Chapter 12.3 – Background to “Runaway” – the Laube’s from Silesia

In 1854 Johann Friedrich Laube and Dorothea Elisabeth Laube (Teichert) were among 48 Prussian immigrants who arrived in South Australia amongst the 171 colonists who arrived aboard the Steinwaerder. They were helped by George Fife Angus, a director of the South Australian Company established to develop the new settlement in South Australia. He was a Baptist dissenter and philanthropist willing to help those, like himself, who had difficulties with the established church. He financially supported the first wave of Old Lutherans (who emigrated as a congregation with Pastor Kavel in 1838) from which chain migration ensued. In fact, by 1860, the majority of the nearly 6000 Germans living in South Australia were from the ‘Old Lutheran’ districts of Silesia, Brandenburg and Posen.

The Laube’s connected with the Dangerfield family in 1910 when Joseph Henry (Harry) Dangerfield, on 9th Jul 1903, married Emma Emielia Laube, daughter of Joahann Friedrich and Pauline Wilhelmina Laube (Zucht). Harry Dangerfield and his father Joseph and brother William Charles Dangerfield were granted a crown lease over Sections 182,183 and 184, Hundred of Koppio on the western slopes of the range which ran from Port Lincoln to Lipson. The farm was 19 miles (30 Kms) from Tumby Bay which was their nearest port to which all produce had to be carted before the railway arrived. The farm overlooked the flats where Cummins now stands and viewed Marble Range to westward. It was located about 59 or so miles west of Lunda Flat village. It so happened that the Dangerfield’s land adjoined the southern side of the land taken up by Friedrich and Pauline Laube at Marble view. It was not long before the Laube’s and the Dangerfield’s became friends as well as neighbors and in consequence, a romance developed between Harry and Emma, the second youngest of the Laube children. They married 5th Oct 1910.

The Laube’s story began in Silesia where Johann Friedrich Laube and Dorothea Elisabeth Teichert were born somewhere between 1811 and 1813. Until the time of their emigration in 1854, two kings ruled over Prussia. Friedrich Wilhelm III ruled from 1797 to 1840 and son Friedrich Wilhelm IV ruled fro 1840 to 1861. To add to the picture, in 1812 Napoleon retreated from Moscow and in 1814 he abdicated the French throne and in 1815 he escaped from Elba and in 1821 he died on St Helena.

Friedrich and Dorothea Laube were probably married in the mid 1830s in a Lutheran Church in a small village in Silesia. They were living in Glaesen or Glaesendorf in southern Silesia when Johanna Rosina Laube their first child was born on 14th Jan 1837. In 1845 the Laube family moved to the village of Lippen and this is where their son Friedrich was born on 15th Oct 1845 and then on 19th Aug 1850 their son Wilhelm was born.Friedrich and Dorothea Laube had another two children who were most likely born at either Glaesen or Glaesendorf or Lippen but their gender, date of birth and their order among the other three children is not known. What is known is that these two children left Hamburg with the other five aboard the Steinwaerder but died on the voyage. The Laube children at this time were Johanna Rosina (1st Jan 1837 – 18th Aug 1925), Johann Friedrich (15th Oct 1845 – 12th Mar 1917), Friedrich Wilhelm 19th Aug 1850 – 5th May 1876), Unknown Child (twin) Unknown Child (twin) (1854).

Times were changing! The industrial revolution irreversibly had changed the lifestyle of Victorian Britain. Suddenly, the focus wasn’t on tilling the soil or land husbandry to make a living. Factories and commercial enterprise was the name of the game. Things were happening in far off Australia which would affect the Laube’s in the future. In 1836 the British Colony of South Australia was established and the dispossession of Aborigines began. Britain had already started its transformation into a world power when Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837. Agriculture was slowly being pushed aside for manufacturing jobs. By the end of the 1800’s 80 percent of England’s population lived in cities.

On the other side of the world in Prussia, in 1838 it was religious persecution that caused the first groups of Germans from Prussia to leave for South Australia. From their homelands in Southern Posen these emigrants boarded barges at Tschicherzig, travelling via the River Oder, the Friedrich-Wilhelm Canal and the River Spree to Hamburg. In 1854 the Laube’s may have taken a similar route to Hamburg although in the 1850s there were other possibilities – a railway network was spreading across Prussia or they could have travelled by road. Unless the Laube’s had made their own arrangements directly with family or friends already in South Australia they are likely to have used one of the agents that existed in1854. Johann Friedrich and Dorothea left Hamburg aboard the Steinwaerder on 11th July 1854 and arrived at Port Adelaide on Sunday 5th November 1854. Others emigrated to the Unites States of America and other countries including South Africa. The Laube’s did not leave Prussia because of religions persecution as did those who emigrated in 1838 because religious persecution in Prussia ended in 1840.

The first wave of German immigrants settled on the banks of the River Torrens upstream of Adelaide at what they called Klemzig after one of the villages they came from in Prussia. The Laube’s voyage in the Steinwaerder commenced from Hamburg on 11th July 1854 under the command of Captain HE Arens. Captain Arens would have followed the normal route to Australia – along the coast of northern Europe, through the English Channel, past France, across the Bay of Biscay, leaving behind the European continent as Spain and Portugal were passed. From there Captain Arens probably steered a course well out to sea away from the northwest African coast, past the island of Madeira, the Canary Islands and Cape Verde Island before heading across the Atlantic towards the eastern tip of South America looking for favorable winds to take the ship to Cape town around the southern tip of Africa and eastwards in the westerly wind belt to Australia.

The Steinwaerder took 117 days to reach Port Adelaide. Her arrival on Saturday 4th Nov 1854 at the anchorage off Port Adelaide was recorded in the following item in the Adelaide Register on Monday 6th Nov 1854:

‘The Steinwaerder barque from Hamburg arrived yesterday at the Lightship anchorage bringing 171 emigrants principally German, many of whom arrive in a most sickly state. During the voyage 7 deaths and 1 birth had occurred. viz died 3 women, 4 children.’ Often continuing storms and heavy seas meant that many passengers could not escape recurring bouts of seasickness. Living and sleeping areas were cramped, damp and smelly and toilet and washing facilities were crude. Food on board was usually quite different from what most were accustomed to in the homes they had left behind and its quality deteriorated markedly as the voyage progressed. In such circumstances it is no wonder diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid often spread like wildfire on emigrant ships and could not be fully overcome until passengers disembarked. Women and children were often the worst affected by sickness.”

The Laube’s would have stood on the deck of the ship slowly passing the swamps and mangroves along the Port River and catching their first close-up glimpses of South Australia. There were almost no facilities or services to assist anyone disembarking at Port Adelaide. The rich were well able to afford and arrange transport to take them to where they were initially staying. Many of the assisted immigrants were welcomed by sponsors or agents and helped with their travel to the City or elsewhere, but others, after disembarking with their possessions on the wharf had to get themselves to their destinations as best they could. Friedrich and Dorothea walked with their three children to Blumberg where they made their new home – according to Johanna Laube:

‘On the ship they were allowed to bring only two large boxes or trunks filled with their possessions – no doubt clothing and material, some essential small household items, perhaps some small tools and implements and probably a number of treasured personal items. Their possessions were loaded onto wagons for the journey but the family had to walk all the way to Blumberg. They went via the thriving German settlement of Hahndorf which has been settled in the late 1830s.’

The Laubes probably travelled to Adelaide along what is now Port Road. Although it was rough and unmade, the road between the city and the Port was probably the most important transport route in the early decades of the Colony. Because of the fertility of the plains west of the city, many farms developed along Port Road. A number of villages and inns also sprang up along the road to serve the needs of the new residents, travelers and immigrants like the Laube’s. As they made their way along Port Road, the Laube’s would have noticed the construction work on the first railway in the Colony between the City and port Adelaide. The railway did not open until May 1856 but already at the end of 1854 construction work on the track and associated buildings would have been clearly evident. From the city, the Laube’s would have travelled to Glen Osmond and along the main track through the hills to Hahndorf, probably then going via Lobethal to Blumberg. It is about 45 Kilometres from the Port to Hahndorf, a further 18ks to Lobethal and another 16ks to Blumberg. Their youngest child Wilhelm was only 4 years old and the trip by foot to Blumberg must have taken the Laube’s at least two days. They may have camped along the way staying at Hahndorf and Lobethal accepting hospitality, stories and advice from other German settlers who had already experienced the Australian environment and way of life. Their arrival at Blumberg would have been expected and they assuredly would have been warmly welcomed. After leaving the comfort and security of their home and family back in Prussia and enduring the discomforts and fears of an unfamiliar long sea journey, the chance to again live in even a crude hut and to have the opportunity to build a new home and life among people of their own background and religious beliefs must have been a wonderful relief for the Laube’s.

In their first 50 years in South Australia, the Laubes lived at several locations. They lived in the town of Blumberg, now named Birdwood in the Adelaide Hills, Tower Hill, a location 6 kms west of Penwortham in the Clare Valley and Mount Lock, a location 13 kms north of Jamestown. In December 1847 a group of German immigrants arrived aboard the Hermann von Becherath and eight settlers moved to Blumberg in Jan 1848. One of these settlers was Andreas Zadow who was the grandfather of Pauline Wilhelmine and Caroline Wilhelmine Zucht who married the Laube brothers Johann Friedrich and Friedrich Weilhelm Laube. Andreas and his wife Anna Elisabeth had a daughter named Anna Louise who married Gottfried Zucht before leaving Prussia. Anna Louise and Gottfried had four children, Ludwig was born in Prussia and three daughters, Pauline Wilhelmine, Anna Louise and Caroline Wilhelmine, were born at Blumberg (Birdwood).

On the main road south of Penwortham were the villages of Watervale and Leasingham – the latter was the location of a Lutheran congregation that worshipped on the estate of Gottfried Schmert until St John’s Church in Auburn was opened a number of years later. The Laube’s were part of the Leasingham congregation which was 10 ks away from where they lived at Tower Hill – a journey of 15 kilometres through the ranges.