Nikolaus Henkel, a farmer, and his wife Magdalena arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard the barque named Fortitudo under the command of Skipper John Scott.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767. They and their 2-day-old daughter are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 40.
In 1792, widow Magdalena Henkel and her son Philipp moved from Norka to Anton. They are recorded on the 1798 census of Anton in Household No. An03.
Johann Philipp Henkel from Anton is recorded on the 1811 census of Kukkus in Household No. 66 along with a note that he had arrived in Kukkus from Anton in 1809.
Both the Oranienbaum passenger list and the 1767 census record that Nikolaus Henkel came from the German district of Isenburg.
There are no known suriving male lines of this Henkel family among the Volga German colonies.
- 1811 Kukkus Census (Household No. 66).
- 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): An03, Mv1969.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 239.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3773.
Brent Mai