The German colony at Leduc.
Who is that gentleman?" asked the writer, of a friend who was teaching in the German colony."That is a much more interesting and important man than his unassuming manner would seem to indicate. He is an old soldier who has travelled nearly around the world and who has done very remarkable work as a missionary and a colonizer. He is the Rev. Frederick Mueller, formerly of the German colony of central Alberta, and indeed the founder of most of the German colonies of western Canada."
The writer afterwards received much interesting information relative to the reverend gentleman's life in the old land and among the people who followed him to the new world. Mr. Mueller was born in the year 1856 in the city of Hieliganbul in eastern Germany, but received his education and training in Hamburg, the then principal port of Germany, and one of the chief seaports of the mainland of Europe. After this he spent six years in the German army, and then, feeling himself called to the religious field, became a missionary and was sent by the German Mission Board to the German colony in the province of Volhynia in Russia.
Here, ministering to his expatriate compatriots, he found his life work. But the people were very poor and unhappy and every avenue of progress seemed to be blocked by the despotic law of the country. In religious matters, also, liberty was curtailed. They had either to conform to the religion of the country or disobey the laws, for the governor would not give his consent to the building of a church, and hence Mr. Mueller had services in a private home without the consent of the governor. Then a complaint was made to the governor that the missionary was not complying with the laws and a command followed directly from the Minister of the Interior, ordering Mr. Mueller to prepare to leave the country.
The people that Mr. Mueller had been sent by the Missionary Board to labour amongst were farmers, and legal restrictions of every kind made it impossible for them to make any progress. The German colonists cited as examples of these restrictions the fact that when a man had contracted to lease land for a certain period, he was not allowed to renew the lease or make another contract with the same man, and even if a man did secure the ownership of land, he could not pass it on to his children, as his death severed their connection with it.
Consequently, the people began questioning the missionaries sent them about the "lands of liberty" in the great western world, from which such wonderful reports came every now and then through spirits who had already dared the perils of the long journey, and the venturing into an alien land among people of unknown tongue and customs.
Hence, two weeks before the missionary left the country, eight men of his congregation came to him, and told him that they felt it impossible to live in Russia any longer, and begged of him to go to the great, free America and look for some locality for them, where they could settle near one another.
Mr. Mueller spent the time intervening between his notice to leave the country and the arrival of the police to carry out the sentence of banishment, in thinking long and seriously on this proposition to hunt out homes for his people in America, and at last resolved to go.
On the 17th of July, 1892, the police arrived and with his grip in his hand and his wife by his side, Mr. Mueller was marched over the line to Germany, and was thankful indeed when the frontier was crossed and the German police greeted him with, "Now you are a free man."
But in that weary journey with visions of Siberia and its dungeons before his mind, all hesitation in regard to seeking freedom in the western world had been removed, and hastening to Bremen, he secured a passage to New York, where he arrived on the 2nd of August, 1892.
Then began his wanderings in search of a place that he thought would suit his people. Virginia, Michigan, Oregon, Colorado were travelled over in vain. Then, acting on the advice of the German Board, he went to Texas and remained there for the winter, but he could not find a locality that he thought would suit his people. In Texas, however, he heard of the great new country of the north--Canada--that was offering free homes to settlers, so leaving Texas he came northward, and the 18th of March, 1893, found him in Winnipeg.
He then travelled through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and in Alberta he found the Eldorado of his dreams. He sent word immediately to Russia, and in May forty families arrived, most of them so utterly poor and destitute after the long journey, that they had had nothing to eat for two days previous to their arrival, and he had to relieve their wants with money from the Mission Board, and to bring them to the immigration hall until they could secure work. Fifteen of the families for whom Mr. Mueller had secured homesteads where brought to Leduc at the end of May and located on their claims, and as there was no hotel in Leduc at this time, Mr. Mueller himself had to sleep for five nights in a freight car.
Other families, equally poor, who were unable to stand the pangs of hunger till they reached Alberta, remained in Winnipeg and other parts of Manitoba till they could earn enough to come to their homesteads.
But these were not all. In 1894 nearly thirty more families came from Russia, some of them settling at Whitemouth, about sixty miles east of Winnipeg, and others coming on to join the Leduc colony. Later, fifty families of Moravians acted on Mr. Mueller's advice and came to Alberta, settling principally near Edmonton and Bruderheim.
These people were also very poor, and were in sad enough straits for a considerable time after their arrival here, because of the difficulty of getting work at their trades or otherwise. But as soon as they Canadianised themselves sufficiently to make themselves acceptable to the people of the country, they found there was work and room and opportunities for all, whether in the agricultural, mineral, manufacturing, or general labouring lines.
Of the German colony about Leduc, with which we are chiefly concerned, by 1910 all were farmers and all had been able to secure the best of land for the trouble of settling on it and cultivating it. The climate was delightful, with a pure, dry bracing atmosphere. There was plenty of wood and perfect water, and though the country about was still chiefly wilderness, and the Indians abounding, that unique force, the North-West Mounted Police, had imbued these savage denizens of the great west with such a healthy respect for law and order that these foreign settlers that they found more security for their persons and prosperity in the wilds of Canada, than in the midst of the old civilization at their own land.
True, there were the usually hardships of the pioneer's life. For instance a bright little daughter of one family wandered off with her brother and sister into the woods in search of fruit and flowers, and was helped home exhibiting all the symptoms of poisoning. But there was no doctor within reach and after exhausting all her store of simple remedies, the mother had to watch her darling linger in agony for two days and then die.
Another time, one of the men who worked out in the town whenever possible to obtain the wherewithal to build a comfortable house, stock his farm, and get it under cultivation, felt something calling him home in the middle of the week, although he did not usually go till Saturday, on account of the long walk. On his arrival at his homestead, he found a large body of Indians camped near his shack. Some of the men repeatedly made the grand tour of the little edifice on the outside, while the building itself seemed to be all closed up and deserted. Repeated knocks elicited no reply, till with misgiving he called out his wife's name, and was admitted at last to find her and his little family huddled together in a state of abject terror, imagining that they were going to be scalped by the savages. The Indians, on their part, who made the explanation of wanting some milk, obeyed the order to "move on" after their want was supplied.
But through all the trials and hardships of the pioneer's life, there was always that deep sense of freedom so consciously grateful to those who have fled from despotism; the healthy vigour of the days spent in the open; the pleasant memories of evenings round the hearth or camp fires telling stories of the old land or those left behind, or recounting the adventures of that hazardous trip across the world to the "promised land."
But despite these compensations, discouragement sometimes reached the verge of despair. Their greatest hardship came in the year 1895, when the crops were destroyed by a big hail storm, and all the settlers, the pastor as well as his flock, were threatened with a famine that would swallow up their scanty savings.
As the period of pioneer difficulties were not yet over, the people were easily discouraged, and in a church meeting, largely attended, begged their spiritual adviser to go to the United States and look for a new place of settlement. Mr. Mueller was laboring under great difficulties himself that year. He had to endure, as well as the loss of his crop, the lack of a horse, which necessitated his plodding the weary distances from one preaching station to another on foot. He discouraged this movement, pointing out that they might match this temporary drawback with greater catastrophes in any other country. Here they enjoyed what they had traversed the world to find--God's freedom, and an independent home. They would understand the blessing at their hand, he told them, as time obliterated the memory of the miseries they had endured in the land they had left. If, however, any of them wanted to seek other homes, he had nothing to say, but as for himself, he had found Canada good enough and here he intended to remain, till the last great trumpet call sounded the summons to the eternal home.
The people decided to remain, and the wisdom of this course was proved by the fact that from a state of abject poverty they by 1910 had attained to a competence, the most of the hundred or more German families settled near Leduc having two or more farms and all being in a comfortable position for the rest of their lives.
The reproach is often brought against the foreign-speaking ministers, that they endeavour to retard rather than encourage their people's efforts to become good Canadian citizens, thinking thereby to strengthen their control over their compatriots. This is not the case with the founder of the German colonies of the Canadian North-West. Mr. Mueller set the example by learning the language and familiarising himself with the laws and institutions of the country and in giving his family the best education that the province could afford.
This article is adapted from an account that appeared in the Calgary Albertan, July 11, 1910.
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| Author: | Keane, Amy H. |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Alberta History |
| Geographic Code: | 1CALB |
| Date: | Sep 22, 2002 |
| Words: | 1916 |
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