Merhardt
Johann Heinrich Merhardt, a farmer, and his family arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 12 September 1766 aboard the English frigate Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.
Joh. Heinr. Mergard [sic], his wife Maria Elisabeth, and daughter Maria Catharina (age 1½) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that daughter Maria Catharina died en route.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Philippsfeld on 3 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 2.
In 1786, Heinrich Merhardt and his family moved from Philippsfeld to Beauregard.
The 1767 census records that Heinrich Merhardt came from the German village of Friedewald in Hessen.
- 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): Mv2304.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 403.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5274.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #3368-3370.
Brent Mai