Montefiero
The Montefiero Agricultural Aid Society,
located in New York, founded the colony of Montefiero in 1884.
It was located in the Mount Nebo neighborhood of Pratt County
6 to 8 miles south and east of Cullison.
The colony started out with 15 Jewish
families from Russia who arrived in the area in March of 1884.
That fall they gathered their first harvest, and a schoolhouse
and a sod synagogue had been built.
Within the first year the colonists
came to terms with the fact there was not much timber in the area,
and due to a lack of measurable rainfall, little water was available.
The colony disbanded in 1885 and some colonists went back east
to New Jersey, and the rest went to Lasker in Ford County.
Jewish Colonies in Kansas set
up by Agricultural Aid Societies
Beersheba (Hodgeman) |
Gilead (Comanche) | Hebron (Barber)
| Lasker (Ford) | Leeser
(Finney) Montefiero (Pratt)
| Touro (Kearny)
Sources
Douglas, Donald M. "Forgotten
Zions: Jewish Agricultural Colonies in Kansas in the 1880's."
Kansas History 16 (Summer 1993): 108-119.
Harris, Lloyd David. "Sod
Jerusalems: Jewish Agricultural Communities in Frontier Kansas".
Masters Thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1984.
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