52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week 44. Prompt - Scary Stuff

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 44

Prompt – Scary Stuff

My great grandfather on my father's side was David Peters.   He was born in a South Russian Mennonite Colony.   His wife was Katharina Mueller (Miller) and she was also born in a Mennonite Colony in South Russia.   After marriage and several children they immigrated to Canada in 1875 to settle in Manitoba's Mennonite Colony.  They moved to Hague, Saskatchewan about 1901.  They died in this region.

In the March 1989 Mennonite Magazine, Bruce Wiebe writes about the Muellers.  He states that the progenitor of this line is traced back to Michael and Maria Miller.  They were from Amlach, province of Carinthia in Austria.  They had a son, Peter Miller, born in Amlach on September 25, 1694.   Peter Miller married a Dorothea Santer on February 6, 1719.

Austria was a very Catholic country. Michael, Maria and their son Peter Mueller and his wife Dorothea were Catholic.   Austria was beginning to feel the affects of The Lutheran Reformation.  However at this time the Anabaptist (baptized as adults such as Hutterites, Mennonites & Amish) movement had not reached Austria.  Empress Maria Therese stated she would not tolerate dissenters in Austria.

Peter and Dorothea Mueller had a son born November 20, 1721 in Unteramlach, Austria.  His name was Petrus Mueller.  Petrus grew up with his families catholic beliefs.  However as Petrus grew older he began to be influenced by the Lutheran dissenters.  Empress Maria Therese found the dissenters to be a huge problem to her Austrian rule and solved the problem by exiling them to Transylvania.  On September 10, 1755 Petrus Mueller and his future wife, Elisabeth Innerwinkler were exiled.   Bruce Wiebe writes: 

  

After the tortuous death of her husband, Elisabeth and son Peter Mueller escaped to Vischenka, Russia. Some 3 or so years later Elisabeth died and Peter Mueller was an orphan at 5.  The orphan Peter Mueller did live to adulthood and married Susanna Stahl and together they had 7 children. The Vischenka Bruderhoff  had a falling out over “communal property” of all things.  Two of the seven children of Peter and Susanna left in 1819 to live in The Chortitza Mennonite Colony.   Andreas and Matthias Mueller married Mennonite women and remained in the Mennonite colony.  Hutterites Muellers became Mennonites.

I have to wonder if Petrus, the martyred Hutterite was aware of the plight and persecution that the Hutterites had suffered over the previous century or two.  Anabaptist belief in free will, adult baptism, pacifism, and communal living posed a huge problem for the hierarchical feudal system in place in the 1500's.  Considered heretical they were punished by death often by beheading, drowning or burning at the stake. But further their corpses were put on public display to warn the other heretics.

In the Turkish – Hapsburg War of 1593 to 1606; 16 communal communities were attacked killing most and enslaving those not killed.

The Thirty Years War of 1618 to 1648 followed. Catholics and Protestants fought against each other. Hutterites were among those that were severely persecuted.  Of the 40 communal farming villages (called Bruderhoffs), 29 were attacked by the Roman Catholics. A Hutterite Chronicler of the time wrote of the 1620 attack on Pribitz Colony by the Polish military.

"It is impossible to write or tell of all the great and inhuman cruelties which came upon us and others in this ungodly, accursed and devilish war at the hands of the . . .imperial forces. . . . Women with child and mothers in childbed as well as virgins were shamelessly attacked. The men were burned with glowing iron and red-hot pans; their feet were held in the fire until the toes were burned off; wounds were cut into which [gun] powder was poured and then set afire; fingers and ears were cut off;   eyes forced out by inhuman tortures on the wheel; men were hung by the neck like thieves; all sorts of such brutality and unheard of godlessness were committed, half of which is not to be written for shame."

And an even scarier accounting of this cruel punishment was written up in

Das kleingeschichtsbuch der Hutterischen Brüder (The Smaller History of the Hutterian Brethren) chronicled the 16^th to 17^th century persecution of the Taufer; an Anabaptist group considered to be the precursor to The Hutterites wrote in part this.

Some were tortured terribly on the rack, so that they were torn apart and died.

Some were burned to ashes and powder as heretics.

Some were roasted on beams.

Some were torn with red-hot irons.

Some were penned up in houses and all burned together.

Some were hung on trees.

Some were killed with the sword and their bodies chopped to pieces.

Many had gags put into their mouths, and their tongues tied, so that they

could not testify to their faith, and were thus led to the stake or scaffold. . . .

Many women were cast into the water and then taken out again and asked if

they would recant and save their lives. Seeing that they were steadfast, the

executioners cast them again into the water and drowned them. . . .

Others were starved to death in dark towers where they were deprived of the

light of day.

Some were cast into deep, noisome dungeons where they lay among bats and

vermin.

Many were tortured with hunger and only given insufficient bread and water

before they were executed. Many who were adjudged too young to be slain,

were bound and beaten miserably with rods. . . .

In some places they literally filled the prisons and dungeons with them, as did

the Count Palatine of the Rhine. They thought they could dampen and extinguish the fire of God. But the prisoners sang in their prisons and rejoiced

so that the enemies outside (who supposed that the prisoners would be in fear)

themselves became more fearful than the prisoners and did not know what to

do with them.

Petrus Mueller was very much aware of all of this.  Joining The Hutterites was done based on his faith and belief that aligned with them.   Petrus was tortured for these beliefs and died for these beliefs.

Petrus Mueller was born November 21, 1721 and died December 8, 1769.

He was my 4^th Great Grandfather.

Wendy