Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1891-08-06
RUSSIANS IN KANSAS.
Interesting Sketch Of an Interest,"
ing People.

First Settlement of Mennonites in Western
Kansas-How They Made Wild Prafries
Productive-A Queer People Be
coming Ame-icanized.
Noble L. Prentis contributes an inter
esting article to the Kansas City Star
on the settlement of the Mennonites in
Kansas, from which the following is
taken:
when in the years 1874 and 1875 the
people commonly called Russians were
arriving in Kansas, they were regarded
with a special wonder, which did not,
however. lead up to any sufficient in
vestigation by the American multitude.
A Russian was a man who wore q
sheepskin coat with the woody side out,
or woman who wore a black kerchief
tied over or around her head, and who
spent most of her time going some
where with an iron tealsettle. Rus
SIAN and Mennonite were somehow
supposed to mean the same thing, and
there are plenty of people in Kansas
yet who do not know that Mennonite
is the name of religious sect, as Bap-
fist or Methodist, but supposed it to be
the designation of a race or nationality.
All Russians were supposed to be of
the same faith, with the same peculiar
tiles of dress and manners and coming
from the same region in Russia
''As the years have passed the real
situation has slowly become under
stood, and, for one thing, those who
have sufficient interest in the most re-
markable immigration Kansas has ever
known, have learned that that great
accession to the working force of Kan
sas was not Russian bit German.
Kansas has not to-day, it is probable,
single citizen who could be counted as
in blood and language Russian, and
all these thousands, though coming to
Kansas from Russia, and for years after
spoken of as Russians were Germans
in lineage, in language, in feeling, as
much SO as if they had come from Sax
ony, or Bavaria or Prussia.
''These Germau-Russians were di-
vided into two bodies; the larger num-
Der coming from Southern Russia,
country extending from the Turkish
frontier eastward, embracing all the
wheat growing country north of Odes-
sa, and the Crimea ITSELF were in reli-
gion Mennonites and settled finally in
the counties of Marion, Reno, Harvey,
still large body, coming from the coun-
try of the Volga river on the confines
of Asia, were Catholics in religion and
settled for the most part in the county
of Ellis.
SIT will be perceived that these were
important differences, but they were
lost sight of by the American public.
The Mennonities being the larger body
were regarded with more of newspaper
attention, and they have become, as it
were, better understood. The word
Russian is seldom applied to them in
these later years, and there is now less
distinction between them and the rest
of the population than there is between
their distant kinSmen the Pennsylvania
Dutch, and the rest of the Pensylva-
Mans"
After referring to the thousand or so
immigrants from Russia who, in the
years 1875, 1876 and 1877, went out into
the counties of Ellis and Russell on the
old Kansas Pacific, as to an agricultur-
al country, moved, like the children of
Israel, rather more by faith than by
sight, and some historical discrepan-
cies as to whether Ellis county were
better adapted to stockraising or agri-
culture, and the getting up of a party
to visit the locality, the article con-
tinues:
SIN pursuance of the objects of the
exploration it was resolved to visit
the village of Catharine or, in full,
CatherineStadt, as specimen of Rus
sian village, and on the way the expe-
dition halted at the country residence
of Father Sommereisen, who at one
time had spiritual charge of the colo
! nists. but who now rests from the care
of souls, under his own vine if not his
fig tree. Father Sommereisen, by birth
| an Alsatian, an American citizen since
1854, kindly corrected the historians,
official and otherwise, and likewise the
geographers of Ellis county concerning
the names of Russian villages. For
instance, on the official maps one sees
the township of 'Hartsook,' the proper
name, Father Sommereisen explained,
is Herzog. which may be freely trans
| lated Dukesborough. The other vii
lagos, accepting his spelling. are Cath
arinestadt, or Catherineville; Lieber-
thai, or Love Valley, in Rush county;
Pfeifer, or Fifer, named for some an
Gent player on the fife, and Obermund-
schuh, or the upper mouth (of the
river). Another village called Schoen-
men, OF beauCyVu1c, udu ROue
up or rather down, having been
unfortunately located on the
sand It really had no motive to
live after the neighbors got to calling
it 'Sheniken.' Much other information
the lively and hospitable padre gave of
the Ellis county Russia, but seeing is
believing, and so, pushing on over the
prairie hills, we came upon certain
ridge and looked down upon the valley
of the north fork Of Big creek, and
saw at one glance Herzog and Gather
inestadt and the two great stone
churches towering above the clustered
houses. and between the towns and be-
yond them the dark green corn fields
and yellow, newly shorn wheat fields
of the German farmers who had come
from the other side of the world.
THE German colonists who settled
in Russia back as far as the time Of
Peter the Great whom Father Som
mereisen called Peter Boss, seem to
have adopted the village system, where
the community Of farmers live together
and own a common field and common