Nil update since December 2007:  Commenced 15 September 2007 (split May 2010).

Product of assorted enquiries and reading backwards by the writer along his mother's lineage.

Any error notifications or additional information or thoughts on people,

places or events mentioned herein would be much appreciated.

Please send to  john.mail "@" ozemail.com.au

( The Steiners at Mulgoa and Camden )

~ derived from earlier file named as below ~

FROM DONKEYS HILL

"ESELSHALDEN" (GERMANY)

TO WOMBAT CREEK

(MULGOA, AUSTRALIA)

From whence they came - the small village of Eselshalden - fountain and information plaque.

arrived there some years after that.

PREFACE

This file follows on, with a small amount of overlap in both files, from steiners-germany.htm that considers Germany and the Steiners ancestors there, especially at the small village of Eselshalden where Christian Steiner came from, and the nearby town of Welzhelm.

Christian emigrated from Germany and came to worked on the Cox property, Winbourne, at Mulgoa.  With thanks to Br. Moy Hitchens of the Christian Brothers, which congregation now owns the property "Winbourne" on which Wombat Creek is situated much of interest was learned about that property.  Br. Moy gave us (my wife and myself) a very knowledgeable tour of Wombat Creek and its environs.

Christian Steiner was born in Eselshalden in Württemberg and emigrated on the ship Gottorp in 1857 to new work at Mulgoa.  Where he is believed to have most likely lived at Mulgoa is today called Wombat Creek (likely a later name).  This is a short creek that comes off the Lapstone Monocline which froms the western edge of Sydney's Cumberland Plains, and rapidly empties into the Nepean River.  

In the 1800s many hundreds of Germans came to Australia to fulfil a need for farm labour, under various schemes of assisted passage.  Many were vinedressers.  In the years 1849-1856 the Colony of New South Wales paid financial assistance (known as the Bounty) for the importation of over 800 such German families.  These were recruited mainly from the wine growing districts of SW Germany.  Information for this webpage was obtained from a a number of persons, as mentioned herein.  Particularly extensive is the work of Ms Jenny Paterson (see references below) on SW Germans who came to Eastern Australia pre-1890.  Paterson has published many papers on German immigration, in Ances-tree, the journal of the Burwood & District Family History Group (formerly the Burwood-Drummoyne & Districts FHG) and other place.  She has visited southwest Germany to look at resources there (Paterson, 1992).  The initial and changing conditions of the assisted immigration scheme is described in Paterson (2007a).   Well over a million people emigrated in the 19th century alone from SW Germany.  Patterson (2007c) gives detailed help on how to use and understand the website: "Emigration from Southwest Germany" - Auswanderung aus Südwestdeutschland at www.auswanderer.lad-bw.de

Christian married at Mulgoa but very few records of his wife, and nothing on how she entered Australia, have been found.

Jenny Paterson (pers. comm.) suggested that Christian Steiner probably emigrated with a betrothed wife, Elisabetha Rheinhard, because this was something which happened a lot at the time.  This was because of the restrictive marriage laws then in force in the German states, especially in the southern states.  A marriage licence, and other demands, had been made quite expensive and some couples could not afford the expense.   It is believed that this was intentional policy, to stop or retard the poor expanding in numbers.  These laws effectively restricted the issue of a marriage licence to those who could show evidence of a certain level of means and were able to pay out the substantial amounts necessary for the man's citizenship status in the town and the marriage licence (Paterson, 2007b).  Betrothed couples often emigrated together and got married after arrival (although not necessarily straight away).  The repressive laws were removed in SW Germany ca. 1862, as they had caused a large rise in illegitimacy and complication of records-keeping (Paterson, 2007b).  Paterson gives the example of Johann Marquard who arrived with his wife Anna Maria Fünkner and one child in Sydney as an assisted passage vinedresser aboard the Triton in 1853.  Unable to marry because of poverty, Johann have been afforded "temporary citizenship" upon showing willingness to emigrate, allowing marriage, but which citizenship then had to be renounced.  His community supported the emigration with a payment of 20 gulden and agreement to pay for a replacement should Johann be called for military service whilst his name was still on the call-up list (till age 25 was passed).  It was necessary to get Johann and Anna Maria married in order to qualify under the NSW government Bounty regulations which said the men had to be married and have skills not obtainable from Britain - specifically vinedressers and wine coopers.  Prior to the arrangement worked out for Johann and Anna Maria, the NSW agent for the Bounty in Germany, Wilheim Kirchner, had sought to jump the hoops of regulatory requirements by having ships' captains marry couples during the voyage to Australia.  Hence on the 4th February 1849, Captain Struben at sea on the Beulah, carried out a mass marriage of ten couples in the name of the Heavenly Father and blessed with the sign of the cross, after the couples made the traditional vows.  One man who had beaten his bethrothed the Captain refused to marry, but instead beat this man and threatened to maroon him.  Later on, when that particular man improved the Captain married them too and blessed their baby.  Unfortunately, New South Wales authorities took a dim view of these proceedings when they learned of them.  More ships arrived (Parland, Harmony, Balmoral) on which the shipboard marriages had been enacted, and at this stage the NSW Attorney General advised such immigrants to also go through church service marriage here.  Also, agent Kirchner was held to be in breach of regulations, because he had not been recruiting men who were already married, as per the requirements of the NSW Colonial government.  But in another sense the men were married de facto but could not afford the legitimisation costs demanded by the SW German administration.  Kirchner tried to talk the NSW government into seeing things his way, and a compromise was reached that the bounty was paid for those who had no more than one baby, but apparently the bounty was never paid on the couples who had older children and were unmarried.  Mr Kirchner also stated that some of the couples unable to obtain Government permission to marry had been formally given away in Church which would be ecclesiatically valid marriage although not recognised by the Government as legal (Paterson, 2007b).      

 

It could be interesting that both Christian and Elizabeth were buried by Presbyterian ministers.  Their own religion is unknown but some of these early Germans reaching Sydney did select Presbyterian marriage.  After the Wilhelm Kirchner arrived in Sydney in September 1858, fourteen shipboard couples were immediately married by Presbyterian minister, Rev. John Dunmore Lang.  The service was conducted in German, agreeable to the forms of the Evangelical Church of Germany.  This is thought likely to have been the Protestant denomination that the Steiners could have identified with.

 

Referring to this mass Presbyterian marriage of German new arrivals, The Sydney Morning Herald of 23 September 1858 wrote: "It seems that to persons of the humbler walks of life intending to emigrate from Germany, the cost of a regular marriage is so great, and the difficulties interposed by the paternal governments of that country are so many and so insurmountable that poor people in such circumstances cannot get married at all, and they have therefore to leave home on a mere mutual promise of betrothal!" 

The Bounty scheme time was a time in Australia that wine-making was on the rise but farm labour was getting harder to obtain for various reasons - one major reason being the Gold Rush and the effect this had in drawing men away from  farming activities.  Wilhelm Kirchner (Karl Ludwig Wilhelm Kirchner) was the main agent involved in this, acting for the government of the Colony of New South Wales and for a time also for Queensland.   The Gottorp in 1857 was the last transport of Germans to reach Australia under Kirchner's arrangements.  The great boom that had been making the English-speaking countries so attractive to Germans wanting prospects of a better life bubble-burst in a rapidly spreading financial panic that commenced in New York in late 1857, and Kirchner returned to Australia the following year.

Luckily much has been found out about the vineyard site where Christian came to work, at Wombat Creek a tiny creek that flows off the Lapstone Monocline almost straight into the Nepean River at Mulgoa.  That this information was readily obtainable has much to thank for the current owners of the land there, the Christian Brothers, who have taken a very commendable attitude to preserving and interpreting the land and the knowledge of the past.   No trace at all now remains or can be recognised of the actual vineyard, but the overseer's stone cottage has been beautifully restored by the Brothers (photos and story below).  There are a couple of laid stones that are possibly remains of the corner of some other building nearby.  Fancifully that could have been where the Steiner family grew, or they could have lived in a hut somewhere else nearby.  There is no evidence on that.

Steiner was contracted to work at the Cox vineyard for two years.  After that, higher wages elsewhere may have beckoned and the family set off south, eventually re-settling in Wagga Wagga which would likely be the region of New South Wales where most of the descendants of Christian Steiner and his German wife Elizabeth Rheinhardt would now be found.  The writer's line of descent comes from the marriage of a Steiner son in Wagga Wagga to a daughter of the Clouts.  The senior man in the Clout line was cellar master of the Macarthur family at Camden Park, also on the Nepean River and also of assisted passage migrant farm-worker history.

Also given herein are all known basic facts on children etc., as derived from documentation found so far in Australia.  Other relatives should have further such material.

The German record states that Christian was born in Eselshalden and applied to emigrate in the district of "wlz" (abbrev.).  If that abbreviation means Welzeim, the district that Elselshalden is in, then it suggests that Christian had lived all his life in the area where he had been born, before setting off on such a large vogage.

This webpage was commenced and uploaded on 15 September 2007, 150 years from when the ship Gottorp, transporting immigrant German rural workers, arrived in Sydney harbour.  The ship carried some paying passengers but most of those aboard were under arranged contract and were recorded by Sydney Harbour authorities only as "Germans".  Some attempt was made to locate descendants of these people in Sydney, with a thought to trying to arrange for some memorial dinner or commemoration.  Various historical and German interest groups were contacted with this in mind.  However without any readily findable record of the immigrants' first and second names, finding descendants of the Gottorp's "Germans" could be difficult.  Even though it seems very likely that some descendants of these men and women who came on the Gottorp might be living in the Sydney region today, none were found and hence no commemoration of the Gottorp's arrival 150th by means of any getogether was possible.  Potentially sopme per-Gottorp Germans who could have still-in-Sydney descendants would include Johann Georg Biehler who went to Horsley [current Horsley Park], Johann Klippart who went to Parramatta, Johann Meyer who lived in Sydney, Peter Ritter who went to Kogarah, August Weddig who resided at North Shore, Johann Heinrich Witte who went to Ashfield, and Samuel Christian Kirchner who went to Ashfield (information on individuals traced by Jenny Paterson).  No 150th anniversary was possible, nor is it known if any 100th anniversary was commemorated, or anything else like that.   At present, the largest KNOWN concentration of Gottorp descendants in the Sydney region, although still not a large number, is at Ashfield and immediately surrounding suburbs in Sydney's Inner West.  Christian Steiner's descendant Cecil also returned to Ashfield, as manager of the Kings Theatre there, and lived at Ashfield and Croydon.  Steiners descended from Cecil lived at nearby Croydon Park.  However, most of the Gottorp voyagers may have left much larger clusters of descendants in regional centres as they were basically country-bound folk, not city-siders. 

Although the idea for some 150th commemoration wasn't feasible, making contact with the German/historical interests groups that this entailed did throw up many more leads which can be followed for more information - and above all it produced the record that Christian had been born at Elselshalden.  That record of Christian is on a CD of emigration lists from the state of Württemberg:

Christian Steiner, born 12 Sep 1813 in Eselhalden, applied in May 1857 in the district of Wlz. (abbrev) to emigrate to Australia.

 

This record, from the seven volume Wuerttemberg Emigration Index (volume 5), gives a wrong spelling, as 'Eselhalden'.  It should be Eselshalden.  If so, the record then tallies perfectly with information already recorded within Australia, including that Christian was from "Wurtenberg" and had been born on 12 September.  The Australian-recorded birthplace also was in slight error as "Steinberg", which should be "Steinenberg".

 

 

 

THE PASSAGE ON THE GOTTORP

 

Little has yet been discovered (by this writer) about the Gottorp itself, other than that it was one of the ships used to transport German immigrants under a Bounty scheme managed by Wilhelm Kirchner and set up in the late 1840s, originally to focus on supplying experienced workers for early Australian vineyards.  Many of them initially went to the Hunter Valley.

 

No drawing or details of the Gottorp are at hand and what existence the ship had other than as a migrant transport vessel is also unknown at present.  Origin and ownership of ships like the Gottorp may be researched at the Australian Maritime Museum Library, in the microfilm reels of the records of the "Bureau Veritas" which is a Continental register published in Paris and similar to the Lloyd's Register of ships.

 

Knowledge of shipboard life for the passage of the Gottorp in 1857 come from a shipboard diarist (a.k.a. the Nagorcka account, Anonymous 1977 in the References below).  This item is an extract (some photocopied pages) from a book for which the full reference is not known yet.  The key element involved is diary notes, in German, made by a passenger on the voyage.  It is not known yet where the repository of those original notes is either.  It is believed that the extract is possibly from a family history book, and as it refers to "grandfather Nagorcka", may have compiled and annotated by a grandson or greatgrandson.  What is original and/or may have been added in retrospect might not be always clear.  It is a rendition of Nagorcka's dairy, with note that the German writing was difficult to translate and to find proper words for in English.  The extract is believed to be the story of Christian Nagorcka, who rapidly left for Victoria after the Gottorp reached Sydney.  Nagorcka was not one of the Gottorp's contract workers, and friends paid for his fare to Melbourne.  No doubt enquiry to Nagorcka family people in Victoria will locate where this shipboard diary is now located.

 

The Gottorp was a German immigrant ship, a 'full rigged' vessel having three masts with square sails.   The Ship's surgeon was Dr F Jager.  Kirchner and Co. were the Ship's Agents in Sydney.   It departed from Bremen on 21 May 1857.   It reached Sydney on 17 September 1857.  It had a crew of 21, and carried 205 male adult passengers, 35 female adult passengers, and 19 children (259 immigrants).   The ships of this time from Bremen were bitterly complained about by the immigrants.  Some of the problems are mentions by diarist Nagorcka, such food and water being in short supply and of poor quality.  One of the last of this line of transports was the Fanny Kirchner, after the arrival of which there were approaches to the authorities by Germans in Sydney.  Germans signed a petition asking for an official enquiry into the conditions.  Consequently a Parliamentary Inquiry into conditions on German ships was held, in June 1858 (NSW Legislative Council, Journal 1858, vol. 3, pp. 355-406).

 

According to the Sydney port record, the ship brought 257 new arrivals, mostly males (close to the true number, 259).   According to passenger Nagorka's diary there's a slight discrepancy as he noted it had 249 passengers.  There was at least one birth on the trip, also a death.  Nagorcka noted that only about 50 had paid fares.  The great majority were immigrants to a pre-agreed work contract of two years duration.  Nagorka stated that most of these immigrants were outcasts and not of the progressive type.  He noted that they had even been paid paid to leave the country, each given 40 Gulden to assist them on their way. 

 

 

 

Gottorp's arrival list (transcribed version below).   (Source:  From a copy obtained by Phil McArthur).

It is known that 28 year old co-voyager Samuel Kirchner, before leaving the Fatherland, signed a "Severance of Loyalty to the King of Württemburg" document.  So did Johann Gottlieb Haeberle.  Christian Steiner no doubt did the same thing.

 

From Wuerttemberg state records.  Approval for Johann Gottlieb Haeberle and family to emigrate

to Sydney.  Dated in Weinsberg on 8 May 1857.  This was not long before  the ship left, on

21 May 1857.  (Source:  Copy obtained by Phil McArthur).  On the same day, 8 May,

he signed the Certificate of Abandonment of Citizenship, renouncing "every kind

of civil interconnection with the state of Wuerttemberg, and committing himself

not to stir against His Majesty the King and the Kingdom for a period of

one year, and for the same time to remain liable for any claims that

might come up against him to the aurhorities of the Kingdom.

 

 

 

ASSISTED IMMIGRATION, AND THE AGENTS

 

The Gottorp Germans were probably the last to reach Australian under arrangements managed by Wilhelm Kirchner who was for some years the NSW government agent for administration of the Bounty system of assisted passage.  However, none of the Germans on the Gottorp were not "assisted" immigrants in the official sense.

 

The term "assisted immigrant" is usually restricted to meaning those who obtained government assistance from the destination end.  Following the end of the government assistance program, however, private schemes of prepaid fare assistance on pay-back contract continued for a time and in the case of New South Wales, the same man, Wilhelm Kirchner, as handled the government assistance also continued to  do business in regard to the private contractors.  Officially the latter are not regarded as being in the "assisted" category.  The NSW government assistance scheme had finished by the end of 1856.  In the case of Württembergers relatively tiny amounts may also have been given as assistance to those leaving, from authorities in their homeland, more likely from local town authorities than from state authorities.  Amounts of 20 and 40 Gulden were given to some emigrants.  At the time a gulden was approximately equal to a British florin (which were twelve to the pound, a florin being a two-shilling piece). 

 

Kirchner from Frankfurt am Main, was a successful businessman who arrived in Sydney in 1839 and became the sole agent responsible for bringing the assisted German vinedress families to NSW from 1849 to 1856.  Kirchner was also Consul for Hamsburg and Prussia in the 1852 and 1857 lists of consular representatives in NSW.  Apart from the immigration agent business he made money from candle manufacture to serve the needs of the Gold Rush miners.

 

Kirchner worked in Germany with J.F. Cast who was a government-licenced emigration agent in Stuttgart.  Kirchner, who acted on behalf of NSW landowners with permissions to import vinedressers under the NSW assistance scheme (1847 Regulations) had returned back to Sydney in 1851 and therefore would have had to rely on agents such as Cast for local effort in the ongoing recruitment drive.  

Some of the immigrants in the 1855-1856 third intake of assisted vinedressers later made complaints against Cast.  Also, in the 1858 Parliamentary Inquiry into conditions on German ships, Kirchner was asked to explain by what authority the agent Cast was acting.  Kirchner related about how the government, in Stuttgart, had taken security from Mr Cast to compensate some emigrants who had paid money but had been left in the lurch by failed arrangements.  The people involved were said to have been "starving", and that Kirchner himself took "a great many" of them over and sent them to Australia.  The committee further probed Kirchner as to by whose authority Cast had taken 700 gulden from a Jakob Schaub, one of the referred-to party who Kirchner took over and shipped to Australia.  

 

Under the NSW government's Bounty Regulations men over 50 were not to be emigrated.  However, Kirchner arranged for many (at least 50) to come even though over-aged.  It is believed that documents would have been "doctored" in regard to this, probably arranged by Kirchner.  One employer at Tabulum later complained that two of this immigrants were old, and that one was so incapacitated as to be unfit for work of any kind (Paterson, 2007a).  For assisted Württemberg "vinedressers" who came on the Undine in 1855, records found of their actual occupations in their home towns show only one of them as a vinedresser (Weingärtner).  Others were farmers, bakers, shoemakers, weaver, cartwright, whitewasher, potter, rope maker, and stonemason.  "Altogether, a promising bunch of vinedressers" wrote Paterson (2007), although they were almost all recruited from wine producing areas.

 

The government scheme was terminated in 1856.  The subsequent German immigrants into NSW, such as the Gottorp Germans in 1857, did not receive any money from the New South Wales government but Kirchner continued in arranging assisted passage immigration by means of private work contracts.   It would appear (Anonymous 1997, p. 18) that all the contract workers brought over on the Gottorp had agreed to the same identical contract regardless of which particular agricultural property each was bound for.

 

The Cox family records could be searched around the mid 1800s for any mention of negotiations to bring out Germans which might tie in with the above.  It is assumed that all of the willing contract workers who Kirchner located came under the same contract and that Kirchner may have taken all he could find.  As an agent who had by that time (1857) acrued considerable personal wealth from his activities, Kirchner likely bulk financed the voyage from funds available and how much advance payment was given to him by the Australian landholders prior to arrival of immigrants is not currently known.  Kirchner may have shipped more Germans than he managed to get takers for, and/or some deals may have fallen through, since some of the immigrants were advertised as available for hire after arrival.  Kirchner's deputy or agent in Sydney is believed to have been Henry Hamburger, then of 10 Lower George Street.  There were ads placed in the Sydney Morning Herald immediately after the arrival of the Gottorp which may be informative [SMH, Wed 16 Sep 1857 p.1 in column under the date; cf. Sat 3 Oct 1857, p.10 col.1].

 

Two German immigrant ships arrived at much the same time in Sydney harbour, the Gottorp a little after the Arago.   The Gottorp found the Arago had been held in quarantine, for four weeks, and that many people had died from epidemic.   The day after the Gottorp arrived, diarist Nagorcka recorded that "Agents from the Hamburg Line" came aboard and took away the contract workers.  Nagorcka himself left the ship the following day, 17 September 1857, and that night stayed at the "Hotel Hamburg" in "19 Tink Street" (19 King Street?).  All these 'Hamburger' connections should be able to be traced further and enquiry has been made to Sydney Archives about the Hotel Hamburg.

 

In the mid 1850s some individuals or groups of assisted passage Germans are believed to have published complaints about various details of the assisted immigration schemes.  This includes Württemberger emigrants, and following up on those publications might also provide fuller picture of the times and circumstances.

 

 

Karl Ludwig Wilhelm Kirchner

 

Kirchner himself had arrived in Sydney on 20th July 1839 on the Mary.  He returned to Germany in 1848 to work there as immigration agent for the NSW government.  He based himself at his mother's house in Frankfurt am Main to begin promoting emigration to the colony of Neu-Süd-Wallis.  Besides putting up posters and advertising for emigrants via the press, one of the things he did was arrange the publication and distribution of a special promotional booklet "Australien und seine Vortheile für Auswanderer", Australia and its advantages for emigrants (Printed in 1848 by H.L. Brönner, Frankfurth am Main):

 

 

 

This book contained letters home from 15 of the first assisted immigrants of 1849, in a second enlarged edition published in 1850.  The letters were also later published in translation (Cloos and Tampe, 1993).  It is thought that advertisements and posters were done in towns and villages all over the Rhine regions in particular, although persons from all over Germany may have come under the Kirchner arrangements. 

 

Also around at the time when Kirchner began operations at Frankfurth am Main, on 16 October 1848, the Hessen and Württemberg branch associations of the Nationalverein füe deutsche Auswanderung und Andsiedlung (National Association for German Emigration and Settlement) arranged a combined congress of all German emigration assocations.  This was held in Frankfurt am Main where Kirchner was based.

 

 

 

THE GREAT EXODUS FROM GERMANY IN THE 1850s

Germans below deck, 1857, on an emigrant ship bound for America.

(From:  Evans, 1997)

 

The following graph shows how the 1850s saw a steep peak in emigration from Germany.  Note that this peak is maked "Agricultural depression" and economic conditions must have been grim for many a Württemberger in the mid-1850s.  People often could get assistance from local authorities, or less often from the state, to emigrate in order to lessen the burden of overstretched local resources for the destitute.  The Gottorp shipboard diarist Nagorcka wrote of the majority on board being "outcasts and not of the progressive type.  They were even paid to leave the country and were given 40 Gulden to assist them on their way" (Anonymous 1977. pp.18-19) and "Unfortunately, three-quarters of the passengers were deported, of whom half were no good and didn't deserve good treatment" (op. cit. p. 21).  Subsidies were indeed given by state and local bodies to assist pooer people to emigrate.

 

 

The 1850s emigration peak.  German emigration peaked at 250,000 in 1854.  It dropped away to around

100,000 in 1857 and continued falling, due both to better harvests and improving industrial employment

at home and the bubble-burst of the early 1850s boom of the English-speaking countries in 1857.

The result of the above mid 1850s peak of local conditions in Gemany manifested in NSW as

the third wave/intake of assisted vinedressers arriving in 1855-1856.  In 1855 nearly 1700

assisted German immigrants (380 families) arrived, in seven ships to Sydney and

two to Morton Bay.  The NSW  government bounty system was terminated

soon after this peak influx, in 1856.

 

 

 

THE "BOSS" AT MULGOA

 

It is currently believed that Christian's boss or overseer at the Winbourne estate vineyard at Wombat Creek (where Christian was probably headed - inferred, not proven) would have been Martin Eisenhuth as master of the vineyard, in the smaller stone house - not George Cox himself in the big stone house.

 

It had been thought for a time that the Eisenhuth family took up residence at Wombat Creek in the late 1840s.  For example, Mulgoa Progress Association (1988, p.11) referred to this as "In the latter part of the 1840's, George brought out a German Vinedresser; Martin Eisenhuth, and his home at Winbourne was on the slopes near the vineyard."  This is no doubt a misunderstanding of a mention of a "vine dresser" in a letter from George Cox to his sons George and Henry on 2 January 1848: "Your Uncle Edward and myself have arranged for Mr Coulner to bring out two rams each with the vine dresser, and have limited him to fifteen first cut of the rams."  "He things by November they will be here."  This no doubt refers not to Eisenhuth but to some German brought out by Edward Cox.  Edward Cox of Fern Hill also brought out more Germans in 1855 (Phillip and Joseph Huth, and Sebastian Müller).

 

Martin Eisenhuth was born 1828 in Mittelheim, Nassau.  

 

He married Anna Maria Knoch, a Catholic, in September 1852 and they came on the ship John Caesar as Martin later recorded it, or the Johann Caesar, in 1853.  Their first child, Johann, died on the voyage, aged 4 months.

 

Martin was an assisted vinedresser who had been officially connected to (inducted or introduced to Australia by) David Cannon McConnell of Moreton Bay, however he somehow instead ended up working for the Cox family at the Wombat Creek vineyard (NB:  the local name of this creek as Wombat Creek is likely modern and post-dating the acquisition of the land by the Christian Brothers).  The details of what happened with Martin and his wife bear further investigation but it is believed to be a case of an assisted immigrant being swapped around by employers.  There is some reference to the matter in the Eisenhuth family book that survived in the Mulgoa district.   The couple's first child was born at Penrith in 1854.  At the same time, 1852/53, another of the Cox brothers on the neighbouring property to the north, Edward Cox, took to that land three families from the Helene, which was the next immigrant transport ship to arrive after the Johann Caesar.

 

 

 

BOUND FOR MULGOA

 

According to the diarist, the workers on the Gottorp were committed to work for two years as farm-workers for a yearly wage of £20 sterling plus rations.  Rations were set as 20 lb flour, 19 lb meat, 2 lb sugar, 1/2 lb coffee and 1/4 lb tea per week.  They had to repay £18 for their fare, which left them £22 for their two years work.  

 

On September 16, the diarist recorded that Agents from the Hamburg Line came and got the contract people to take them to their various designations.  From all indications, it would appear that Christian Steiner, was bound for the Cox vineyard at Wombat Creek, Mulgoa, which place already had a German overseer in residence - Martin Eisenhuth.

 

The material on Mulgoa herein comes from the Christian Brothers who now own the original Winbourne property of the Cox family there.   Special thanks are due to Brother Moy Hitchens who took us (the author of this webpage and his wife) to where Christian likely worked and possibly lived at Mulgoa.  At Wombat Creek the original stone house where the Eisenhuth family lived still stands (fully restored after it had deteriorated) where it always has been.   Very close to it is a couple of laid large sandstone blocks which might be remnant of a second lesser dwelling (or some other farm structure).  That is possibly where the Steiners lived although that is only a guess.   How many Germans worked on the Cox property at the time is not at present known. 

 

It was at Mulgoa where Christian married Elizabeth Rheinhardt and the family began in Australia.  There  Sophia Wilhemmina Steiner became the first family member born on Australian soil, on the 9th Oct 1859.  Sophia Wilhemmina appears to have been named after a child of Mrs Eisenhuth's, suggesting a close connection between the two families.  Christian likely would have been working under Martin Eisenhuth.   The name Martin Eisenhuth appears on the Steiners' marriage certificate, as witness.

 

Some of this is known because the Eisenhuths kept a family book, of which a full copy is preserved still on the property.  In this book it shows that "Sophia Wilhemmina" was also name of one of the six Eisenhuth children born there.

 

The Eisenhuths' house (as restored).   Records indicate the original house was somewhat larger,

double story with a verandah.  The stone was quarried only a little further distant than the

nearby trees, and to the left, in Wombat Creek.  It is aligned with and sits upon

the Lapstone Monocline.   (Photo: Br. Moy Hitchen)

 

The Vindresser's (M. Eisenhuth's) house.  Well-built stone house.  Built before the big

Winbourne mansion house was commenced, perhaps to test the quality and

workability of the local stone.  (Photo:  Br. Moy Hitchins)

 

District view - showing junction of the Warragamba and Nepean Rivers, and dam upon the Warragamba

(this is the dam that supplies the water of the Sydney metropolis).  The Wombat Creek flows east

down the hill scarp (Lapstone Monocline) thence rapidly south to the Nepean River at the hairpin

bend seen here.   A view of the river at that point is seen below in the photo with Br dePorres

McCrae standing beside the big pump base.  The Wombat Creek area is seen here as being

in a very geologically interesting structural zone.  The creek area also has a concentration of

Aboriginal historical traces and a quite well preserved original ecosystem. Considering

that the Brothers who now own the land declared in Rome in 2002 a new-found

"radical equality with all of God's creation" Wombat Creek will almost

certainly be preserved.

 

 

Christian's assumed overseer Martin Eisenhuth was a vinedresser on the Winbourne estate of George Cox.  According to Cox records he had been bought out from Germany (Bavaria) in '1848' to take charge of the vineyard.  He stayed in the employ of the Cox family for many years and was in charge of the vineyards and cellars.  Martin Eisenhuth died in 1905, aged 75.  [The arrival date of '1848' appears not to tally with early date entry in the Eisenhuth family book and this is yet to be resolved.]

 

Mulgoa today is quite a small village but it was once considered a very important place in New South Wales (when it was seen as the seat of the successful Cox agricultural holdings).  At its peak in the past  it was regarded as one of the chief centres of agriculture along the Nepean River valley.  By 1848 Mulgoa's population had reached 770 persons whereas that of Penrith (now the City of Penrith) was then only 290 persons.  So Mulgoa was then quite a bit more important than Penrith, whereas today it is far the reverse, with Penrith now a city and Mulgoa quite small and still rural in appearance.

 

By the 1850s the agricultural status of Mulgoa was considered one of the finest showpieces of the colony, and the cerial crops being grown there were of the highest standard.  It was also a successful area for wine growing.

 

 

EARLY WINE-GROWING, GERMANS AND GRAPES

 

 

 

No grapes today - BUT, this was once an early colonial vineyard.  Bushfires in 2002 at Regentville revealed these horizontal terraces built of Nepean River boulders in what had been the Jamison's vineyard.  This vineyard had been laid out by Frederick Meyer in 1830.  It was the first terraced vineyard in the colony and one of Australia's earliest vineyards.

 

Wine growing was established along the Nepean River by 1822 and German vinedressers were encouraged by the estate owners to settle along the Nepean.   In 1829, Sir John Jamison claimed to have been cultivating grapes in the colony for the past 12 years and in 1830 he reported that he had employed a German, Frederick Meyer, to lay out a vineyard along the latest German and French lines.

 

Germans were employed especially in the middle of the nineteen century to help lay out and care for vineyards along the Nepean.  

 

South of Mulgoa, John Blaxland received a grant of 6710 acres in 1813, which he named Luddenham. The property, which was situated between South Creek and the Nepean River, was named after the family property in Kent, England.  The property was chiefly used to graze and breed dairy cattle, though grapes and some other crops were grown. The Blaxlands were the first Australians to export wine. Among those employed were German and Swiss families brought out to Australia especially to work in the vineyards. 

 

The Cox property Winbourne had a large wine cellar and scale of operations is shown by the large pump base ruin on the Nepean River below.  This relates to improvements after Christian's time there, to pump water to a large concrete holding tank up on the hillside, from where it could gravity feed to irrigate the vines or other crops.   No actual illustrations of the vineyard itself seem to have survived(?).

 

Br dePorres McCrae standing at base of the ruin of large pump works established

for the household, agricultural and vineyard needs of the Cox family.  The

site is at the eastern end of the Norton's basin volcanic breccia. 

(Photo:  Christian Brothers, Winbourne)

 

( Acknowledgment re grapes and wine:  The writer knows nothing about wine and guidance about early Australian wine growing, and the role of Germans in it, was received from Mr. John Goswell .  Much of the below notes on the introduction of vines to Australia were obtained  from him. )

The first grape vines arrived in Australia in 1788 with Captain Phillip's the First Fleet. These vines were first planted out at Farm Cove - on the site of the present Sydney Botanical Gardens.  In the same year vines were planted at the 'The Crescent' - Rose Hill, Parramatta.

The vines did not do well at Farm Cove but did better at Parramatta, and so all the Farm Cove vines were soon transplanted to Parramatta.

In 1791, Governor Phillip reported that he had established a three-acre vineyard at Parramatta, and that a settler named Schaffer had also planted one acre of vines.  That is the first known non-government wine grape planting in Australia, and the planter's name sounds German.  Phillip Schaeffer's farm was at Rose Hill and he named it "The Vineyard".  By the end of 1791 the government vines at Parramatta numbered 8000 and Schaeffer had 900.  "The Vineyard" was later leased to William Cox, until 1803.

Gregory Blaxland established a vineyard at Ermington on the Parramatta River in 1806, which later became a significant producer.  He also took over the lease of "The Vineyard" at Parramatta.

However, the most notable early effort at grape growing was by Captain John Macarthur at Camden Park. This property played a major part in the development of all manner of primary industries in Australia, being particularly well known for the first merino sheep breeding. Camden Park also played a vital roll in the fledgling wine industry through its importation and distribution of vine cuttings throughout NSW and the Barossa Valley. 

In 1812 "The Vineyard" was aquired by Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur; and in 1817 John, William and James Macarthur returned from Europe with a range of vine cuttings to propagate at Camden Park.  By 1820 these were commercial vineyards.

In 1824, 14 acres of vineyards were established on the Mulgoa property "Winbourne" that was owned by George Cox, the son of William Cox.  Another of William Cox's sons, Henry Cox, establishes a vineyard on his "Glenmore" property at Mulgoa.  Later on, in 1842, another son of William Cox, Edward Cox, established a vineyard on his "Fernhill" property at Mulgoa.  G.H. Cox introduced irrigation to his estate and vineyard at Winbourne in 1889. He constructed a huge reservoir of 757,000 litre capacity above the Nepean River, capable of irrigating some 400 ha.  The historic roots of Sydney's water supply, Warragamba Dam, were perhaps being sown.  A nephew of G.H. Cox, Arthur Winbourne Stephen, supported a scheme formulated by George Chaffey and Henry Gorman to establish an extensive irrigation scheme in the Mulgoa Valley. Under an Act of Parliament of 1890 they were empowered to acquire land, construct dams, weirs and floodgates on the Nepean and Warragamba, and supply and sell water.  The scheme attempted to encourage settlement and sell land, by means of affording water, however it could not be sustained in the 1890s depression, and collapsed by 1896.  Winbourne house itself eventually was converted to a guesthouse to service tourism.

The Cox vineyard was noted in 1832 by Sarah Matthew in her diary during a visit there.  She noted that the vineyard was on the side of a rocky range a short distance from the house (Matthew, 1833).  This confirms the belief of it being very close to the Eisenhuth house.

 

George Cox wrote about his fine vineyard with high satisfaction in a number of places in his letters which have been preserved.  Cox regarded the soil and climate at his Mulgoa vineyard as better or more reliable for grape growning that was their other lands at either Mudgee or the Hunter Valley (Cox 1980, p.55).

 

Work on the Winbourne vineyard apparently involved much trenching and soil improvement.  Besides the trenching they also put onto the soil there "all the soup and meat" from the estate's boiling down works 

(Cox 1980, p.55).

 

In one of Cox's 1846 letters to his son he wrote "Your Mother gathered all the Burgundy grapes on Monday last, and the wine is in the cask.  There is three times as much as there was last year of that wine.  If the rest increases in the same proportion I shall not know where to put it ... " and the crop at the vineyard " .. is abundant and quite free from blight ..." (Cox 1980, p.7).

 

In 1848 he referred to having large wine casks which were expensive to buy (Cox 1980, p.75) and in 1846 he had written "The nice new Brandy casks arrived from Sydney yesterday, and I think I shall have to get as many more ...".

 

In February 1847 Cox mentioned the gathering of most of the white grapes, and his estimate that he should get from them 250 gallons of wine.  To the wine he intended adding 30 lb sugar and 4 gallons of brandy for each 100 gallons of wine (Cox 1980, p.26).

 

In a letter by George Cox in January 1848 there is the information that vinedresser Martin Eisenhuth came (or was to come?) out by ship that year, with two rams, and that this was organised with a Mr Coulner.  The ship was expected to sail in January and George expected the rams to arrive by November (Cox 1980, pp.39, 41).  

 

One of the most famous to come to the banks of the Nepean was Henry Parkes, who arrived in Sydney with this wife in 1839.  He recorded what it was like to labour in a vineyard there, when he worked at Regentville vineyard.  They lived in a hut where "the morning sunshine, the noontide shower, and the white moonlight of midnight gushed in on us alike."  He wrote to his sister back in England "The slavemasters of New South Wales require their servants to work for them from sunrise to sunset ...".

Further up the Nepean the Macarthur property Camden Park (established near where Camden city later developed) also became a major wine growing centre.  Various Stein family and other Germans went there.  In 1837, under the bounty system of assisted migration, Johann Stein with five other German vinedressers arrived under five-year contracts to the Macarthurs at Camden Park. Other Germans known to have worked at Camden Park include Heinrich Jacob Stein and Jacob Stein, who arrived before 1849.  Heinrich and Johann Stein were both from Erbach, Nassau, Germany, and both were employed there as vinedressers, whereas Jacob was a tennant farmer (Burnett et al., 2005).  Erbach is a vineyards town on the bank of the Rhine River with which royality of the House of Reinhart has also been associated. Johann Stein was the first successful person to bring Rhine Riesling into Australia.  Jacob Stein probably arrived in 1843 with three other wine workers (Johann Beckhaus, Johann Jurg and Johann Stumpf) under five-year contracts to the Macarthurs.  In 1847 a Joseph Stein also arrived at Camden Park under a five-year contract.  Martin Thurn, another vinedresser was brought to NSW by the Macarthurs from Germany in 1852.  Diarist Dr Karl Scherzer visited Sir William Macarthur at "Cambden Park", as he recorded it, on 16 November 1858 and wrote that Macarthur was one of the foremost wine-growers in the country and was reputed to have the best wine.  He recorded that "Herr Macarthur" had imported a number of Germans from the Rhineland and Baden to tend to his vineyards.  Each of the Germans had a cottage, a piece of land to cultivate, and in addition to rations (meat, milk, bread and butter) received £25 a year in wages.  The Germans at Camden Park were visibly moved when Dr Scherzer and the Commodore of the Novara warship visited them, Scherzer recorded.  They expressed a greeting back to their distant fatherland.  Scherzer noted that most of them were already forgetting their German language, although they did not want to admit this and instead said they were keeping it in use.

On Dr Scherzer's visit to Camden Park in November 1858 he saw buildings that had been commenced but then abandoned and stood half-finished.  Sir William told him that the workers had run off to the diggings.  Herr Macarthur complained bitterly about the great difficulty of keeping workers and said "There is no greater tyrant in this country than the labourer", Scherzer recorded.

[ Various futher notes courtesy of Mr. John Goswell :  A shortage of skilled vineyard labourers in NSW in the 1840s saw arrangements put into place to import vinedressers and coopers (barrel makers) from Germany. Some controversy was generated in so doing as the colony had been set up to reduce problems in England, and not to provide open immigration from other countries. Perhaps the Colonial government feared mass immigration. Germany itself, for social, economic, and political reasons, saw the emigration of 2 million people mostly to the Americas.  Fortunately the argument that the fledgling wine industry required skilled workers won, resulting in selective and limited importation of suitable people. Requirements laid down by the Colonial Secretary, Merewether, included that they had to be married and that there could be found no suitable British equivalent in their trade. A bounty of £36 per couple, and £14 per child over 14 years of age, was paid by the colonial government.  William Kirchner, a German entrepreneur in Sydney at the time, initially sought interest from NSW vignerons. In Maitland he addressed a public meeting at Haylock's Inn on 1st September 1847. He departed for Germany in December 1847 and travelled to Nassau, Baden and Hesse. When he departed he took with him some of Mr Carmichael's wines from Porphyry Point, to Great Britain.  Some of this wine was given to wine judges in London. They considered it a "good, sound and promising" wine . The first of the ships, the Beulah, arrived in Sydney with 170 Germans on board. The first group engaged by Hunter vignerons arrived in Morpeth on 12th April 1849, having arrived in Sydney on 4th April 1849. The second ship, the Parland, arrived in 1849. Further ships were to follow, and Kirchener continued to advertise for further business.  Amongst those who were brought out as vinedressers from Germany in 1849 were the Franz and Christina Kiem. As was not unusual, the children of these immigrants often took up land and become vignerons themselves . The Kiem family established their own vineyard on what is now Lovedale Road.  The earliest vignerons in the Cessnock district are said to be Martin Bouffier, and Frederick Wilkinson who both planted his vines in 1866. Martin was the son of Heinrich Josef Bouffier who had arrived on the Parland on 5th July 1849. Heinrich Bouffier was born in Neudorf, Nassau, Germany in 1815. ]

This early requirement that only married couples were to be brought into the colony had relaxed by 1857 when Christian Steiner came.   The Gottorp was the last of the ships from German under arrangements by William Kirchner, and Kirchner himself returned to Australia the following year.

 

ABOUT THE WINBOURNE PROPERTY, MULGOA  (largely following Brother Moy Hitchen)

Mulgoa (early recorded as Mulgoa, Mulgoey, Mulgowi, Mulgowie) is the black swan (Cygnus altrus) in the language of the original people who lived there, who are regarded as tribe/group within the Dharug language clan.

In writing the history of Mulgoa, the Christian Brothers at Winbourne (Br. Moy is their current historian and others have previously contributed to the centre's archives) have used the following break-up.  They have divided the non-Aboriginal history there into three periods:

* Ownership by the Cox family (1820s-1900),

* Guest House era (1901-1958),

* And since then under the ownership of the Christian Brothers (1958 to today).

The Aboriginal people are acknowledged as "the traditional Indigenous owners" at Mulgoa on a plaque which greets visitors as they enter the courtyard of the present Retreat and Conference Centre.  The Aboriginal period is so immense by comparison (and little known) that this huge period (probably ?40,000 BP, or earlier, to today) that it defies equally neat categories.  Axe-grinding grooves and scattered stone flakes at Wombat Creek near the Eisenhuth house suggest that area was an aboriginal camping ground over a long period.  When Aboriginal groups have visited the Eisenhuth house in recent years, some had deeply negative reaction at the site. One of the men refused to enter the sandstone dwelling (which had been restored in 1981), and found a particular site to the north-east of the house charged with dread.  Hence the Brother's developing history of Winbourne has noted: "Such deeply felt responses to the Eisenhuth House site suggest that it may hold very negative memories of some past event".

The first recorded Europeans to live in the Mulgoa Valley are those associated with James Norton, who built a dwelling at what is now "Fairlight"’, on the ridge to the north-west of Winbourne, in 1822.  No doubt he was preceded by others, and Blaxland had established a large farm (at what is now Regentville) at the northern end of the Mulgoa Valley by 1815.

Winbourne is associated with the family of William Cox, who supervised the Irish convicts who built the road over the Blue Mountains, in 1815. William was rewarded with land grants in the Mulgoa Valley and three of his sons built houses in the valley (Henry built Glenmore which is the present golf club, Edward built Fernhill and George built Winbourne), starting in 1824 or so.  William himself lived at ‘The Cottage’, near the present site of St Thomas’ Church, until he moved to Clarendon at Richmond.  

George Cox was succeeded by his son, George Henry, who continued the sheep, vineyards and wheat farming industries at Winbourne. He built the stone stables (1882) that are still standing.

 

 

 

 

 

The Winbourne mansion at its peak.  The stone was quarried at Wombat Creek.

 

 

 

Winbourne - burnt out by the 1920 fire.

 

 

Winbourne estate was established by George Cox snr.   It became the seat of a rapidly growing and thriving Cox family pastoral dynasty.   A series of letters that George Cox wrote to his sons who had established themselves further afield he wrote from "Winbourn" (Cox 1980).  He spelled it always thus, and it is unknown when the present habit of adding a final "e" first arose.  The original English form of the name is 'Wimbourn'.

 

George was the son of William Cox, born at Wimbourn Minster in Dorset in 1764.  He arrived in Sydney in 1800 with his wife and family as a lieutenant in the New South Wales Corps.  He was later appointed a senior magistrate of the Hawkesbury District.  Still later he became the Surveyor General of the Colony and also well known as the man in charge of building the road over the Blue Mountains which opened up the Colony to westwards expansion.  Sons George and Henry had explored upstream on the Nepean River form their land in the Windsor area, and persuaded their father to take up further land there.   After grants made in 1810, 1816, 1817 and 1821 the Cox family came to hold a total of 3,730 acres at Mulgoa and George Cox began the building of Winbourne, in 1824.  It came to have 23 rooms and was one of the most substantial rural houses ever constructed before 1850.

 

Winbourne was commenced as a single storied house.  The second storey was added in 1842.  Further stone construction work, principally the building of some very fine stables, was done at Winbourne in the 1880s.  Winbourne and its owner G.H. Cox boomed in the seventies and eighties but in the nineteen nineties depression finances became grim and the property had to be sold by Cox.

 

In 1920 Winbourne suffered a fire that burnt out the main residence.  The remaining stables and outhouses were later incorporated in the Mount Sion College, the Christian Brothers training college.  The Christian Brothers acquired Winbourne in 1958.  A Sydney training centre was being sought.  Also, later on, the previous Christian Brothers administrative centre at Mount Saint Mary in Strathfield would be given over to become the Australian Catholic University.  Some of the money from transfer of that property to the University was able to go to the restoration and further development work at Winbourne.  The hope was expressed at the time by the Brothers that the redevelopment of their Winbourne property would assist or be of value somehow not only the Catholic Church but also to society in general.

 

 

 

Re-building at the back of Winbourne about 1960.  Restoration

work continued and the old 'Stables' had been well

restored to original form by 1997.

 

 

Same stables building since restored.  (2007).

(Photo:  Christian Bros. at Winbourne)

 

 

Ditto. Restored stables building, right hand side (2007).

(Photo:  Christian Bros. at Winbourne)

 

 

 

Winbourne main entrance gateway (some time after the fire).

 

 

The same entrance gates today (2007).  Statue is that of Edmund Rice, the founder of the Christian Brothers.  The wing near at left, perpendicular to wall is now restored to a chapel and conference

room, and was formerly the wine cellars.  The building seen at rear is the stables building.

(Photo:  Christian Bros. at Winbourne)

 

 

Chapel and conference room referred to above, former very substantial wine cellars.

(Photo:  Christian Bros. at Winbourne)

 

 

 

William Cox, who became founder of one of Australia's largest pastoral dynasties, was born at Wimborne Minster in Dorsetshire.  He came to Sydney on the Minerva in 1799, in charge of a transport of Irish rebels.

 

In the Colony he succeeded John Macarthur as Regimental Paymaster.  It was then the practice for the paymaster to be able to 'borrow' spare funds for private enterprise, provided he paid the money back in time.  This financed the start of both the Macarthur and Cox fortunes.   Both families developed large land holdings along the Nepean, the Coxes at Mulgoa and the Macarthurs at Camden Park (near where the city of Camden was to later develop).

 

Cox overspent and was suspended from Duty and sent to England for trial.   Similarly for Macarthur after he brought about the overthrow of Governor Bligh and took over a share of running the government as Colonial Secretary, and also on a previous occasion over a duel that was fought in Sydney.  Both men side-stepped matters merely by resigning their military commissions and were able to carry on their growing enterprises in New South Wales.  Cox senior's land was mainly on the Hawkesbury, at Bringelly and at Bathurst.  It was mainly his sons who increased the family holdings at Mulgoa (300 acres to Edward in 1809 and 600 acres to George in 1816; plus further grants also at Bringelly).

 

Mulgoa became a showpiece of the Nepean River valley during the early colonial boom years.  The three Cox brothers George, Henry and Edward all built magnificent homes there.  Henry built 'Glenmore', Edward 'Fernhill' and George built 'Wimbourne' (Winbourne).   Winbourne now longer stands.  The oldest surviving Cox home there is "The Cottage" that William snr. built.

 

The main source of wealth for the Cox family became holdings well west of the Blue Mountains, but Mulgoa remained their base and their showpieces.  They brought out experienced German vignerons to manage their vineyards, and towards the end of the 1830s these dominated their vineyards workforce, adding a touch of the Rhinelands to the district.   

 

 

HOW THE EISENHUTH COTTAGE WAS RESTORED

 

( Based both on notes made by Br John Giacon in 1984, and pers. comm. Br Moy Hitchens ) 

 

The fine old structure had fallen into decay.  But for many years some of the brothers were interested in the idea to try and see it restored.  Tom Sullivan worked towards this objective, and sent detailed feasibility ideas to the National Trust and looked for where funds for restoration might be available. 

 

Unfortunately this was to no avail and no possible restoration funding sources were located.  Moy Hitchen and Richard Knapp became interested.  The latter was then an architecture student at the University of New South Wales.  In 1981-1982 they began removing litter and built-up soil from the building, stacking and identifying different types of building materials, stone, bricks, etc.

 

The loose blocks of stone were laid on the ground around the building with their formerly outwards-facing best worked faces placed on the ground to protect the blocks from any further harm; and loose bricks were neatly stacked up onto pallets.  The effort began to take better shape and began to look like a restoration project .. more like the rebuiding of Angkor Wat(?) .. a slight exaggeration perhaps, but nevertheless the those involved were doubtless enthused enough by the possibilities to press on.

 

All this was still of a rather tentative nature, being measures to at least prevent further harm to the building materials the house was made of.  Then, in 1983, the decision was made to actually do it - to go ahead and fully re-build the stone cottage.  It was so historic that it must be saved!  Besides, if make liveable again it was thought that the Brothers might make use of it, maybe as "a hermitage".  It was then estimated that the cost of the project would end up being about $10,000 which was a considerable amount in 1983.  The Superior of the college, Kev Smith, had been supportive throughout of what had been developing for some years as a desire "to do something" to reverse the degrading status of the cottage.  Thus it was decided that if they begun the project then the money or wherewithal might somehow materialise.  It was resolved that Brs Moy Hitchen, Richard Knapp and John Giacon would all contribute considerable time and labour to the project.  Charles Glanville, a local architect at Mulgoa, was also available for advice.

 

The money needed did not start to immediately materialise, or anything like that, and the idea of rebuilding had to in fact be abandonned in its original planned scope - as being just too ambitious/expensive (e.g. the original house had a second story).   Nonetheless, matters progressed.  Daniel Bright, an assistant in Charles Glanville's architectural practice, began to give considerable help by measuring the building and drawing up plans.  Stonemasons from Glenmore on Mulgoa Road, a team headed by Syd Bagley, knew how to relay the stone.  And so the walls at last began to rise again.  Local roofers and other skilled tradesmen all materialised when needed and they came to help on weekends.  The listing of all those who helped in the rebuilding of the Eisenhuth house eventually ran into a dozen or more persons who became involved in this splenid restoration effort.  

 

Thus the vinedresser's cottage was nicely restored, and made fully liveable once again.  It is today referred to as "the hermitage", and one of the older/retired brothers now resides there permanently.   

 

 

 

SETTING FORTH FROM MULGOA - THE TREK SOUTH

 

The Australian Steiner family began at Mulgoa with the birth, probably at home and probably at Wombat Creek on Winbourne property, of the child christened Sophia Wilhemmina, on 9 October, 1859.

 

A second child, George Peter Steiner, was also home born at Winbourne, on 6 Jul 1861.

 

But their third child, Christian Steiner, is registered as born on 27 Sep 1863 in Camden. 

 

This suggests that the family may have left Mulgoa and relocated to further up the Nepean valley from  Mulgoa area by that time.  This however is not known for certain, and instead Elizabeth might just have been in Camden for some other reason when the birth came, or else maybe she had gone there especially for the birth?  

 

It seems more likely that the family actually had left Mulgoa.  Christian was bound to the Cox vineyard at Mulgoa for two years under contract.  As noted above, after deducting cost of the ship passage fare Christian had worked under contract for £11 per year.  This probably was not good earnings for the times.  For example, in the 1858 Parliamentary Inquiry into conditions (referring to earlier events in Germany) there is mention that it would perhaps cost £60 to keep a man for 3-4 months (= £240 per annum).

 

After 1858 and 1859 had passed he would have worked off his fare repayment and the contract period would have expired (assuming that the nature of the contract as described in the Nagorcka diary is accurate).   Sometime between late 1861 and late 1863 is likely when the Steiners left Mulgoa.  Where they moved to is not yet know, but was likely in or near Camden.  Because of Christian's known interest and experience in wine, any connections with the wine-making Germans at Camden Park at this time should be explored for.  

 

The third child, Leonard Steiner, was also born at Camden, according to later recorded information.  However, registration of that Camden birth has not yet been located and this might suggest that 1865 was the year the family left the district and headed much further south.  A death notice about Christian, published in Wagga Wagga (in full below) stated that he was a native of "Steinberg" and had come to the colony in 1857, residing close to Sydney for about ten years before he moved to Wagga.  That would suggest they left the Sydney region in ca. 1867.  A death notice about Elizabeth in the same newspaper later on also points to 1867 as when the couple arrived in the district, however the family is known to have already been down south, at Westbrook, by early 1866 because of a birth recorded there.

The Steiner family eventually became well established, and multiplied, in the Wagga Wagga area.  Leonard Steiner married Ellen Taylor there, and this is where this writer's grandfather (Doreen's father Cecil Steiner) was born in 1890.

On the map below it can be tracked where they went to.  They first went to Westbrook, which place name is seen in the lower right corner of the map.  After that they moved to Lake Albert which is the body of water SSW of Wagga Wagga seen where the arrow is pointing to.   After Lake Albert they moved to the western outskirts of Wagga Wagga where Christian finally had a vineyard of his own at  Pomingalarna.  There may have been some connection with a small gold mine in the area (as mentioned by the writer's grandfather) but nothing of this is known.  Later on the family/descendants apparently spread further southwestwards, Uranquinty and The Rock (but again this is just according to vague memories of what my grandfather used to tell me and as yet no details of any of this later history of the family have been sought or come across):

 

The Steiners when they first went south from Camden went to Westbrook, shown here in the lower

right corner.  After that they went to Lake Albert which is where the arrow is pointing to. At that

time Lake Albert was probably smaller, as it was increased by damming in the 1890s. After

that, Christian established his own vineyard at Pomingalarna, just west of Wagga Wagga.

 

 

REFERENCES

Anonymous (?Trevor Nagorka), 1977.  Shipboard diary.  May 12 - September 20, 1857.

 

[No full copy seen; Printed, pp. 15-23.  Publication place unknown (photocopy); presumably a Victorian family history book.   Obtained from the Bega Valley Genealogy Society. Call no. Z5.19.03.   This is a translation from the diary of Mr Christian Nagorka, 1826-1908, who sailed on the ship Gottorp to Australia). ] 

Burnett, B., Nixon, R. and Wrigley, J., 2005.  They worked at Camden Park.  Camden Historical Society.  90 pp.

Burkhardt, G.   The Places of Origin of German Immigrants to NSW, 1849 - 1860.

Carmichael, Lynne, 1973.   German migration past and present.  Thesis.  [Not traced].

 

Cloos, P. and Tampke, Jürgen (Eds.), 1993.   "Greetings from the Land where Milk and Honey flows" - The German Migration to NSW 1838-1858.  Southern Highlands Publishers, Canberra.

 

Cox, G.C. 1980.  George Cox of Mulgoa and Mudgee.   Letters to his sons 1846-49   [State Library of NSW  E929.209944/C877.3/1].

 

Evans, R., 1997.  Germany's convict exports.  History Today, No. ?, pp.11-17.  [photocopy only was seen.]

 

Geyer, O.F. and Gwinner, M.P., 1991.  Geologie von Baden Württemberg. Stuttgart.

 

Harmstorf, I., 1971.  German migration, with particular reference to Hamburg, to South Australia.  Thesis.  [Not traced].

Hoare, M., Rutledge, M., 1974.  Macleay, Sir William John (1820-1891).  Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, Melbourne University Press.  pp. 185-187.

Matthew, S., 1833.  Journal.  Quoted in A. Wilson, 1982.  "Regentville: An Historical Archaeological Study".  B.A. Hons. Thesis, University of Sydney.  (pp. 5,11)

McClelland, James, 1982.  A history of Germany and guide to tracing immigrants who came to Australia from Germany.

 

Mulgoa Historical Society(?), 19xx?.  Historical Winbourne.  Edmund Rice Retreat and Conference Centre

(Conducted by the Christian Brothers), 1315 Mulgoa Road, Mulgoa NSW.  11 pp.

 

Mulgoa Historical Society(?), 19xx?.  The Shepherd's Hut.  As recorded by John Giacon, January 1984.

10 pp.  (Might not be by same historical ?society as for the 'Historical Winbourne' article, and the Christian Brothers themselves also had at one time a small museum and a historical interest group).

 

Mulgoa Progress Association, 1988.  Mulgoa! Mulgoa!  Where is that?  A general history of Mulgoa.

71 pp.  [Mitchell Library Q994.41/109]

 

Nadell, G., 1953.   Letters from German Immigrants in NSW.  RAHS, Vol. 39, Part 15.

 

Patterson, J., 1992.  On the trail of resources in Germany: a report on a visit to southwest Germany, Sep-Dec 1991.  Ances-tree, vol. 5, no.2, pp. 3-13.

 

Patterson, J., 2007a.  German immigrant shits to Eastern Australia - resources and problems.  Part II: UNDINE 1855.  Ances-tree, vol. 20, no. 1, 26 pp.

 

Patterson, J., 2007b.  "Planned illegitimacy" among German immigrants.  Ances-tree, vol. 20, no. 2, 9 pp.

 

Patterson, J., 2007c.  Website: "Emigration from Southwest Germany" - Auswanderung aus Südwestdeutschland.    Ances-tree, vol. 19, no. 3, 11 pp.

 

Patterson, J., 2007d.  "Planned illegitimacy" among German immigrants.  Ances-tree, vol. 20, no. 2, 9 pp.

 

PLDC (Penrith Lakes Development Corporation), 1981.  Penrith Lakes Scheme.  Environmental Impact Statement.  Kinhill Pty Ltd., 248 pp.

 

Scherzer, K., 1857-1859.  The Novara Diaries.  Mitchell Library, Sydney.

 

[Karl von Scherzer, 1821-1903, was an Austrian economist, ethnologist, and later consular official.  His original manuscript diaries were found in 1939 and acquired by the Mitchell Library.  Published, somewhat sanitised/edited version also exists. The manuscript account of his time aboard the Novara between 1857-1859 is to be found in his three diaries in the Mitchell Librar.   These were acquired from local book dealers and publishers Angus and Robertson on 17 July 1939 (according to a pencilled note in the gutter of page l, Diary I).   The published version,  more complete, and formalised, better documented but less frank is the three volume work Reise der Österreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde in den Jahren 1857, 1858 und 1859,  Imperial and Royal State and Court Printery, Vienna 1861-2; I (1861) xii 368, 37; II (1861) viii, 454, 20; III (1862) viii, 436; appendices.   The English translation of the these three volumes lacks the numerous illustrations and some tables and appendicies.  It appeared from 1861-3 in London (Saunders, Otley & Co.).  Later editions in German and Italian were also published.]

Scherzer, K., 1857-1859.  The Novara Diaries.  - Transcription by Mrs Dymphyna Clark, 1995.  

 

[This and other interesting considerations of Dr Karl Scherzer and others of the Novara scientific expedition, may be found on the Michael Organ website - www.michaelorgan.org.au ]. 

 

State Archives.   German Migration and settlement in NSW.  Archives in Brief, No. 50.

 

Tampke, Jürgen (Ed.), 1982.  Wunderbar Country - Germans look at Australia, 1850-1914. Hale & Iremonger, Sydney. 

 

Tampke, Jürgen and Doxford, Colin.   Australia, Willkommen: a history of the Germans in Australia.

 

Vondra, Josef , 1981.  German-Speaking Settlers in Australia. Cavalier Press, Melbourne.

 

Watson, J.H., 1917.  Mulgoa, present and past.  The Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society. Vol 4, pt 3.

 

 

 

~ MORE~

Continue with the Steiner story in Australia,

when they headed south for Wagga Wagga,

in the following file 

steiners-wagga-wagga.htm