Seelitz is an

abandoned village An abandoned village is a village that has, for some reason, been deserted. In many countries, and throughout history, thousands of villages have been deserted for a variety of causes. Abandonment of villages is often related to epidemic, f ...

in Brazeau Township in Perry County,

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, United States.

Name

Seelitz was named after

Seelitz Seelitz is a municipality in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. It is part of the administrative partnership based in the eponymous town. Geography The village of Seelitz is situated about 2 km south-east of Rochlitz and ...

Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

.State Historical Society of Missouri: Perry County Place Names http://shs.umsystem.edu/manuscripts/ramsay/ramsay_perry.html

History

Seelitz was a short-lived town near Altenburg, one of the seven colonies established in 1839 in the Saxon Migration. Pastor Ernst Moritz Bürger was the

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

pastor of the village. Seelitz was settled by people from Bürger's congregation in Germany and from that of his father. Although only one of the colonists is recorded as coming from the small parish of Seelitz, which is near

Rochlitz Rochlitz (; hsb, Rochlica) is a major district town (Große Kreisstadt) in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. Rochlitz is the head of the "municipal partnership Rochlitz" (Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Rochlitz) with its other members ...

in the

Zwickauer Mulde The Zwickauer Mulde () is a river in Saxony, Germany. It is the left tributary of the Mulde and in length. The source of the river is in the Ore Mountains, near Schöneck, in the Vogtlandkreis. It runs northeast to Aue, then northwest to ...

valley, Bürger may have chosen it out of filial piety and the memory of his own first pastorate, rather than

Lunzenau Lunzenau () is a town in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Zwickauer Mulde, 16 km west of Mittweida, and 18 km northwest of Chemnitz Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is t ...

, from which he and most of his people had actually come. Seelitz must have been near to, and somewhere to the north of, Frohna, in the Brazeau Creek bottom, because the "special partition" between those two colonies had not yet been agreed upon in November, 1839. Seelitz' low-lying situation made it unhealthy and subject to various fevers. By 1841, Bürger's congregation had been reduced to five, and after much dissatisfaction he resigned, and the parish was made a branch of Altenburg. Thereafter the name disappears from the map. It has been impossible to ascertain whether its territory was united with that of Altenburg, or Frohna, or perchance changed its name to Brazeau, a small community which still survives a short distance away on Brazeau Creek, and which is said to have been originally settled by the Saxons in 1839.

References

Abandoned villages in Perry County, Missouri {{PerryCountyMO-geo-stub