Suprasl is located 16 kilometres from Bialystok and near Brest on the banks of the Suprasl River, which flows to the east of the town into the Narev River and is surrounded by the virgin forests of the plains of Knishynska and Krinska. The forests contain 40 metre-high pine trees, fresh water springs, animals and rich vegetation.
The Protestant population appeared in Suprasl after the third partition of in []. Some papers state that they appeared in Suprasl in 1806-1829. The first recorded Lutherans in Suprasl were Beniamin and Louise Leopoldov (1829) and Charles and Marianne Wolf (1830). In 1831, Bishop Jawarowski made a decision to make the town an industrial one. Early industrialists like Huffer, then Rotter - who came to Suprasl in November 1832 - took over the lease of the former monastic property together with existing factories. In their place they organised new textile factories and settled in the town with skilled workers.
In 1831, the Customs Union of the Kingdom of and the Russian Empire was abolished, resulting in higher customs duties on the border and a ban on the transport of some wool products to the Empire. This decision caused a decline in the production of goods in the Kingdom, and initiated a process of moving and opening of workshop branches in the surroundings of Bialystok. New centres were built, and the existing ones strengthened.
The Russians imposed strict restrictions on the Polish-Russian border and artisans and factory owners from Lodz and the surrounding region took advantage of the situation and moved their businesses to the area around Bialystok in order to capture new markets. At first, textile plants were launched in the towns around Bialystok e.g. Suprasl, Choroszcz and Grodek.
В тридцатых годах девятнадцатого века в Супрасль приехали Вильгельм Цахерт и Адольф Бухгольц – немецкие текстильщики из Згежа и Лодзи. Пользуясь обилием леса, окружающего город, здесь также развивалась лесная промышленность.
A number of industrialists from Zgierz and Lodz moved their factories to Suprasl for the manufacture of cloth here. Также были основаны следующие заводы: Jansen, Alt, Aunert, Cytron, Koszade, Hirszhorn. (Jansena, Alta, Aunerta, Cytrona, Koszade, Hirszhorna )
One of the first was William Frederick (in some records Freidrich Wilhelm) Zachart who arrived in 1833-1834 from Zgierz with machines and 200 professional workers of German origin and began producing cloth and fabrics and took the lead in the industrialisation of Suprasl.
In the 1830s and 1840s, Zacharts helped other industrialists to come to Suprasl - including Adolf Buchholtz (from Lodz) and Reich in 1837, A. Alt, F. Aunert in 1857, J. Jansen, Lippert, Koszade, Tebus, Knobloc, Deg. They were German factory owners who turned Suprasl into one of the most buoyant textile centres of the late 19th century. May 3rd Street, November the 11th and the new world was built.
From having small monastery settlements (numbering in the 1820s at about 100 people), in less than 20 years Suprasl was transformed into a major industrial centre, numbering in the mid-19th century of about 400 homes and over 3000 residents (1857-3450 citizens). Catholics were most prominent with 2086 adherents in the village, followed by Protestants (790 people), Orthodox (327 people) and Jews (227 people). In 1837, Zachert had 540 workers and opened the first school with 80 students. By 1857, there was already 7 textile factories in existence, which together employed some 1019 workers. The town’s inhabitants also earned their living from trading lumber and from the several local flour mills.
Weekly Petersburg in 1836 listed all cloth and wool factories for the year. In that list was included Suprasl.
“In Suprasl, in the village of foreigner Frederick Zachert a cloth factory has 40 water rotating machines, 540 foreign masters, 60 labourers. 80 workshops produce 2565 of cloth per year worth 105,706 rubles sr.”
However, the tribulations of life got in the way, forcing Julius and his parents to move.
By 1842, in the area of the ‘Dobriner Land’ many Polish landholders refused to renew their contracts with German settlers and they were forced to look for new land somewhere else.
With time, Jews acquired spinning, weaving, knitting skills and took over the Bilyastok district by replacing German specialists. In 1844, the Bilyastok weaving mills would send wagons of their raw materials to Zgierz near Lodz to be worked on. The local German manufacturers from Suprasl did not want to work because of the competition. Jews had learned to imitate and produce cheaper goods and to develop a new kind of cloth and clothing cloth and also blankets that appeared entirely equal to the German kind at first impression. However, they were of a much lower quality. As a matter of course, they could be sold at a much lower price and in this way could compete with better and finer goods of the German manufacturers. After specialising in all fields of the textile industry, the Jewish manufacturers sought to apply all means and to make the most ingenious arrangements and calculations to make their goods as inexpensive as possible. And as the German manufacturers placed on the market a new kind or new pattern of goods, it was very soon after that the same sort of pattern was brought out by the Jewish manufacturers at a much lower price. In such a manner, the Bialystok Jewish cloth manufacturers became very competitive in all of the markets in Russia, where cheaper goods were sought. At the end of the 19th century, almost all of the factories Suprasl passed onto the hands of the Jews.
In the aftermath of repressions inflicted by the fall of the November Uprising 1863-1864, rigorous customs border measures were set up between the Congressional Kingdom of and the Russian Tsar Empire. This situation caused Bialystok city to flourish as many textile manufacturers moved to Bialystok from the city of Lodz to escape the high duties on goods exported to Russia.
The city continued to develop following the launch of Warsaw - Saint Petersburg railway in 1862. This line and other rail links from Odessa to Kaliningrad and from Bialystok to Baranovichi opened in the next years, eased communications, transport of materials and product as well as delivery of coal for boilers of the factory steam engines. The latter made the factories independent from locations by rivers that supplied them with water necessary to power the traditional water wheels. The result was an acceleration of the concentration of workshops in the Bialystok centre and it became the dominant.
Starting from the 1860s, the dynamics of industrial development in Suprasl was gradually declining.
Suprasl architecture
After 1834, by settling down hundreds of skilled workers from Zgierz, it was necessary to solve the housing problem. The Weaver’s houses were constructed in the mid-19th century by the initiative of Frederick William Zachert. After 1845, Zachert arranged for the streets to be paved and houses to be built along them. Thus new streets were created - May 3rd Street, November the 11th and the New World street.
By this time, there were two settlements at the monastery: Brzozowka settlement ( in 1845 as Uroczysko Brzozowka) and New settlement - today around New Street
The road that runs through the farm monastery locates Zachert main axis of the city, main street, today May 3rd.
The pattern of the layout of the new town followed by the layout of Zgierz. Houses of Zgierz were copies of craft houses from Brandenburg and were designed by David Gilly, the theorist of architecture. The houses had two functions - residential and weaving and created the foundation of Suprasl as a textile centre.
The block of the typical weaver’s house was based on a rectangle with dimensions of 9.6 to 15.75m. The plan of the ground floor was symmetrical versus the hall, which was 2.6m wide and situated in the middle of the house from end to end. Usually two families live in the house. One side of the hall were habitation rooms and on the other side weaving rooms.
Many families moved to Томашув-Tomaszow Mazowiecki
https://www.arhivi.gov.lv/lv?u...hivi.lv%2Fhttps://www.raduraksti.arhivi....:2057:2293https://www.suprasl.pl/images/supra%C5%9Bl_folder_1.pdf 