Michael Stolz, a farmer, and his wife Maria arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard the galliot named Elisabeth Catharina under the command of Skipper Heinrich Ludwig Gottknecht.
Arriving with them was widower Christoph Wengard and his children (Kunigunda, age 16; Leonhard, age 7; Barbara, age 2). Leonhard & Kunigunda are presumed to be his stepchildren. They are recorded on the 1767 census of Seelmann in Household No. 26 as siblings of Michael Stolz.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Seelmann on 16 August 1767. Michael Stolz, a farmer, his wife Anna Maria, son (Heinrich, age 1), and siblings (Kunigunda, age 16; Leonhard, age 11) are recorded on the 1767 census of Seelmann in Household No. 26.
Michael Stolz is recorded on the 1811 census of Seelmann in Household No. 59 along with a note that he had been held captive by the Kyrgyz-Kaisaks and had returned to Seelmann in 1801.
Widower Leonhard Stolz is recorded on the 1798 census of Seelmann in Household No. Sm50.
Lorenz [sic] Stolz from Louis is recorded on the 1811 census of Seelmann in Household No. 50 along with a note that he relocated to the colony of Louis in 1799.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Stolz came from the German region of the Pfalz. The 1767 census records that Michael Stolz came from the German village of Leneberg in the Kurpfalz region.
- 1811 Seelmann Census (Households No. 50, 59).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 32.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 396.
- 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): Sm50.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 154.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3038, #3039.
Brent Mai