch der Gemeinde zu Alexanderwohl, p. 90.  Accessed at http://mla.bethelks.edu/archives, microfilm chr_17, congregation #15, "Earliest Kansas List," frame 45.

If you read the columns from left to right, the first one is the baptismal candidate's name - Gerhard Fast.  Then the year of baptism - 1843.  Then the day - 31st - the month of May is omitted here, but it is in the page heading.  Then the candidate's father - Gerhard Fast - is listed.  Finally, his home village of Lichtfelde is given.  Then below that a line of explanatory comments.  First, Atest which refers to a letter of good standing given to transfer to another church, which means that Gerhard the son must have transferred to another congregation at some point.  Then under the father's name are two comments, gestorben and gekommen, which means "he died" and "he came." Gestorben is even crossed out.

Could this mean that Gerhard Abraham was thought dead for some time in the 1840s but then he returned?  This is the only explanation that I can think of that accounts for all the information. Did he leave on a trip to St. Petersburg or back to West Prussia and not return when expected?  Was he kidnapped and held against his will for some time?  It seems that such an event would have been noted in the Odessa archival files of the colony administration, but I haven't found anything yet.  Until I find more information this will remain a tantalizing mystery.

Family Mysteries

Have you run across events in your family history that you would like to know more about?  Things that intrigued you?  Something that made you ask why?

From the 1835 Molotschna census, I learned that my 3-greats-grandfather, Gerhard Abraham Fast (b. ABT 1787), lived at Ohrloff #25 in the Molotschna Colony in South Russia from 1817 to 1819 before he got a farm in Lichtfelde.  There was a whole list of men who lived at that farm for a few years, so I didn't pay much attention to it.  I didn't even bother looking at the previous page in the census to see how long the list of temporary residents was.

Here is the snippet of the census for Gerhard Abraham Fast:

Gergard" Abragamov" Fast" household, 28 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Ohrloff village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #25.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 222R-223.  Accessed on microfilm from California Mennonite Historical Society, Fresno, California.

Charcoal drawing of Cornies by Tobias Voth.

Then one day when reading a biography of Johann Cornies, the great Mennonite agriculturalist, entrepreneur, reformer, and administrator, I noticed that his farm number was
Ohrloff #25.  That seemed like a familiar number, so I looked through my database and quickly realized that my 3-greats-grandfather had lived there. When I looked at the 1835 census records again, I saw that Johann Cornies had owned the farm.















Here is a snippet from the census showing that Johann Johann Cornies was the owner of #25:

Iogan" Ioganov" Kornis" household, 28 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Ohrloff village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #25.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 221R.  Digital copy from Tim Janzen, Portland, Oregon.

In fact, there were nine families or single men listed who had lived at #25 from 1816, when the last census had been taken, until 1835, and then moved on.  Presumably these nine were young men who worked for Cornies in his many enterprises and then moved on.  Cornies was concerned that young men should get a farm or learn a trade so that they could support themselves.  My 3-greats-grandfather was about 30 years old in 1817 when he had just arrived in Molotschna with his wife and two small children.  And Cornies organized the village of Lichtfelde, to which Gerhard Abraham Fast moved in 1819, as one of the original settlers, and picked the name for it.  So he must have been influential his Gerhard's life.

But I have many questions about this -
How did Cornies and my ancestor get connected?  Did they know each other from Prussia?  Or did they have common friends or relatives?  They did not attend the same church back in Prussia - Cornies went to Bärwalde while Gerhard when to Tiegenhagen.  I haven't been able to find a connection, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't one.

How did it affect my 3-greats-grandfather to work closely with Cornies?  Cornies was the type of person you either loved or hated  - there was no middle ground.  Did the two years on the Cornies farm turn Gerhard into an entrepreneur?  Or was two years all he could take and moved away?  Did Cornies' interest in German Pietism influence Gerhard's family and have something to do with several of them joining the Alexanderwohl church later?  Did my 3-greats-grandfather tell stories about Cornies the rest of his life?  Again, I have no answers, except that relations between the two men must have been sufficiently good that Gerhard took a farm in the new Lichtfelde village that Cornies was organizing.

There are lots of questions and not many answers.  But there is a picture of the Ohrloff #25 farm (many years later of course) where my 3-greats-grandparents lived for a couple of years when they first arrived in Russia:

Formerly Johann Cornies' farm in Ohrloff, Molotschna colony.  Originally from P. M. Friesen's history of Mennonites in Russia.

Using the 1835 Census of Molotschna Colony, Russia

In 1702, Petr I the Great, tsar' of Russia, ordered that a census be taken of all of Russia for drafting men into the military and collecting taxes more efficiently.  This was the first census of Russia.  (Although the 1897 census is often described as the first census of Russia, this is not quite correct - it was the first census of the Russian Empire, and Russia did not formally become an empire until 1721.)  The first census was revised periodically in what was called a reviziia in Russian.

The Center for Volga German Studies in Portland, Ore., has put together a list of the revisions to the first census.
1st Revision – ~1719
2nd Revision – ~1743
3rd Revision – ~1767
4th Revision – ~1775
5th Revision – ~1798
6th Revision – ~1811
7th Revision – ~1816
8th Revision – ~1834
9th Revision – ~1850
10th Revision – ~1857

For Molotschna Colony in south Russia, the 8th revision, taken in early 1835 in Molotschna, is available in its entirety and is one of the most valuable genealogical records for Molotschna because it lists the name, age, relationship to head of household, and village for every person. Here is some information on how to use it.

First, you will need to look your ancestor up in the index that Richard Thiessen compiled.  The index is of every head of household and of stepsons and other males who have a different last name from the head of household.  For example, let's assume I'm trying to find my ancestor Jacob Fast who emigrated to the US in 1874.  I know that he was born in 1831 and emigrated from the village of Lichtfelde.  I've extracted all the Jacob Fasts from the index, but since he was only 4 years old in 1835, I'm not likely to find him in the index of heads of household below:

Richard D. Thiessen, "Index to the 1835 Molotchna Census", Russian Mennonite Genealogical Resources web site, corrected version of 28 March 2010.  Accessed online at http://mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/1835cein.htm#F on 15 September 2016.

As expected, I find no Jacob Fast from Lichtfelde born at the right time.  The Jakob Kornelius Fast at Lichtfelde #25 was born way too early in 1787.  So I need to look for my Jacob's father. 

Let's assume that Jacob's father was at least 17 years old when Jacob was born in 1831 and no older than 70.  That means that Jacob's father would have been born between about 1765 and 1818.  Let's look for all the Fast heads of household in Lichtfelde born 1765-1818.

So there are three Fasts living in Lichtfelde in 1835, all born at the right time to be Jacob Fast's father.  The name of the village and farm follow the person's name.  So let's look in the English translation of the census at each of the three Fasts I marked.

The English translation of the census is available from the Mennonite Heritage Centre in Winnipeg for 50 USD.  (It's also available free to use at most Mennonite archives.)  It's a valuable document, but the translation was made from a very poor copy, so there are lots of mistakes in it.  I've posted corrections to a large part of the translation, comparing it to a good-quality microfilm of the original; but there are many pages I haven't looked at.

When I check the three Fasts in Lichtfelde, there is only one with a son Jacob, and that is Gerhard Abram, the second one marked on the list above.  Jacob (circled in red) was 4 years old in the census, so he would have been born in about 1831, so that matches.

Gerhard Abram Fast household, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Lichtfelde village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #16.  Translated by Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Now let's confirm it by looking at the original.  A microfilm of the original is found at many Mennonite archives, but I purchased a copy for 10 USD from the California Mennonite Historical Society in Fresno, California. 

Gergard" Abragamov" Fast" household, 25 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Lichtfelde village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #16.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 333R-334.  Accessed on microfilm from California Mennonite Historical Society, Fresno, California.

The original confirms that Jacob (circled in red, Якобъ in Russia) was Gerhard Abraham Fast's son and that he was 4 years old and thus born in ABT 1831.  So I've confirmed that I have found the right Jacob Fast.  The census also gives me his father (and mother) and higher up on the page it says that his father emigrated in 1817 to Russia.  Now I have enough information that I could go searching for Gerhard Abraham Fast in West Prussia.