Valentin Bepler and his wife Maria arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English barque named George under the command of Skipper Adam Bairnsfair.
Valentin Papler [sic] and his wife Anna Maria are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Ober-Monjou on 7 June 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 65.
The widow of Valentin Peppler and their son Paul (age 23) are recorded on the 1798 census of Ober-Monjou in Household No. Om53.
The death of Paul Bepler in 1823 is recorded on the 1834 census of Ober-Monjou in Household No. 10. His death is recorded in the Ober-Monjou parish register on 23 April 1823.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Valentin Bepler was a stocking maker from the German region of Mainz while the 1767 census records that he was a farmer from the German village of Obermohr.
This surname has many variations in the Russian documents including Beppler, Böppler, Bäpler, Päpler, Peppler, and Böpler.
Paul Pepler appears to have had only daughters, and there are no known surviving male lines of this family among the Volga German colonies.
- 1834 Ober-Monjou Census (Household No. 10).
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 30.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 195.
- 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): Om53.
- Parish register of Ober-Monjou
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 304.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #1317.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #1317-1318.
Brent Mai
Anastasia Berdakov