This history of Glogon, about 50 km SW of Zichydorf, was contributed by Kathy Lara.
This history of Glogon was translated from a Xerox of a typed copy of what was apparently a newspaper article published in a German-language periodical serving the Glogon area in 1924. Copied by Anna Schiller of New York City shortly after its publication; furnished by her to her cousin, Anna Trollman, and by her to her daughter, Elsie Trollmann; translated by David Trollman, grandson of Johann Trollmann (1987); published by Winifred Trollman, wife of John Trollman, Jr. (1988).
A HISTORY OF THE COMMUNITY OF GLOGON
The darkness of the ages still obscures the early history of the community of Glogon, since so few reliable dates and historical facts are at our disposal, and at this distance in time our initial efforts to illuminate the distant past, the birth and times of our community, can give us only estimates and approximations.
The site of Glogon surfaces in history for the first time in 1586, during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, when it belonged to the Pantschow Sandjuk. Its residents appear to have been Serbs, mainly from the few of that people who fled from Old Serbia and held diverse privileges earned from service to the Hungarian kings for protecting the borders of their kingdom by force of arms.
These colonies fashioned an entirely unique organization that later developed into the institution of the “Frontier Guard.” (Militärgrenze) It has not been established whether this was the first settlement. But that the first inhabitants of our area were of Slavic origin can be sufficiently demonstrated by the Slavic origin of the name “Glogon,” which was likely formed from the word “Glog” or “Glogovina.” In English, Glog means “hawthorn,” and the first settlers appear to have come across much of this shrubbery and to have brought about the description of the area by its current name.
The inhabitants of the region understandably rose up from the lowest stages of development, and lived in wretched huts built from wickerwork and sod. Their chief occupation was fishing and hunting–they pursued agriculture and animal husbandry only when these were absolutely vital to their subsistence. Their customs were in general quite crude, and they had neither school nor church, were deprived of all culture, and had sunk to barbarity.
For 164 years the Banat languished under the tyranny of the Turks, and when in 1716 it was torn away from them by hostile powers, Glogon comprised in all 16 occupied houses, in which only about 40 or 50 residents could have been housed. Six years later, from 1723 to 1727, the province of Banat was surveyed and mapped at the order of Count Mercy. On this map one finds Glogon designated by the name “Glokanski,” in the abandoned, devastated regions of the Pantshovia district. However, as the borderlines were established against the predatory raids of their Turkish neighbor, Glogon was once again peopled, and formed (with the municipalities of Jabuka, Sefkerin, and Opovo) into the Pantshovia-Opovo border bastion. The frontier guard was entrusted to some of the 240-man Hayduke Company, in which served the residents of municipal Glogon and its environs. The Haydukes were not actuall y paid, but would receive an acre of land in lieu of money, and would then give their meadows over to a butchery cartel. They also enjoyed complete freedom from taxation and many other privileges, in part spiritual and in part material.
In the year 1764 the Frontier Guard was organized. In 1767 Glogon itself was incorporated, and became the seat of the 4th Company of the 12th German-Banat Border Regiment. To the Glogon Company also belonged the regional municipalities of Sefkerin, Borcha, and Ovcha. The first officers of the Glogon Company were Company Commander Theodore Schley (whose proxy was Captain Anton Menhoffer), First Lieutenant Simon Munier, and Lieutenant Josef von Mathay. Noncommissioned officers were Sergeant Friederich Johann Rosenzweig and Company Doctor Andreas Konrad Genlig. The military command was housed in a building constructed in the same year, which until 1910 served as the city hall after the dissolution of the Frontier Guard and its reformation as the “Main Guard.”
In the year 1768, Glogon was one of many other municipalities to have the singular good fortune of swearing allegiance to Emperor Joseph II in its midst.
In 1771 and 1772, Serbian inhabitants, tired of strict military authority, withdrew from the community, which was then in 1774 occupied by German settlers. Although we have no documentary evidence at our disposal that specifies the origin of these German immigrants, it is still possible to determine whence they came with the help of old parish registers:
from Alsace: Klaus, Kramer, Baumann, Deny, Gross, Eisenkolb, Halwax,
Tirheimer
from Lorraine: Bernhardt, Fux, Kötterer, Spiesser
from Bavaria: Schmidt, Kessert, Fischer, Willy
from Kerseburg: Fűstner
from Hesse: Feger, Rieth
from Baden: Weisert, Reiser, Műller, Imhof, Safamoser, Johs, Mayer
from the Rhenish [Rheinish?] Palatinate: Wolf
from Bohemia: Kleemann, Haida, Berner, Cherny, Blatnek, Lischitz, Manchel
from Moravia: Novak, Liebzeit, Kokesch
from Silesia: Hauser, Schady
from Lower Austria: Lehr, Hirnschall, Kupfer
from Carinthia: Weber
from Saxony: Nied
from Salzburg: Trollmann
from Syria [Styria?]: Schulz, Kastner, Bűchler, Nahm
from Belgium: Scherer
With the Germans immigrated a few other families, among them these of French descent–Bunyar, Duran, Piess, Lohran. Among the old names are some no longer represented in Glogon, such as Schermann, Morgenbrot, Rotter, Rossberger, Kraft, Feldmann, Spinner, Hőffringer, Fidler, Freiburger, Rabengrab, and so on.
At the order of Empress Maria Theresa, in 1775 a school and church were built, the last furnished with three bells, of which one–the “Anna Bell”–was a gift of the Empress. When it rang loudly during the conscription in 1779, Glogon had a total of 856 inhabitants.
Glogon had much to mourn during the time of the Turkish invasion of 1788. The Turks overran the community toward the end of September, plundered it, subjected its inhabitants to a horrible bloodbath, and in the end put the entire region to the torch. The corpses of the unlucky inhabitants were buried in a mass grave at the southwestern edge of the region, on the left bank of the Temeschufer. In 1790-91, a much-dreaded and swiftly moving cholera epidemic arrived in this place, and took such a heavy toll of the populace that the dead had to be buried in a separate place in the lower hunt area. This is in the hilly area, and known as the “Cholera Cemetery.”
In 1794 the first Romanians were settled; their forefathers came from Siebenbűrgen, where they had led a nomadic life for centuries, for the most part as herdsmen and servants, and also as tradesmen and peddlers. In the same year some Magyar families from Hungary settled down here–Itebe and Hodmezővasarhaly–and with time have naturalized and come to act and be known as Germans. A significant influx of people occurred in 1800, when 16 Romanian families settled here from Klek and Jankahid.
In 1806 the Romanians, who before then belonged in a religious sense to the parish of the community of Sefkerin, got their first house of worship, in which Father Isak Todorovich preached the word of God.
In 1819 Stefan Suplikach was stationed here as Company Commander. In 1848 he was installed as Woiwode, or leader of the Serbian nation; he was the last to bear this historical title.
In June 1825 the tower of the Catholic Church was torn off by a great storm, as a result of which the tower clock was completely destroyed. In the same year in Glogon, where until then there had been only a Trivial school, a German public school was erected and taken over by Teacher Johan Duptz. Three years later the Romanians also established a public school, to which Jovan Popovich was named as teacher.
In 1839 the Romanian congregation endowed what is now the Church Square, on which in the following year they erected a house of worship, which stood until 1911.
In 1841 the old, already dilapidated Catholic Church structure was demolished and the current house of god constructed.
In 1848 a plague of locusts descended on Glogon, which completely covered the earth and inflicted hideous damage to pasture and garden.
The battles of the Revolution of 1848-49 that flared up between Austria and the Hungarian nation, Glogon appears to have played no special role, and to have been completely spared from the harsh and difficult struggles, for history tells us nothing of this period, and tradition has preserved little more of note.
Tradition has it that in early September 1848 a detachment of the Serbian field army, which at that time was encamped in Crepaja under the command of General Zivanivich, appeared in Glogon, where they drew up on the church square and under threat of severe punishment demanded that the municipal government pay a certain amount of war taxes—allegedly 8,000 guilders—and furnish them with needed oxen and cattle as well as other war material and provisions. After the shocked and astonished populace gave in to this demand without resistance or delay, the troops pulled out without inflicting the slightest damage on the community, leaving it in complete peace.
In 1863 our community was afflicted by a great evil—famine. An unusually hot summer without dew or rain followed a cold and dry winter. The fruits withered in the fields and gardens. There was no pasturage, and the animals could only be fed with leaves, roots, and twigs, with the outcome that a good part thereof died of hunger. Great need was also felt for food supplies, and indescribable was the misery that the modest assistance of the State could only quiet in part. Only with the greatest efforts could the government arrange the return of the population to farming and begin to prepare for the leprosy the next year. In the following year of 1864, however, the Almighty appeared to have taken pity on the people, and gave them an unusually good and bountiful harvest for the many sorrows that they bore in the bad year.
The Frontier Guard holdings protected by the Hungarian Assembly were broken up on 10 June, 1871, and in 1872 the provincial administrative borough was introduced. The communities of Jabuka, Sefkerin, Franzfeld, Borcha, and Ovcha were taken with Glogon to comprise the Glogon Administrative Region, with the seat of government in Glogon. However, the next year the governmental administration was designated an “administrative seat,” the Glogon Administrative Region was broken up, and Glogon was incorporated into the Pantshovia Administrative Region.
Until now local government had been entirely in the hands of the military. Now, concerns about community affairs inserted themselves in the communal understanding. Gustav Schwanfelder was selected to be the first Notary, a 50-year old who had served some time as the community teacher. The first Cavalier was Peter Bernhardt, who discharged the office of the last Regional Director of the Frontier Guard. After him until the present day, the following people served in that capacity: Ivan Soshtarich, Johann Piess, Johann Andreich, Wilhelm Kupfer, Ignatz Johs, Josef Pakachay, Simin Zhebeljan, Peter Lehr, Max Zacher, Josef Bernhardt, Franz Willy, Franz Schaff, Josef Paar, and Josef Lohran.
The Medical Corps would serve the community only as long as the Frontier Guard existed, which made available its company doctor. The last company doctor was Gottfried. In 1872, a regional clinic was founded through an agreement with the neighboring community of Sefkerin, and Josef Kren was nominated as Chief Military Surgeon. Also in that year, mail service was transferred to the civil authorities, and a certain Georg Dragoi was entrusted with the title of Postmaster.
As a result of the dissolution of the Frontier Guard, the government-run, so-called Trivial school was abandoned in 1871, and in its stead in 1876 a Hungarian public school was erected, one of the first of such schools to be allowed to open by the Hungarian regime. The first Hungarian public school teacher was named Friedrich Krämer, and he was known as a capable but strict teacher.
In 1880, the community of Glogon counted a total of 2,886 residents, and ten years later a total of 2,911, or 250 more than we can count today.
After the dissolution of the Frontier Guard, the activities of associations and societies began to pick up. Thus in 1882 a Red Cross chapter was formed; in 1883 the Men’s Choral Society; in 1889 the Volunteer Fire Department; in 1895 the Agricultural Farmer’s Union; in 1901 the Credit Union; in 1906 the Hunters’ Lodge; in 1920 the German Cultural Society; and in 1922 the Union of Glogon Merchants and Tradesmen.
With this we conclude our lecture of today, in which we briefly overviewed the past, the history of our community. Would that we could continue to work as energetically, as industriously, with as much perseverance and thrift as our forefathers, who in their long race for property, land, and home were united in brotherly love for a better and more attractive future for the community of Glogon.
On the day of the Sesquentennial of the Glogon German settlement.