Johann Hessler, a carpenter (Zimmermann), his wife Elisabeth, and children (Eva, age 26; Johann, age 22) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a pinque named Каргополь (Kargopol: a Russian City) under the command of Captain Lieutenant Moses Davydov.
Son Johannes Hessler, a farmer, his wife Maria Barbara, and father-in-law Karl Hellmann settled in the Volga German colony of Krasnoyar on 20 July 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 50.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Hessler came from the German region of Laubach. The 1767 census records that Johannes Hessler came from the German village of Dienheim.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Hessler family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 31.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 537.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 428.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4161.
Brent Mai