Stössel (Dehler)

Johann Heinrich Stössel was born in 1730 in Undenheim, a village in the Mainz-Bingen district about 12 kilometers northwest of Worms, in what today is part of Rhineland-Palatinate. He married Maria Katharina Steinmetz, daughter of Johann Adam & Christina Steinmetz, on 3 May 1758 in the Catholic Church in Westhofen, a village between Undenheim and Worms. Today, Westhofen is part of the collective municipality called Wonnegau. She had been baptized on 28 December 1732 in Deidesheim, southwest of Worms.      

They had five girls, each baptized in Westhofen: (1) Apollonia, baptized on 3 January 1759; (2) Maria Elisabetha, baptized on 2 November 1760; (3) Johanna Maria, baptized on 9 April 1762; (4) Eva Magdalena, baptized on 25 February 1765; and (5) Maria Walburga, baptized on 20 February 1766. At some point before 1766 daughter Eva Magdalena died.

Heinrich Stössel, a farmer,his wife Maria, and daughters (Apollonia, age 9; Maria, age 7; Anna, age 5¼; Walpurgia, age ½) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 21 July 1766 aboard a koff named Alette under the command of Skipper Wybe Hendricks.

Heinrich Stössel, his wife Maria Catarina, and daughters (Apollonia, age 11; Maria Elisabeth, age 9; Johanna Maria, age 7; Walburg [sic], age 2) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.

The Stössel family arrived in the colony of Dehler on 19 August 1767. A month later, on 24 September 1767, Johann Heinrich's wife died. The family is recorded later that year on the 1767 census in Household No. 35.

Johann Heinrich remarried and had two additional children: Elisabetha Margaretha, born in 1769, and Moritz, born in 1777. Moritz is recorded in Dehler on the 1798 census in Household No. Dl44.

The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Heinrich Stössel came from the German region of Pfalz.