Hoffmann (Walter)

Nicolaus Hoffman, son of Caspar Hoffman & Magdalena Burkart, was born 13 February 1723 in Gersfeld. Elisabetha Richter, daughter of Hans Richter & Margaretha Klüber, was born 24 November 1723 in Gersfeld.

Nicolaus and Elisabetha married there on 9 February 1751. The births of 6 of their children are recorded in the parish registers of Gersfeld: (1) Dorothea, born 17 October 1752; (2) Johannes, born 1 May 1755; (3) Johannes [again], born 2 May 1757; (4) Margaretha, born 26 March 1759; (5) Anna Eva, born 10 July 1761; and (6) Eva, born 24 September 1764.

Nikolaus Hoffmann, his wife Elisabeth, and children (Dorothea, age 16¼; Johann, age 12; Johannes, age 10¼; Margaretha, age 8; Anna, age 6; and Eva, age 2) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 20 August 1766 aboard a galliot named Catharina Eleonora under the command of Skipper Peter Rehder along with the Widow Elisabeth Hoffmann and her children (Anna, age 7; Johann, age ¼).

Widow Elisabeth Hofmann [sic] and her children (Anna Cathar., age 8; Johann Philipp, age 6) are recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.

Nikolaus Hoffmann, a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, and children (Johann, age 12; Johannes, age 11; Eva, age 6) are recorded on the 1767 census of Walter in Household No. 18. They had arrived in Walter on 25 August 1767.

Both the passenger list in Oranienbaum and the 1767 census record that this Hoffmann family came from the German village of Gersfeld [mis-translated as Herschfeld on some publications].