Johann Jacob HAUSER 1824-?
Johann Jakob born 6th September 1824 was the first son of the day worker Johann Jakob Hauser XII (1774-1849) and Elisabetha nee Haub. Their third child, he was also the first legitimate one as his two older sisters had arrived before the parents married in 1823. Three more girls and a second son completed the family.
It was a continuing battle for Elisabetha to feed and clothe their seven children on the unreliable wages that Johann Jakob brought home and she must have been glad when the older ones finished their schooling and went into employment. This was not without its problems – the second girl, Katharina born 1822, went into service with a family in the town of Giessen to the north, the Hinkelmanns, and became pregnant by their son Christian.
In 1849 Johann Jakob senior died at the age of 55 and the family began to break up. Having finished his military service, Johann Jakob junior decided to join the increasing numbers leaving for the goldfields of Victoria. He was part of the very first large organised group to leave the village; thirty of the villagers made their way to Liverpool to take passage on “Glenmanna”, which sailed on its first voyage to Melbourne on 28th October 1854. Johann Jakob was at the head of the list, followed by a ‘Henri Hincelmann’, who is believed to have been Henrich Hinkelmann, a son of his sister Katharina. On the same ticket number was Conrad Adami, described as a child (although he was almost 17 when the Glenmanna weighed anchor). On the following ticket were two other members of the Hauser family – Margaret and Conrad. Johann Jakob’s sister, Margaretha, was 22 and his brother, Konrad, 20 at the time.
Johann Jakob and the others disembarked on 14th February 1855 and went, doubtless on foot, to the diggings at Ballarat. This is the last record of his time in the colony. In 1861, his sister Margaretha was married in Nieder-Weisel to Konrad Adami; a child was born to this couple in San Francisco in 1862. It seems likely that Johann Jakob Hauser, perhaps in company with Henrich Hinkelmann, also returned to Nieder-Weisel.