 Bremen joined the North German Confederation in 1867 and four years later became an autonomous component state of the new-founded German Empire and its successors.The first German steamship was manufactured in 1817 in the shipyard of Johann Lange.In 1827, Bremen, under Johann Smidt, its mayor at that time, purchased land from the Kingdom of Hanover, to establish the city of Bremerhaven (Port of Bremen) as an outpost of Bremen because the river Weser was silting up.