The GEORGE WASHINGTON,

built 1822 in New York,
was a former U.S. 3 mast ship rig.,
owned by the "Nord Deutscher"
Shipping Line. She rated
at 462 tons and was skippered
by Captain Matthew Probst.

In 1844 the GEORGE WASHINGTON
was contracted to carry 3 cabin passengers, 184 steerage passengers,
and assorted goods for the S.A. Company and three rams for Anthony Forster,
a prominent Adelaide citizen
and agent for G.F. Angas.
Departed Hamburg (May 23rd)
and Bremen (May 27-29th).
Arrived at Port Misery September 11th,
and berthed on the morning
of September 12th 1844.
Crew of 20.

1844 GEORGE WASHINGTON - PASSENGER LIST             Departed October 8th, 1844 to Batavia.

The group of emigrants from the District of Sorau were described as Old-Lutheran, and at one hearing they declared that they were emigrating because of restrictions to their religious life and because they felt called to work for the spreading of the evangelical Lutheran religion in distant continent. However, because they were required to take a pastor with them, and they could not produce one, they stated that the teacher Kathner from Schoin who was going along with them would conduct their religious services on the ship. They threatened to emigate without approval as they had already sold their property and paid for part of the voyage. Finally they emphasised that they were emigrating not only because of their faith, but also to seek prosperity in their earthly lives. As a result dismissal documents were issued on April 20th, 1844 to the Hensel, Irrgage, Lindner, Schneider, Schrapel, Stiller and Walter families.

The most important of the emigration agencies was the firm of Eduard Delius of Bremen, which from the mid 1840s worked hard for emigration to South Australia, and charted and dispatched many ships there. As a result, from the mid 1840s Bremen stood next to Hamburg as the port of departure from our Lutheran emigrants.

Copy of an article from a Tasmanian Colonial Newspaper, October 1845.
By one of those singular combinations of circumstances which defy anticipation, and break through all ordinary rules the British colony of South Australia is receiving her chief accession of population from Germany.

About this time last year the "GEORGE WASHINGTON" sailed from Bremen for Port Adelaide, with about 200 emigrants
men, women and children. They arrived at Port Adelaide on 12-09-1844 after a pleasant run of 106 days,
and in the course of a fortnight or three weeks the labourers had all got employment.
The favourable accounts of the colony previously received from the old German colonists having been confirmed
by the experience and correspondence of the passengers per the "GEORGE WASHINGTON".

The accounts which have been received from the passengers who went last year by the "GEORGE WASHINGTON" have been so very favourable - not only from the labouring emigrants only, but from a very intelligent experienced Mecklenburgh farmer who went in the cabin, and from the captain of the vessel who made it his business to inform himself of the success of the emigrants (and who made several journeys into the interior).

The owner has determined, on the return of the "GEORGE WASHINGTON", to send her on another trip to South Australia.
He has advertised her accordingly, and the applications for passages, both by labouring emigrants and by persons possessed
of small respectable capitals, have been so numerous that she will have a full complement immediately on her homeward cargo being discharged.
There will then be by these two vessels, an accession to the population of South Australia of not less than five hundred emigrants of the most valuable kind.