QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

In the words of one who was there

On her maiden voyage, the Susanne Godeffroy arrived in Moreton Bay on 18 January 1864 after a journey of 98 days with 369 German immigrants aboard. A month later 22 immigrant families and their goods were taken on the old paddle-steamer Diamond to their new home on the Logan. Lola Smith is a descendent of one of the these families – Johannes and Katharina Lotz – and she provided this extract from the English version of a first-hand account written by Robin Kleinschmidt’s great-uncle Ferdinand. “After getting down to the bay and weltering and plunging about like a porpoise for several hours in a north-easterly swell, and making us all deadly seasick, the old boat struck a big sandbar at the mouth of the Logan. We were short of fresh water and all suffered from thirst in the summer heat. The day after, however, we were taken up the Logan River. Reach after reach of the placid waters spread out before our admiring eyes. There are few alive now that have seen the river fringed in its virgin forests and jungle and alive with hosts of wildfowl of all descriptions, and I think there are few places in Australia that would compare with the Logan and Albert Rivers of old. “We were at last landed on the bank of the river and a few hours later there had sprung up quite a village of huts built of boughs and long grass. There were 98 souls in all. Many and bitter woes were awaiting us in the near future, for after a few fine days it commenced to rain for days and nights, and all our things got wet through. “Our mothers cried their poor eyes out, when they scrambled out of their drenched feather beds. I remember poor old grandfather Lindon one morning as he came out of their hut bringing his fine long knee boots out to put them on, but he groaned as though his heart would break, for lo and behold, a big colony of big brown miner-ants had made one of them their home during the night, and they were not in the least inclined to move on. “The Logan in the early 1860s was certainly a happy hunting ground for our late landlords, the Aborigines, and the arrival in their midst of their palefaced tenants was truly an evil day for them. The young generation would hardly credit what a fine healthy looking tribe of men they were. Tall, strong, and nimble. I say men because the gins were altogether inferior to the males and vied with each other for ugliness. And no wonder, because when the tribe shifted their quarters, they had to carry the billy-can and the more lumbersome weapons, while their lords and masters stalked on ahead with the nulla nulla , shield and boomerang. We had the Logan tribe frequently camped close at hand, and we often went out on full-moon nights to enjoy their corroborees.

“Late 1864, I witnessed a pitched battle between several hundred natives, when blood flowed freely. “But the life in our greenhouse village was only short, for as soon as the land had been doled out, the desire of each settler was to begin work after six months of enforced idleness. I remember there was a good deal of grumbling on the part of the owners of the small holdings, because they were situated right away in the scrub-covered pocket above Bethania, where they had to cut a little square space out of the tangle of bush and giant vines before they could build their humpies of slabs and bark. Again Pastor Haussmann acted as mediator. Here is an argument I overheard: “Why, it will take a lifetime to clear away those great trees from even one acre of this wilderness, whereas out there in the open forest, it is the easiest thing in the world, why not give us that?” The Pastor: ‘My children, I assure you, the clearing is much easier than you imagine, and the scrub land is so much better than the other; you will soon be glad for having obtained it.’ “And so they were soon after. Everywhere the axe could be heard, I cleared about a square chain in the scrub and planted beans, maize, and potatoes. How happy we were when we saw it come up after a few days, and made quick growth in the fine soil. “The architecture of the new village was still of the most primitive. Four walls of slabs put up on a square, thatched with grass or bark, but with an eye on utility. As soon as the Holzheimers’ new and roomy house had been built, an evening class was then established where we all not only learned to read, write and speak the English language, but did a great deal to complete our schooling generally. “The Lutheran German settlers also built a small slab church with shingled roof not far from where the church (dedicated by Pastor Hellmuth in 1872) still stands today, with the church graveyard being a strong reminder of our pioneers.” Lola Smith concludes this tale with a family note. Johannes and Katharina Lotz were given a grant of six acres of land, which ran down to the bank of the Logan River at Bethania. They built themselves a mud brick house with a wooden shingle roof. They used to sleep in its loft, while the cooking was done outdoors. Johannes, being a man with a farming background, was soon making his land work for him. Also, being a cartwright, he soon found himself a trade in that field. He was the first person to build a wooden wheel in the area. With a fair size tree stump he was able to cut out solid rings for wheels, place a hole in the centre, add a wooden axle and frame and it soon became a cart. Over the coming years they were to raise a family of seven children.

102