Johannes Steinhäuser, 28, and Klara Susanne Grüninger, 27, were married at Mark's Church, Butzbach on the 8th of November, 1832. Johannes, the son of Shoemaker, Jakob Steinhäuser and his wife Elisabeth Rübsamen, and Klara, the daughter of Tanner Johann Melchoir Grüninger and Eva Susanne Kobelt, were both Butzbach born, so would have known each other all their lives.
In 1834 Johannes and Klara's first child was born but the infant, a son, was stillborn. Their next child, another son, was born in 1835 but lived just one hour. With these tragedies behind them, it is not difficult to imagine their apprehension as Klara approached full-term in her third pregnancy. This time, however, all went well and a healthy son was born on January 28, 1836 at their home, 13 Greideler Strasse. The infant was named Johann Jakob for his Godfather, Johann Jakob, eldest of his father's four younger brothers.
Johannes and Klara were to lose yet another infant with the birth of a still-born daughter in April, 1837, but in January, 1839, Klara safely gave birth to a healthy daughter, who, despite being named in honour of Johannes' sister Elisabeth Appollonia, would always be known as 'Elise'. Klara had but a short time to enjoy her baby daughter and toddler son for she died on October 23, eight months after Elise's birth. She was just thirty-nine.
Five years later, perhaps lonely, and needing a mother for his young children, Johannes married Helene Vorwerk from the nearby village of Wetzlar. Two daughters were born of that union; Helene in 1845 and Lisette in 1846.
Butzbach – approximately 40 kilometres North of Frankfurt-on-Main – was once a tiny rural settlement whose first documentary mention was in the year 773 when the name Botisphaden or Botinesbach was used15. It is in the heart of a beautiful part of Hessen known as 'The Wetterau' – an area with a rich history.
In 1151 Konrad I, Count of Arnsburg and Hagen commenced building a castle at Munzenberg some 15 kilometres north-west of Butzbach. Sited on a prominent hill, it was clearly visible for many miles around. A well-known land-mark, it became known as 'The Inkwell of the Wetterau' because of its resemblance to a giant inkwell. Konrad died in 1152 but his son Konrad II completed the castle in 1161. As the first Baron Munzenberg, Kuno II ruled for 60 years over a domain which included Butzbach and Nieder-Weisel16. Under the protection of Munzenberg Castle and the descendants of the Arnsburg and Hagen dynasty, Butzbach rapidly developed into a large town and in 1321 was granted City rights17.
In the 1200s Butzbach was enclosed by massive stone walls complete with the necessary towers, battlements, defence-walks, ditches and city gates. It was the protection provided by these defences which saved Butzbach from destruction in times of war and as a consequence, trade and commerce were thus better able to develop. Tradesmen joined together in guilds of which the dyers, cloth makers, smiths, potters, tanners, cobblers, comb makes and glue makers were the most famous18.
Much of the city wall remains and is immaculately maintained, although the town has spread right up to the inner side of the wall and then progressed well beyond it. The streets are narrow, winding and cobbled. They are lined with ancient but beautifully preserved buildings the majority of which are constructed in the traditional half-timbered style with steeply-pitched slate roofs and shuttered windows – the majority of these 'dressed' with window-boxes. Some houses feature handsomely decorated 'filling-boards' which give the original owners names and the date of construction. Many buildings in the town's old 'heart' are multi-storied – as many as five levels not counting cellars and attics. With the exception of the Town Hall, few buildings were not originally built as residences, or, as a combination of residence and business premises. Jakob's home at 13 Griedeler Strasse was one such building.
On leaving school Jakob did not go into his father's business – it was simply not big enough for another person. Instead, he became an apprentice at one of Butzbach's many breweries learning the skills of brewing and barrel-making.
In 1855, when Jakob was eighteen years of age, he and a number of other young men and women of Butzbach applied for permission to emigrate to Victoria, Australia. Some of these young people would have no doubt been influenced by the contents of a letter sent home by twenty-seven year old Johann Conrad Weickhardt who had migrated to Victoria the previous year. Conrad's father gave this letter to Moritz Kuhl, Editor of a Butzbach newspaper who printed it full on August 5, 1854 accompanied by an approbative preamble written by Kuhl himself19. At the time Conrad wrote the letter, there were twelve Butzbach people already committed to making the journey to Australia and Conrad's comments may well have encouraged others to take the same step.
Permission to leave Hessen had to be obtained from the Duke, and in respect of Jakob's application, the Mayor of the Duke of Darmstadt-Hessen wrote:
re: Application of Johann Jakob Steinhäuser, single, Butzbach, for the permission of emigrating.
Johann Jakob Steinhäuser having the home right as citizen here, aged 18, of Lutheran religion, profession: cooper and beer brewer, has the intention to emigrate. The reason for the emigration is, to look for a better livelihood than he can expect in this country. He doesn't take along with him capital, because he couldn't earn property and capital till now, and he didn't inherit either. Concerning the official duty of war service: he is too young for this duty.
Butzbach, 8th August 1854
Young Hessen men of twenty-one were conscripted into the Duke of Hessen-Darmstadt's army, and that service included fighting in wars waged between many of the small states which then made up Germany. Parents were happy for their teenage sons to join the Butzbach militia corps but they did not want them to be conscripted into an army which could be 'retained' to fight for other states. Conscription could be evaded, however, if young men emigrated before they reached their twenty-first year.
But there were other reasons for emigration. The economic outlook in Germany at that time was grim enough to motivate people into considering emigrating to countries such as America and Australia. Small groups from Butzbach and the adjacent small villages of Nieder Weisel and Kirch-Gons had already emigrated to Victoria and these early emigrants wrote home with such glowing reports that young single men and women and indeed, whole families turned their backs on the land of their birth to start new lives in distant lands.
In August, 1854, Jakob Steinhauser bid his family farewell to make his way to Hamburg to await the September 12th departure of the ship which would take him half-way around the world... Undine!
On January 15, 1855 the 727 ton sailing ship Undine docked safely in Melbourne after a voyage of just under four months. Undine carried a total of 256 German passengers, made up of families, a large number of young single men and a small number of young single women. Twenty-three of the passengers were from Butzbach; one married couple, one young woman and twenty young men, among them a group of friends comprising Peter and Heinrich Winter, Ernst and Robert Nicolai, Georg Fleischer, Wenzel Grüninger, Jakob Steinhäuser and Johannes Carl Weickhardt. Another young Hessen, Ernst Eberhardt, was part of this group although he was not a native of Butzbach. Ernest, a friend of Carl Weickhardt, was born in Marburg, north of Butzbach. He was, however, well-known to the Butzbach men having been employed in one of the town's breweries.
After disembarking from Undine the Butzbach group prepared for the journey to their ultimate destinations. Georg Fleischer journeyed to the small settlement of Yandoit north of Daylesford; Wenzel Grüninger began the long trek to Braidwood in New South Wales where he joined his brother Johann Ernst who had migrated a year earlier. The others – Jakob Steinhäuser, Peter and Heinrich Winter, Ernst and Robert Nicolai, Ernst Eberhardt and Johannes Weickhardt – set off for Clunes in north-west Victoria where Carl's elder brother Conrad had settled after arriving in Victoria in 1854.
In Clunes, Ernst Eberhardt, a brewer and cordial-maker, and Carl Weickhardt, a tin-smith, set up their own business ventures: ventures which would ultimately thrive. The other men worked in the many mines in and around Clunes until a new gold strike at Fryer's Creek near Castlemaine lured them there to try their luck.
After a few months at Fryerstown, Jakob Steinhauser, left the mines to look for work more to his liking. He travelled southward to the vast area covered by the adjoining State Forests of Bullarook and Wombat to seek work with one of the many companies who were licensed to operate sawmills within the forest. Some of the mills specialised in roof shingles and Jakob's expertise as a Cooper would have enhanced his chances of employment as a Splitter with one of them. The companies provided their married and single employees with accommodation in small forestry settlements which were simply clusters of primitive huts in the vicinity of the mills. They were basic to say the least being simple constructions of mill off-cuts with bark roofs and packed earth floors.
The company, Biddle and Brown, placed a mill on a small creek one and a half miles north of Bungaree, trading as the Ballarat Sawmill. The area became known as Bullarook20. The small settlement consisted of the mill, a cluster of huts and, ultimately, in 1859, a school for the mill children. It was a hut in this settlement which became Jakob's first home in Australia.
Another emigrant splitter who made his home in the Bullarook settlement was former Sussex agricultural labourer, Charles Joiner, a widower with four children. Charles was born in Fittleworth, Sussex in 1822, a scion of farming stock descended from Thomas and Sarah Joyner who married in Trotton, Sussex in 178121. In church christening records the children of Thomas and Sarah appear as Joyner, but the marriage records of their grandchildren and beyond appear generally as Joiner: a form which is closest to its Old French origins...Joignour22.
In Sussex Villages, Michael Baker describes Fittleworth as a very picturesque village which attracts many artists...
'Fittleworth is almost two villages, the northern part being clustered around a lovely sandstone church, the oldest part being the tower which dates from around 1200. The village boasts three bridges close together at the lower end of the village. One is opposite a fine old water mill which has the date A.D. 1742 inscribed on its stonework. On its north and west faces the mill had wheels, both of which are now both in ruins although a portion of the one on the west face remains. Other than that the mill is in good order and one can walk across the wooden plank bridges to the mill and watch the water rushing down through the sluices underneath. On the south side is the mill pond with willows touching the water'23.
In 1843 twenty-one year old Charles Joiner married Mary , the twenty-year old sister of his brother Daniel's wife Eliza. The couple settled in Fittleworth where between 1843 and 1847 three children were born to them; George, Mary Ann and Eliza.
In the late 1840s Charles committed himself to a contract to work as an agricultural labourer in Victoria, Australia and as a result, Charles, Mary, Mary Ann and Eliza sailed from Plymouth on the ship Cornwall on April 28, 1848. After a voyage lasting one hundred and five days Cornwall entered Port Phillip Bay on August 11, 1848. Disembarking at the Port of Melbourne, the Joiners' travelled to Geelong to begin a new life in a new land.
From Geelong, Charles, Mary and their children made their way to the Bellarine Peninsula where he was indentured to a local landowner as a farm labourer. At 27 – with farming experience extending back to boyhood – Charles would surely have been an asset to any landowner.
Three more children were born to Charles and Mary; Joseph Charles (whose birth and death dates are unknown) Daniel at Indented Head in 1851, Jane at Point Henry in 1853 and Harriet at Geelong in 1855 when the family were living at Clifton. The joy of this infant's arrival would have been short-lived for within a month of her birth the lives of Charles and his children were turned upside down when Mary died from the effects of exhaustion and dysentery. Two months later Baby Harriet died and was buried with her mother in the Geelong Eastern Cemetery. Their grave is unlikely to have been marked.
Mary's death certificate listed her children as; Mary Ann 9 1/2, Eliza 7 1/2, Daniel 4 1/2, Jane 2 1/4 and Harriet 1 month. The certificate also lists as 'deceased issue'; George (who died in Sussex) and Joseph Charles, the child born between Eliza and Daniel. Charles Joiner was the 'Informant' and is described as a farmer, which suggests that he had purchased or leased land after completing his period of indenture.
Following Mary's death there is a void in the lives of Charles Joiner and his children which remained unfilled until 1859 when Mary Ann – by this time fourteen years of age – got married. The child-bride gave her age as 16, her address as 'Bullarook' and her father's occupation as 'splitter'. The answers to the second and third questions establish that Charles was living and working in the Bullarook State Forest24.
So, in 1859, Charles and his children were living in a forest settlement in the Bullarook State Forest, and whatever the reason Charles may have had in moving his family from the Bellarine Peninsula to that location, one very unexpected outcome of the move must surely have been the marriage of his eldest daughter – at the tender age of fourteen years and two months – to another splitter: the twenty-three year old Hessen emigrant, Jakob Steinhauser.
Despite his daughter's extreme youth and the disparity between her age and that of her suitor, Charles Joiner evidently had no objections to the marriage which took place on July 9, 1859 in the Temporary Parsonage of the Creswick Church of England. The young bride was unable to write her own name and in place of her signature is an 'X' with the Minister's notation... Mary Ann Joiner, her mark. Jakob's surname is given in the Anglicised form, Steinhaeuser, perhaps because it side-stepped difficulties English-speaking people may have had with the umlaut over the 'a'25.
Jakob and Mary Ann Steinhauser began their married life in a splitter's hut in the same forestry settlement where they had lived prior to their marriage. Here, their first infant, James Henry, was born in 1860. At the time of James' birth, Mary Ann was just over fifteen years of age. Another son, Jakob Henry, was born in 1861 in a mid-wife's home at Creswick and their third child was was born at Bullarook in 1863. This child, another son, was named Charles for Mary Ann's father and Peter for Jakob's boyhood friend, Peter Winter.
The birth of Charles made eighteen-year old Mary Ann the mother of three children under four years of age – two of them in nappies. It would have been a spartan life for the young couple and their children for there would have been little in the way of comfort or convenience in the primitive, unlined 'cottage' where cooking was done in an open fire-place; washing done in a tub outside and water collected as needed from a nearby stream or pump. Everyday life for any mother in a forest settlement would have been difficult enough, let alone for a girl of eighteen who had no mother to turn to for help or advice. Yet the rawness and isolation of her Bullarook home may not have dismayed Mary Ann, for unless their home on the Bellarine Peninsula was markedly better, what else did she have to compare it to?
In 1864 the family left the forest settlement to settle at Rocky Lead where Jakob had taken a job as a mine carpenter26. Rocky Lead was a small mining settlement 12 miles distant from Bullarook on the Blampied-Mollongghip road. Perhaps Jakob made this move in order to secure better living conditions for his young family. In their first year at Rocky Lead, Mary Ann gave birth to Eliza; their fourth child and first daughter. Two years later Mary Ann travelled to Creswick for the birth of her fifth child, a daughter named Maria whose life was but a flicker of a candle, for she died just twelve months later.
In 1867, Mary Ann went to Mount Prospect for the birth of her sixth child – a son who was named John Edward. After what must have been a welcome three-year break from childbearing, Mary Ann's seventh child, George Daniel, was born in 1870 at a midwife's home in Clunes. Jakob and Mary Ann now had a family of six – five sons and one daughter – and Mary Ann was just 25 years old.