Following Jürgen Christian Findorff's plans for the
inner colonisation in the drained
mires of the
Teufelsmoor the village of Schlussdorf was founded in 1800 with originally 24 colonist families. (1720–1792), whom on 20 September 1771
George III of Britain and Hanover had appointed as Mire Commissioner () for the drainage and colonisation of the Teufelsmoor, included fuel turf sales as the necessary and available financial source for the colonists in their hard initial years. The colonists sold fuel turf () prevailingly in
Bremen and cities on the lower
Weser, in order to raise money to make a living and build up their farms. As the soil was poor, In springtime farmers started to cut peat Then the brick-formed peat pieces were piled up to stacks for drying in the summer sun to become fuel turf, In 1830 fuel turf cost
Thaler (Thl.) 4 to 8 (about Mark (1871)|mark [ℳ] 12 to 24) per 1 , which is . In his teenage days the Schlussdorf-born (1847–1912) navigated turf barges to
Vegesack and Bremen selling 1 Hunt of fuel turf for Thl. to 3 (about ℳ 16 to 18), as this author of rustic novels described. Between 1866 and 1884 turf prices per Hunt freely delivered rose from ℳ 60 (in 1866 still Thl. 20 circa) to ℳ 72. Selling fuel turf remained a main source of revenues for mire farmers till the begin of the 20th century, For their own requirements some mire farmers continued heating with fuel turf until the late 1960s. The intermediate (fiscal authority supervising and controlling the royal-electoral
demesnes) and the provincial
Bremen-Verden government in
Stade paid for their part the main causeways in each village.), to which each colonist had to commit in a contract with the mire commission. All royal-electoral causeways were open to everyone for the public good. Until the
regulation of the river Wörpe in 1860 Hardly a farmer in the drained mire had a horse, in Schlussdorf e.g. no family had a horse in 1828, they were useless lacking made roads. However, Schlussdorfers had some horned cattle Hydraulic engineers and colonists straightened natural rivers and created most of today's watercourses between 1751 and 1799, providing for the northerly connection to
Bremervörde and Stade. The mire farmers used barges () with no considerable
draught capable to cruise the shallow navigable ditches of the Teufelsmoor mire. Once crisscrossed by drainage trenches,
hill moors – like the Teufelsmoor – do not well hold water, thus, in order to maintain a navigable water level manually openable
sluices (
N. Low Saxon: ]) were installed every to in all the watercourses. In order to pass a Schütt it was to be opened board by board, a time-consuming procedure implying water losses. So usually two people manned a barge, one navigating and one opening and closing weirs. In order to balance these losses streams on the
geest had to be tapped, provoking disputes with the inhabitants there. The
Schlussdorf-Winkelmoorer Schiffgraben (Schlussdorf-Winkelmoor shipping ditch) between Schlussdorf and was laid out on expenses of the Royal-Electoral Chamber in 1810, shortly before the
French annexation of the
Elbe–Weser triangle. The
Schlussdorf-Winkelmoorer Schiffgraben measures in length and connects via the river Umbeck to the
Hamme. by 1830. In 1856 flap weirs were installed in the
Schlussdorf-Winkelmoorer Schiffgraben replacing the previous devices. The southward extension of the old
Semkenfahrt by the Semkenfahrtskanal in 1888 and later further on by the Neue Semkenfahrt further shortened the connection between Bremen and the villages north of Worpswede. Farmers who could not afford a boat took the services of an
Eichenfahrer, a commission shipper from Bremen. Boat sheds mostly disappeared to these days or remain very dilapidated, except of few preserved in museums, such as the Torfschiffswerft in Schlussdorf. Other roads were seasonally so furrowed that pedestrians had to use a side path. Until the end of the
First World War causeways had been built to connect all the villages so that many farmers bought for the first time a horse from demobilised army stocks in 1918. In the 1920s every village paved at least one causeway, usually connecting to the closest paved highway, typically with
turf-fired clinker (). With more and more causeways paved in the Teufelsmoor drainage ditches were put out of navigation. In the Great Depression and the early Nazi period more causeways were paved within
job creation schemes, with villagers having to feed and lodge the workers in the scheme and provide
hand and hitch-up services. Between 1900 and 1954/1956 the connected Bremen's Parkbahnhof station with
Tarmstedt calling also stations in the Teufelsmoor. Since 1911 the
Mire Express railway, since 1978 only operating seasonally, provides its services. == History of the shipyard ==