Sheridan's Russian connection

The Russians are coming, again?At least 17 families from Russia descended on the Sheridan area in 1919. It had been just nine years since the beginning of the mainly Russian Aurora Colony in Mt. Pleasant. The Sheridan group also founded a "colony."Each family purchased large acreage for farming. The group built its own church and established its own cemetery. Local residents were undoubtedly somewhat apprehensive.The Sheridan Russian settlement was the culmination of a long chain of events that started in Europe in the 1600s. A group of peasants refused to join the Russian Orthodox Church. They formed their own religious sect, resulting in the Molokan Church.The Molokans were expelled to the Transcaucasus in the 1800s. Just before the Russian Revolution, 2,500 members immigrated to America (soon after 1900). A large number of these immigrants came to the West Coast, especially to Los Angeles.A number of these then came up to the Bay Area, especially to the Russian River, Potter Valley and Mendocino areas. It was in this Bay Area group that the idea of starting a colony in Sheridan was generated.Max Popoff, a member of the group, decided to start a Molokan Church and agricultural colony near Sheridan in western Placer County. He had learned about the wide-open spaces and farmland around the town from his son James, who had left home earlier and lived in the Sheridan area.Seventeen of the families listed as original colony members in Sheridan and whose names appear on a cemetery deed are still recognized by many older Western Placer residents: Max Popoff, Jim Popoff, Alex Seminoff, Andrew Bogdonoff, William Bogdonoff, Nick Bogdonoff, John Bogdonoff, John Loscutoff, Jack Loscutoff, John Corboff, Jack Susoeff, Fred Susoeff, Efim Sulovitsen. There were others, especially those who came later.Several of these original family names are still found in the phone book with Sheridan addresses: Bogdonoff, Loscutoff, Popoff.How could these refugees from political and religious persecution in Russia afford to buy land in Placer County? During World War I many worked in San Francisco for good wages in machine shops, on the docks, etc. They saved as much money as possible.Former Sheridan resident Hope Andressen Grey grew up in Sheridan. She remembered well the influx of Russians in about 1920. She said that with the money they had saved they were able to buy the ranches of early aging pioneer settlers. These newcomers became the new eager and vigorous rancher class.Hope added: "Their children became my early school friends. We all walked the two miles to school together on what is now Andressen Road, the strangers learning English and I learning some Russian."Like the Russian anarchist colony in Mt. Pleasant in 1910, this Russian Molokan Church colony a decade later was assimilated into the local community. They were no threat. They were simply looking for a free environment to practice their harmless beliefs.They may have been considered a threat in their own closed society in Russia, but became community assets in the American of the 20th Century - although they ran into infrequent little expressions of bigotry or resentment. Their children were popular students in Sheridan, Valley View and Lincoln High School in the 1930s and 1940s.Unlike the Aurora Colony members, their individuals were under no illusions about the hard work of farming. They survived, even through the economic depression of the 1930s. A number of the family names can be found in the list of Lincoln area veterans of World War II.The Russian cemetery section is still part of the cemetery in Sheridan. They founded their own cemetery when the private cemetery of that time wouldn't give them permission to bury anybody from their group there. The cemetery they started was known by two names: the Russian Colony Cemetery and the Sheridan Molokan Church Cemetery. The two names indicate some internal strife in the colony, which came to light when the group was in the process of deeding the property and care over to Placer County Cemetery District No. 1.The little Russian Molokan Church still stands in the town of Sheridan. It is located at the intersection of Andressen and Riosa roads.