Hinkles and Hanrahans

Information provided to Debbie Hinkle from Marguerite A. Miller:

Johann Georg, his parents Johann and Elisabethe Gutermuth Grösch, and his wife Elisabethe came to US via NY, NY from Hamburg, GER in Sep 1837. Both were from the small village of Dalherda in the Kingdom of Bavaria. He became a naturalized US citizen 10 years later at the Police Court in Louisville, KY (incorrectly listed as last name Gresch). They would have had to travel from NY to Louisville via wagon and boat, after having completed their 50 day voyage on the ship Magdelena Wilhemine. The handwritten passenger slips would have been completed by someone at the harbor, and discrepancies in dates and spelling could have arisen from the language barrier.
The ship which brought them to America was not very large. The contemporary New York newspapers indicate that the Hamburg "brig" MAGDALENA WILHELMINE, [N.] Quedens, master, arrived at New York sometime during Saturday-Sunday, 2-3 September 1837, 50 days from Hamburg, in ballast, with 71 passengers, to the master. The passenger manifest, dated Monday, 4 September 1837 [National Archives Microfilm Publication M237, roll 35 (= Family History Library microfilm #0002280), list #770 for 1837], gives the rig of the vessel as "brigantine", while Hamburg records list her as a "Schuner" (schooner). She was probably an hermaphrodite brig, sometimes known as a "brig-schooner" (German = "Schunerbrigg"), a two-masted vessel, square-rigged on the foremast, and rigged as a schooner on the mainmast, with a square topsail set above a gaff mainsail. The square topsail on her mainmast would have distinguished her from a brigantine, whose mainmast would have been fully fore-and-aft rigged.
The MAGDALENA WILHELMINE was built in Karlshamn, Sweden, in 1822. There is no record of her measurements, but her cargo capacity was rated at 60 Commerzlasten, or about 85 register tons. The MAGDALENA WILHELMINE disappeared in 1845, on a voyage from Santo Domingo to Hamburg [Walter Kresse, ed., _Seeschiffs-Verzeichnis der Hamburger Reedereien, 1824-1888_, Mitteilungen aus dem Museum f"ur Hamburgische Geschichte, N. F., Bd. 5. (Hamburg: Museum f"ur Hamburgische Geschichte, 1969), vol. 2, pp. 200 and 221].

Until World War two there were many woodcrafters in Dalherda to help improve their income from agriculture by selling their utensils and tools. For many years they were known for their wooden goods and for selling trained singing birds. The people of Dalherda were masters in training singing birds, bullfinches in particular. The art of teaching songs to birds was passed on from father to son and so on down the line. A good bird that could sing at least three songs would sell for about 100 Marks. They traveled thoughout Europe to sell their birds in cages.

Johann and his wife Elizabeth are buried in what is called the Grasch Cemetery, located in Jefferson Co, KY.

The Grasch Family Cemetery is located in Jefferson Co, KY. (Windsor Hills Subd) take Timber Hill Rd off Arnoldtown Rd, then turn left on Bambi Way. Estimated fifteen graves at end of the street, near 8513 Bambi Way. GPS 38 127.488 -85 812.159