Johann Peter Geiter [sic], farmer, his wife Katharina, and children (Maria, age 7; Rosina, age 4) arrived from Lübeck via Reval [Estonia] at the port of Oranienbaum on 27 May 1766 aboard a pinque named Слон (Slon - Elephant in Russian) under the command of Lieutenant Sergey Panov.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Warenburg on 12 May 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 1 along with Johann Anton Ikstadt (age 5) and his sister Anna Margaretha Ikstadt (age 15), the orphaned children of Nikolaus Ikstadt. The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Kreiter and Ikstadt families. A note on the 1767 census of Warenburg records that Johann Geiter [sic] is serving as the colony's mayor (Vorsteher).
This surname is recorded as Kreiter in later records.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Peter Geiter [sic] came from the German region of Nassau. The 1767 census records that Johann Geiter [sic] came from the German village of Seelbach in the Nassau region.
- 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): 111.
- 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): Wr082, Wr102.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 321.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #590.
Brent Mai