The Village of Waldheim, 1848 from Margarete Woltner’s Gemeindeberichte of 1848 The following introduction to the 1848 Gemeindeberichte is taken from the GRHS (Germans from Russia Heritage Society) website: Introduction to the Village History Project by Dale Wahl. State Councilor E. von Hahn held the position of president of the Welfare Committee of German settlers in South Russia (the Fuersorgekomitee der Auslaendischen Ansiedler in Sued-Russland). The Gemeindeberichte were submitted to the Welfare Committee in accordance with a circular letter dated 8 January 1848 sent out by Councilor E. von Hahn to all of the mayors and school teachers enjoining them to undertake the writing of an historical account of the founding and development of the existing colonies. Giesinger reports that in 1848, there were 203 villages in the Black Sea Region. Some of these histories were published over the next few years in an Odessa German newspaper, the Unterhaltungsblatt fuer deutsche Ansiedler im suedlichen Russland. It is thought that this was Hahn's original intent. However, in 1854, with the majority still unpublished, the newspaper stopped carrying them. They then lay forgotten in the archives of the former Supervisory Office in Odessa for about 5 decades. Early in the twentieth century, Konrad Keller, a Catholic priest, is credited for "discovering" this valuable historical material. Keller used these histories in his two volumes of The German Colonies in South Russia, with volume 1 being published in 1905 and volume 2 in 1914. We should take special note that Keller's work does not contain these histories verbatim as written in 1848, but included with material obtained from other sources as part of the work. In 1904, pastor Jakob Stach used these histories in his book, The German Colonies in South Russia, and later edited a large number of the Gemeindeberichte for publication in German newspapers in the Black Sea Region. In 1926 and 1927 Dr. Georg Leibbrandt and a Catholic Priest, Dr Josef A. Malinowsky, published 59 of the Gemeindeberichte for the Black Sea colonies in Germany. In 1941, Margarete Woltner published 114 of the Gemeindeberichte in Die Gemeindeberichte von 1848 der deutschen Siedlungen am Schwarzen Meer (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1941). Eight of these were previously unpublished while the other 106 were reprinted from Russian German periodicals of which many had been edited by Stach. A transcription of Woltner’s publication was prepared by Roger W. Ehrich in 2005: http://odessa3.org/collections/towns/link/woltner48.txt or http://chort.square7.ch/kb/woltner1.pdf. Will Vogt has prepared links to those village histories dealing with Mennonite villages: http://chort.square7.ch/Buch/Ber48a.htm. Waldheim This colony was founded in the year 1836. In the same year 8 Wirte were settled, in 1838 - 12 and 1840 - 20. The mayor's office was occupied by Cornelius Wedel for 10 years and Christian Schlabach is in his second year. The colony located on the stream Behemtschukrak and bordered to the east by the land of the crown village Chernigovka , in the south by the village Gnadenfeld , to the west by the newly founded village Hierschau , to the north by the crown land which is leased by the Mennonite Heinrich Janzen of the village of Schoensee . The colony is 80 werst from Berdyansk and 350 werst from Simferpol . The very different, black, [grandig?], stony and [gelblehmige; yellow- loamy?] soil is very suitable for the cultivation of grain. Also, despite the high elevation, hay is in abundance. The 68 families of this colony have come from the governorate of Volynia , from the following locations : 1 ) from the colony Ostowa in the Lutz region on the estates of the nobleman Michael Bitschowskij and whither they had come from the region of Rokonosch not far from the town Wissotzk manor [Grundherrschaft] of nobleman Watzlaf Vorainy; 2 ) from the colony Wolla on the estates of the nobleman Ignat Bitschowskij whither they had come from the manor [Grundherrschaft] of the Count Olisarow near the town Rawalowka in the Lutz region and 3 ) from the Novogorod Volhynsk region from the estate of prince Ljubomirskij . Their fathers (mostly deceased) migrated to the above mentioned locations in the years 1806-1818 from the province Neumark near Driesen and from the village Schwez in West Prussia. Their advocate in negotiating permission from the crown to settle and their leader on the trip from Volhynia to the Molotschna Mennonite District in 1835 was Cornelius Wedel. With the permission of the crown, and through the mediation of the chairman of the Agricultural Association, Johann Cornies, and the Molotschna Mennonites district office, the settlers were allotted land previously held in rent by Cornies and which was quite empty. The portion of settlers who were very well off received no support from the crown; any necessary help came from the older, already settled, farmers. Their assets were allowed to be up to 400 silver rubles. Since the settlers in Volhynia had lived mostly in forests, Johann Cornies gave their colony the name Waldheim. Mayor Schlabbach; Beisitzer (councilors): David Kuehn, Johann Fast; Teacher Heinrich Dirks [ footnotes not included ] Created 25 June 2016; HTML by Richard D. Thiessen Return to the Mennonite Genealogy Russian Mennonite Genealogical Resource Page .