Johann Peter Heist, son of Johann Henrich Heist (4 December 1686 - 28 February 1743) & Anna Catharina Dietmann (28 November 1688 - 14 March 1724), was born 26 January 1718 in Reichelsheim. He married Anna Elisabetha Dyroff. She had been born approximately 1718 and died 22 September 1763 in Reichelsheim. Johann Peter Heist remarried 22 May 1764 in Reichelsheim to Elisabetha Fischer, daughter of Johann Michael Fischer (10 December 1681 - 30 August 1749) & Elisabetha Vollrath (died 26 February 1738). Elisabetha had been born 19 March 1726 in Klein-Gumpen and was previously married 25 February 1745 in Reichelsheim to Johann Martin Schuchmann, son of Johann Martin Schuchmann & Anna Fischer from Obernhausen. Johann Martin Schuchmann had been born 15 November 1718 in Obernhausen and died in Reichelsheim on 29 July 1762.
Johann Peter Heist & Anna Elisabetha Dyroff had 10 children whose births are recorded in the parish register of Reichelsheim: (1) Johann Georg, born 29 November 1742, died 14 July 1743; (2) Anna Elisabetha, born 17 March 1744; (3) Eva Elisabetha, born 6 May 1745, died 6 April 1753; (4) Anna Margaretha, born 29 September 1746; (5) Johann Philipp, born 7 March 1749; (6) Anna Catharina, born 22 December 1750, died 4 December 1759; (7) Anna Eva, born 28 October 1752; (8) Elisabetha Catharina, born 23 October 1754; (9) Elisabetha, born 24 May 1759; died 3 September 1764; and (10) Elisabetha Catharina, born about 1761.
Johann Martin Schuchmann & Elisabetha Fischer had 6 children whose births are recorded in the parish register of Reichelsheim: (1) Georg Adam, born 13 February 1746, died 5 May 1749; (2) Anna Margaretha, born 15 September 1748, died 15 December 1748; (3) Margaretha Elisabetha, born 23 June 1751; (4) Johann Michael, born 20 March 1754; (5) Heinrich Ludwig, born 12 July 1759, died 16 August 1759; and (6) Anna Catharina, born 29 March 1761.
Peter Heist, a baker (Bäcker), his wife Anna, children (Anna, age 19; Johann, age 18; Eva, age 14; Elisabeth, age 11), and [step-]children (Elisabeth [Schuchmann], age 16; Michael [Schuchmann], age 12) 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.
Johann Peter Heist (age 49), a farmer, his wife Elisabeth (age 43), son Johann Philipp (age 19), and [step-]son Michael [Schuchmann] (age 13) are recorded on the 1767 census of Dobrinka in Household No. 64. They had arrived in Dobrinka on 20 June 1767.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Peter Heist came from the German region of Erbach. The 1767 census records that Johann Peter Heist came from the German village of Rigelsen [Reichelsheim] in the region of Erbach.
- 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): 254.
- 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): Db44.
- Parish register of Reichelsheim.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 330.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1825.
- Wolf, Heiner. Familienbuch Reichelsheim: 1643-1875, Band 2 (2018): 1142, 1176, 1177, 1340.
Brent Mai