Miersch Genealogy Page, The

A Concise History in English of the Picturesque Town and Region in Pommern / Pomerz Called

Bublitz (in German)

Bobolice (in Polish)

adapted with thanks from http://www.powiat.koszalin.pl/_bobol_e.html, http://www.heimatgruppe-bublitz.de/html/stadtgeschichte.html, http://www.baumanor.com/bublitz/bublitzstats.htm, http://www.pommern-bublitz.de/ and others along with helpful comments/corrections from

Margret Ott, ott@schlawe.de, and Jörn Karsten, Joern.Karsten@t-online.de

The area surrounding Bublitz (Bobolice) is strongly diversified as far as elevation is concerned (from 65 to 216.6 meters above sea level). The environment presents a wonderful landscape with many valleys and hills, mysterious forests, and abundant water found in ponds, streams, and deep lakes.

Remains of two fortified settlements located within the administrative limits of the town are dated to the 6th-10th centuries. The settlement out of which Bublitz arose started developing in the early Middle Ages on the trade route linking the province of Posen to the South (with its capital at Poznan, encompassed today within the Wielkopolska region located mid-way between Berlin and Warsaw) to Kolberg (also called Kolobrzeg) in the Northwest at the ford across the Chotla River (rzekę Chotlę, the biggest tributary of the Radew River). The first record about Bublitz dates back to 1262. In 1340 Bublitz was granted civic rights and considerable privileges aiming at stimulating the town's development.

In 1370 the borderland town was given to the Teutonic Knights as a pledge for a loan. It was redeemed by the prince (or regent) of Pomerania Bogislaw VIII (1377-1417) in what became later the reason for disputes between the imperial bishops of Kammin who represented ecclesiastical power and the prince.

A period of slow development of the town was severed by the attack of Swedish troops on Pomerania in 1632 during the 30-Year War (1618-1648). The town, rebuilt after a fire of 1606, suffered from forced contributions, robberies and quartering.

Towards the end of the 17th century Bublitz was a town largely constructed of brick and its inhabitants worked in trade and handicraft on the local market. In the second half of the 18th century the first industrial establishment in Bublitz was opened, namely a tannery provided with raw materials by neighboring estates. A station of the royal mail existed here as well.

The actual development of the town occurred however only in the second half of the 19th century. It resulted from a number of factors, the most important including: building a road to Staatsarchiv in Köslin (Koszalin) and heightening the status of the town by establishing it as the seat of a newly created county. This growth is represented graphically by the number of registered baptisms:

Year	male	female	total
1820	47	46	93
1821	36	48	84
1822	55	34	89
1823	39	58	97
1824	50	43	93
1825	55	35	90
1826	52	45	97
1827	47	35	82
1828	47	48	95
1829	46	40	86
1830	43	39	82
1831	46	53	99
1832	57	44	101
1833	46	48	94
1834	53	50	103
1835	42	47	89
1836	50	56	106
1837	60	42	102
1838	63	44	107
1839	59	50	109
1840	56	49	105
1841	65	63	128
1842	72	53	125
1843	81	59	140
1844	87	67	154
1845	63	75	138
1846	76	65	141
1847	86	57	143
1848	84	70	154
1849	74	79	153
1850	108	74	182
1851	86	72	158
1852	83	75	158
1853	93	61	154
1854	81	100	181
1855	86	63	149
1856	83	82	165
1857	85	62	147
1858	66	78	144
1859	96	70	166
1860	79	82	161
1861	75	74	149
1862	83	69	152
1863	80	81	161
1864	97	96	193
1865	98	87	185
1866	87	80	167
1867	85	87	172
1868	71	93	164
1869	113	86	199
1870	102	102	204
1871	83	103	186
1872	128	99	227
1873	117	92	209
1874	93	90	183
1875	99	92	191
1876	126	97	223
1877	91	99	190
1878	107	93	200
1879	104	96	200
1880	109	97	206
1881	109	99	208
1882	101	98	199
total	4841	4371	9212

Source: Brian Bauman, http://www.baumanor.com/bublitz/bublitzstats.htm

Note: Prior to 1874 in Prussia, the church records (Kirchenbücher) of the official churches (Evangelical and Catholic) served as recognized documents for the purpose of proving one's birth, marriage, and death and had to meet certain standards of accuracy and completeness. Members of minor (unrecognized) churches had to record their vital statistics with the pastor of the official churches. Civil registers of births, marriages and deaths were not introduced until October 1874 across Germany. The Civil Registry Office is called Standesamt. Before this time, the Lutheran church records (1815-1874) or special Dissidenten-Register (1847-1874) served as official registers, and a duplicate copy was deposited at the local court (Amtsgericht). Most Standesamt (Polish: Urzed Stanu Cywilnego) records for Prussia (including Pomerania) remained in the old offices and many were taken over by the Polish authorities in 1945. They are listed in the Gazetteer of Polish People's Republic Localities. The full title is Spis Miejscowosci Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej, published in Warsaw 1968, and on LDS microfilm #844,922 (see Adalbert Goertz, FAQ.Pommern).

A link to microfilmed records from Bublitz relevant to our Fuchs and Miersch ancestors is provided here.

The latter half of the 19th century and the emergence of a German Reich were accompanied by other great changes which influenced the people of Bublitz and many other localities. As Professor Gerhard Rempel of Western New England College, has noted, "The shift of the economic center of gravity from agriculture to industry resulted in significant internal migration and urbanization in Germany. Until about 1870, population growth, continuous since the middle of the 18th century, had still not led to any significant shift in the relative size of urban and rural populations...East-West inner migration started at the end of the 1860's. It flowed from East and West Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania, and Posen toward the industrial center--Berlin. In the 1870's it extended into central German industrial areas and in part into the Rhineland and Westphalia. Then after 1880 the movement was from the Prussian eastern provinces into the Ruhr area. Until 1893, this east-west inner migration was accompanied by emigration abroad. After the 1870's eastern Germans played a larger role than those from the southwest in external migration. On the average, over 100,000 German emigrants, mostly farmers, left the German Empire annually until 1893. In 1893, when the free settlement of land in North America ceased and at the same time German industry began to expand, the emigration declined to 30 percent of its former size. After 1900, the immigration of foreigners to Germany was greater than German emigration abroad."

Source: http://www.pommern-bublitz.de/Bilder_alt/alt9.jpg

Source: http://www.pommern-bublitz.de/Bilder_alt/BUB.2.JPG and http://www.pommern-bublitz.de/Bilder_alt/BUB.3.JPG

This was the condition of Pommern and Germany our immigrant ancestors left behind in the 19th century in the Miersch family immigration to Chicago from Pomerania.

Source: http://www.pommerscher-greif.de/images/bublitz.gif from Unser Pommerland, 20. Jahrgang, April-Juni 1935, Sonderheft "Das Land Bublitz"

Subsequently a county hospital was built, railway services to Polzin (Polczyn) and Schlawe (Slawno) were opened and a few major industrial plants were founded. Interesting historic monuments include such religious objects as the church in Bublitz built in 1882-1886 which replaced the former one.

Not until the year 1898 was Bublitz supplied with electricity from the newly erected power plant. The opening of the Bialogard-Bobolice narrow-gauge railway line occurred in 1905.

Already, the migration of the population to bigger towns and elsewhere mentioned above had become a growing problem for Bublitz's continued development. About the region between Pollnow-Rummelsburg-Baldenburg-Bublitz (Polanow-Miastko-Bialy Bor-Bobolice), Georg Vietzke-Rosenhof wrote in 1906 :"An area not touched by big traffic". The lack of workforce was compensated somewhat by having Poles and Kashubs coming here to work seasonally.

After the First World War, the local population suffered greatly from the worldwide economic crisis and the great inflation what contributed to making political views more radical. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War over 6,000 people lived in Bublitz. Three factories making farming machines, another factory producing electric engines and a large textile works operated in the town.

Bublitz was seized by Soviet troops on 26-27 February 1945. Despite the fact that no major battles took place in its surroundings, nearly 70% of Bublitz (renamed Bobolice) was destroyed after the capture. Following the war, despite the catastrophic housing conditions, settlers from other parts of Poland, repatriates from the Vilnius and Nowogrodek lands as well as people from the Ukraine displaced within the framework of the action "Wisła" started coming to the town. Bobolice may be even said to have been rising from war damages till today. As the modern European Union arises most seem to recognize that in 1945 an irreversible decision was made when German Pomerania became Polish Pomorze, a homeland where for centuries Germans and Poles had lived peacefully side by side.

The civic heraldy for Bublitz (Bobolice) is also interesting. Pictured below are the arms of Bublitz in the late 19th century which feature the Paschal Lamb (Agnus Dei), the symbol of John the Baptist who is the patron saint of the town.

Source: O. Hupp, Königreich Preussen. Wappen der Städte, Flecken und Dörfer. Reprint von 1896 und 1898. Bonn: Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen, 1993.

The modern heraldry used in Bobolice today retains the key visual symbol of the lamb and cross but is simplified as follows: