Dangerous Speculation, Ratzlaff History, Grudziądz Siege

 Without new information coming out of the 17th century, we may never know anything further about the origins of our Ratzlaff family.  Every once in a while, someone will claim to know the additional information about that first Mennonite Ratzlaff at Przechowko but if that claim isn't backed up with a evidence from the 17th century, then it won't hold much water.

Fact: The Przechowko Mennonite Church records indicate that the first member of that congregation with the surname Ratzlaff was a man who left his military post in order to join the pacifist group.  We're left a little unclear about the man's ethnicity but the records go on to claim that he married the daughter of Elder Voth, from Culm (Chelmno), and that the first child from the union was born in the neighborhood of 1630.  We have to remember that this information in the church records was compiled in the 1780s, so that's more than 150 years after the fact.  I feel that we have to look very critically at these claims and allow quite a bit of leeway.  Did this first Ratzlaff originate in Poland (Pomerania) or Sweden?  At what point in time did he join the Mennonites?  Did he immediately join the congregation at Przechowko or could he have been associated with another group first?  The claims made by the Przechowko records are not as black and white as they initially appear nor can they be taken so literally as one might initially think.  I think we can take away, however, that this man was likely born in the first decade of the 17th century, perhaps around 1605.

Fact: The surname "Ratzlaff" is and was not exclusive to Mennonites nor was it necessarily exclusive to the Przechowko congregation.  First of all, Ratzlaff - or its many variations (Ratzlaff, Retslaff, Raclaw, Racław, etc) could have sprung from a number of different origins.  The obvious origin, in Pomerania, is the Germanization of the first name "Radosław" to "Ratzlaff".  I've also seen claims attached to the tiny village of Racławki, 5 miles southeast of Chojnice, Poland, which is some 40 miles northwest from Przechowko.  Whatever the case could be, we have to remember that not all Ratzlaffs are Mennonites.  Indeed, we can find very many people with this surname throughout Pomerania beginning in the 17th century even into the modern day.  I've personally dealt with a 3 different families, all from the Pomeranian region, which were completely separate from Mennonite Ratzlaffs.  Further, we can find isolated cases, in the 18th century before Mennonites began leaving for Imperial Russia, of Mennonite Ratzlaffs associated with congregations other than Przechowko.  This is, admittedly, extremely rare, but it has happened.  We always have to remember these possibilities.

So, given these facts, we can find Ratzlaffs or Raclaws listed here and there in 17th century records and at this time, we cannot be sure if said listings could have anything to do with the Przechowko Ratzlaff family or not.  But we do find some that are compelling.

Of course, in 1662 tax records at Przechowko, we find gospodar Jan Ratzlaff living with his wife Ann and his sister Elizabeth.  This is almost certainly the son of that original Przechowko Ratzlaff, born in the neighborhood of 1630.  Here, he's a man in his early 30s living as head of his household in Przechowko, perhaps with his young family (these records don't list children) and - for whatever reason - his sister.  These 1662 records don't seem to list any other Ratzlaffs in any other nearby left-bank Vistula villages.  Where is Jan's (Jan is Polish equivalent to German name Johann or Hans) father?  He's not in Przechowko; is he deceased?  Could he reside in a different nearby village?  He'd be in the neighborhood of 60 years old so he's conceivably still alive.  Where is he?

Another compelling record is a 1664 survey of the Polish countryside in the wake of the Deluge (Opis Krolewszczyzn W Wojewodztwach Chelminskim Pomorskim I Malborskim W Roku 1664, page 85).  Interestingly, we find a man named Hans Raclaw (Raclaw would be translated from the Polish into German as Ratzlaff) living in Bzowo.  This man has been a military officer and his post, in 1664, has recently become vacant.  We don't know why it's vacant - Raclaw has recently retired or perhaps died - but the only fact given in the record is that the post is vacant.  

Bzowo is a very interesting location.  That's about 15 miles northeast from Przechowko.  In German this village was known as Gross Sibsau, and it's about 6 miles northwest across the Vistula from the city of Graudenz (Polish = Grudziądz).  Interestingly, for Mennonite history, this area along the Vistula where the river takes a long bend toward the north - this is one of the very earliest areas of Mennonite settlement in the whole Vistula valley.  Nearby to Bzowo, about 5 miles away, we have villages such as Brattwin and Michale that were very early homes for Mennonites.  Przechowko itself wasn't likely home to any Mennonites before the year 1600 but Mennonites could have been in Michale 40 or even 50 years earlier.  This cropped Schroetter Map from the late 18th century shows the area with Sibsau (Bzowo), Michelau, Dragasz, and Przechowko marked.

Another very interesting record comes to us from 1630.  A young man named Johannes Ratzlaff, son of Georg, is baptized according to one of the Lutheran church registers in Torun, Poland.  Georg has apparently died, and Johannes, an artisanal apprentice of some sort, is now being baptized into the Lutheran Church at age 19.  Georg was a farmer in the village of Michale.  

Johannes is baptized at 19 years old (he's born about the year 1611).  Why would he not be baptized until so late in life?  Poland in 1630 did enjoy a degree of religious liberty but the country was dominated by Catholics who baptized babies soon after birth.  Lutherans, also, typically baptized children at very young age, usually within the first few months so why is this 19-year old man not yet baptized?  In 17th century Poland, there's only one good answer to that question and that is that he's a Mennonite and hadn't yet joined a church.  Did his father Georg Ratzlaff belong to the Mennonite community at Michale and now Johannes was being baptized into the Lutheran church?  We'll probably never know but it's a very interesting tidbit.

So we have these three Ratzlaff records, all in a very similar geographic location, all within the same 30 year period.  Could they be related somehow?  Could Johannes have joined the Lutheran church (for what reason - typically marriage) in 1630 and perhaps left Michale for his wife's nearby Bzowo home and joined the military?  Then in ensuing years, this wife dies, he leaves the military, marries the daughter of Elder Voth, and his son Hans moves to Przechowko.  Well, it's all fun speculation and the pieces do seem to fit if they're manipulated right.  But it's dangerous and irresponsible and we'll probably never know what could be the truth.  We could throw out a theory if we had a little more evidence but with what we have, it's just irresponsible speculation.

What's not speculation is the fact that Mennonites were in Michale (Michelau) very early on.  Some Mennonites could have settled in Michale during the second half of the 16th century sometime - and perhaps this Georg Ratzlaff was among them.  We don't know if he was a Mennonite but he was a resident of Michale.

Poland - or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - suffered a very interesting history right about the time we're looking at here; during the mid-17th century.  It's a period sometimes to referred to as the Deluge.  Poland was invaded by the Swedes from the northwest, and almost simultaneously by the Russians from the east.  Further, a Cossack uprising (Khmelnitsky) came from the southeast.  It was a brutal time for Polish history and the country suffered tremendously.  In fact, the records mentioned above from 1662 and 1664 were compiled in an effort to determine the level of depopulation across the countryside in the wake of the Deluge, which had abated by around 1660.  Indeed, if this original Mennonite Ratzlaff at Przechowko was a soldier of some sort, he may very well have taken part in battles that were part of the Deluge.

This village - Michale - is almost directly across the Vistula River from the city of Grudziądz.  Grudziądz was besieged by... the Poles in 1656.  Swedish King Charles X had captured the city from the Poles in 1655 and then the Poles took it back a year later.  This illustration shows a birds-eye view of the city during the siege.  [incidentally, we know that Charles was camped in either Terespol or Topolno - I'm pretty sure it was Topolno - during this time and he heard about the nearby Mennonites - that would have been Przechowko congregants.  Stephan Funck preached a sermon to the Swedish king and apparently he was impressed.] 

The illustration shows the citadel, the church tower, the gates, and the granaries, of Grudziądz with a view from the east.  We look towards the west at the city's towers and there, beyond the Vistula, we can see what's probably the village of Dragasz, but towards the south just a little, that's probably Michale.  I think it's just very interesting that Mennonites - and maybe even my ancestors - were living in these villages even as the Swedes besieged the city.

I've visited Grudziądz aa couple times over the past few years and it's struck me how the battlements and granaries come right down to the banks of the river.  Indeed, from the west side, where the Mennonite farmers would have toiled, these towers were absolutely visible and even during this siege, the Mennonites' homes would have been endangered, their crops ruined, their livestock appropriated or requisitioned.  To a 21st-century American, it's amazing to think that ancestors were so close to an early modern-day siege.

And for Grudziądz, it didn't end there either.  The city was again besieged by Napoleon 1807.

This is Grudziadz as seen from a spot along the Vistula off Dragasz

These are the granaries of Grudziadz as seen from the east side of the river, looking back east towards the city

This is a view of Grudziadz as seen from the top of the dike in Dragasz or Michale, looking towards the east.  This is the view the Mennonites would have seen.