Zacharias, Johann (1868-1954)

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In 1907 Johann Zacharias became the first minister of the Sommerfeld Mennonites in the Herbert and Gouldtown area in Saskatchewan. He later served under David Doerksen, who became the Ältester of the Herbert Sommerfelder in 1911.

In 1922, Zacharias led a small group of followers to Mexico together with a group of Saskatchewan Bergthaler under the leadership of Kornelius Epp, part of the larger migration of conservative Mennonites from Canada to Latin America in the 1920s. There is little information on what happened to this small group of immigrants. Many appear to have first established themselves on a small settlement at Milpillas, with the nearest government offices at Cusihuiriachic, about 25 kilometers distance from Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua. This settlement soon failed and most of the Herbert Sommerfelder who moved to Mexico returned to Canada within a few years; other Mennonite settlements in the region apparently absorbed the few who remained. Zacharias returned to Canada in 1929 and settled in the Meadow Lake area in north-central Saskatchewan.

Zacharias was born to Abraham Zacharias and Maria Klassen on 19 November 1868 in the Chortitza Colony in Russia (present day Ukraine). He immigrated to Canada in 1876, settling in the West Reserve and then moving to Herbert sometime around 1906. He married Elizabeth Rempel (1869-1959) on 29 November 1888 and had 12 children with her. Zacharias died in Meadow Lake in July 1954.

See Also

Bibliography

Bergen, Peter, comp. History of the Sommerfeld Mennonite Church. Sommerfeld Mennonite Church, 2001. Pp. 57-59, 213.

Doell, Leonard. "The Bergthaler Mennonite Emigration to Mexico and Paraguay." Saskatchewan Mennonite Historian 27, no. 2 (2022): 13-21.

Doell, Leonard. The Bergthaler Mennonite Church of Saskatchewan, 1892-1975. CMBC Publications, 1987. P. 17.

Ens, Adolf. “Sommerfeld Mennonites at Santa Clara, Mexico.” In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001. P. 187.

GRANDMA (The Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry) Database, 5.00 ed. Fresno, CA: California Mennonite Historical Society, 2006: #157879.

Hildebrand, Lydia et al., ed. and comp. The History of Gouldtown and Districts. Gouldtown History Book Committee, 1973.

Peters, Jacob E. “Ältester Abraham Doerksen (1852-1929).” In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, ed. Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001. P. 121

Sawatzky, Harry Leonard. They Sought a Country: Mennonite Colonization in Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Pp. 52 and 73.


Author(s) Gerald Ens
Date Published 2025

Cite This Article

MLA style

Ens, Gerald. "Zacharias, Johann (1868-1954)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 2025. Web. 1 Feb 2026. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Zacharias,_Johann_(1868-1954)&oldid=180417.

APA style

Ens, Gerald. (2025). Zacharias, Johann (1868-1954). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 1 February 2026, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Zacharias,_Johann_(1868-1954)&oldid=180417.



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