Germantown is from Macarthurs again, they employed a german who arrived in 1825 as a shepherd on the Macarthur owned Autralian Agricultural Company (AA Company). He started a grog shop which was known as 'the Germans' and when the town grew arround the grog shop it became Germantown. I have also found references to german free settlers arriving after they served in the British armed forces (just post the napoleonic wars), and others who left Germany went to England and where convicted of crime and sent to Australia (there was a tradition of German bands what we would term 'busking' on the streets of London). Regards Gillian Albert Grulke wrote: >In my study of the Germanic migration to Australia in the 19th century I >have come to a few conclusions. > >There can be no disputing that the major migration was to Queensland. It >happened over a longer period than did the migration to South Australia and >they settled in a much larger area of the sate. There were also many more >than to South Australia. > >I have a strong suspicion that the next largest was to New South Wales. >Unfortunately the Germanic migration to this state seems to have been >spasmodic and more sparsely spread out. > >I am trying to pin some of these settlements down to find out where the >migrants came from and about when they came. > >Let me list what I am sure of: > >In 1810 the New South Wales administration using German State money built >the German Lutheran Church in Goulburn Street Sydney as a place for Germans >Lutherans to worship. That church is still in use. My logic tells me that if >the administration built with convict labour a church for German Lutherans >there must have been a reasonable number of Germans in Sydney town in 1810. >Where did they come from? What did they do for a living? Where did they >live? > >In 1817 the settlers of the Hunter Valley using government agents enticed a >number of German families to leave the Rhineland to come to the Hunter >Valley to work in the emerging wine industry. These were vine dressers, wine >makers and vignerons. They bought with them some merchants and some >shepherds. Some of these people seem to have gone as far south as the Camden >Valley but more on that in a minute. This puts the Hunter Valley as the >first wine growing district in Australia and makes Hunter Valley wines older >than any other Australian wines. > >Now I know that there was a reasonable large Germanic settlement around >Holbrook in the south of the state. The town of Holbrook was called >Germantown by the authorities until 1917. The authorities surely would not >call a place Germantown unless there were a reasonable number of Germans >living there or would it. These Germans seemed to have disembarked in Sydney >and travelled south. I find little or no connection between them and the >Victorian migrants. They also seem to have had no association with the >second generation Lutheran Germans who travelled from South Australia and >settled around Walla Walla. > >I have it on record that there was a large German settlement along the >Clarence River centring on Grafton. I remember that there are a couple of >small districts, maybe townships along the Princes Highway and south of >Grafton with German names. I wonder why. > >There seems to have been a large migration into Armidale and the New England >districts. I recall that when I first became interested in the German >settlements in Australia around the 1960s I was told about a German >settlement at or near Deepwater which is between Armidale and Glenn Innes. > >I have strong reason to believe that a number of German migrants settled in >the Narrabri district. > >In about 1870 a Lutheran pastor had eleven congregations of Lutherans >between Grafton and Narrabri. > >Campbelltown and Picton interest me. There seems to have been a migrating >population of Germans in this area. I can't seem to pin anything down to >satisfy me that there was as settlement here but there are many names that >keep presenting themselves from this area. > >The area around Nowra is suspicious. Again I can't pin anything down but >often read things that leave me to wonder. > >Albury is the confusing one. It seems that Albury became a Mecca taking >German residents from Victoria, Walla Walla and Holbrook. > >I find this interesting that there seems to have been such a large scattered >migration into New South Wales yet we know so little about it. I would >appreciate any information that listers can give me to help fill in the >blanks. > >Thanks in anticipation > >Albert Grulke > > > > > >==== AUS-GERMAN Mailing List ==== >For your Aus-German resources go to >http://www.ainsleehooper.com/germlinks.htm > >============================== >Search our Immigration Records and view names from multiple ports >ranging from 1500s - 1900s. Over 23 million records to view. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13967/rd.ashx > > > > >