The Social and Economic Life of the Village

  The economic life of this village and other 26 stood for 4 centuries, from 1426 till 1870, under the influence of the feudal estate of the castle of Gurghiu, estate which had a lot of owners.

  King Zsigmond gives the estate in 1426 to nobleman Denes Banffi, the village of Petelea also being mentioned "possessionem nostram regalem Petele vocatam", so Petelea is a royal village, which will later on get the privilege of being "oppidum"- market, just as Reghin.

  Those who got Petelea donated or as mortgage also got the bondsman from the village. From the trial of the baron I.Bormemissa and the fusilier from 1773, we find some names of bondsman from Petelea, who asked for eternal freedom and abolishment of taxes and bandsmens jobs, privileges granted by the prince Gabriel Bethlem in 1615: Mitrea, Constantin, Simion, Toader, Marian, Nuţu, Macavei, and others such as: Stephan Havassi, Nemeth Martin, Marcu Berchie, Ferenczi Andrei, Şerţel, Ţăran etc.

  The first data regarding the social stratification and the economical life of the village are handed down to us from 1724. Studies reveal in the village the existence of 47 bondsman farms, 25 farms of poor free people and 19 farms of other people, so 91 farms, besides the noblemen which , we believe, weren't absent. At that time is mentioned the existence of a water-mill, related to which, Silviu Branea from Petelea offered to the "Almanahul tineretului român pe anul 1994" information about the stops of Eminescu in this area in the year 1866. He tells us how Mihai Eminescu, on his way to Blaj, stayed for 3 days in the vicinity of the mill of Petelea and enjoyed the company of the 2 girls, Firica şi Mariţa, of Gheorghe Cosma, the grandfather of Silviu, the "malommeşter"- miller and it is told that this mill inspired Eminescu in his novel "Geniu pustiu".

  The statistics from 1865 informs us on the ownership of 3534 ha of land, from which: 1.602 ha titable, 958 ha hayfields, 89 ha grazing-fields, 37 ha vineyard, 845 ha forest. In the village were 8 carts and 50 cattle-carts. In 1840 there already existed an attested fair in the village, organised on each Saturday before Whitsuntide . Animal fair is held nowdays 4 times a year, one for each three months. Ever since organising animal markets was forbidden in the cities, the animal market from Reghin was moved to Petelea and is held every Thursday and every last Saturday of the month.

  The first rich owners in the village are mentioned during the census from 1895, and are: Leonhard Osvald, with 73 ha titable, 4 servants, 12 cows, 2 horses, threshing machine, sower, 4 plough, 4 carts.

  The Evangelic Luteran church owned 379 ha land, from which 44 ha titable and 267 ha forests.

  The village of Petelea became more and more rich. In 1895 there were 426 owners in the village who had 43 yokes with 1 or 2 horses, 96 yokes with 2 oxes, 102 yokes with2 cows. The village had 902 cattle, from which 277 milking cows, 184 oxes, 234 horses, 1363 sheep, and the big owners and rich families had 48 servants.

  Petelea was in the first years of the XX-st century the richest village in the area of upper-Reghin, with an income of 32.791 crowns.

  In the village there were in 1925 3 grocer's, 1 credit-bank, functioning in the Saxon school, 1 brick-factory, 3 shoemaker's, 3 tailor's, 5 innkeepers, 1 blacksmith and 1 mill.

  The agrarian reform from 1945 expropriated 220 absent Saxons of 1.312 ha, from which 1.246 ha 58 acres were given to a number of 411 entitled. People from the village were appropriated to 983 ha and those from the nearby villages with 281 ha.

  The village was repopulated, during the agricultural reformation, with families that came from different areas of the country, such as: Sălaj, Cluj, Ciuc, Maramureş, Dobrogea. This is the reason for finding in the village such names as: Haba, Muntean, Belea, Maloş, Hadmaş, Oprea, Frandeş, Lung, Niomati, Achim, Cotîrlan, Moldovan, Cichi, Bucin, Dan, Luca, Scarabenea, Tecan, Mare, Gaspar, Ţîntar, Ola, Trişca, Cosma, Costin, Pintea, Cozac, Nădăşan, Maier, Şimon, Pop, Grindean or Portik, Balasz, Truţa, Borda, Lacko, Nagy, Pall, Borbely, Szabo, 16 Szekler coming from the Ciuc-area. The village had in the year 1948 a health center, a milk shop, co-operative shop, a water and fire-mill, 3 bars, 3 shop's, a shoemakers, a smithy, a brick yard, a tailor, 450 farms with 672 cows, 83 horses and 635 sheep.

  The communism brought tremendous changes in the lives of the people and the agriculture. On the 4th of May 1952, 22 families, 44 working persons possessing 55.72ha of land, join together in the cooperative society "Vasile Roaită". In 1954 other 280 families with 550 ha join the agricultural association "Drumul Belşugului". The association disappears and gradually more and more farmers join the society (CAP), which in 1962 has 383 affiliated families. In 1973 the village was formed by 26 individual house-holds and 257 house-holds of retired or employees, most of them from the factories in the neighboring city or from the tailors-shop in Petelea, where 18 people were working.

  In the village, there has also been functioning, since 1971, the Economic Cooperative Association specialized in the breeding of cows. Nowadays, the buildings, endowments, land, hayfields are used for breeding animals by Romcia SA, a joint-stock company - created in 1991.

  For the mechanized agricultural jobs, the village has also a mechanized agricultural association S.C. Agromec S.A., with machines/tools like: tractors, combines, plows, disks, sowing machines, trailers and 19 employees.