Early History
Taken from “Die Urheimat der Mutschinger” from
the web page about Mucsi published by Roland Zentner of Germany.
The Hometown of
the Mutschingers
In the year 1703 Mucsi was inhabited. Nine farmers and
their families lived in the village. After the [Ferenc] Rákóczi struggle for
[Hungarian] independence [1703-1711], the village had no inhabitants. In 1720
eleven families settled there, including Hungarians, Slavs and Germans. The
first organized wave of [German] immigrants reached Mucsi in 1721. Count
Sinzendorf introduced the settling of the village by Germans, but it was carried
out under the direction of Count Mercy. Following the concept of establishing
new villages, colonists with the same religion and nationality were settled in
one village. Thus, the localities were divided into two large groups: German and
Hungarian places. It was the same whether a village was Protestant or Catholic.
Mucsi was a purely Catholic village. The few Hungarians moved out. In Tolna
County in Mucsi and in Závod the population was predominantly “Stiffolders.”
These immigrants came from the Diocese [Stift] of Fulda in Germany. It is in a
hilly area of Germany. The 30 Years War led to a depletion of the German
population. Because of that, it is no surprise that the people wanted to begin a
new life. Mucsi and the other Fulda villages received emigrants from those
localities. After their immigration the Fulda colonists quickly became
accustomed to their new homeland. In addition, the colonists like other German
Hungarians bore the common name Swabians and Stiffolders. The dialect of the
Stiffolders was recognized as an independent dialect. This group of people
maintained not only their dialect but also their customs far away from their
homeland, and they also kept the recipe for “Fulda sausage.” In Mucsi a
Fulda settlement developed over the course of two centuries, as well as in other
areas of Hungary where the Danube Swabians settled.
Local
history and Geography of Závod in Tolna
Excerpts
from “Heimatbuch Závod in der Tolnau” by Anton Mayer, Ettlingen, 1990, ISBN
3-926198-07-9.
Translated by Henry Fischer, 3 March 2007.
The period of
time allotted to the settlers, in which they were free from paying taxes to the
County was extended and a new agreement was negotiated and new settlers were
included in the terms. The
following is a list of their names:
Thomas Jordan
(the
Richter)
Thomas Miller (Müller)
Nicolaus Schneyder Nicolaus Merck (?)
Adam Minker
Nicolaus Till
Johann Firster (Fürster, Förster)
Henricus Fink
Paulus Jäger Johann Huck
Perigius (?) Krep, Greep, Kres
(?) Valentius
Ress (Resch)
Johann Kresmit (Kresschmitt)
(?)
Johann Seybert (Seifert)
Sebastian Papert (Pappert) Conradus Ser (Sehr)
Antonius (Angel(i))
Stephan Miller (Müller)
Johann
Maul
Johann Rajt (Reith)
Johann Kornel(i)
Thomas Papert (Pappert)
Johann
Maul
Henricus Simon
Conradus Staab
If we can
assume an average of five persons per family household, we are dealing with almost 110 persons who were involved in the beginning of the settlement
of Závod, who had set out together from Germany in the first phase of the
Schwabenzug (The Great Swabian Migration).
Prior to 1722, an additional 25 families arrived, some of whom had
journeyed with the 60 families who settled in Mucsi, while a few others stayed
behind in Högyész. We know with a great degree of certainty that the priest,
Peter Willerscheid came with them. He had originated in Fulda and had studied in
Cologne. The similarities among the family names of the settlers in Závod and
Mucsi indicate a common place of origin in the Bishopric of Fulda and its
environs. (When I visited 27 of these communities in Fulda several years ago, I
found a record of most of the family names on gravestones and the war memorials
of the First World War.) Other
settlers who arrived from time to time originated from Grabfeld (Bad Kissingen),
Bad Brückenau, Schönau and der Brend, Neustadt and der Saal, the Würzburg
area, the Tauber region and the Main and Hanau districts. These settlers came by
way of Regensburg on board the so-called Ulmer Schachten and some of them
married along the way. Some typical places where such marriages took place
include Ulm, Söflingen, Günzburg, Regensburg and Vienna.
They would be recorded in the church records there along with others who
came later from Alsace, Lorraine, the Saar and the Black Forest regions.
In 1722, the
son of Count Prosper Anton Josef Guido Sinzendorf, the hereditary owner of the
Apar Domains (later to be known as the Högyész Domain) sold the estate to
Count Claudius Florimundus von Mercy for 15,000 Gulden. Count von Mercy also purchased Varsád at that time for 4,500
Gulden and added it to the Domain and negotiated the first settlement contract
with the people. According to
information I have, the settlers were granted three years of freedom from paying
taxes, had to pay a settlement fee of 15 Gulden for the land they worked, and
provided 1 Pressburg Measure of wheat (62.5 liters) and delivered three loads of
hay annually to the Domain. Mucsi and Závod were the only settlements in Tolna
County whose inhabitants came from the Bishopric of Fulda.
Other emigrants from the Bishopric of Fulda traveled further down the
Danube to Mohács in the Baranya where they were divided up and settled on the
various estates of the Bishop of Pécs, Franz Nesselrod, primarily in Himsesháza,
Szür, Feked and Bozsok. A few of
them went on as far as the Banat, through the efforts of Count von Mercy, the
well-known commander of Temesvár and chief colonizer of the region. We are
grateful to the priest who served in Himesháza, Father Gabrieli from the
Steiermark in Austria, who conscientiously noted the places of origin of his
parishioners in the parish records beginning in 1732 so that that their
descendants would know where their ancestors came from.
In the Závod Tax Conscription List (apparently from 1724) the following
names appear:
Johann Reith (the Richter) Martinus Weigand
Nikolaus
Schneider
Johann Firster (Fürster)
Bernhardus Kornel(i) Conradus Staab
Georg(i) Kress (Greeb?)
Mattheus (?) Perg(er)
Paulus Jäger
Stephan Miller (Müller)
Johann Georg Titzl Adamus Weber
Conradus Schön
Baltasar Titz (Dietz?)
Andreas Klih (Klüh)
Thomas Papert (Pappert)
Conradus
Kremer
Johann Ponner (Bohnert)
Andreas Hahner (Hahnert) Stephan (?) Staab
Antonius Ponert (Bohnert) Paulus Pitner (Bittner)
Henricus Fink
(Perk?) Nikolaus Meierhof
Nikolaus Reder (Röder)
Johann Georg Reith
Johann Michael
Kress
Leopold Till
Johann Georg
Kremer
Sebastian Klüber
Johann Miller (Müller) Gasparus Michel
Johann Altmüller R. Martini Cornell(i)
Johann Georg Kornfect
Thomas Sipl (Szippl)
Valentius Resch Johann Georg Faust
Sebastanius Paperth
Sebastianus Merz (?)
Adamus Minker
Valentius Enk
Nikolaus Merz Johann Adam Lochaus (Lochas(l))
Henricus
Hartung Johann Orff (?)
Johann Breitenbach
Gasparus Vingefeld (Wigenfeld)
Franciscus Papert (Pappert) Johann Georg (?) Reith
Nikolaus Schrimpf
Johann Rieger
In
Summary: 50 free peasant immigrants
Where did the
first settlers in Závod come from? Brüsztles
in his “Recensio” from the Závod Parish Chronicle indicates that they came
from Fulda and Franconia; the notary Joseph Molnár serving in Závod later
(1829) suggests that they numbered 13 families.
On the basis of “Statistics II Fulda 254” from the central office of
Fulda, in which more than 100 emigrants from Fulda are registered between 1711
and 1730, I have been able to identify the places of origin of the identified
families in ten communities. (They are also mentioned in the Tax Conscription
Lists of 1720 and 1724.)
The places of
origin are as follows: Johann Reith came from Horau (Horas, but now Fulda), Paul
Jäger was from Welkers, Conrad Kremer came from Kammerzell, Hans-Georg Kremer
and Thomas Pappert apparently were also from Kammerzell, Johann Förster from
Kerzell, Adam Weber came from Rothemann, Johann Georg Faust from Lüdermund,
Johann Adam Minker, who will be mentioned again later, came from Weidenau,
Johann Breitenbach came from Rhönhausen. Johann Georg Witzl who is mentioned in
the Conscription List in Lengyel in 1723 apparently came from Pilgerzell, and
Andreas Sturm who is mentioned in the marriage records in Závod also came from
Pilgerzell (from my point of view). In the “Statistic II” there were also people mentioned who
settled in Nadasd and others in Lovászhetény. These records also indicate some
settlers returned home to work out their family inheritances with their siblings
in 1730 and then returned to Hungary. This included Hans Fink from Mutsching
(Mucsi), Hans Hohmann from “Thuruck” (a corruption of Kisdorog) and Adam
Weber from Sabbath who lived in Závod. In
his book, “Main-Franconian Emigration to Hungary” Dr. Pfrenzinger indicates
that many familiar names in Závod had their origins in the Spessart in
Franconia and as far as the Würzburg region. Among them was the Eibeck family
from the area east of Kahl am Main and the Alzenhauer region.
Father Kelemen noted the places of origin of some of the later arriving
settlers at the time of their marriage in Závod from 1764 to 1776.
They are the following:
1764:
Michael Seiffert from Fulda married the widow Katharina Müller of Závod
1764:
Leonhard Till from Fulda married the widow Dorothea Enders from Fulda
1764:
Johann Rehm from Fulda married Anna Maria Wald of Závod
1764:
Matthias Röder from Franconia married Anna Seibert of Závod
1767:
Johann Dorn married the widow Katharina Wehner from Fulda
1770:
Heinrich Baumgart of Fulda married Margaret Reitter of Závod
1776:
Georg Tom (Dorn) of Jena married Margaretha Fleck of Závod.
One of the
First Settlers, Johann Adam Minker came from Weidenau bei Hauswurz and his
brother Johann from Höchst bei Geinhausen, came to Závod in 1732. The male
line of the latter brother died out while the line of the first mentioned
continues to expand in the DDR (the former German Democratic Republic better
known as East Germany). With the assistance of one of the remaining Minkers we
were successful in tracing the origins of the family back to the 16th
century. They were ancient German nobles who once played a role in the history
of Hungary. The farther back one goes, it is interesting to note how much
migration took place among relatives and friends in this area.
It is also surprising that the Stiffoller dialect (from the term Stift
Fulda) that was spoken in Závod, is the same idiom still spoken in the area
around Fulda as far as Tan, and even more surprising that it had been preserved
in Hungary, while the dialect spoken in Mucsi is too difficult to localize with
any degree of certainty. But many of the Mucsi people stand fast in their conviction
that they came from close to the vicinity of Fulda. Their dialect was probably
highly influenced by the large numbers of later arriving settlers from the
northern corner of the Bishopric with its many double “a” and double “o”
sounds, which also has no relationship to the idiom and dialect spoken in the
Stiffoller villages of the Baranya, such as Himesháza, Szür and Véménd.
Because the
people of Mucsi and Závod shared many similar traditions and were closely
related to one another, I will also provide some information on their origins.
Beginning in 1745, Father Bayermann, who originated in Würzburg, made
notations in the church records about the places of origin for a whole series of
names: Leonhard Baumann from
Pilgerzell, Margaretha Bayer from Haimbach, Gertrud Büttner from Reinhards,
Maria Buhl from Eichenwinden-Steinwand, Katharina Burghard from Pilgerzell,
Andreas Harth from Mottoen married Margaretha Enders from Stellberg/Thalua,
Georg Hartmann from Rothemann, Johann Georg Heyl from Herolz/Schlüchtern,
Nikolaus Jehn married Anna Margaretha Günckel from Poppenhausen, Johann John
came from Hettenhausen, Nikolaus Keidl from Rothemann married Maria Wald, Johann
Leitsch from Flieden, Johann Müller from Rückers married Margaretha Erb also
from Rückers, Johann Östringer married the above mentioned Maria Buhl from
Eichenwinden. Sebastian Quell came
from Rheinhards, Valentin Wehner from Niderkalbach married Anna Ursula Schmitt
from Langenprozeiten am Main, Georg Schwab and Katharina Berninger came from Lütter.
Kaspar Schwab married Eva Margaretha Trapp from Löschenrod.
Konrad Schwab came from Löschenrod, Margaretha Schneider came from
Gaysching bei Hammelburg. Georg
Seiferth came from Wüstensachsen married the widow Anna Rehm from Mucsi. Josef
Spohn from Welkers married Anna Barbara of Mucsi. Daniel Streitenberger from
Bronnzell, Johann Wehner came from Niderkalbach. Johann Wehner from Morles, Elisabeth Erb came from Albstatdt/Somborn
by Geinhausen. Merck? came from
Reinhards, Kaspar Müller came from Döllbach.
Because many
of the people only knew the dialect form of the name of their home community it
was very difficult for the record keepers of the church records in Hungary to be
able to identify the correct locality. For example: Dellwich=Döllbach, Haamich=Haimbach,
Moabich=Marbach, Thoole=Thalau, Welkersch=Welkers. Zirkemich=Zirkenbach, etc. In
the same way, the family name Haimbach in Mucsi became Hambuch. There is one
curious note about the dialect spoken in Závod that has existed for over two
hundred years. While the vast majority of landowning families spoke the
Stiffoller dialect, the poorer families spoke a Main-Franconian dialect that is
still used in the area around Schlüchtern today. Whether this was by accident
or done on purpose is hard to tell but it is amazing to experience hearing it in
our older and first homeland.
