The story of the Kessler family is inextricably linked to the very soil of the settlement that bears their name. Sebastian Kessler Sr. and his wife Scholastika are believed to be the original patriarch and matriarch who first established a home on this specific tract of land in the early 1840s. Following Sebastian Sr.’s death in 1845, his son Joseph Kessler and daughter-in-law Maria Louisa took stewardship of the family estate. The Kesslers were not only foundational residents but also the primary benefactors of the community’s spiritual life, ensuring that their neighbors had a consecrated place for both worship and eternal rest. Their legacy is physically preserved within the Kessler Cemetery, where many family members, including Maria Louisa and Scholastika, remain interred today.

The Kessler Settlement emerged in the mid-1840s as a close-knit enclave for German Catholic immigrants seeking a new life in Buchanan County, Missouri. Many of the foundational families, including the Wiedmaiers and Sielas, arrived in the United States together on June 10, 1844, aboard the ship Iowa. These pioneers, including tradesmen like the weaver Joseph Wiedmaier, quickly established an "intelligent and prosperous" community of farmers. The social and religious life of the settlement centered around a modest log structure known as the Church of the Holy Savior, Jesus Christ (also referred to in archives as the Kesler Settlement Church), which served the German congregation from approximately 1847 to at least 1853. This period marked the settlement’s peak as an independent cultural hub before the regional focus eventually shifted toward the burgeoning towns of Easton and Hurlingen.

A pivotal moment in the settlement's history occurred on September 22, 1847, when Joseph and Maria Louisa Kessler formally secured the community’s future by donating five acres of their land to the Catholic Church. Through a legal indenture, the Kesslers granted this parcel to the Right Reverend Peter Richard Kenrick, the Bishop of St. Louis, for the nominal sum of one dollar. The deed explicitly stipulated that the land "shall be used and applied for the site of a Roman Catholic Church and for purposes connected with Roman Catholic worship". This five-acre tract, surveyed to sit exactly one hundred feet north of the Kesslers’ own residence, became the official grounds for the Holy Savior Church and the Kessler Cemetery. The document was officially recorded on January 18, 1848, formalizing the transition of this private family land into a sacred communal landmark that has survived for nearly 180 years.