Johann Mertz, a farmer, his wife Susanna, and children (Jürgen, age 16¼; Peter, age 14; Johann, age 12; Maria, age 10¼; Lorenz, age 8; Anna, age 1½) 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.
Widow Susanna Mertz and her children (Georg Philipp, age 16; Johan [sic] Peter, age 13; Johannes, age 11; Maria Elisabeth, age 9) are recorded on a list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
The children of the deceased Johannes Mertz (Georg Philipp, age 16; Johann Heinrich, age 15; Johann Peter, age 12; Elisabeth, age 10) are recorded on the 1767 census of Reinhardt in Household No. 29 as the stepchildren of Johann David Klinger.
(1) Philipp Mertz and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Reinwald in Household No. Rw24.
(2) Peter Mertz and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Reinwald in Household No. Rw01.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Mertz came from the German region of Friedberg. The 1767 census records that Elisabeth (widow of Johannes Mertz) came form the German village of Flor [Florstadt] in the region of Isenburg.
- 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): Rh01, Rw01, Rw24.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 27.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1693.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #1930-1934.
Brent Mai