|
In 1846, German missionary Carl Frederick Gerler, made a drawing of the Zion Hill Mission. This was the first free (non-penal) settlement in Queensland. It was located on what later became the Brisbane suburb of Nundah. The ridge where Walkers Way currently exists, is the exact location of that mission.
The drawing depicted a row of missionary houses, a stockyard, milking yard, gardens and fruit trees, cattle grazing in the paddocks, Aboriginal people undergoing instruction and the missionaries tilling the soil. In the upper right hand corner was a small graveyard - the beginnings of the Nundah Cemetery (a copy of the drawing is at the bottom of this page).
The first recorded death at the mission was that of the youngest missionary, Ludwig Doge. The malignant tumour on his cheek would have required more skillful attention than was available in nearby Brisbane Town in the early 1840s. The missionaries laid their young companion to rest on a small hill overlooking a wide lagoon alongside Kedron Brook, just beyond the mission precincts.
In February 1846, on that same little hill, a grave was prepared for the Herrmann's 11 month old daughter. A few weeks later, Carl Gerler and his wife Sarah buried their first born, a 3 month old son.
These are the 3 graves apparent in Carl Gerler's sketch.
When the mission closed in the late 1840s, some of the families remained as farmers. Soon the little community attracted other settlers, gradually increasing in size and importance as the supplier of farm produce to colonial Brisbane Town.
Many of the Scottish and English settlers from Dr John Dunmore Lang's immigrant ships of 1849 (Fortitude, Chaseley and Lima), took up farming land in the area. One of the settlers from the Fortitude was William Bullock who, on a trek to obtain fresh water, suffered an epileptic seizure, collapsed and drowned in a shallow pool. He was buried in the cemetery where his wife placed a headstone on his grave in March 1855.
The cemetery appeared on plans drawn in 1862 by the government surveyor James Warner. Already accepted as an unofficial burial place, it was excluded from the tracts of Crown land auctioned shortly after the completion of the survey. Following the auction, a large portion of the land became the property of the missionaries Franz, Zillmann and Wagner.
Official recognition of the burial ground as a cemetery was bestowed under provisions of the Alienation of Crown Lands Act in 1866.
In 1930 the Greater Brisbane City Council became responsible for the general upkeep of the cemetery. However, the individual graves remain the property of families of the deceased.
The Nundah Historical Cemetery is located beside German Station Park on Hedley Ave, Nundah.
Early history of the Nundah area.
Further information - Nundah and Districts Historical Society
|
|
