For more than 150 years, the lack of documentation on the origins of the free settlement of the north-east of Brisbane by German missionaries has sparked much conjecture and not a few theories, according to a student of local History, Dennis KENNEDY, of Nudgee. Dennis wades through the history today and next week. He says" There is one document, thankfully preserved in the State's archives, which in just three pages gives absolute answers to at least some of the puzzles which have teased many over generations." " Who were these intrepid men and women, where did they come from, how and why did they come to this place, and who sent them, and how were they financed?" Here are extracts from an appeal by John Dunmore LAND D.D. of 3 July, 1838. " Having come to England, from the colony of New South Wales, in the year 1837, to procure a supply of ministers of religion, school masters, and missionaries to the Aborigines for that colony...at Moreton Bay." "It being supposed that the Aborigines of that distant portion of the Colony Territory would be less contaminated by intercourse with the depraved convict population of the colony than those within the present limits of location [Sydney], and that the successful establishment of a mission in that important locality would eventually afford the means of establishing a series of missionary settlements along the dangerous coast to the north-ward." "The Right Honorable Lord Glenelg, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies, not only approved of the undertaking but granted assistance towards providing a passage out for some of the missionaries, and guaranteed, for the permanent support of the mission, a sum equal to the contribution of the public, from the revenue arising from the sale of waste land in the colony." { The Stirling Castle, the ship in which the writer went out to New South Wales for the third time, in the year 1831, was wrecked on that part of the coast of the Australian continent, on a subsequent voyage--from New South Wales to India--in the year 1836. The captain and several of the shipwrecked mariners were barbarously murdered by the natives. The crews of the other ships and, in particular, that from the Charles Eaton, wrecked on the same dangerous coast, have also shared a similiar fate} " The body of the missionaries, engaged for the mission at Moreton Bay, consisted of the Rev Karl Wilhelm SCHMIDT, of the Universities of Halle and Berlin, and the Rev. Christopher EIPPER, of Basle, in Switzerland, both married; Mr Horitz SCHNEIDER, surgeaon, from the Missionary Society of Leipzig, and four lay missionaries, or catechists, also married; besides four unmarried lay missionaries, or 20 adult persons altogether." "The whole of these missionaries arrived in New South Wales per the emigrant ship Minerva in the month of January, 1838." " But typhus fever having broken out on board that vessell towards the close of the voyage, and the whole medical duty of the ship having devolved upon Mr SCHNEIDER, the German missionary surgeon, in consequence of the indispostion of the English surgeon of the vessel, who had caught the infection among the very first." " Mr SCHNEIDER, who had devoted himself with the utmost zeal and self denial for the relief of his suffering fellow voyagers, was also seized with the fever, after having landed at quarantine station near Sydney, and unfortunately died." Dennis provides the following highlights: Both Rev. SCHMIDT and Rev. EIPPER were ordained into the Colonial Presbyterian Church while in Sydney and the mission was allocated one square mile {640 acres} at Toombul named Zionshill. It established a regular settlement for mission purposes, exhibiting genuine self-denial, according to Major COTTON, the commandant of Moreton Bay. There were intensive efforts to hold all mission services in English, but the layman needed most in German for their own spitual benefit. The natives needed to communicate by an exchange of tongues, which dictated the use of English! As only two ministers had this language how did the others communicate with the natives? It must have been really difficult for these dedicated men. However, they must have established a line of communication because not only were their services held on Sundays but twice daily, with extras on Thursday nights. Taken from the Northside Chronicle 18 oct 1989. I never did get the next copy to see what the second installment had to say. Cheers Bev