Tanslated by:
Odis. A. Schlösser
The circumstances around the settlement of the small
village of Tófü in Baranya County by settlers from Germany and the time
when it took place will be examined here. We do not know anything about
a settlement contract but contracts from the years 1746 and 1764 are
mentioned with the Urbarial Agreement of 1767. Both contracts, however,
have not come to light, but the latter is an extension of three
additional years of the contract for 1750, which is kept in the
Hungarian State Archives and in the family archives of the Eszterházys.
Tófü had earlier been
established in the Middle Ages, but was depopulated during the time of
the Turks, or rather was only inhabited temporarily. It is mentioned
several times in the Turkish tax registries. During a restructuring of
boundaries old Serbian men claimed to remember that it was temporarily
inhabited by Serbs during the time of the Turkish occupation and the
Hungarian Kurutzen Guerrilla War against the Habsburgs. In 1692 it came
into the possession of the Eszterházy family as an uninhabited prairie,
but still belonged to the Ozora Domain at that time. At the beginning
of the 18th century the property boundaries were not always
clarified too closely, and were often contested by all means available
up until the occupation by the Habsburgs. The prairies in particular
were often considered to be spoils of war. The neighbouring populated
villages around Tófü were the property of the Diocese of Pécs and partly
the property of the Rinczmaul family, (later the Petrovszkys), while
Kozár was owned by the Eszterházy family.
In the year, 1712
László Madárász, the Assistant Sheriff of the County who was also the
Chief Steward of the Eszterházy Domains in Dombovár, protested that the
Bishop of the Diocese, Franz Wilhelm Count von Nesselrod was attempting
to confiscate a major portion of the prairie of Tófü. These prairie
lands were often leased, even developed or used as pastureland without
the permission of the neighbouring municipality to such an extent that
not even the one-ninth tithe was paid to them.
Even though Nesselrod
was the High Sheriff of the County, the County Assembly supported their
Vice Sheriff. In 1714 and 1715 the administrator of the Dombóvár
Domains, László Egry issued a warning to the surrounding municipalities
because they were misusing the prairies of Tofü, Kozár and Mekényes as
pastureland, and for fattening their swine on acorns and gathering wood
from the attached woodlands. He frequently issued written confirmations
of these charges to offenders at this time. We know that by 1717 Kozár
was colonized by Serbs, while Tófü to a large extent was simply at the
mercy of incursions from the neighbouring municipalities. In 1720 the
Supreme Court Judge of Pavits acted on the charges of Joseph Eszterházy
against the subjects of the Rinczmaul family living in Maróc who were
Serbs and were making use of the pasturelands of Tófü without
permission. The complaint was acknowledged officially although one
individual came out against it: one Christopher Wagner, the
Commissioner of the County Treasury.
Wagner was the cause of
numerous worries for the administrators of the Eszterházy’s Dombovár
Domains. In 1718 one of the Eszterházy officials, Gergely Berényi
complained that Wagner disregarded the County’s decision and confiscated
grain from Domain without any authorization to do so. On January 23rd
there was a more serious incident that is treated in detail in a letter
from Egry including a receipt from the County.
A servant carried out
the threshing of the tithe of the crop from the Domains’ prairie at
Tófü, which was treaded out by horses according to local usage.
Christopher Wagner had the horses led away by his armed ruffians
accompanied by a further five men, in order to use them for threshing on
his own estate and property near Pécs. Egry sent armed men to Wagner,
who, however, did not give the horses back until after the conclusion of
the threshing. The numerically superior crew of Egry was able to foil a
second attempt by Wagner at kidnapping the horses a few days later.
In order to be on the
safe side, Egry still had an investigation carried out, the records of
which can be found in the Ozora Archives, raising the issue of whether
the County Treasurer had any claim on the prairie of Tófü and since
there was no protest on his part, the legal position was clear! Tófü
belonged to he Eszterházys. Egry was also able to confirm this for the
County through the examination of witnesses that took place on April 8th
and 9th in 1723. The inhabitants of the surrounding villages
who appeared as witnesses all maintained that Tófü was governed by the
stewards and administrators of the Dombovár Domains since living
memory. All in all, it was the constant worry about the prairie of Tófü
that became the impetus for Egry to proceed with its settlement.
All of the Eszterházy
villages were either populated by hereditary local subjects or colonized
by Hungarian peasants under the guidance of a representative of the
Domains. Kozár was an exception in this regard when it was granted to
the Serbs who established themselves there in 1717. The Eszterházy
estates and properties remained unaffected to a great extent with regard
to the Great Swabian Migration because it was looked upon as temporary
and self-contained. Open prairies became rare. Tófü was to be the
first village in the Eszterházy Domains with purely German settlers.
The village is situated
on the border of Tolna and Baranya Counties, on the narrow strip of land
that was claimed by both Counties. Since the close of the 17th
century there had been ongoing unresolved quarrels over the matter.
According to J. Holub, this dispute was never formally concluded. The
decision of Paul Anton Eszterházy, can however, be considered as the
official conclusion to the matter. As a result the County of Baranya
came into the possession of several villages and open prairies, which it
never possessed during its former history. The quarrels always flared
up when it came to the settlement of the prairies in 1717 over Kozár, at
the end of the 1720s with regard to Tófü, and after 1735 the matter of
Mekényes.
Since the first years
of settlement were tax-free the two Counties did not enter the names of
the non-tax paying peasants in their tax conscriptions until 1728.
According to the transcripts of Tolna County, Tófü is assessed for 44
Gulden and 64 Denari during the tax year of 1728. There are only a few
pages to the transcript dealing with that, but Baranya declared that
Tófü had to pay its taxes to the County of Baranya. The County Assembly
requested information from Gaspar Nagy, the administrator of the
Eszterházy Domains south of Lake Balaton, specifically requesting
documents with regard to the Urbarium Regulation in terms of Tófü and
the land grant documents the Eszterházys had to prove ownership in order
to be able to direct a reply to the County of Baranya. They must not
have complied with the request for there is no evidence of the existence
of the Urbarial Regulation and they must have rejected the need to
provide the land grant documents.
The response of the
administrator of the Domains has been lost but the reply by the
authorities of the County of Baranya is well known. Tolna County was to
abstain from collecting taxes because the village was part of the
territory of Baranya County and incidentally was already incorporated
into the land conscription records of that County a matter to which
Tolna County had to abide. The Assistant Sheriff officially assured the
village of six tax-free years at the time of the beginning of the
settlement and he also promised to provide aid and assistance to avoid a
possible tax collection by the County for which purpose a commission
was established with a number of jurors and judges.
The tax collection
failed to materialize because of that threat. Nevertheless, Tófü was
taxed once again in the following year during the registration of taxes,
this time in the amount of 20 Gulden and 82 Denari. In response, Gaspar
Nagy reported that Tófü, Kozár, Mekényes and a few additional villages
and open prairies were affiliated with the Domains of Dombovár ever
since April 2, 1729. He provided records from the Domain’s conscription
from the same year indicating that Tófü (and also Kozár) were part of
Tolna County according to the existing statutes.
In order to put an end
to the controversy, Nagy appealed to the representatives of all of the
Eszterházy estates and Count Erdödy with the proposal that Tófü be
conscripted annually by both Counties and even if Baranya County
insisted that it was one of their possessions it should abstain from
collecting taxes for now in order not to prolong the poverty of the
villagers. Nagy’s opinion was that the Royal Council ought to take the
position to award Tófü to the County to which it truly belonged
according to the statutes, namely Tolna. But matters took another
course. Prince Paul Anton Eszterházy received notification from Tolna
County that Tófü and Kozár had been awarded to Baranya County. Tolna
County agreed reluctantly. An explanation and clarification was
provided to avoid such proceedings in the future as it affected Tófü.
In years past the
steward of the Dombovár Domain, László Egry, requested certain
privileges for the newly populated emerging villages. He was not
satisfied with the three tax-free years that Tolna allowed the colonists
when he discovered that in nearby Baranya County, nobles granted the
foreign new arrivals six tax-free years. As a result he had the two
villages (Tófü and Kozár) annexed and placed under the jurisdiction of
that County. In the following year, the Royal Hungarian State
Chancellery demanded further information on the matter of Tófü. The
prince is also said to have communicated the kinds of privileges that
the village possessed but there were no responses to these overtures
made by the Eszterházys.
The County tax
authorities still did not give up. In 1736 when the judge and his
acting representative along with another individual came to the village,
they found no one at home. The officials later remarked: “They were
not at home and the judge did not intend to find out their names on the
grounds he did not have that authority from the County.” With that
reference Tófü vanishes from the records and tax conscriptions of Tolna
County.
It can therefore be
assumed that the settlement took place under the guidance of László Egry
and he also made the agreements with the settlers in place of a
settlement contract. This must have been in the year 1723 since Egry
died sometime in the early summer of that year. The names of the
settlers are first listed in the land conscription of 1728, which was
done simultaneously by both Counties.
The Tolna register
lists ten names and of these six are said to have already been in Tófü
in 1723, a further four would have come in the following years. The
Baranya register indicates a different year of arrival for the same six
settlers and puts it at 1725, and the further four are reported to have
settled in the conscription year of 1728. These inconsistencies cannot
be explained but have something to do with the interests of both the
settlers and the Domain in terms of stretching out the tax free years by
giving a later arrival date.
We will deal with the
early conscriptions recorded for the year 1729. According to that
conscription Johann Adam Pickelhaupt, Georg Bartel Rorbek, Adam Märcz,
Petrus Theobald, Johann Heinrich Krill, Laurenz Reichert, Martin Karl,
Johann Adam Kerber, Johann Leonhard Leen and Johann Leen arrived in the
year 1724, Martin Jung, Johann Georg Perner and Elias Wick in 1725 from
Germany.
Conscription list were
also drawn up by the administrators of the Domains, frequently in the
well-governed Eszterházy estates in dealing with the establishment of
new villages the settler’s place of origin was also often cited. In
this way they probably wanted to avoid taking on any subjects with a bad
record and it was also intended to prevent quarrels with other Domains
who might have a claim on them, especially when it dealt with Hungarian
peasants who were not free to migrate.
As a result, in the
case of Tófü we have the names of the first fifteen settlers, their
place of origin and the name of their former noble master’s estate in
the records kept by Gaspar Nagy. In this way the basic development of
the small village can be determined precisely from its origin. Some of
the unconventional transcriptions and the orthography cause some
difficulties in attempts at identifying the settlers precisely. Some
of the dates and data are not great importance to us but we will follow
the information to the letter realizing there are other possible
versions and possibilities.
Possessio Tofeö
ex qua Possessione ex quo Dominio
(Residing in Tófü) (Former
place of residence) (Former Domain)
Petrus Schmitt Penthaim Hortenburg
Petrus Tewalt Nidrakren Ezenburg
Hendricus Rauss Pinstott
Ezenburg
Georgius Portl* Penthaim Hortenburg
Johannes Georgius
Perner Pholtz Hadlpergh
Johannes
Mertz Pinstott Ezenburg
Nicolaus Hartmann Hempoch Ezenburg
Johannes Adamus
Pikelambt Prompoch Lebestain
Martinus Jungh Mathiass Heszn
Johannes Henricus
Krill Einstain Hanat
Johannes Georgius
Tilk Ramholtz Teigefeld
Johannes Adamus
Kerber Volttpulau Ezenburg
Hartmann
Mertz Pinstott
Ezenburg
Martinus Karll Naistott Caesareus
Adamus
Mertz Pinstott
Ezenburg
Johannes Leonhard
Leen who was a miller and for whom there is no additional information.
*Also identified as
George Bartl Rohrbeck
Despite the
orthographic inaccuracies the places of origin of the colonists can be
determined from the above details. The family researcher in Pécs, Georg
Mueller has identified Pinstott as Bönstadt in the nearby vicinity of
Frankfurt-an-Main and has been able to clarify the family connections of
the emigrants there. If we still include the details from the Hungarian
tax conscriptions, the development of the settlement of Tófü can be
reconstructed to some extent.
In 1724 Johann Adam
Pickelhaupt and Johann Adam Kerber settled in Belac and were still
registered there in 1728 and as of 1729 we find them in Tófü. Adam März,
Laurenz Raighert (Reichert) and probably also Johann Heinrich Krill
arrived in the country in 1722 at the latest. Reichert was first in
Cikó; the three are then located in Nagymányok in 1722. In 1724
(perhaps even in 1723) they moved into the desolate village of Tófü.
Johann Heinrich Krill was still living in the village in 1731 but turns
up again in Gyönk in 1733. The two brothers of Adam März, Johann and
Hartmann, as well as Heinrich Rausch arrive from Bönstadt in 1728. In
1731 two further settlers from Bönstadt settled in the village, Johann
Georg Falk and Johann Georg Meisinger who are related to one another by
marriage; the latter of them moves into the house of Krill who had moved
to Gyönk. In the 1730s Johann März left the village for a few years,
and is once again present in the 1740s and then dies in his 63rd
year of his life in 1749 but his wife survives him. After 1732 even
Adam März vanishes from the conscriptions, people later mentioned his
wife who was left behind but according to an entry in the Church Records
in Bikal he is then buried in his 64th year of his life in
1755 but in Tófü.
The four settlers from
Bönstadt, Hartmann März, Falk, Meisinger and Rausch form part of the
reliable work force in the village and are cited in all of the
conscriptions until 1748. One ongoing member of the community was
Johann Georg Tilk from Ramholz, an honest and just man, who served as
the emergency Lutheran teacher in the village whose homestead the family
researcher George Mueller visited and also clarified his family
relations. About the local miller, named Leen and his son we know that
they, like Adam Pickelhaupt came from Brombach as early as 1724 but like
most of the millers, they did not have a permanent address and leased
various mills after 1731. There were other families that came and then
moved on until 1748 when the source of settlers dried up temporarily.
So during the first twenty-five years there were constant changes in the
number and mix of families living in the village. Twenty years later
during the Urbarial Regulation we have a stable community with few new
arrivals or departures except due to marriage up until the violent
expulsion of 1948 that decimated the entire local population.
Supplemental
A letter from the
General Assembly of the County of Baranya dated April 6th
1729 is filed in the County Archives in Szekszárd in which the County
protests against the fact that Tolna County included the village of Tófü
in their tax conscription. As an outcome we find a second letter
written in Hungarian that the acting High Sheriff and the most senior
tax collector of the County of Baranya, Daniel Horváth wrote on the same
day to the honourable judge and jurors in Tófü with the salutation, “God
bless you, judge and jurors of Tófü.” In what follows the villagers are
strictly ordered not to pay taxes to Tolna County whatsoever, to give no
allegiance nor recognize the jurisdiction of Tolna, to resist the tax
collectors, to afford them no accommodations. Only when their free
years would run out would begin paying taxes to the County of Baranya.
How did this letter get
to Szekszárd? Since the colonists did not understand Hungarian one will
have to assume they needed someone to explain its contents to them.
During a later tax conscription and collection that was undertaken by
Tolna County, the tax collectors were avoided by the local population
who upon their arrival in the village ran off and hid in the
neighbouring forests with their families, cattle, oxen and horses. In
the end this and other failed attempts at collecting taxes led to an
abandonment of further tax conscriptions from Tolna County in 1736.
