Johann Leicht [sic], a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, and daughter Anna (age ¾) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English frigate named Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.
Michael Leichtling, a farmer, his wife Elisabeth Adrian, and daughter (age 2) are recorded on the 1767 census of Leichtling in Household No. 1. They had settled there on 20 June 1767.
It is after Michael Leichtling that the colony of Leichtling took its name.
Michael Leichtling is recorded on the 1798 census of Leichtling in Household No. Lg02 along with a note that he and his family are actually in the colony of Fischer where he is working at the mill.
Paul Leichtling from Leichtling and his family are recorded on the 1857 census of Marienfeld.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Leicht [sic] came from the German region of Isenburg. The 1767 census records that Michael Leichtling came from the German region of Stuttgart.
- 1857 Marienfeld Census.
- 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): 249.
- 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): Lg02.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 51.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1781.
Brent Mai