Jakob Hutter was arrested in November of 1535 in the town of Klausen in South Tyrol. In Klausen we visited the town museum to learn about the details surrounding Jakob Hutter’s arrest and imprisonment in the Branzoll Castle towering above the town. The museum director, Christoph Gasser, showed us an old town register documenting important civic meetings and the annual assignment of positions in the town dating back to the early 1500s. We were interested in tracing the position of the sextant, because from our Chronicles we know that ....

Jakob Hutter was born on the Pröslhof in Moos in the Pustertal in South Tyrol near the village of St. Lorenzen. Our visit to the hamlet in the Tyrolean Alps was on a breathtakingly peaceful Tuesday morning. The Hof is within site of the Michelsburg, another castle where several Anabaptists were imprisoned. The elderly homeowner had prepared a doughnut-like pastry with fresh berry jam and juice. During our visit, we discovered from an old photograph and caption that Jakob Hutter’s name may not come from his occupation as hat-maker ("Hut" is G....

The following blog post is Part 1 of 4 planned posts about a Hutterite history tour I was privileged to experience in the summer of 2012.

Part I will provide an introduction and brief overview of our tour.

Part II will touch on places and events relating to Jakob Hutter's early life.

Part III will present surprising new details surrounding Jakob's Hutter's arrest and execution.

Part IV will describe a planned Hutterpark in the city of Innsbruck, Tyrol to celebrate the Anabaptist-Hutterite history in the region.

I received an impo....

Reprinted and posted with permission.Written by Madelin Hofer.

We are Hutterites
We live in colonies. We are scattered across the prairies of Canada and the United States. We are Anabaptist. We are farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers.

Our faith is so entwined in what we do and who we are, it is impossible to separate the two.

We are an interesting mixture of Austrian, German, descent and culture, wit....

During their stay in the Dakotas, Americans barely noticed the Hutterites, that is, until World War I broke out in 1914. But then they were viewed as foreigners because they spoke German and refused to participate in the war. Nor did they contribute any money towards the financing of the war. Of course, this did not go over well with the English-speaking neighbors, who raided the colonies and stole livestock and supplies to help finance the war.

Since it was compulsory, Hutterites sent their young men to military camps, but they didn’t all....