Seventy-three families of the Mennonite Congregation of Kotosufka left Russia on Aug. 6, 1874, under the leadership of Elder Jacob Stucky and Rev. Jacob D. Goering at Liverpool, England, embarked on the City of Richmond, and arrived in New York on August 31, 1874. Fourteen families went to South Dakota, while others stayed briefly with eastern Mennonites to repay travel loans. Fifty three families were brought by the AT&SF to Peabody, Kansas, in a journey of 12 days, and after a three-week search for land they came to this place in October, many via Halstead. Their ancestors had originated as Anabaptists in 16th-century Switzerland and moved repeatedly because of persecution. In 1671, during peak persecution in Canton Bern, including galley slavery, Anabaptists fled in large numbers to neighboring French and German areas. From 1784-1791 Swiss-German ancestors moved from these areas to Polish Austria and later to Polish Russia. They came to America in 1874 from the Province of Volhynia, giving rise to the name Swiss (Volhynian). During these migrations many identified with the Amish and some also with the Hutterites. Among the most common Swiss family names were Flickner, Goering, Graber, Kaufman, Krehbiel, Miller, Schrag, Stucky, and Zerger, while other family names acquired in Austria and Russia included Albrecht, Dirks, Kopper, Lorenz, Mauer, Muendelheim, Nachtigal, Ortman, Penner, Preheim, Ratzlaff, Ries, Schroeder, Schwartz, Senner, Strausz, Sutter, Unrau, Voran, Waltner, and Wedel.