Warthe Bruch

I recently came upon some old maps of the Warthebruch, the swampy region in northwestern Poland from which our Grohndorff ancestors emigrated in 1854. Karl Ludwig, the greatest of the great grandparents I've found so far in the Grohndorff line, listed Cocceji-Neudorf as his residence when he filed for emigration with the Prussian authorities for East Brandenburg. The village is too small to be found on most maps, but its location can be pinpointed by typing its modern, Polish name into Google Earth. Try it using voice recognition: Krzyszczyna.

Cocceji (or Coccey as it appears on these old German maps) may be only marginally easier to pronounce. Wikipedia suggests kok-'tse-yi, which to my ear sounds more Navajo than German. It was created in 1775 as a Prussian colony named for Samuel von Cocceji, a chancellor of King Frederick II. King Frederick, better know as Frederick The Great, was granting exemptions from taxes and military service to settlers in the region, and possibly land as well, in exchange for turning the swamp into farmland. Our Grohndorff ancestors may have been among the first wave of immigrants hoping to improve their standing.

The population of Cocceji reached a peak in 1801 which, coincidentally, is the very same year our 3rd great-grandfather Grohndorff was born. In that year, the census counted 243 inhabitants and 36 homes. Its 38 farms were owned by only two families -- the von der Ostens of Smogór (which sounds like a name invented by J.R.R. Tolkien), and the von Waldows of Lubniewice (citing Wikipedia, not Monty Python) -- so it's unclear where the colonists stood in the class hierarchy. Karl Ludwig is listed as an eigentuemer when he emigrates, indicating he owns property and isn't dependent on wages for his living. But there may be some legal distinction that ranks him lower than a landholder. In any case, it's likely the Grohndorffs had been in Cocceji for at least a generation, perhaps two, long enough to have played an important role in the reclamation efforts that made the Warthebruch agriculturally productive.

It was difficult work, clearing the land, digging ditches, excavating canals and building up levees. The lower reaches of the Warthe, swamp land too stubborn to be reclaimed, is today a national park and wildlife refuge, and on its website is an historical anecdote about the frustrations of the settlers tasked with draining the marshes. Their frequent applications for permission to emigrate were turned down by a defiant Frederick The Great, who responded with his conviction that they were building a "New World" of their own. The settlers responded by assigning names like "New York" and "Florida" to the patches of dry land they'd manage to wrestle from the river.

Fragment of a map, probably dating from the first half of the nineteenth century, of the region of the Warthebruch around Cocceji where our Grohndorff ancestors origniated. Below is a satellite view of the same region.

Several of these place names can be found preserved on the map above, which I've clipped and enlarged below. It's a fragment of a larger map that probably dates to the early nineteenth century. Below and to the left of Cocceji (highlighted) I've found: Havana, Anapolis, Philadelphia, Hampshire, Florida, Mariland, Saratogo and Quebeck. Though I haven't found a "Green Bay", "Fort Howard", "DePere" or even a "Wisconsin" among them, perhaps one or two were suggested, perhaps even longingly, by one of our great grandparents.

Enlarged portion of the map above showing Cocceji and the reclaimed marshlands in its vicinity. The map preserves some of the names given by the colonists in subtle refutation of King Frederick's conviction that they were building a "New World" in the Warthebruch. 

A map I find even more compelling dates from the 1890's, and is so highly detailed it even shows the positions of houses and other structures in and around Cocceji. One of them is likely the home where our great-great-great grandfather, Karl Ludwig Grohndorff, was born. 

Map dating from the 1890's showing the region of the lower Warthe River, just east of where it meets the Oder. Cocceji, the village from which our Grohndorff ancestors originated, is very close to the center of the map.

Enlarged portion of the above map showing property lines and locations of houses and other structures in and around Cocceji.

According to our great aunt Leonor, Karl Ludwig was an only child. He was 54 at the time he emigrated, and his parents were likely dead. There was no one but our 2nd great grandfather, Carl Friedrich Grohndorff, also an only child, who stood to inherit the farm. He was fifteen at the time and (lucky for us) chose to emigrate with his father. Once settled in Wisconsin, Carl Friedrich fathered William Gustav by Caroline Smith, in 1870. William, in turn, with the crucial help of his wife, Lillian E. Blodgett, fathered Edyth Lillian Grohndorff in 1897.