Scharf (Nieder-Monjou)
Johann Martin Scharf was born in Biskirchen, west of Giessen, on 15 October 1741, the eldest child of Christian Scharf (born 18 March 1708 in Biskirchen) and Anna Sophia Keyser (born 1717 in Biskirchen). Johann Martin married the widow Catharina Haardt on 15 December 1765. She had a four-year-old daughter named Katharina by the previous marriage to the Haardt.
Martin Scharf, a farmer, his wife Katharina, and [step-]daughter Katharina [Hardt] (age 4) arrived from Lübeck at the port in Oranienbaum on 8 August 1766 aboard the galliott Anna Catharina.
Martin Scharff, his wife Catharina, and children (Catrina Margreta [Hardt], age 4½; Johann Heinrich, age ¼) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767 along with a note that son Johann Heinrich died en route.
The family arrived in Nieder-Monjou on 3 August 1767, and are recorded there on the 1767 Census later that year in Household No.73 along with a one-week-old son named Just.
In 1793, widower Martin Scharf moved from Kukkus to Nieder-Monjou. However, he is recorded on the 1798 Census still living in Nieder-Monjou in Household No. Nm25.
- 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): Nm25, Mv1448.
- Mai, Brent Alan, trans. & ed. Transport of the Volga Germans from Oranienbaum to the Colonies on the Volga: 1766-1767 (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1998): #5200-5203.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 201.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3948.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #6169-6172.
Werner Heep
Bill Pickelhaupt
Brent Mai
Entry from the Oranienbaum passenger list (#3948) recording the arrival in Russia of Martin Scharf and his family.
Source: Brent Mai.