Before the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, most of the future Principality of Lichtenberg was held by the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken.

The area of St. Wendel was held by the Prince-Bishops of Trier while the Princes von Salm, as the Rheingrafen [de] (Counts of the Rhine), had Grumbach and the lands west of it.

[2] In the War of the First Coalition Napoleon and his Grande Armée overran the whole Left Bank of the Rhine, which was formally ceded by Holy Roman Emperor Francis II in the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio.

Because of political unrest in St. Wendel on 31 May 1834 and the great distance from the rest of the Duchy, the Duke, Ernest I, sold the Principality to Prussia on 15 August 1834 for the annuity of 80,000 talers.

The Kingdom of Prussia annexed the lands as Kreis Sankt Wendel (District; lit.