1873: First Russian Mennonites leave for North America

On February 4, 1873, ministers and elders held a special meeting in Elder Isaak Peters’ Pordenau Molotschna church (note 1). It was a larger building with balcony, constructed in 1860 after the original 1828 stone church building had been torn down. They had put down deep roots in Russia; nonetheless Peters spoke strongly in favour of emigration and supported a decision to send land scouts to America. The team was given a mandate to negotiate for the possibility of some 50 to 60,000 Mennonite immigrants (note 2).

Eager to compete with the United States for settlers, the Canadian government passed an Order-in-Council on March 3, 1873 to create a Mennonite reservation of nine-and-one-third townships (note 3). The twelve-member deputation—including two Molotschna elders—which had been sent to North America returned in September with a favourable report (note 4).

Despite divergent opinions on the ground, the first hundred Russian Mennonite agriculturalists arrived in the United States in September 1873, and were heralded by the Boston-based Baptist press not only as “the advanced guard of 40,000 others,” but also as “the new pilgrims”: “Nothing can be more valuable to us in helping to perpetuate those principles which the Plymouth Pilgrims brought here … than a new influx of men ready to sacrifice all things for conscience and Christ” (note 5).

Heinrich J. Bräul was the teacher in the Pordenau schoolhouse in 1873. Of the 32 families represented in his 1873–74 school register, at least seven departed for Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Dakotas and Manitoba (note 6).

James Urry estimates that 784 Molotschna families representing 4,500 people or 20 percent of the colony emigrated between 1873 and 1880 (note 7). In Pordenau, for example, the schoolhouse had thirteen fewer students in 1875–76 than two years earlier, a drop of 21 percent despite the arrival of new families—Koop, Nickel, and Schulz.

Most in the community did not leave until 1874 and following. In May 1874, two Pordenau ministers delivered their farewell sermons. Elder Isaak Peters was convinced with others that the Tsar’s offer of alternative service was “an unevangelical association with the ‘Beast,’ the state, hostile to God.” Because of his open advocacy for emigration, Peters was expelled from Russia; he continued to actively recruit immigrants from North America. “Mennonites who wish to stay true to the confession of their forefathers cannot agree to the service expected of them. … They have no option but to emigrate” (note 8). Three decades later he had lodged his own account of events squarely into the longer Anabaptist martyr tradition.

Russia's modernizing vision in which all were to become "citizens" (vs. subjects) with the same rights and same privileges, including on issues of military service and schooling, were troublesome. Bergthal Elder Gerhard Wiebe’s concern was to “protect and save” the children not only from military service, but also from “religious decline.” The accommodations under consideration were for him a sign of “nightfall upon Christendom,” namely that Mennonites had grown “tired of listening to the Word of God.” Wiebe’s younger ministerial colleague in Bergthal, David Stoesz, echoed the fear that “in most places … there is now a famine and darkness among the Christians,” just as the prophet Joel had prophesied of the time “before the terrible day of the Lord would come” (note 9). According to Wiebe, “[h]umility has disappeared and arrogance lets them go their own way and stand against God.” Wiebe and Stoesz framed Russia’s modernizing policies in terms of an end-time scenario—the dreaded downfall of the world, or less apocalyptically, the fall of the church.

It was from Sumatra that Russian Mennonite missionary and elder Heinrich Dirks advised his brethren against a mass migration to Canada: he knew that Mennonites who wished to be separate from the world would discover that even in the most distant places, the fallen world would one day find them out (note 10). The reasons for leaving were complex, and more than theological (note 11),

Ultimately about a third of the Mennonite community in Russia emigrated by 1880, splitting families and church communities in changing times. Teacher Bräul remained in Pordenau tasked in part to rebuild the fabric of the community, while his cousin and future Bergthal elder Johann Funk left to create a new, separated and more conservative Mennonite world on the Canadian prairie (note 12; pic).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Cf. “Peters, Isaak (1826–1911),” https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Peters,_Isaak_(1826-1911); Dennis D. Engbrecht, “The Settlement of Russian Mennonites in York and Hamilton Counties, Nebraska,” Mennonite Life 39, no. 2 (1984), 7, https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1984jun.pdf (with pic); Isaac Peters, “Die Auswanderung der Mennoniten aus Südrußland,” Zur Heimath [Kansas] 1, no. 4 (1875), 1, https://bethelcollege.advantage-preservation.com/viewer/?t=29813&i=t&d=01011875-12311921&fn=zur_heimath_usa_illinois_summerfield_18750501_english_1&df=21&dt=30; also idem, “An Account of the Cause and Purpose that led to the Emigration of the Mennonites from Russia to America,” Herald of Truth 44, no. 45–47 (November 7, 14, 21, 1907), 417–418; 427; 437–438, https://archive.org/details/heraldoftruth44unse/mode/1up.

Note 2: Cf. the memoir of delegate Elder Leonhard Sudermann, Eine Deputationsreise von Rußland nach Amerika vor vierundzwanzig Jahren (Elkhardt, IN: Mennonitische Verlagshandlung, 1897), 7; 9f., https://archive.org/details/einedeputationsr00sude/.

Note 3: Arthur S. Morton, History of Prairie Settlement and “Dominion Lands” Policy, vol. II. Toronto: Macmillan, 1936), 54, https://archive.org/details/P006212/page/54/mode/2up?q=mennonites; cf. John Lowe, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, March 12th, 1873, to Wm. Hespeler, Waterloo, Ontario, reprinted in Ernst Correll, “Mennonite Immigration into Manitoba (II),” 280. Manitoba: Sources and Documents, 1872, 1873 (Part II),” Mennonite Quarterly Review 11, no. 3 (July 1937), 280.

Note 4: Cf. Sudermann, Eine Deputationsreise.

Note 5: “The New Pilgrims,” Watchman and Reflector 54, no. 36 (Sept. 4, 1873), 2.

Note 6: Cf. Arnold Schroeder, trans., “Molotschna School Registers, 1873–1874,” http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/school73.htm, and “Molotschna School Registers, 1875–1876,” http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/school75.htm, as well as the corresponding entries in the “Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry” (GRanDMA). Bernhard Fast family to Kansas, 1874; Johann Fast family to Minnesota, 1875; Franz Janzen family to Nebraska, 1879; Isaak Loewen family to Manitoba, 1874; Franz Toews family to Minnesota 1857; Heinrich Unruh family to the Dakotas in 1874; Jacob Schulz family (see 1875–76 Register) to Kansas, 1879. Five further Pordenau families are listed in April 1874 as wishing to resettle in America; see Steve Fast, trans., “List of Molotschna Mennonites wishing to immigrate to America, 1874,” Russian State Historical Archive, St. Petersburg, Fond 1246, Opis, 1 Delo 8, 109–120, http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/Molotschna1874.html.

Note 7: James Urry, cited in Helmut Huebert, Hierschau: An Example of Russian Mennonite Life (Winnipeg, MB: Springfield, 1986), 89, https://archive.org/details/HierschauAnExampleOfRussianMennoniteLifeOCRopt/page/n113.

Note 8: Peters, “Die Auswanderung der Mennoniten aus Südrußland,” 1; also idem, “An Account of the Cause and Purpose that led to the Emigration." The reasons however were not all theological; cf. previous posts linked in footnote 2 above.

Note 9: Lawrence Klippenstein, “Aeltester David Stoesz and the Bergthal Story: Some Diary Notes [Part I],” Mennonite Life 31, no. 1 (April 1976) 15, https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1976apr.pdf. See also Gerhard Wiebe, Ursachen und Geschichte der Auswanderung der Mennoniten aus Russland nach Amerika (Winnipeg, MB, 1900), 29, https://chortitza.org/Pis/Wiebe.pdf.

Note 10: Cf. George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Rußland, vol. II (Lage: Logos, 1998), 232.

Note 11: See Franz Isaac, Die Molotschnaer Mennoniten. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte derselben (Halbstadt, Taurien: H. J. Braun, 1908), 319, https://archive.org/details/die-molotschnaer-mennoniten-editablea, ET: https://www.mharchives.ca/download/3573/. Also previous posts, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/1870s-emigration-more-complicated-than.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/1871-mennonite-tough-luck.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/leave-for-kansas-if-pankratzes-go-well.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2024/01/sesquicentennial-proclamation-of.html.

Note 12: Lawrence Klippenstein, “Funk, Johann,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14 (Toronto/ Laval: University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003), http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/funk_johann_14E.html. See previous post (forthcoming).

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History of the Russian Mennonites

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