The Volga Germans

AHSGR, Work Paper No. 5, February 1971

(Excerpts)

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The Volga Germans

In 1874 the Evangelical and Catholic Volga German colonies held meetings which resulted in the election of 14 delegates whom they sent to the United States to look for land. Nine of them were Evangelical and five were Catholic. They came over on the ship Schiller or the Hamburg America Line. They were in the states of Arkansas, Kansas, and Nebraska. In September of the same year the immigration from the Volga began. The Protestants went to Sutton, Nebraska, and the Catholics to Kansas. Some of the Protestants also went to Kansas. (MY NOTES: Did this have anything to do with the Wagner/Ehlenberger desire to come to America?)


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The Protestant Volga Germans started for Kansas around Christmas, 1875. They settled first near Peabody, Marion, and Tampa in the neighborhood of the Mennonites in Marion county. Later they spread farther est to Rush and Russel counties; also to Bazine and Ness counties. (51)

The Catholic Volga Germans started their immigration to Kansas in October 1875 on the ship Ohio of the North German Lloyd line. They settled also in Rush, Russel, and Ellis counties and organized a number of villages: Liebentaz, Pfeifer, Munior, Schoenchen, Catherine, and Victoria (formerly Herzog). (52) St. Francis has a Black Sea German Settlement. Some Black Sea Germans live near Russel. (53)


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Oregon

The oldest Volga German settlement in this state is in the northern part of Portland. In the 30's this settlement numbered about 500 families. It goes back to 1882, when the Volga Germans, after having worked for the Union Pacific, were either brought to or terminated their employment in San Francisco. From there they were brought to Portland by ship.

In 1891 a group of Black Sea Germans settled in Eugene, and in 1906 and 1909 in Mulino and Newberg.

In 1892 some Black Sea Germans settled in Portland togeterh with some Catholic Volga Germans.


NOTES:
(51) Sallet, Richard. Ibid. pp. 34-35
(52) The Golden Jubilee of the German-Russian settlements of Ellis and Rush counties, Kansas pp. 13-14 and the following.
(53) Sallet, R. Ibid. p. 18.