Johann Gottfried Balde, a single cobbler, arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 21 July 1766 aboard a snow-brig named Mercurius under the command of Skipper Christian Heinrich Abelßen.
He settled in the Volga German colony of Urbach on 13 July 1767 and is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 13 along with his new wife Christina.
Gottfried Balde and his family (sons: Friedrich, age 29; Friedrich Karl, age 26) are recorded on the 1798 census of Urbach Household No. Ur14 along with a note that the father Gottfried Balde is working as the schoolmaster in Rosenheim and son Friedrich Karl is working in Stahl am Karaman.
[Friedrich] Karl Balde from Urbach is recorded on the 1811 census of Schwed in Household No. 8.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Gottfried Balde was a cobbler while the 1767 census records that he was a craftsman (Handwerker).
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Gottfried Balde came from the German region of Sachsen (Saxony). The 1767 census records that Gottfried Balde came from the German village of Delitzsch in the region of Sachsen (Saxony).
- 1811 Schwed Census (Household No. 8).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 32.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 421.
- 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): Ur14.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 272.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3284.
Brent Mai