Heinrich Jacob Ochsenhirt, son of Sebastian Henrich Ochsenhirt & Anna Margaretha Reichard, was born on 12 June 1729 in Düdelsheim. He was married there on 24 February 1752 to Maria Elisabeth Eyring, daughter of Johannes Eyring of Bruderdiebacher Hof.
Jakob Ochsenhirt, a cobbler (Schuhmacher), his wife Maria, and children (Katharina, age 13; Johann, age 11; Elisabeth, age 3; Wilhelmina, age ½) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English frigate named Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.
It appears that his wife and two youngest children died, as he settled in the Volga German colony of Messer on 18 June 1767 and is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 36 along with his [new] wife, widow Philippina Popp née Willmann, and 3 children: Anna Katharina (age 15), Johann Adam (age 13), and Anna Maria (age ½). The oldest two children are identified as belonging to his first marriage, and the youngest to his marriage to Philippina.
Philippina was previously married to Johann Konrad Popp in the Reformed Church of Lübeck on 31 May 1766. They had been on the same English frigate arriving in Oranienbaum with the Ochsenhirt family.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Jakob Ochsenhirt was a cobbler while the 1767 census records that he was a farmer.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Jakob Ochsenhirt came from the German region of Isenburg.
This Ochsenhirt family and the Raab family of Balzer are first cousins, as the mothers of Jakob Ochsenhirt and Heinrich Raab are sisters (née Reichard).
- Decker, Klaus-Peter, Büdingen als Sammelplatz der Auswanderung an die Wolga 1766 (Büdingen: Geschichtswerkstatt Büdingen, 2009): 87.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 241.
- Mai, Brent Alan, 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga: Economy, Population, and Agriculture (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999), Ms23, Ms45.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt. German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #1188.
- Parish register of Düdelsheim.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 140.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1719, #1818.
Brent Mai
Wayne Bonner