Peter HAUSER 1818-1876
In the year 1818, two Hauser babies received the name Peter from their baptism sponsors. Born on 7th June to Peter Hauser I and Katharina nee Bill was a child later designated Peter Hauser V. On 17th December, Katharina nee Haffer, wife of Peter Hauser II, produced a child who would be known as Peter Hauser VI.
Although the two Peters were only second cousins their lives followed very similar patterns. They were in the same class of the village school and the same confirmation class. On completing their studies, each worked with his father as a carter and spent some time learning to farm. As adults, they married local girls and produced relatively small families. They travelled on the same ship, “Glenmanna”, to the goldfields of Victoria. They both lived for a while in Ballarat, and were the main witnesses to the marriage, in 1859, of Anna Elisabetha Hauser, a niece of Peter V. They both returned to Nieder-Weisel to spend the remainder of their lives farming in the village.
Quite a lot is known about the time that Peter VI spent in Victoria, but Peter V left little trace of his movements. On 19th October 1861, an application for naturalisation was made by Peter Hauser, miner, born Nieder-Weisel, aged 43 (i.e. born 1817 or 1818). Peter VI had not then turned 43 so it is likely that Peter V had (like his cousin) decided to settle in Victoria. Later records show that this application was cancelled by the authorities – an indication in most cases that the applicant had decided to repatriate.
The details of Peter’s life in Nieder-Weisel are better recorded. Like Peter VI, he descended from oil-miller Johann Adam Hauser and his wife, Anna Elisabetha Maas, daughter of The Crown innkeeper Jakob Maas. Peter’s parents had seven children, he being the youngest. Peter married Elisabetha nee Hauser in 1844; one girl and three boys were born up until 1853. While Peter was in Victoria, a fire damaged some out-buildings at his home in the Pfarrgasse. Later he moved to 107 Bachgasse, where he died on 8th October 1876 in his 59th year. In 1909 his son Bernard was at this address. Maria, the only daughter, applied to go to Australia in 1862; she later married Konrad Hildebrand. Peter and Johann Georg, her brothers, also married.