Jeremiah Benjamin Enders (1-2-1-4) was born in
Williamsville, Erie County,
New
York in the USA on the 15th of July 1828, he was the 4th child of Philip Enders
(1-2-1) and
Anna Hummel who were married in December
1820 in Pennsylvania. No details or records of Jeremiahs life in Erie County
are known at this stage.
Sometime around the late 1840’s Jeremiah went West to the California
Gold Rush, we presume this would be in either 1849 or 50 and we believe
was accompanied by his younger brother Norman (1-2-1-6) who would have been
16 or 17 at that time. This is based on documentation that Norman was
here in Australia in 1855 as his signature appears as a
witness, on Jeremiah’s & his future wife’s wedding
certificate. After a year or so on the California Gold Fields, Jeremiah
and his brother sailed for Australia
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as
gold had now been discovered there
sometime around 1850/1851. Quite a number sailed on from the California
Gold Rush to Australia as there are a number of stories
of the Australian
Gold Rush involving the Americans or as we know them more often than not
as “Yankees”.
Jeremiah and Norman arrived in Sydney Australia in 1852 and first went
to the Bathurst goldfields in central New South Wales, then to Victoria at
the McIvor gold fields (Heathcote area) and finally to Fryers Creek gold
field. This area is now known
as Castlemaine and is in central Victoria. Jeremiah was a storekeeper here
according to the occupation listed on his wedding certificate dated 1855
which most likely had provided a more constant and greater income than
prospecting, something he probably learned from California. |
