Johannes & Anna Catharina Bechtold had three children recorded in the Schwickartshausen parish register. All three were born in Eckartsborn: (1) Johann Adam, born 1 July 1757, baptized 3 July 1757; (2) Elisabetha Margaretha, born 28 December 1759, baptized 30 December 1759; and (3) Rebecca, born 15 June 1763, baptized 17 June 1763.
Johann Bechthold, a farmer, his wife Julianna, and children (Johann Adam, age 8; Elisabeth, age 7; Rebekka, age 3) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 16 August 1766 aboard a galliot named Frau Diederika (Lady Diederika) under the command of Skipper Johann Joachim Lunau.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Walter on 25 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 64.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Bechthold came from the German region of Darmstadt. The 1767 census records that [Johann] Bechthold came from the German village of Eckartsborn in the Hessen-Darmstadt region.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 33.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 757.
- 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): Wt054.
- Parish register of Schwickartshausen.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 309.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6060.
- Stumpp, Karl. The Emigration from Germany to Russia in the years 1763 to 1862 (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1982): 120.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai