Anna Elisabetha (1807-1875)
The Muller family were latecomers to the village of Nieder-Weisel – Konrad and his wife Elisabetha nee Buhlmann arrived early in the 19th century to set up a nail-smithing business. Konrad taught his three sons in turn the secrets of his craft; each in turn married a village lass and began to raise a family. However, when the wanderlust took hold in Nieder-Weisel, every male member of the Muller families left the village for the Victorian goldfields.
Ludwig was probably the eldest of Konrad’s sons – there is no record of his birth in Nieder-Weisel, so presumably he was born prior to the arrival of the family – say, in 1809. His was among the very earliest departures. The first record located is that of his marriage to Anna Elisabetha nee Jung, daughter of the local weaver Heinrich Jung 1782-1828 and Anna Margaretha nee Haub 1781-1833. This took place in Leeds, Yorkshire, on 17th March 1841. Ludwig was described as a widow, but no record of his earlier marriage has yet been found. The main witness to the later marriage was Johannes Binns, who married Elisabetha Muller in Nieder-Weisel in about 1838; she was Ludwig’s sister. He sponsored her son Ludwig, who was born on 29 April 1840 (probably in England).
Ludwig and his wife returned to Nieder-Weisel, and Anna Elisabetha sponsored a niece there in March 1846. She herself gave birth to a baby girl on 1st November 1847 and named her Elisabetha. Ludwig decided to return to England and he settled his family in Bradford Yorkshire, in which industrial area he would have no trouble getting suitable work. However, a disaster overtook the family early in 1850 when their little girl died. Anna Elisabetha was, by then, too old to have any more children.
In 1857, Ludwig’s brother Konrad decided to go to Victoria with his second wife and the children of his first marriage. Ludwig and Elisabetha agreed to go with them and help look after the children. So, on 16th November, Ludwig and his wife and their two ‘daughters’ sailed with the others aboard the “Queen of the East” on its 101 day journey to Melbourne. Fifteen other emigrants from Nieder-Weisel were among the 234 passengers who were making for the goldfields of Victoria.
Reaching Melbourne on Wednesday, 24th February 1858, the Muller group went with the others to Ballarat, and then moved to the Daylesford region. Konrad lived the rest of his life in this town and most of his children married there; it is not clear if Ludwig and Anna Elisabetha also settled there. In 1875, an Alice Muller nee Jung, who was born in Germany in 1807, died in Victoria; Alice was a diminutive for Anna Elisabetha, so this was most likely the wife of Ludwig.
Ludwig died on 11th July 1881 in a hospital in South Melbourne; his will (No22/509) appointed C Muller (presumably Konrad) as the sole executor.