QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Moreton Bay

Moreton Island

The Maid of Sker In the corner of Bischoff Park at Nerang in the Gold Coast hinterland stands the restored hulk of an old ship which is little more than a shell, with nothing to describe her role with one of the pioneer German families of Queensland – an omission rectified here by Robin Kleinschmidt. The Maid of Sker , once described as ‘the grand old lady of Moreton Bay’, was built at Sutton’s Foundry at Kangaroo Point in 1884 for C H Philpott, who needed a vessel to transport logs from Nerang to his sawmill in Brisbane. A paddlewheel steamer of 52 tons, she was bought in 1893 by F W Lemke, who in turn sold her in 1896 to Fritz Kleinschmidt and his brother-in-law Tom Gentner for £700. Friedrich Kleinschmidt, also known as Fritz, had arrived in Brisbane on the Susanne Godeffroy in January 1864. He was eight years old, the third of four surviving children in the family, which later grew to nine children. The family settled first at Bethania, but in 1870 took up land at Pimpama Island, now Woongoolba. Fritz acquired from his brother Ferdinand a farm on the southern shores of Moreton Bay near Cabbage Tree Point. He was also the sugar boiler for the family mill, known as the Stegelitz Mill. Fritz supplemented his income by purchasing the skiff Alice , by which he supplied vegetables and other commodities to Dunwich on Stradbroke Island. Skipper Tom Gentner unfortunately ended the venture when he ran the Alice aground close to the home jetty. The wreck became a favourite playground for Fritz’s children. With no apparent hard feelings they formed a partnership to operate The Maid of Sker with Tom as captain. Fritz moved his family to East Brisbane and became the ship’s agent in town, as well as serving as deckhand while he gained his engineer’s and master’s tickets. The Maid ’s route between Brisbane and Nerang included regular stops at Stegelitz (now Steiglitz) and Southport. She carried varied cargo, including timber from Nerang, farm produce from all areas, raw sugar and molasses from the Pimpama Island mills, and a small number of passengers. The Maid carried the kerosene used to generate the electricity for the tiny township of Southport, and the shops and businesses in both Southport and Nerang were dependent on her for their supplies. She called regularly at many of the Bay islands which at that time were productive farming areas, growing vegetables and running cattle.

BRISBANE

Dunwich

Cleveland

Brisbane River

“Slipping Sands”

Stradbroke Island

Steiglitz

Jumpinpin Bar break through in 1898

Southport

Nerang

Nerang River

For more than 30 years she provided an essential lifeline for developing south coast communities. Today, with the eight-lane motorway, it is hard to recall the twin-lane carpark which was often the highway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. A century ago things were even more different, of course: not only were the tracks inadequate for transport of goods, there were long delays at the ferries to cross the Logan and Coomera Rivers. The first railway to Southport, when it opened, was too far from many farming areas to meet their needs. The bay and the rivers continued, as in the earliest days of settlement in the Albert–Logan region, to be the main highways for the transport of goods. Although there were clear channels through the labyrinthine passages of the southern reaches of the bay, The Maid sometimes needed to vary her route: shifting shoals were unpredictable, and more than once she ran aground and had to wait for high tide to be refloated. Initially The Maid was moored at Bright’s wharf at South Brisbane, but the firm, by then using the name Kleinschmidt Bros, soon acquired riverside land which today is the site of the milk factory and depot, extending beneath what became the William Jolly Bridge. There they built a wharf, depot, storage facilities and the business office.

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