This is a story of immigration on a global scale. The starting point for the tale is Helen Maul, the daughter of Henry and Anna Maul.  Her father, Henry or Heinrich, was born in Norka, Russia, a 4th generation Volga-German.  Although Henry represented the 4th generation of Maul’s born in Russia, when he came to America he identified as a German.

Helen was
born and raised in Hastings, Nebraska and later married Jack Cronin. 
Helen Cronin is my daughter’s maternal great grandmother.

In 1763,
Russia’s tsarina Catherine the Great signed a manifesto inviting foreigners to
settle in Russia. A German national herself, Catherine’s decree marked the
beginning of the journey of the Maul family from Germany to Russia and then
America. As we move back through the generations, Maul men married women who
were Sinner’s and Hamburger’s. These families moved from Germany to Russian in
an effort to escape religious strife and economic hardship. A century after the
first Germans settled in Russia, Czar Alexander III revoked many of the
privileges promised to them by Catherine the Great and it was time to find
another promised land.

The manifesto promised the immigrants: exemption from military service, self-governance, freedom of language, tax breaks, initial financial aid, 75 acres of land per settler family, and “the free and unrestricted practice of their religion according to the precepts and usage of their Church.” Between 1763 and 1768 more than 25,000 Germans established 104 colonies in Russia. The families highlighted in this story resided in Isenburg, which was a former county located in the German state of Hessen near Frankfurt and settled in Norka, Russia. The trip to the Volga region of Russian (map) was no easy exploit; it was a 1,600-mile trek from the Hesse region to Norka, Russia. It is estimated that 17% of those who attempted this journey did not survive the trip.

Tsar
Alexander III in the 1870’s revoked Catherine’s privileges. Rather than face
compulsory schooling in the Russian language and five years of service in the
Russian Army, many Volga German families decided to emigrate to America.

Catherine the Great and the ‘Russian-Germans’ – Article about those that stayed behind in Russia.

The Hesse-Norka Families

Maul Family

Carl (Karl)
Maul b: 1747 in Isenburg, Hesse, Germany d. 1799 in Norka,
Russia Married: Anna Margaretha Doerr b: 1749 in Hesse, Germany d. 1798 Norka,
Russia.

Original
Norka settler, 1st wife Anna Margaretha Dörr, 2nd wife Margaretha Weigandt in
1775, daughter of Konrad Weigandt.  Carl was an apprentice to Konrad
Weigandt, a craftsman from Isenburg. Reformed faith church, farmer from
Isenburg, arrived in Oranienbaum (not far from St. Petersburg) on Sept. 9, 1766
by the ship Elephant, arrived in Norka colony on Aug. 15, 1767.

Johannes Maul
b: ABT 1784 in Norka, Balzer, Saratov, Russia d. 1819
Russia. Married: ?

Conrad Maul b: 22 Aug 1809 in Norka, Russia d. 1876 in Norka, Russia.
Married: Anna Margaretha Gobel b: 26 Jul 1812 in Norka, Russia d. 1851 Russia.

Heinrich Maul b: 2 Feb 1835 in Norka, Russia d. 1888 in Norka, Russia. Married:
Magdalena Hamburger b: 21 Oct 1835 in Norka, Russi.

Heinrich Maul b. 17 Sep 1863 in Norka, Russia. Married: Elisabeth Sinner b: 3
Sep 1862 in Norka, Russia.

Heinrich
Jacob Maul b. 1 Apr 1886 in Norka, Russia.
Married: Anna Schwenninger b: 1887 in Iowa, USA.  Daughter: Helen May
(Cronin) b. 1919.

Hamburger Family


Johannes Hamburger b: 1744 in Isenburg, Hesse, Germany d. 1821 Norka,Russia. Arrived in Norka colony on 15 Aug 1767. Handicraftsman, Tailor – Reformed Church. Married: Anna Catharina Bauer b: 1747 in Germany.

Johannes
brother, Philipp, served in the
Hesse-Hanau Regiment of the Crown Prince on the side of the British in the
American Revolution. During this time he was captured and ransomed.

Philip
Hamburger b: 1775 in Norka, Balzer, Saratov,
Russia d. 1829 Norka, Russia. Married: Elisabeth Huck b: 23 Nov 1777 in Norka,
Russia.

Johannes Hamburger b: 15 Mar 1808 in Norka, Russia. Married: Catharina Schreiber b: 2 Feb 1808 in Norka, Russia. ( I believe both are in photo above)

Magdalena Hamburger b. 1835 in Norka, Russia.  Married Heinrich Maul.

Sinner Family


Johann Sinner b: Abt 1715 in Isenburg, Hesse, Germany Married: Anna Maria ? b:
Abt 1720 in Isenburg, Hesse, Germany.

Conrad Sinner b: Abt 1747 in Isenburg, Hesse, Germany. Married: Elisabeth ? b:
1752 in Isenburg, Hesse, Germany.

Johann Heinrich
Sinner b: Abt 1774 in Balzer, Saratov,
Russia. Married: Elisabeth Loos b: 25 Sep 1776 in Norka, Russia.

Conrad Sinner b: 1 Aug 1798 in Norka, Balzer, Saratov, Russia. Married:
Margaretha Koehler b: 22 Jan 1801 in Norka, Russia.

Georg Heinrich Sinner b: 11 Oct 1823 in Norka, Russia d. 1885 in Russia. Married: Magdalena Scheidemann b: 19 Dec 1826 in Norka, Russia.

Elizabeth Sinner b. 3 Sep 1862 in Norka, Russia. Married: Heinrich Maul Jr. on 5 Feb 1885 in Norka

One branch of the maternal side of my wife’s family tree were Germans who fled to Russia to escape religious persecution and then to America in the late 1880’s to escape becoming Russians! The other branch were Irish who arrived in America in the 1860’s and established a home in Nebraska.

Maul – Schwenninger Families

Henry and Elizabeth (Sinner) Maul immigrated to Nebraska in 1893 from Norka, Russia.  Andrew and Nannette Schwenninger, also German-Russians, immigrated to Iowa and then later to Elwood, Nebraska.  In 1909, these families joined with the marriage of Henry Jacob Maul and Anna Schwenninger. 

The “Germans from Russia” are descendants of Germans who settled in Russia in the years about 1763 to 1862. Their story begins with Tsarina Catherine II (Catherine the Great) who was empress of Russia, but a German princess by birth. In July 1763 she issued a manifesto to attract people from Western Europe to settle in Russia. The manifesto promised new settlers freedom of religion, freedom from taxes for a 5-30 year period, freedom from military service, and free land to farmers. By the end of 1767, German settlers from central Germany had established more than 100 colonies along the Volga River, near Saratov, Russia. In the 1870s, the promises of the Russian government were gradually withdrawn. The colonist had their right to local self-government taken away along with their right to keep their own German-language schools. The military draft was reinstated.  These actions lead to an exodus of German Russians to the United States.  Center for Volga German Studies

According to Anna (Schwenninger) Maul, when the Schwenninger’s first homesteaded in Elwood, they lived in a dugout and her father (Andrew) would go to Chicago in the winter and work in a cigar factory. Anna was born in 1887 in Iowa. Their daughter, Helen May (my wife’s grandmother), was born in 1919 in Iowa.

Heinrich “Henry” Jacob Maul was born in Russia on April 1,1886 and died in Hastings, Nebraska in 1970 at the age of 83.  He worked as a bricklayer and played baseball for the Hastings city team in the early 1900‘s.  Hastings was one of the charter members of the Nebraska State League in 1910. The team started with the moniker Brickmakers for 1910 but changed to the “Third Citys” nickname from 1911 through 1913.

Cronin – Crowley – Burke Families

The early 1860’s were especially bad years for rural Ireland; unusually bad weather ruined pastures, cash crops, potatoes, and turf, in turn injuring grazers, commercial tillage farmers, subsistence cultivators and the like.  In 1863, William Cronin departed Macroom, County Cork and settled in Swampscott Massachusetts, a small town north of Boston.  His wife, Catherine (Kate) Crowley, was also from County Cork Ireland. 

In 1879, Kate and William Cronin and their five children rode in a Central Pacific Railroad boxcar to Grand Island Station, Nebraska and then by wagon to Minden where they established a farm.  According to a newspaper story, celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary, the couple experienced “drought, prairie fires, blizzards and hail storms” as pioneer settlers. 

In 1882, Minden was home to nearly two hundred people, three general stores, two hardware stores, two drug stores, two furniture stores, two implement shops, one grocery store, two hotels, two livery stables, two churches, one meat market, one bank, five physicians, and six lawyers. The telegraph line reached Minden in November 1883. A saloonkeeper was the first to send a message, requesting that his business be restocked with twenty-five cases of beer. “Heroes without Medals, A Pioneer History of Kearney County Nebraska”

In 1908, William Cronin traveled to Ireland with his son William (Leonard) returning to New York on the Ship Lusitania.  Prior to returning to Nebraska, they visited his sister and sister’s nephew Tim Crowley who was married to Catherine (Burke) in Lynn, Massachusetts.   Thus, William Leonard met Susie Burke (b. 1891- Ireland) and after corresponding for two years, married (1910) and resided for a short period in Lynn before moving to the Cronin family farm in Minden.