History of the Felsch Family                
Author Unknown

    "I would like to explain to the people who read this history, understand that I have written down what I know, a little that I have been told , but there is quite a lot more that I do not know, mainly about the husbands of the four girls. I think the only one of them I remember is WILLIAM WAGNER and of course he was a old man when I knew him.

    I might just add the little village of Oakland where most of them lived and worked at some time was a very good little place, the mill shed covered about one acre, rack yards would have been two acres, there was also a slip-way where they built boats and repaired them. There would have been 30 to 40 men working in the mill etc. The mill was run by steam as they burnt sawdust, shavings and wood, sometimes they would use a little coal. The village consisted of 25 houses, a school and a church. There was also two boarding houses for the men. The mill also cut pine and it supplied Coraki Butter Factory with its boxes and shipped loads of timber to Sydney. Later on the name was changed from Oakland to Yeager Town. The school teacher when I was going there was MR. ALEX APPS, who later became a Shire Councillor, but to-day it is just a few houses and there is no sign of the mill, they even fell the big stack that was 150ft. high.
   
    In 1800, in Germany, there was a baby boy born to the Felsch family and was given the name of JOHANNES FELSCH. When Johannes grew up he married MISS ELIZABETH GESCH, the two later had a child, EUSTACE FELSCH, born in 1835. EUSTACE, at the age of 21 changed his name to JUSTUS FELSCH before leaving Germany to sail to Australia. Justus arrived in Australia on the 9th November 1856 aboard the ship "Armond". Working as a watch and clock maker, he worked his way up the coast to the small town of Grafton. It was here in Grafton that Justus met and married his wife, MISS EVE ELIZABETH WESTERWELLEN on the 10th October 1859. Eve was born in Geismar Germany, to Conrad and Maria Westerwellen nee Schut, not far from the home town of her newly-wed husband. Justus Felsch born in Germany also, in a town called Rosthenback.

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