THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

sia from Danzig during the years 1787-1789]. One Prussian congregation [Montau in the Delta] still possesses the original of a letter from Menno Simons to that congregation in Prussia. f) The great skill of the Dutch Mennonites to drain marsh lands by means of dams and canals, made them invaluable to the Prussian landlords. They turned the terrible moors of the Vistula and other marshy regions, known to us as the “lowlands,” into veritable gardens. They themselves became well-to-do and their landlords wealthy. The latter protected them against severe persecutions, which threatened them not infrequently, and later made it possible for them to acquire precious documents of privileges, many of the originals of which are still preserved in the archives of the Prussian congregations [Ohrlofferfelde]. g) The first teacher, elder or bishop of the West Prussian, especially of the Danzig Mennonites, was Dirk Philips, Menno’s co-worker who died in 1567. h) High noblemen seem, even if seldom, to have joined their ranks. Thus, according to Reiswitz and Wadzeck, Ciska von Ciechanoviec, cupbearer in the Polish principality of Lithuania, joined them. Even the Dutch church annals report that a certain knight Gerrit von den Krommendam came over to them. i) The present congregation of Montau in the Danzig Werder was already in existence by 1570; its elder was Hans van Swinden. And in 1586 the delegates from five West and East Prussian congregations met together in the first historically known conference of the West Prussian Mennonites. k) The persecutions in Austria, Bohemia and Moravia under the Jesuit-influenced Emperor Rudolf II (d. 1612) brought the Prussian congregations new members from the Slavic and South German regions. Therefore we again find Slavic and South German elements entering the main stream here. l) The Anabaptists in East Prussia’s Koenigsberg and Prussian- Lithuania’s Gumbinnen were much fewer in number even though, according to the foregoing, they appeared there first. While they still numbered 12,000 strong in West Prussia after the most important emigration to Russia (and America), there were, according to Reiswitz and Wadzeck, fewer than 1,000 in East Prussia in 1788, that is before the Prussia 47 great migration. According to the evidence in our possession, the East Prussia Mennonite artisans (weavers, etc.) and businessmen of Koenigs- berg seem to have played an important role and won the good will of the magistrates through their many-sided industrial pursuits, just as they did in the cities of West Prussia, North Germany, and the Netherlands. At the moment, however, the Koenigsberg congregation is close to dying out (50 members in 1888). In contrast, the congregation in the Prussian-Lithuanian administrative district of Gumbinnen is some 800 members strong, and seems to be related to our Molotschna and Chortitza “Friesens”: the Rudnerweidner and Kronsweidner seem to be relat