Valentin Werth, a farmer, and his family arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 12 September 1766 aboard the English frigate Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.
Valentin Wehr [sic], his wife Margaretha, and children (Johann Michaell, age 5; Anna Maria, age ¼) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that Anna Maria died en route.
They are recorded on the 1767 list of Beauregard recruits in Household No. 90 along with a note that they settled in the Volga German colony of Schönchen in 1768.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Valentin Werth came from the German region of Pfalz while the Beauregard list records that he came from the German village of Mehring.
- 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): Sn36, Sn42.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 367.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5468.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #3689-3692.
Brent Mai