Last  updated August  2008 (Commenced 15 September 2007).

This has been an ongoing Investigation by the writer backwards along his mother's lineage.

Any error notifications or additional information or thoughts on the people, the places

 or any events mentioned herein would be very much appreciated.

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

From THE DONKEYS HILL

"ESELSHALDEN"

(in SWABIAN FOREST, GERMANY)

To WOMBAT CREEK

(at MULGOA, AUSTRALIA)

Eselshalden - fountain and information plaque (Photo:  Peter Fohr, 2007)

arrived there some years after that.

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Where I am not confident, or uncertain (?much of the time), about translation, some fragments of German are included along with their translation or any understandings derivative from them.  As I don't speak German I apologise for any murdering of the language that I do.  Whilst making the enquiries referred to herein, I was advised by other (non-Swabian) Germans not to worry about this too much as the Swabians (in their opinion) murdered the German language long ago.  This is similar as on the other side (father's side) of the writer's family, which involves Scottish folk (Burns/Byrnes), as the Scottish dialect in many ways differs from other more 'standard' English.

The writer is grateful to Gary Luke (who first pointed out to me where Elselshalden is located).

I am particularly grateful to councillor Peter Fohr who is the representative of Steinenberg in the Rudersberg city administration [which is now the local government district for Steinenberg (Ortschaftsrat in Steinenberg und Gemeinderat in Rudersberg; Steinenberg ist eingemeindet worden von Rudersberg)].   Peter took and emailed to me the photos herein of Eselshalden.

Some help with understanding things German came from Ms Jenny Paterson of Croydon who is a long-standing Australian expert on the migration of SW Germans to Eastern Australia pre 1890.  Ms Paterson very kindly supplied me with advice and useful background information about how thousands of SW Germans came to Australia in the 1800s.  Ms Peterson suggested that "Eselshalden" may not come from the Halde word's usual meaning of 'waste heap' but from another variant meaning of the word - as 'sloping ground, declivity, slope'.

It was also Ms Paterson who suggested that Christian and the woman he married at Mulgoa more likely than not came as a couple (for otherwise there is no record at all found of his wife having entered Australia).  Jenny told me that there were many examples of people who were engaged or de facto married already at the time they left Germany - but who did not formally marry till after leaving the homeland.  Ms Paterson explained why she thinks this was related to harshly restrictive marriage laws then prevailing in SW Germany.  Such legislation was apparently intended to act as 'social engineering' of the times - designed to hopefully slow the increase in numbers of the poor (even though such laws did not greatly slow down people having children - and they were in fact abolished in the 1860s).

Many thanks go also to Brother Moy Hitchens of the Christian Brothers, which congregation now owns the property "Winbourne" on which Wombat Creek is situated.  Brother Moy gave us (my wife and myself) a very knowledgeable tour of Wombat Creek and its environs.   He had been involved deeply in the keeping of the historic records of the place and in the preservation and restoration of the handsome stone cottage at the old Vineyard site on Wombat Creek.   He is also very interested that this site has very clear evidence that it was place of Aboriginal habitation in still earlier times.

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.  

Due to slight misspellings ('Steinberg' instead of Steinenberg') in Australian records, and the abundance of place names with Stein (stone) in them, exactly where Christian Steiner was born, which is Eselshalden near Steinenberg, was not learned of till September 2007.  Eselshalden is now under the local government area of the town or city of Weizhelm, and contacting them: "Some years after Oktober 1723, when the first habitants lived in Eselshalden, a family named Steiner from Krähenof settled down in Eselshalden" (Information received on 19 September 2007 from Stadt Welzheim.) 

Why was "Eselshalden" so named, and what does the name 'mean'?   Literally it looks like donkey on waste heaps ("Halde" is a waste heap).  However it is understood that a subsidiary meaning of "Halde" might also be 'small hill' regardless of whether or not the hill or mound is composed of waste material. 

In the 1800s many hundreds of Germans came to Australia to fulfill 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

Some interest in this exists at Ashfield-Croydon in the Inner West of Sydney, where at least a few of the immigrants or descendants came to live.  It's from this area that this webpage comes.   It is to be hoped that it will be found by descendants of Christian Steiner elsewhere, who may then add to the story of this line of Australian Steiners.

That Christian Steiner was born in Eselshalden was learned of by the writer only in September 2007.  Also recorded is an application from a Jakob Steiner to emigrate from Eselshalden to Peru in 1852 with his wife and five children.  Elselshalden at the time was probably only a tiny village and this confirms that there was a Steiner family living there.  Christian and Jakob are probably closely related.  The church records have been filmed by the Mormons and so the next intended step in the backwards search will be to go to the LDS geneology centre just north of Parramatta and begin the search for the family records on film.  The Steinenberg pastor's house was built in 1461. 

This webpage was commenced on the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the ship Gottorp, at Sydney Cove, on 15 September 1857.   In anticipation of the upcoming 150th anniversary of the arrival of the ship Gottorp advertising was done in Sydney papers and via geneological online groups to try and find descendants of any of the other Germans who came to Australia on the Gottorp - in order to suggest that some sort of commemorative meeting be arranged.  This did not come to pass, as nobody could be located.   After the anniversary date had long passed one or two people who know of the Gottorp did contact the writer.   

Jenny Paterson believed 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.

Little research has been done Christian Steiner's birthplace of Eselshalden, as it was only learned quite recently (in September 2007) that he was born at this place.

Also very little research has been done yet on the places the family of Christian and Elizabeth Steiner went to after they left Mulgoa, however an outline of this is given herein for anyone else who wishes to follow up on it.  

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" as the map below shows:

 

The slight errors of Eselhalden for Eselshalden, and Steinberg for Steinenberg, meant that trying to find the required birthplace of Christian as a Steinberg/Eselhalden proximity-combination was not working out - since there are numerous Steinberg (stone mountain) names in Germany and also various Eselhalden 'donkey' places in both Germany and Switzerland, yet none of which could be potentially right because of the initial slight errors in both the German and Australian records on Christian's birthplace.  Luckily Gary Luke solved the problem in one hit by finding the right place in Welzheim district or Welzheim forest (Welzeim Wald).   

 

 

FINDING ESELSHALDEN

 

Finding Eselshalden is easy once you know how.   But for a very long time the family deriving from Christian Steiner never knew exactly where he had come from, apart that it was somewhere in Germany.  

 

Mapping the diverse German states of the 1800s has been described by one writer as being like "something created by a roomful of young children left to play with the contents of a paint shop".  There were at different times up to thirty-nine different independant entities.  The Eselshalden area is located close northeast of Stuttgart on the following map.

 

 

The early German states as they were in 1815.   (Other regional maps below)

 

My thanks are due to various Australian German/history groups and individuals who responded to recent requests for information with all sorts of leads, mostly not yet followed up on.  In particular, Mr Gary Luke is thanked for finding the German record indicating that Christian was born at Eselshalden, near Steinenberg, and also for providing the above map of the locality.  Ms Jenny Paterson in particular has given me many "leads" that can be further followed up on.  Mr John Goswell sent me information on the practices of seeking early German immigrants with wine-making skills.  Ms Paterson, who for more than 25 years has been been researching mid-19th century German immigration into NSW,  notes that Eselshalden is now part of the council town of Welzheim in the Rems-Murr-Kreis of Baden-Württemberg.  Formerly, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, it was in the Welzheim Oberamt (administration district).  

 

Little hope had actually been held of finding Christian Steiner's birthplace for certain.  Even though it was known as "Steinberg" it was thought that this might be a fairly common descriptive term (since most mountains are made of stone!) rather than a unique geographic place.   Also, untold millions of German/European books and records were destroyed during World War II and it was known that all the early port emigration records were destroyed for where the Gottorp left from.  All emigrants departing from Bremen were recorded by the city authorities, however the records were  destroyed as the greater part of that city was lost to fire in WWII, in 1945.  State and provincial records of people may survive but Christian Steiner is not findable on the main Baden-Württemberg emigration website - hence it is considered very fortunate that has did turned up in other Wuerttemberg emigration records.

 

The website Auswanderung aus Südwestdeutschland at www.auswanderer.lad-bw.de does not find the Christian Steiner who went to Australia in 1857.  It reports one Christrian Steiner who emigrated in 1854 to North America, last place of residence Altensteig; one Christian Friedrich Steiner who went to Australia in 1854 , last place of residence Zweiflinger; another, Johann Jakob Steiner, who left Oberstenfeld in 1867 for Australia.  Overall this database shows that 119 Steiner surname persons left SW Germany overall.  Mostly they went to North America.  One, Jakob Steiner who left Welzheim district in 1852 for Peru, was domiciled in Eselshalden.  

 

One of the earliest known Steiners, who just might be connected, is Ulrich Steiner of Lorch who died in 1590.  In the ensuing years there were apparently many Steiners in this area.   Lorch is a small town situated on the river Rems (see map below),  8 km west of the city (pop. 62,000) of Schwäbisch Gmünd which is on the northern foot of the the  Swabian Jura Mountains (Swabian Alb).   This 'Alb' is plateau-like.  The northwestern edge is a steep escarpment (called the Albtrauf or Albanstieg, rising up 400 m and covered with forests), while the top is generally flat or gently hilly.

 

 

A map of Wurttemburg area as it was recognised in 1810-1945.   See Stuttgart,

Esslingen and Göppingen in centre - and relate to following map

 

 

See Stuttgart, Esslingen and Göppingen towards bottom, lower left.  Then look north of Göppingen for 

Lorch (a place known for early Steiners); thence north of there for Welzheim (and Eselshalden) area.

 

 

Enlargement of the above one, showing Steinbruck near centre.  The kink in the road just east of there

marks where Eselshalden lies.

 

 

Further enlargement of the same data.  Seinbruck on left and Eselshalden on right, and quarry area

between the two villages.

 

 

Illustrating the use of the term "Swabian Forest", to the north of the Swabian Alb or Jura.  Forest land to 

the west of the Neckar River is the Black Forest (see below).

 

 

Duchy of Swabia, about 962 AD.   Note Wurtemberg, on the Neckar River,

near the later Stuttgart.   Ulm is shown on the Danube River.

 

 

Germany about 962 AD.    The Swabian Alb is here labelled as Swabian Jura.

It was flanked along the northern edge by Franconia.

 

 

 

Swabian Alb north of and parallel to the Donau River, NE to Nördlingen.   The circular area around Nördlingen is a large impact structure, the Nördlinger Ries.  Nördlingen lies about 6 km SW of the centre.  The word "Ries"  is

not a German word and is believed to derive from Raetia (Raetians lived in  pre-Roman times.   The addition "Nördlinger" is redundant since there is no other place called Ries.  The depression is  a meteorite  crater

formed 14.3-14.5 ma ago in the Miocene.  The original rim had a diameter of 24 km.  The present  floor

of the depression is 100–150 m below the eroded remains of the rim.  Another crater, the much smaller

 (3.8 km diameter) Steinheim crater, is located  42 km  WSW.  The two craters formed simultaneously

 by the impact of a binary asteroid. 

 

 

The Steinenberg - Eselshalden - Welzheim area is east of Steinheim and between the 

rivers Kocher and Rems.  It is on Triassic sandstone which dip south beneath the

Jurassic calcareous sequence of the Swabian Alb.  Note Ulm to the south, which 

is where stone from the quarry near Eselshalden may have been taken for

use at the Cathedral (local information).

 

 

 

Showing relationship of the Swabian Alb area (Jurassic limestones and oolitic ironstone) to the Swabian forest (Schwarzwald) area situated to the NW of it (Keuper and Muschelkalk strata),

from Geyer and Gwinner (1991)

 

[ Or as  explained by the “Naturpark Schwäbisch-Fränkischer Wald” authority (founded in 1979): The nature park is situated upon the "Keuperbergland" (Upper Triassic), which is a part of the Swabian-Franconian sedimentary sequence.  On the western and northern border of the park, hills based on the Keuper-layer raise upon the landscape which is formed by limestone. Starting with Gypsum-keuper on the bottom of river valleys, the geological structure continues with sandstone "Schilfsandstein", lower coloured marl, sandstone "Kieselsandstein" and upper coloured marl. The plateaus are formed by a third kind of sandstone "Stubensandstein" in the area of the "Löwensteiner Berge", "Mainhardter Wald" and "Murrhardter Wald".   The upper Keuper-layer consists of "Knollenmergel" , a kind of marl which is infamous for its danger of landslides. You can find it in the "Löwensteiner Berge" as well as near Welzheim and Gschwend. Upon this layer, on the top of the plateaus around Welzheim, Alfdorf and Frickenhofen the fertile soil consits of black Jurassic (Lias alpha) - http://www.naturpark-sfw.de/Geology-and-Hydrology.114.0.html?&L=1  ]

 

The German word ”Alb” comes from the Celtic word alpis, which means a nurturing mountain. ”Swabian” comes from the Germanic Suevi tribe (who settled on the Rhine and Neckar during Julius Caesar’s time). The Romans occupied this area between 15 BC and AD 260, after which the Germanic (Alemannic) tribes appeared.  As Christianity spread in the 6th century, the area began to be integrated into the Frankish empire.  Hohenstaufen, Zähringer, Württemberger and Hohenzollern were great imperial and ruling dynasties that sprang from the Swabian Alb.   The region has some of mankind’s oldest artworks (30,000 years old), the world’s highest church steeple (Ulm Cathedral), remains of the Limes, the German frontier wall, Celtic centres of cult worship, and churches from every epoch.

 

 

 

The Duchy of Swabia in the 10th - 12th Centuries A.D.

About the Duchy of Swabia, an area shown on maps above, it is sometimes written that it core German ground and to  a large degree coincidental with the early  territorial range of  the "Alemands".  The Suevi (Sueben or Swabians) are considered a sub-tribe or large clan of  the Alemands.  The name of Swabia derives from them.  From the 9th century on, in place of the area designation of "Alemania" their came into usage the name "Schwaben" (Swabia).  The French who were nearby neighbors in Alsace still call the Germans the "Allemands."

The five main groups or tribes in the early German-speaking lands were the Lorrainers, Saxons, Franks, Bavarians and Swabians.  At their heads were dukes.  Any higher level would-be king or emperor needed to hold recognition through the individual tribes. Indeed, the tribal duchies were often even called "regna" (i.e., "kingdoms") in their own right.  The dukes in their turn were dependent on the recognition of the leading nobles in their tribal territory. Just as there were challengers or "anti-kings", there were "anti-dukes" in the Duchy of Swabia.  There were always some areas of much contested sovereignty, so that perhaps no map of the Duchy of Swabia can ever be drawn with totally precise borders.   The Swabian-Franconian tribal border in the north was largely a "dialect border" between the Alemanic-Swabian and the Frankish dialects for a long time.  And in the southeast the Lech was regarded as a traditional border with the Bavarian tribe. Northern Switzerland also belonged to the Alemanic territory, but not Rhaetia, where Rhaeto-Romansch is still spoken today in the southern part. The Alemands also established themselves in Alsace, but this land fluctuated in coming under the Duchy of Swabia or not.  Instead of seeking firm borders for the Duchy of Swabia, it is more useful to just take note of central regions and "important places" of the duchy, for there was never a specific capital of Swabia.  With regard to noble families, after the Welfens (in 1191) and the Zähringers (in 1218) were adversely affected by rivalries, the Staufers line became the dominant rulers as Dukes of the land.  Even Alsace belonged to it during their time.  After the eventual fall of the Staufers there was never again a Duchy of Swabia. The Habsburgs and the Württembergers endeavored unsuccessfuly to resurrect it.

 

 

Eselshalden east of Steinenberg, where Christian Steiner was born in 1813 (or 1812?).

 

 

Eselshalden.  A quarry area just west of the village is prominent.

 

 

Eselshalden.  Closer view.

 

 

The quarry west of Eselshalden.  The southern part of the quarry appears to have been

infilled and 'rehabilited'.   In August 2008 enquiry about this quarry was commenced

to the municipal museum at Welzheim ( http://www.museumwelzheim.de ).

 

 

The small village of Steinbruck, located just west of Eselshalden.

 

 

Enlargement with slight tilt southwards in Google Earth, showing the general appearance of the large patch of remnant

nature land, classified as the Swabian or Swabian-Frankish  (Schwäbisch-Fränkischer) forest land which is today being administered by a Nature Park authority or society, funded by all the local cities and towns in the region of surviving pristine forest land.  Eselshalden is seen as a small tight cluster of houses,  N-S elongated, that is

situated where the road running west from Welzheim or Breitenfürst gives a prominent southwards bulge or

kink (this road is labelled as route  L1150 on various maps.  Just west of Eselshalden is another quite small

village called Steinbruck.   In the upper left corner is seen the town of Steinenberg (where Eselshalden

births used to be registerd).  The blue dot just north of Eselshalden is Stebinger Hut (also see the

enlargement below for Stabingerh[ut])) which may be some sort of place for the outdoor-loving

people(?).  A sharp regular pattern seen south of Steinbruck/Eselhalden in the forest is

an abandonned Army depot.

 

 

An enlargement of Eselshalden, suggesting that there would be about 23 habitations there today.

 

 

 

Photos taken in an Eselshalden street in 2007 and showing a history plaque at the fountain.

(Photos with many thanks to Peter Fohr)

 

 

MORE ABOUT ESELSHALDEN AND THE DISTRICT AROUND IT

 

According to information obtained from the district today, the Eselshalden area was all uninhabited forested land up until 1722, at which time Konrad Bez first settled there.  Bez had also been a citizen of Steinenberg, till 1791.  (As understood from:-  Der Hof "Eselshalden" fing 1722 zu existieren an, vorher war es "Wald in den Eselshalden" Der 1. Bewohner soll gewesen sein, Konrad Bez bis 1721 Bürger von Steinenberg.)

 

From the above (thought to derive from church records, per a contact of Peter Fohr's) it appears that the settlement of Eselshalden commenced in ca. 1722.  Likewise, according to information received from Stadt Welzheim it was "Oktober 1723" when the first inhabitants of Eselshalden began living there; and some years after that a family named Steiner from Krähenof settled down in Eselshalden.  

 

The size of the settlement in the 1800s, or how many Steiners may have been there is still unknown at the present time, and enquiries have been continuing on that.  However,  around the mid 1800s there may  have been for some reason that a considable exodus of them took place (wherever any Steiners remain/remained in the district is not yet known).  The emigration records indicate that  besides Christian Steiner, 4 other Steiners left, mostly destined for Austria.  Those known to have left are:  

 

Gottlieb Steiner. Born: 15 June 1811 - Edelshalden.  Applied to emigrate: Feb 1846. Destination: Austria.

Johann Gottlieb Steiner. Born:: 13 May 1839 - Edelshalden. Applied: Feb 1846. Destination: Austria. 

Margaretha Katharina Steiner. Born: 4 Nov 1840 - Edelshalden. Applied: Feb 1846. Destination: Austria.

Anna Maria Steiner. Born:: 30 Dec 1842  - Edelshalden. Applied: Feb 1846. Destination: Austria.

The three children presumably left not alone, but likely in the care of the 35 year old Gottlieb Steiner.

 

And earlier Gottlieb Steiner is also known, one who was born in Eselshalden in (est.) 1805:

• Marriage: 1 Veronika Bader b: EST 1805 in ,Jagstkreis,Württemberg  (marriage est. 1832). 

  Children:

  1. Gottlieb Steiner b: 25 MAY 1837 in Eselshalden,Jagstkreis,Württemberg
  2. Johann Georg Steiner b: 19 APR 1847 in Eselshalden,Jagstkreis,Württemberg

Other fragmentary records, possibly of some interest/connection, include that Johann George Steiner married Ursula Közle on 11 Nov 1872 in Holzheim, Danube Circle, Wurttemberg.  They had 16 children.  Information in this case, going back to Eselshalden came from:

Title: Holzheim Kirchenbuch, 1559-1927.
Author: Evangelische Kirche Holzheim (OA. Göppingen).

Publication: Stuttgart: Ev. Landeskirchenamt, 1972.

 

Thus in all, there are nine Steiners who have so far come to note as having been resident in Eselshalden in the early 1800s.

 

Following backwards from the information from Stadt Welzheim that some years after 1723 when  Eselshalden began, a family named Steiner came there from "Krähenof" - Where is that?   This "Krähenof" has not yet been located.  Could it be possibly an early farm area that was called Kreehenhof, near Steinenberg and where there is evidence that many Steiners lived.   One recorded lineage is that an Ulrich Steiner of Lorch married Ursula Wieland, and died 1590. His son Georg Steiner was born about 1665.  He in turn had a son Christoph Steiner, who was born about 1613 in Alfdorf.  One of his descendants, Jerg Steiner married Anna Barbara Müller from Welzheim.  His son Jonas Steiner, born in 1723, entered service as woodworker on the "Kreehenhof" outside of Steinenberg.

 

Note that this is the same year that Eselshalden arose, so where is "Krähenof"/Krehenhof?  Gazeteers list it as being at lat. 47.8000000, long. 9.5333333.    That is way south of Stuttgart and cannot be near Steinenberg, so the Steinenberg one must be a much more local name(?).   Trying it as variants " Krähenof", "Krähenhof" or "Kreenhoff" finds other places so named, but not near Steinenberg.   However, after Jonas Steiner, born 1723, entered service as woodworker on the "Kreehenhof" farm he in 1750 he married into the farm community.  His wife was Anna Catharina Kengetter (Köngeter).  Their son Johannes Steiner, born 1755, was recorded as farmer of the Krehenhof. His eldest son Jung (junior) Johannes Steiner married Rosine Hof from Walkersbach on the Krehenhof in 1798.  They had 10 children.  Their son Johann Georg Steiner, born on the Krehenhof in 1809, married Anna Katharina Schurr (from Waldhausen near Lorch) in Steinenberg in 1832.  

Fide Paul Hoefer of HoeferPaulLists@aol.com there is also found from transcribing the churchbooks of D-73547 LORCH (close by Stuttgart in Wuerttemberg), in the 17th and 18th century, a well known family with the name Steiner at that time in the area.

Steinenberg was in former times the (church) administrative centre for Eselshalden.  But nowadays both church and municpal matters for Eselshalden are administered by the town of Welzheim.  A still-larger administrative district (Kreis) is currently called Rem-Murr. (Steinenberg war früher kirchlich an Steinenberg angeschlossen.  Nun gehört es kirchlich und städtisch zu Welzheim.  Eselshalden gehört zum Landkreis Rems-Murr Kreis.)

As to the question of what 'Halde' may have meant in the case of whoever first named Eselshalden, this is not yet know for certain.  The little hills meaning of 'Halde' could fit as one local description of Eselshalden today calls it a place of between 1-6 houses each clumped on little hills.  The total number of buildings at Eselshalden is not great.

But equally there may also have been waste heaps in the vicinity as just east of Eselshalden is a light coloured scar which is easily picked on Google Earth.  In the image above it is the light area on the southern side of the road that is between Eselshalden and Steinbruck.  Peter Fohr  information that out of this quarry came stone used for building the Ulm 'Cathedral', which has the largest church tower in the world.  The extracted stone was transported ca. 100 km to Ulm, using ox-carts and perhaps also using donkeys.  Or donkeys may have worked in the quarry.  The village of Steinbruck likely owes its origin to the quarry.  (Westlich von Eselshalden ist ein Steinbruch der nun zugeschüttet wurde. Ausdiesen Steinbruch wurden zum Erbau des Ulmer Münsters, größter Kirchturm der Welt, Steine gebrochen und mit Ochsenkarren vielleicht auch mit Eseln nach Ulm transportiert ca. 100 km. Oder die Esel arbeiteten im Steinbruch. Unterhalb von Eselshalden ist der Kleine Ort Steinbruck, kommt von Steinbruch.)

Ulm Cathedral is that the tallest stone structure in the world and with the change of construction methods possibly nothing like it will ever be built again.  The stones were all carved and placed by human hands over many generations, most of the workers knowing that they would never live to see the completion of the structure.

Ulm was destroyed by bombing in 1944-1945, as were other cities. 

Stuttgart, 1945

At first Württemberg was a place others fled to as bombing of Germany accelerated and even medium-sized towns in the north and west of Germany were being pre-emptively evacuated.  But southern Germany did not remain safe from air raids.  Stuttgard, for example, was almost totally destoyed and suffered 53 bombing raids.  Even purely cultural sites were earmarked for destruction and little remained in the end of a once lovely city but rubble and death.  The bombing levelled 60% of the building and generated 53 million cubic feet of rubble, which much of the standing shells so unsound as to need demolition.  The Landrat in Ulm saw this coming and declared in March 1944 that it was only a matter of time before Ulm was bombed.  This worst fear happened, and the heaviest air raid was on 17 December, 1944.  Bombing continued into 1945 and the centre of the city was further bombed by squadrons of the English and American bomb groups (91st Bomb Group; 379th and 384th Bombardment Groups; 303 BG/H) for four consecutive days on 1-4 March 1945, at the end of 14 consecutive days of bombing over Germany.  By 1945 time there was little or no effective counter-action from the Germans; planes could bomb at will and typically were returning safely to base.  By this time Ulm itself lay defenseless; mission diary notes of Sunday 4th March (Robert A. Alderman and others) recorded that no flak whatsoever was coming up from Ulm, although the planes were still being flakked as they crossed the Rhine River.  The rubble became so thick in Ulm that it was impossible to move or even walk through some parts of the city.  The war ended in April.  Ulm had become, for its size, the most heavily bombed city in southern Germany.  Ulm was 81% destroyed, with only 1,763 of its buildings surviving out of 12,756.  The Cathedral was lucky to fare so well.  Some say it was a "miracle".  One travel guide states that "the cathedral was saved from bombing during World War II largely because of the fog that surrounded the region of Ulm on a regular basis.  Because it was difficult to navigate the area from the air, the Allies found the cathedral too valuable a landmark to be destroyed".  Various other sources also state that it was being left standing as a landmark and navigational aid for the successive raids.  Even so it was still lucky not to have been hit in all the 'blind' bombing.  The ?final bombing, on 4 March 1945 was accomplished by Gee-H equipment and bombs were dropped 4000 feet higher than planned because of the covering clouds. 

One writer has written of it as: "the 500 year old Gothic cathedral stood weeping, towering above the grey hulk of yet one more city which had stood from before the middle ages".

 

Ulm 'Cathedral', and enlargement showing different colours of the stone blocks.   It was never a Cathedral in the sense of being the seat of a Bishop but is given this name on account of being

an architectural masterpiece.  It is 161.53m (530 ft) tall and the climb up via stairs is strenous and said to narrow to claustropic towards that top.  It was commenced in 1377 as the Ulm Citizens' Church but there was a very long period, between 1547 and the 19th century during which the building work was stalled.  Construction resumed in 1844 and was finished in 1890.  Jewish citizens of Ulm, including the father of Albert Einstein, contributed to it a statue of the prophet Jeremiah.  After its completion in 1890 it stood as the tallest building in the world,

until surpassed in 1901.  The current responsible architect for the mainteance of the 

Cathedral is Dr Mrs Rommel.  (Photos:  Google Commons)

 

 

Still from a 3D computer model of the Ulm Cathedral created by 27 year old student architect

at the University of Karlsruhe, Jan-Ruben Fisher.  

 

Inside the spire, showing the intricate lacework-like carved stone composition of very open construction, with an octagonal central core carrying the spiral stairs to the top; and close-up of stone.  (Photo taken 2004: Google Commons, added by 'Jessetrumpet45')

According to the tourist brochure "Swabian Alb.  The 7 keys to the Swabian Alb. Infoguide. Fascination Swabian Alb", Key No. 2 is "The Adventure of geology - Anyone who gets to the bottom of the Swabian Alb will find fantastic testimony6 to the most varied epochs of the Earth's history .. The entire Swabian Alb is basically one single geological theme park, a veritable 'Jurassic Park' (also has 350 volcanic vents, maars)".  It says that the Lower Jurassic sequence comprises dark limestone, clays, marl and oil shale; and that the Middle Jurassic has limestone and oolitic ironstone, and that "Ulm Cathedral was built using Middle Jurassic stone" (also cites the Donzdorf sanstone as a geological highlight.   (http://files.jugendnetz.net/EnglInfoGuideEnglishalb.pdf)

 

Another source states that sandstone for the spire facade was quarried in Alsace as part of reparations to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War, which ended in 1871.    Just how much stone from the quarry between Eselshalden and Steinbruck went into the Cathedral is not yet known.

 

 

 

 

Sandstone.  Top of the Geiststein pillar (Geiststein = Spirit Rock), the position of which is shown in the above Google Earth view (in lower right).  This large rock was the place of secret nightly meetings of the persecuted Anabaptists of the 1500s. The pine forest has owls and deer.  The massive sandstone rock is at a quiet and lonely mountaintop.  It is a pinnacle about fifteen feet high.  It bears a small metal plaque which was put there by the Evangelische Freikirchliche Gemeinden in 1968, and which translates as: "At this site in 1575 and following years the Anabaptists gathered from the nearby towns for worship during the night".

 

From the families of the master glassmakers named Greiner of Walkersbach, some leaders of this Anabaptist movement are recorded in documents.  The Greiners were a clan of three generations in this area.  Brothers Blasius and Andreas Greiner converted to Anabaptism in 1562.  From 1567 to 1569 the authorities imprisoned Blasius in the Maulbronn, a former monastery that had been turned into a prison. He escaped but was re-captured. He recanted his Anabaptist convictions to save himself but later retracted the recantation. Following a concerted attempt in 1598 these Anabaptists (antecedents of the Mennonites and Amish of North America) were entirely wiped out in this region from sustained persecution.  Other stories are that even earlier this rock was a cultic site of the pre-Christian Germanic religion.  Also, legend has it that this was a favourite hunting spot around 1800 of the Kurfürst King Friedrich of Württemberg. 

 

(Photo: David Rempel Smucker, Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society.  David ponders would a modern Mennonite "recant and give the police the GPS location of worship sites? ... The situation of religious freedom and economic security in which many North American

Anabaptists find themselves could reverse in a few years".)

The district consists of gently dipping Triassic arenaceous strata which underlie the gently south dipping Jurassic limestones sequence of the Swabian Alb to the south.  As seen here the rock is soft enough to construct a dug-out in.  (The Jüxhoele near Kallenberg)

 

The "Geo Naturpark" people of southwest Germany refer to the broad region as a cradle of civilisation.  Iron-making, from bean-sized concretionary ironstone gravel (Bohnerz), began in prehistoric times.  This would be in the Jurassic limestone region a little further south, the Swabian Alb.  That area was prone to impoverishment because the limestone lead to lack of surface water and families might have to make long daily rides by horseback to get water.  In the Triassic sandstone region further north there are more surface streams.

 

Welzheim was at the edge of the Roman empire.  It was on the Roman barrier wall called the Limes.  This was similar as the British Hadrian's Wall.  This wall ran southsoutheasterly, through Welzheim, until nearing the Swabian Alb.  It then turned to run northeasterly, parallel to the elongation of the Swabian Alb.  The wall was built to keep the savage hordes at bay outside of the Romanised or civilised areas.   However, all this region eventually had the Romans driven out by the local tribes.  It was about 260 AD that Germanic people overran and destroyed the Roman presence at Welzeim.  Evidence of the presence has since been restored at an archaeological precinct and annual Roman festival and related events occur at Welzeim.  The town or early 'city' was site of an early monastery (est. 1259 AD) and a castle.  Welzeim (first named "Wallenzin") has been a place of considerable sorrow - in recent history the site of the largest concentration camp in Württemberg, and earlier on devastated or all but wiped out more than once either by human events (war, fire) or by plague.  Up to 800 a year have died there (plague).   After destructions the town church was repeatedly rebuilt but the local castle (destroyed 1556 AD) was never rebuilt.  Local industry has included glassmaking (first glassworks established around 1500 AD near Cronhütte), metal-working fabrication industries, etc.  There is still glassmaking in Welzheim, although probably not with any direct connection to earlier glassmaking(?).  The population began to grow steadily after WWII: 4376 in 1950, 9000 in 1988, 11,000 by 1996.  For more of this writer's notes on history, click here:

 

HISTORY OF WELZEIM AND WÜRTTEMBERG

 

 

 

Centre of Weizheim town

 

 

Currently Eselshalden belongs to Welzheim district.  Eselshalden was in the church parish of Steinenberg.  It is confirmed that the church books of Steinenberg also cover Eselshalden.  Therefore Steinenberg should be where his birth and baptism will be found recorded.  Further back in time Steinenberg, and probably Eselshalden as well, belonged to Oberamt Schorndorf, not Oberamt Welzheim.  Christian Steiner made his application to emigrate to Australia in Welzheim, and perhaps he was working in Welzheim at the time or else this is the place (larger than Steinenberg) where such applications had to be made.

 

 

 

Welzheim glass label

 

Welzheim today also manufactures glassware.  Pieces with the above label was offered for sale on eBay and elsewhere at high prices, saying that the Welzheim Wertarbeit Oertel has been in the same family for five generations (Oertel & Co. Kristallglas. owner - Petra Schütte, Reinharzer Str - 34, Welzheim).  However Johannes Oertel began a glass refinery in 1869 in Haida/Böhmen (today Noviboron) but in 1945 the family was driven out from the Tschechei and the enterprise expropriated.  Oertel reestablished the enterprise at Welzheim in 1946.  Hence pieces carrying the "Welzheim" label cannot be all that old.  The Welzheim Städtisches Museum contains various glass objects manufactured by Oertel.

 

 

 

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:  Guidance about early Australian wine growing, and the role of Germans in it, was received from Mr. John Goswell and 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 abandonned 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 Pomingalarns, just west of Wagga Wagga.

 

WESTBROOK 

The Steiner family may have left the Sydney region pretty soon after the birth of Leonard occurred in Camden in 1865 (perhaps why the birth registration may have gone astray?), since Gottleib Reinhardt Steiner was registered as born on 9 January 1866 at Westbrook.

The reason for the move south can only be speculated on.  It is curious that two family lines (Clout, Steiner) that later joined at Wagga Wagga both come from the Camden area and both left to move south in or about the same year, 1865.  A common cause like crops failure by flood or disease (?rust) might possibly be involved.

So far there is no knowledge at all about why the Steiners would have moved to Westbrook, or even where it was exactly that they moved to.  Even what is meant by "Westbrook" is not yet certain.  It is a minor place name associated with Tarcutta Creek, west of Batlow.  An alternate name for Tarcutta Creek is Oberne Creek.  And an alternate name for Westbrook might also have been Oberne Creek.  In the Tarcutta Creek valley today, there are two small place names, Oberne Creek and Westbrook.  The main road through Oberne Creek is now called Westbrook Road and a place called Welstbrook is a little south of that called Oberne Creek.   None of the places have, or ever have had, any sizeable population.  Minor preliminary enquiry has not revealed any knownledge of Steiners or any other Germans ever having lived in the area.  

 

It seems like the Steiners, for whatever reason they went to Westbrook did not stay there very long.  Gottleib Reinhardt was born at Westbrook in January 1866 but Elizabeth Fredericka was born at Lake Albert in January 1869.   Thus they may have been at Westbrook for only two or three years, or even less.  Memorial articles in a Wagga Wagga newspaper after the deaths of each of Christian and Elizabeth Steiner both suggest 1867 as the time they came to the Wagga district.  This could well refer to when they arrived at Lake Albert.  And if that is correct then they are only at Westbrook for a year or so.

 

 

 

LAKE ALBERT 

 

Why the family moved to Lake Albert, then probably a little inhabited area with a small lake about 5 km south of Wagga Wagga, is doubtless somehow connected with wine-making, and with Christian's considerable interest/experience in that occupation by this time.

 

The year 1867 seems to be the most likely time when the Steiners arrived at Lake Albert.

Wine making at Lake Albert is believed to have started probably around 1870, a little after the Steiners are known to have moved there.  The vineyard was commenced there probably by Sir William Macleay (1820-1891), being the Macleay after whom the Macleay Museum at Sydney University is named, and it is highly likely that this is who Christian went to work for at Lake Albert.   However, this is not yet actually confirmed, or if Christian worked for William Macleay of perhaps some other member/s of the Macleay family engaged in wine production at Lake Albert.

Wine Tasting – Lake Albert Vineyard 1895.

The Last Load – Lake Albert Vineyard 1895.

Views of Lake Albert Vineyard - from the Sydney Mail of 4 September 1897.  The photo labelled

"view of lake & vineyard" suggests that the vineyard was located right on the lake's shore.

 

Sir William Macleay is a quite famous person in the history of NSW and there is an interesting aside concerning him that comes from the diarist Dr Karl Scherzer.  On his 1858 visit to Sydney, this diarist visited Macleay, already by then a famous naturalist, at his Elizabeth Bay home.  Scherzer was moved to write some rather remarkable words in his diary after his 10 November 1858 visit to Macleay:

"Macleay's misanthropic cast of mind is evidenced by the notices with which this elderly bachelor, living his life in quiet solitude, greets passers-by at the entrance to his property. Two great signboards, one on the right and one on the left, proclaim in large letters: BEWARE OF BLOODHOUNDS and ANY PERSON TRESPASSING WILL BE PROSECUTED.  As I was later told and was able to ascertain for myself, Mr Macleay does not own any bloodhounds, but had these notices put up simply to deter intruders, for, in view of the high degree of personal safety enjoyed in most parts of the colony, measures such as these are far from fair or justifiable. This is a remarkable fact which provides the best proof that man becomes a criminal only through social conditions and is inclined by nature rather to conduct his life along law-abiding lines and earn his livelihood in this fashion .... Crime and vice however are for the most part only the consequence of want, poverty and need". 

These seem remarkably progressive words for their time, from Dr Scherzer.  Sir William himself had arrived in Sydney in March 1839 on the Royal George, with his brother Walter.  This was, strangely enough, the same voyage that the family of Charles Clout came to Australia on (a member of which family Cecil Steiner was to later wed in Wagga Wagga).  The Macleays began large family runs, first near Goulburn but later on in the Murrumbidgee region.

William Macleay became a magistrate at Wagga Wagga by 1841.  Attracted by viticulture he formed his forty-acre (16 ha) vineyard at Lake Albert near Wagga Wagga in the 1870s (Hoare et al., 1974). 

 

 

Lake Albert (35°09′S 147°22′E) (click for Google Maps view)

 

A Macleay is also noted as being among the "discoverers" of the site of Wagga Wagga, although from earlier Macleays. In December 1829, early colonists first sighted the land on which the city of Wagga Wagga now stands. That exploring party from Sydney consisted of Captain Charles Sturt, Mr. George Macleay and six others. Settlement swiftly followed and a town was proclaimed a town by 1849.  In the 1860s when the Steiners (and Clouts) went south, the population of Wagga Wagga totaled only about 700 or so.  Thus it was then no greater a rural centre that Mugoa had been.

According to some local historians, Lake Albert is an "artificial" lake covering 125ha which was built in the 1890s on what was known as Swampy Plains and named after Prince Albert.  

 

Lake Albert may well have been enhanced in depth and extent in the 1890s but it seems to have had an existence before then because  Elizabeth Fredericka Steiner was born at Lake Albert in January 1869, and the  birth record states "Albert Lake", not Swampy Plains.

 

 

 

BIRTHS DEATH AND MARRIAGES - KEY FACTS

 

Some known basic information recorded under the Births, Deaths and Marriages Act/s for some Steiners of interest are as follow.  The ones for Germany were kindly extracted from church relevant to Eselshalden by a neighbour of Peter Fohr:

 

 

'''' Potentially related German Steiner records """"

 

Johannes Steiner (1755-1840) geb. 16.06.1755 im Krehenhof.  (Born in Krehenhof.)

- Die Eltern waren Jonas Steiner u. Anna Katharina geb. Köngeter.  (His parents.)

- Er war Ausdingbauer und gestorben 23.02.1840.  (Died in Ausdingbauer.)

- Er heiratete zweimal.  (He married twice)

- Aus der ersten Ehe am 22.06.1773 in heirat in Steinenberg kamen 4 Kinder zur

  Welt.  (From the first marriage, in Steinenberg four children came into the world.)

-- Seine Frau Barbara geb.Kohnle? geb. im Jahr 1747 gestorben am 07.02.1791.

    (His wife Barbara was born 1747 in ?Kohnle and died in 1791.)

- Kinder:  

--  1.Johannes geb.03.06.1774.

--  2. Johann Jakob 07.012.1777.

--  3. Johann Richard 17.04.1781.

--  4. Johannes Georg 08.07.1784 gefallen am 07.06.1813 in der Schlacht.....  (Killed in battle.)

- Nun zur zweiten Ehe aus dieser Ehe kamen 7 Kinder hervor.   (Seven children from second marriage.)

--  1. Christina geb. am 03.08.1792 heiratete 1817 in Steinenberg.  (Christina, married in Steinenberg.)

--  2. Christian geb. am 15.12.1794 gestorben am 02.07.1815.

--  3. Margarethe 12.01.1796 heiratete 1824 in Bühlertann.

--  4. Rosine geb. am 27.01.1800. Heiratete 1830 in Eselshalden.  (Rosine married in Eselshalden.)

--  5.  Anna Maria 06.05.1802 Heiratete 1828 in Steinenberg.

--  6. Gottfried geb. am 15.12.1804 gestorben 30.09.1878 

--  7. Gottlieb geb. 10.03.1808 heiratete 1838 in Eselshalden.    (Gottlieb married in Eselshalden.)

 

Aus der ersten Ehe vom Sohn Johannes geb. am 03.06.1774 heiratete wahrscheinlich 22.08.1798 kamen wieder zwei Söhne hervor die hießen ..  (From the Johannes born 3.6.1774 who married probably on

22.8.1798 came two more sons):

- 1. Johanne Georg geb. 27.08.1809 heiratete 1832.

- 2. Johannes geb. am 14.01.1817.

 

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

 

Thus it is known so far, from the church records per a contact of Peter Fohr's, that the settlement of Eselshalden commenced in ca. 1722; which accords will with information (possibly based on the same records source?) received from Stadt Welzheim that it was " Oktober 1723" when the first in habitants of Eselshalden began living there.  Stadt Welzheim added that some years after that a family named Steiner from Krähenof settled down in Eselshalden.  

 

This Steiner from Krähenof is probably the abovementioned Johannes Steiner (1755-1840) who was born in Krehenhof, which is in Ortschaft Schmalegg of Stadt Ravensburg nearly at the southern border of Württemberg.  Johannes Steiner's first son of his second marriage was Christian, born in 1794 probably at Eselshalden if the family was then living there, as it seems.  

 

If Christian Steiner born 1812 in Eselshalden was son of Christian Steiner born 1794 in Eselshalden then the second Christian's father would have then been 18.  It is possible, but this link has not yet had any evidence for it found.

 

 

Christian Steiner  [12Sep1812/13? - 2May1893, aged 80/81 .. different sources differ by 1 yr]

 

Birth/baptised: "Steinberg, ?Wurtemmberg, Germany"  (Actually should be "Steinenberg"), born Eselshalden

Parents: Christian Steiner, farmer; mother’s name unknown.

Immigration: Arrived in the colony in 1857 per the ship Gottorp from Wurtemmburg

Marriage: 4 Oct 1858, at Mulgoa Church of England; minister George Vidal; witness Martin Eisenhulth (faded writing - Martin Eisenhult?). [George Vidal was parish rector 1855-1865.]

Spouse: Elizabeth Rheinhardt, born in Germany (Died 15 Feb 1902 at Darlow St., Wagga Wagga; buried 16 Feb 1902 at Presbyterian cemetery, Wagga Wagga, buried by Presbyterian minister Charles Bell).

Spouse’s parents: Unknown.

Occupation noted at time of death: Vigneron.

Died: 2 May 1893, Wagga Wagga.

Buried: 4 May 1893; minister J. McIntyre, Presbyterian.

Children (when/where born):

Sophia Wilhemmina Steiner, 9 Oct 1859, Mulgoa.

George Peter Steiner, 6 Jul 1861, Winbourne.

Christian Steiner, 27 Sep 1863, Camden. (A.k.a. Christopher Steiner)

Leonard Steiner, 1865, Camden.

Gottleib Reinhardt Steiner, 9 Jan 1866, Westbrook.

Elizabeth Fredericka Steiner, 17 Jan 1869, Albert Lake.

 

Taken from The Wagga Advertiser of Thu 04 May 1893: 

"Death of Mr C STEINER - The many friends of Mr C. Steiner will learn with regret of that gentleman’s death, which occurred at his late residence, Darlow-street Wagga on Tuesday last. Mr Steiner was a native of Steinberg and came to this colony in 1857, and resided close to Sydney for about ten years when he came to Wagga. Shortly after he came to this district he entered into an engagement with Mr MacLeay as a gardener and while in that capacity he planted the vines in the Lake Albert Vineyard. He remained in the service of Mr MacLeay at Lake Albert for a little over eight years, and then purchased a piece of land on the Murrumbidgee at Pomingalarna where he planted a vineyard for himself, and which is now known as The Riverview Vineyard. Mr Steiner entered largely into his business as a wine-grower, and after a few years of industrious work had improved his holding considerably. About three years ago he sold his vineyard at a good price, and removed to Wagga where he resided privately until the time of his death. He was highly respected and during his residence in this district had made many friends. At the time of his death he was in his 81^st year. He leaves a widow and four children – three sons – one daughter. All the children are married and with the exception of one who lives in Euababalong, they are residents of Wagga. The funeral is announced to leave his late residence at 2 o’clock this afternoon and the remains are to be buried in the Presbyterian portion of the Wagga Cemetery."

 

[Notes: The informant of his death was his son George who recorded he was aged 46 when he married Elizabeth. The informant at Elizabeth’s death was their son Leonard and he did not know where his mother was born, other than that it was in Germany, nor the names of her parents.  The child Gottleib is not mentioned/recalled in later records and may have died in infancy(?).  Christian's grave is Number 3 of Row 25 in the Presbyterian section 1a of the Wagga Wagga Monumental Cemetery and tells us "Farewell wife & children" (A THANK YOU to Yvonne Scrivener for information on the grave and for finding this death notice in the Wagga Advertiser).]

 

 

 

Elizabeth Steiner nee Rheinhardt [ ?1822 – February 1902, aged 80 ]

 

The Wagga Advertiser – Tue 18 Feb 1902

"Death of an Old Resident - Mrs Elizabeth Steiner, a well-known and respected resident of the district, died at her residence, Newtown, on Saturday afternoon. The deceased at the time of her death was in her 80^th year, and came to the Wagga district 35 years ago with her deceased husband, who had been appointed manager of the Lake Albert Vineyard by the late Sir Wm Mackay. Subsequently, Mr and Mrs Steiner established a vineyard of their own at Pomingalarna, where they resided until the death of Mr Steiner. Mr and Mrs Steiner had a large family, most of whom reside in this part of the State. The funeral took place on Sunday last, the remains being interred in the family enclosure in the Presbyterian portion of the Wagga Cemetery, the Rev C Bell officiating at the grave. A large concourse of mourners attended the funeral the arrangements for which were carried out by Mr John McIntosh."

 

 

 

Leonard Steiner  [ 1865 – 28Jun1944, aged ?77-80 ]

 

Birth: 1865, Camden

Parents: Christian Steiner and Elizabeth Rheinhardt

Marriage:

Spouse: Ellen Taylor (Born 20 June 1871 at Pyalong, Victoria; died 10 May 1928 at Lewisham private hospital in Wagga Wagga; buried 11 May 1928 at the Presbyterian cemetery in Wagga Wagga).

Spouse’s parents: William Taylor and Eleanor Curtis (known as Ellen, born in Williamtown, Melbourne).

Place and date: 15 April 1889, in the St John Mission Hall, Wagga Wagga; minister W.H. Pownall.

Witnesses: George Steiner, Catherine Taylor.

Usual occupations at time of marriage: Christian - farmer; Ellen - living with parents at Wagga Wagga.

Died: 28 Jun 1944, at 44 Evans Street, Wagga Wagga.

Buried: 29 Jun 1944, at the Presbyterian cemetery, Wagga Wagga, by minister C.J. Wells (Methodist).

Children (when/where born):

Cecil William Leonard, 10 April 1890, Wagga Wagga.

Ormond Clarence Christian Steiner, 24 July 1892, born at Sandy Creek (Uranquinty).  (A.k.a. Norman)

Ajsless James Steiner, 28 March 1895, Uranquinty

Lilly Olive May Steiner, 29 April 1897, Uranquinty

Olive Lilly May Steiner, 29 April 1897, Uranquinty

Decimus Leslie Steiner, 18 Feb 1899, Uranquinty

Laney James Steiner, 14 Nov 1905, Wagga Wagga.  (A.k.a. Jesse Steiner?)

 

[Other rather uncertain notes: The German immigrants to the Nepean Valley were largely from Catholic areas of Germany but religious denominations on Steiner family BDM certificates are of mixed Protestant nature with no overall trend.  The family that Leonard and Ellen formed may have carried forward some Methodist connection it would seem, which perhaps may have been Ellen's choice.  It is noted that unlike others they are recorded to have married in a mission hall rather than a church, which perhaps may have been a Wesleyan service (the affiliation of minister W.H. Pownall is unknown).  A Wesleyan connection came via Ellen's father William Taylor who was a shoemaker born in Cambridge, England, about 1833.  It is noted that Leonard was buried by a Methodist minister and Ellen’s parents are known to have been married by Methodist rites at Collingwood, Victoria in 1856 (her father William being Methodist and her mother Eleanor Curtis had been baptised Anglican).  At the time of his death, Leonard was living at 44 Evans Street, which was apparently the home of his son Norman (Ormond) who was the informant of the death.  Norman’s information resulted in his mother’s name being recorded incorrectly as Emily, rather than Ellen, but she had been dead by then for 16 years. Elizabeth Rheinhardt’s (Leonard's grandmother's) surname occurs in various spellings in sparse records, including as Rynehart. It may be interesting therefore that a Frederick Joseph Clout, who was a descendant of the Clout family which Leonard's son Cecil would marry into, had in 1911 married a Mary Clare Rynehart in Wagga Wagga who was daughter of John Rynehart and Amy Curtis – Curtis being another grandparent name for Leonard - and all may just possibly be related Wagga families?  There are many other 'possible/dubious' connections noted in passing but which have not been checked on.]

 

 

Cecil William Leonard Steiner [10Apr1890 - 23Feb1969, aged 79 ]

 

Birth: 10 April 1890, Wagga Wagga.

Parents: Leonard Steiner, farmer and Ellen Taylor.

Marriage:

Spouse: Elsie Mary Clout, known as "Else" or "Queenie" (Born 22 Nov 1893 at Wagga Wagga; died 6 Nov 1959 at Western Suburbs Hospital, Croydon; buried 7 Nov. 1959 at Catholic cemetery, Rookwood).

Spouse’s parents: George Clout Jnr (by then deceased) and Mary Louisa Hart.

Place and date: 19 Aug 1914, at St Michael’s Catholic church, Wagga Wagga; minister M. Buckley.

Usual occupations at time of marriage: Cecil - coach-trimmer; Elsie – tailoress.

Died: 23 Feb 1969, United Gardens private hospital, Summer Hill.

Buried: 25 Feb 1969, Catholic cemetery, Rookwood.

Children (when/where born):

Doreen Phyllis Steiner,

Raymond Leonard Steiner, 18 May 1920, Wagga Wagga.

 

 

WHERE DID FURTHER DESCENDANTS GO TO?

The above records show that some of the later Steiners moved to Uranquity southwest of Wagga Wagga.  Born at Uranquinty in the 1890s were Ormond Clarence Christian Steiner, Ajsless James Steiner, Lilly Olive May Steiner, Olive Lilly May Steiner and Decimus Leslie Steiner.

 

Cecil Steiner, the writer's grandfather, is remembered to have often spoken of "The Rock" when talking about Wagga Wagga or his relatives there.  Perhaps this only meant that they sometimes went on outings to the rock for picnics or excursions.  Or more likely it meant some of them lived in some vicinity that was out towards The Rock, from Wagga Wagga (futher southwest than Uranquinty where most of Cecil's brothers and sisters were born - see above map).  A possible but much less likely alternative could be that some family lived near a different 'Rock', being the one 3 km southeast of Albert Lake that is called "the Rock" or "Rocky Hill".  

 

 

Uranquinty is a small town 15km SW of Wagga Wagga on the road to The Rock, population ca. 640.

The hill most often known as "The Rock" is at the township of the same name, 32km SW of Wagga Wagga.

REFERENCES

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

(Printed, pp. 15-23.  Publication unknown (photcopy); possibly a Victorian family history book.  Obtained from the Bega Valley Genealogy Society. Call no. Z5.19.03.   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 the 'Historical Winbourne' article, and the Christian Brothers themselves also had at one time a small museum and 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.