A Swiss Mennonite congregation from Kotosufka, Volhynia, Russia left Russia in search of religious liberty, and sixty-two families sailed on the City of Richmond, landed in New York on September 3, 1874, and arrived in October on the southwest quarter of Section 19-21-2W, land donated by the Santa Fe Railroad Company for church purposes; with a few more families arriving later, they settled the neighborhood, and the immigrant families included Albrecht, Dirks, Flickner, Goering, Graber, Kaufman, Krehbiel, Nachtigal, Schrag, Schroeder, Schwartz, Strausz, Stucky, Sutter, Voran, Waltner, Wedel, and Zerger.