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Johann Zwahr – a detailed life story16.10.1821– 15.7.1912 Childhood When Johann was five years old a registered school opened at Wurschen less than several kilometres from Johann’s home village of Drehsa. We do not know which years Johann would have attended. (His younger brother Peter went there for eight years.) When he was five a sister Maria joined the family, followed by a brother Michael two years later. When he was ten a sister Magdalena was born but died before Johann was a teenager. The following year the family was saddened again by the birth of
a stillborn son and brother. When Johann was eighteen years old his father died, in 1840. Marriage Magdalena was the fourth child of Andreas Schmal, gardener of Kumschütz and his wife Agnes (nee Scholze of Plotzen) and lived in the village about one kilometre west of Drehsa. Magdalena was born in Kumschütz on 14th June 1819 at 7 o’clock in the afternoon and was baptised on 16th June in the local church. Her godparents included Johann Schram, Bruno George Schneider and Maria Gudes, all of Kumschütz. [Schmal, Schmaal and Schmalin seem to be the German forms of the Wendish name ‘Schmole’.] Magdalena was given a pewter lamp at her marriage inscribed “M Schmalin. 1847” and the lamp has been handed down through the descendants in Australia. A pewter beer mug inscribed “M. Pechen 1801” has also been handed down and was most likely a present received by an older relative and then passed on to Magdalena. It seems they lived in Drehsa. 1848 In Australia Maria would tell her grandchildren how the Schmal parents disowned her mother Magdalena when she married Johann Zwar as they considered him a lower class. One grand daughter said Maria claimed her mother had renounced a title, and another that Maria had said her mother was of noble birth. 1848 was to become a significant year in European history. There were uprisings in Paris and these spread across Europe and included Dresden, about 60 kilometres west of the Zwar home. The ideals of Freedom and Equality of the French Revolution reached the Wends of Lusatia. The Wends took the opportunity to present a special petition to the Royal Saxon National Assembly for better treatment for the Wends. Johann Zwar took a copy of the petition with him some years later when he went to Australia. The petition requested legal status for the Wendish language in the Courts, and asked for Government support for Wendish Schools and Churches, requesting:
In 1848 the first groups of Wends left for Australia, firstly on the ship ‘Victoria’ (how many?) and then another 46 on the ‘Alfred’. The uprising in Dresden was put down. There were military call ups. Johann’s brother Peter was declared medically unfit for duty. Johann and his brothers Peter and Michael were planning to migrate to Australia. Even their mother was considering leaving with them. For some reason Johann and Peter and their mother stayed home, but Michael left in 1849 and promised to tell the family what conditions were like in Australia. He was in the first Wendish group to go to Melbourne in Australia. However conditions were so bad for Michael that he did not write for almost two, and by then Johann and Magdalena Zwar and their daughter Maria had left for Australia. Apparently a son, probably named Johann, had been born at this time but did not live, but we have no written record. Leader One involved a Conservative movement in the Lutheran Church, called ‘The Old Lutherans’. One of the leaders was the blacksmith Stosch, also from Drehsa, who campaigned together with Johann Zwar. Stosch also planned to go to Australia, but changed his mind and became an important community leader in the local District. When a son of Johann Zwar visited Drehsa from Australia nearly 60 years later he marked a photo of Drehsa buildings with a cross to single out the Stosch blacksmith and another cross to mark the Stosch house and barn. Johann was also a leader of an agricultural movement. It seems they met in small groups in the villages, but I am not clear of their objectives. (Tom Darragh may be able to help here!) Johann was a friend of Schmöler, the editor of the Wendish Newspaper who would become a significant and famous leader of the Wendish national movement in Lusatia. It is not surprising that Johann Zwar became a leader of 92 Wends who migrated to Australia in 1851 on the ‘Helena’. It was the largest group of Wends to migrate to Australia. Migration in 1851 Johann signed the note with the Wendish form of his surname, ‘Swora’. In the afternoon they spent several hours in Magdeburg, and after an evening devotion time of vespers travelled to the famous Luther city of Wittenberg. In the dark they had to cross the Elbe River on a steamer, and for some it was a scary experience. At 6 am they caught the train from Wittenberg for Hamburg and arrived there at 10.30 am. The proprietor of the guest house “Stadt Neuyork” was waiting for them and they appreciated his hospitality, the spacious rooms and the good meals. The ship was due to leave in two days. A large group of Germans from Silesia were expected to join them but only 40 turned up, so they booked the ‘Helena’, a smaller ship than had first been planned. It was to be the Helena’s maiden voyage. There were problems loading the ship.
After threatening to go to the authorities, Johann Zwar had to go to the ship at 5 am to see to it that all those things stacked at the bottom would be brought up again! Johann Zwar stayed in Hamburg with three of the other men to make some last minute arrangements while a steamer towed the loaded ship and its passengers a little way to Stade where it arrived about 8.30 am. The men caught up with them in the evening to find a number of unhappy people on the ship. The sailers had lost patience with loading and unloading the boxes, some weighing up to three quarters of a ton. Payment had to be worked out for all the extra luggage. Johann Zwar again threatened to go to the authorities or the police, quoted the shipping laws and the rights of migrants, and shut himself in a room to write a letter of complaint. The shipping Supervisor came and they made mutually agreeable arrangements. Several boxes were returned to Hamburg and would be sent on to them in Australia by another ship leaving in October.
On Saturday morning the 23rd they sailed down the estuary to Glueckstadt where bad weather held them up. While they waited Johann penned some more complaints which he intended to send to the police at Hamburg, but the captain advised Johann to send them to the ship’s owner. So Johann wrote another letter of complaint and then had a hair raising ride with several others in a tiny boat in rough weather to deliver the letter in Glueckstadt. The rough weather delayed the start of their journey. They tried to leave on the last day of August but had to turn back after several hours. On September 3rd they sailed as far as Cuxhaven on the open sea. The doctor called with a letter from the ship’s owner that satisfied everyone. They sailed on Wednesday September 4th. But first Johann posted his first letter home. It would be published in the Wendish Newspaper run by his friend Schmöler.
The Sea Journey Johann described the voyage as a pleasant one,
They went through a number of storms.
They had another severe storm on September 27th. The ship was rocking so violently they could not hold their Wendish Service. The conditions took their toll on the children.
Andreas was 3 years old. Thirteen days later the three month old son of Andreas Pannach (Ponich) died and was buried at sea. The Zwar’s turn would come later. Meanwhile they enjoyed watching the whales as well as sharks, dolphins and flying fish. But it was particularly the whales that fascinated them. Everyone hurried on deck to get a view when there were whales about. Sometimes birds followed them. They caught an albatross and tied a little board to its neck with the message “The ship ‘Helene’ of Hamburg’ before letting it go. On Friday 21st November a wild storm sent waves over the deck and water poured between decks. Several days later an even worse storm lashed the ship. During this storm a sailor fell about 34 yards onto the deck while trying to lower the masthead and a number of crossarms. He was not hurt. Johann Zwar noted this sailor would often sing the song “In the darkest night the sailors will find the smallest place of pleasure, but in the broadest daylight they can not see the largest Church”, and hoped the fall might help reform him. By November 27th they were so far south of Edward Island and close to the Antarctica it began to snow and every one looked for their warmest clothes. Some had none and they suffered a lot from the cold. The same evening a fierce gale began to rage and they thought it would smash everything to pieces. They called on God for mercy. The strong westerly gales quickly drove them past Kerguelen Island on November 29th and then past the Amsterdam and St Paul Islands on December 3rd. On 4th December the sea was still rough. Magdalena was going into labour. Johann Zwar records,
Australia on Christmas Eve As it turned out only a few families later moved on to Victoria, including Hundrack, Burger, Mirtschin and Rentsch. They eventually settled inland from Portland Bay, at Tabor, near Hamilton on rich volcanic grazing country. Other Wends to settle there in the early days included Albert, Deutscher, Hempel, Petschel, Stephan and Urban. At Rosedale the Zwar group went through a thorough examination on their Lutheran beliefs by Pastor Meyer and the elders in front of the congregation, before they would be allowed to attend the Lord’s Supper. After the examination Johann Zwar said that his group were not prepared to join in with anyone unless they were sure they were truly Lutheran, and he then examined Pastor Meyer and the elders on a number of points. Although they had different interpretations on some points they agreed to worship together and Pastor Meyer ministered to them as their guest pastor until the middle of 1854. Ebenezer Ebenezer never became a town. It was the name of a District where the Lutheran Church and School was the centre of the farming community. The first Zwar home at Ebenezer was built of wood and pug in 1852. Johann farmed the land. In 1853 their second daughter Anna was born. Then another daughter Christiane arrived but she soon died. Pastor Schondorf, a pastor of the Moravian Brethren took over as pastor at Ebenezer from Pastor Meyer and ministered to Ebenezer for the next five years. As some of the members preferred Pastor Meyer they formed a congregation of their own called Neukirch and called Pastor Meyer to minister to them. In 1854 Johann’s brother Peter arrived from Saxony with his bride Magdalena, and they lived with Johann for a while. Then Peter and Magdalena moved onto a small farming property nearby and lived there for ten years. Peter was a carpenter and built a number of houses in the District. Johann was naturalised in 1855 after he had been in South Australia for three years. The certificate was issued on 19th September and the oath taken on 5th October. The certificate gives his occupation as ‘Farmer’. In October 1856 another daughter was born, and they also called
her Christiane. Sickness and death of Magdalena Magdalena Zwar died aged 40 years on October 22nd 1859, on Christiane’s third birthday. She had prayed that she could live until her youngest daughter Christiane was three years old and her prayer was answered. Her tombstone states that 6 children were born, two sons and four daughters, three of whom had died. This left the three girls Maria (aged 11), Anna (6) and Christiane (3). His strong personal faith in God gave Johann comfort and the strength to continue. Typical of a person deep in grief, Johann found it almost impossible to think of the future. A year seemed like an eternity. And the loneliness got to him. The 1850’s had been a pioneering decade for Johann and Magdalena. They had left the old village of Drehsa and travelled half way round the world to start in the most primitive circumstances and pioneer a new community with the Lutheran Church and School at its centre. The decade ended with Johann a widower with three young girls to care for. The 1860’s
He gained strength from his faith in God and from the sympathy of friends. It was hard to find a suitable housekeeper. There were far more men than women in the new Colony of South Australia. This meant most girls married by the time they were twenty. Those who did not marry and took on housekeeping roles often had an unsavory reputation, especially to a strictly religious man like Johann. He did not trust them, or himself if he employed one. He rejected any thoughts of marriage. Eventually he hired a German woman. She had left her husband in Germany, and had come highly recommended as a housekeeper. Pastor Goethe and a Second Marriage
(The Westgarthtown Church [now Thomastown] had been dedicated in 1856 and is the oldest Lutheran Church still in use in Victoria – in the year 2001… It is now the oldest operating Lutheran Church in Australia. Editor). A drawback for Johann taking up the Church work permanently was that it would involve a lot of travelling, sometimes to places up to 300 kilometres from Melbourne, and he would have to arrange to leave his daughters with someone.
Johann was also considering the idea of marrying again. His friends had been urging him to do this from the start of his life as a widower with three young children. He realised that a string of housekeepers would not give the children the training in home life and home skills he would like them to have. For this and other reasons Johann decided it would be best for him to marry again. He would like to marry a Wend, one of his own nationality. This cut his choice to almost nil in South Australia. The Wends numbered only about one tenth of the Lutheran population, and the eligible ones had all been spoken for. Then his friend Pannach said that surely there might be one in Melbourne! This reminded Johann of Anna Kaiser, the brother of Andreas Kaiser where Johann had stayed for most of his time in Melbourne. In fact Anna had been a guest at Johann’s first marriage in Saxony when she was a ten year old, so he knew her family well. Anna was now 25 years old. With his friend Pannach’s encouragement and after lots of prayers Johann wrote to Anna on 22nd November 1862. She replied and soon Johann was on his way to Melbourne again.
Johann’s brother Michael Zwar and Anna’s brother Andreas Kaiser were the witnesses to the marriage.
The quotations are from a lengthy letter Johann wrote to Anna’s father and step-mother in Saxony to tell them about his marriage to their daughter. Anna Kaiser Anna was named after her mother, Anna Kaiser (nee Regmann). Anna and her little sister Maria were the last of eight children. They spent their childhood in Drehsa about five minutes walk from the Zwar home. The Kaiser and Zwar children went to the same school at Wurschen. 1847 became a notable year for Anna. Three weeks after her tenth birthday her oldest sister Magdalena married Andreas Tuppach. Then as a ten year old she was also a guest at Johann Zwar’s marriage in July. Anna was told to be careful she didn’t spill anything at the wedding breakfast or she would have to lick it up! Then Anna’s mother died the day after Christmas in 1847 when Anna was still only ten years old and her little sister Maria was seven. Maria Lehmann was a close school friend and they corresponded for the rest of their lives. Maria Lehmann’s sister Anna Lehmann taught Anna Kaiser to sew. Two years later her brother Andreas emigrated to Australia on the Pribislaw with Michael Zwar. He was the first of the Kaiser family to go to Australia, just as Michael Zwar was the first to go to Australia from his family. Anna’s father Peter Kaiser married again in 1850, to Maria Pötschke, and a step sister was born in 1851. A step brother and another step sister arrived in later years. Her younger sister Maria went to Australia in 1855 on the Bielefeld. She was only fifteen years old. There were five other single females on board. She knew some of the families well, including Albinus, Döcke and Falland. No doubt her brother Andreas reported her arrival to her family at home. She received a letter from her father in November 1856 and shed many tears of joy. On 5th January 1857 she replies and gives a glowing account of her life. She tells her father not to waste any time worrying about her. She has no desire to return to Germany as she has such a wonderful life compared to life when she was home. She is very sad that her sister Anna has no inclination to migrate. She had expected Anna to come to Australia this year and her father George had written to say she would not be coming. Maria is working for the Zimmers who are part of a German / Wend settlement at Westgarthtown about 16 kilometres north of Melbourne. The Zimmers also had a connection with the Zwar family as Pastor Goethe had married Agnes Zimmer to Michael Zwar in Melbourne several years earlier. Maria enjoys the work at the Zimmer home and the life on their farm, and even lists 17 different vegetables and fruits growing in the garden. However she still has a deep yearning for her brother Johann and sister Anna to join her, or at least for Anna to come for a visit. So she sends 108 Thaler in money to help pay their fares. This might have been the deciding incentive for Anna to go to Australia. In November Anna leaves for Australia with her brother Johann. Her father travelled with them to Hamburg and it was a particularly sad time for them all when they parted. Anna had dreaded the coming parting. She had also been afraid of boarding a ship but her fears disappeared when she went on board because it looked to be no where near as dangerous as they had made her feel at home. Maria Altus was also single and a friend from the neighbouring village of Nechern and travelled with Anna. The ship sailed early in November. It took 16 weeks to reach Adelaide. They went through several violent storms when she feared for her life. They were in Port Adelaide for a week, then three days later they landed in Melbourne, in February 1858. Anna was 21 years old, and her brother Johann was 33. They had hoped their brother Andreas and sister Maria would be in Melbourne to meet them, but they were actually about 100 kilometres inland on the Ballarat goldfields and did not know Anna and Johann were arriving. So Anna and Johann went and stayed with the Zimmers. Anna agreed to work for the Zimmer family for a year. About a month later her brother Andreas turned up. Pastor Goethe had gone to the goldfields to take a service and told him his sister and brother had arrived in Melbourne. At first Anna did not like it in Australia, partly because she did not enjoy working for the Zimmers. Then Andreas married Maria Finger, and Anna took over Maria’s job keeping house for an English family. She enjoyed the work, and soon learnt to speak English. Anna did not write home for a time. She depended on her brother Andreas to keep them informed at home about her life in Australia as they lived quite near each other. When she writes her first letter home in June, nearly two years after leaving home she says,
Their father Peter Kaiser deeply resented his two daughters leaving him to go to Australia. He seems to have blamed their brother Andreas, possibly because Andreas was the first to go, but also because Andreas had promised to look after them if they joined him in Australia, and he had assured them and their father they would be safe. Their father George was a worrier and imagined all sorts of problems they might run into, even after they were in Australia and were doing well. Although one could understand him worrying about a 15 year old daughter going overseas by herself. Maria married Johann Hirt in Melbourne on 5th September 1959 and they lived at Ballarat about 100 kilometres from Andreas and Anna in Melbourne. Her brother Andreas and sister Anna had attended her wedding. The Hirts exchanged letters with Andreas every fortnight and he passed on the news to Anna because he saw her each fortnight at Church. They were faithful attenders at the Trinity Lutheran Church, East Melbourne and admired the caring ministry of Pastor Goethe. They sent money home to their father, maybe hoping this would make him happier. In 1860 Andreas write homes to his father:
When Johann Zwar wrote his lengthy letter to his new father-in-law Peter Kaiser to tell him he and Anna had married, her father did not reply. Johann and Anna each wrote another letter six months later, but two years after their marriage her father had still not replied. Andreas pleads with his father to write to them. Andreas had visited his sister Anna and Johann Zwar in South Australia and enjoyed their friendship. He writes to his father:
Anna’s brother George Kaiser had sometimes thought of going
to Australia too, but he stayed in Saxony where in time he would
become chairman of the local District Council. Ebenezer – Part 2
Anna does not have a lot of time to feel sad. The numbers in the Zwar home have been growing since she married about five years earlier and she is a busy woman;
Johann’s close friend Pannach had died and Johann was godfather to the son so he took him into the family. This is the last letter (15.8.1868) extant from Ebenezer to Germany until 1906, about 37 years later. Possibly the death of Anna’s father meant the letters simply lapsed for the time being between the families, until their son Dr Bernard Zwar visited Germany in 1905 and then correspondence resumed. They heard news through Anna’s brother Andreas Kaiser in Melbourne as he still exchanged letters with Anna as well as the Kaiser family in Germany. [There is a good clear photo taken towards
the end of 1865. On it, standing, left to right, the three girls
from the first marriage: Anna, Maria and Christiane. In 1866 Maria Zwar made a visit to Melbourne, and again the following year. In 1869 she went to Melbourne to marry August Petschel when she was 21 years old. She was the first of Johann’s children to marry and spent the rest of her life in Victoria. This left space for one more in what must have been a crowded house
at Ebenezer. Homeopathic Doctor
This is the first time Johann mentions his homeopathic work in the letters. We do not know when Johann became a homeopathic doctor. He may have developed these skills in Saxony. It is said he practiced for over 50 years as a homeopathic doctor in the Barossa Valley and was recognised by the South Australian Government. Arthur Zwar, a grandson and the unsurpassed Family Historian thought that George Fife Angus used his influence to help Johann become licensed, and that this happened after Johann was naturalized (1855). A granddaughter (Tot Petschel) said her father often told her that a South Australian member of Parliament became ill with cancer and as a last resort he went to Johann Zwar for homeopathic treatment and he was cured, so he decided Johann should be allowed to have a certificate to practice as a doctor. The third Johann Zwar house was built (probably when Paul married Bertha Becker), with the front two rooms being set aside for his Homeopathic Practice viz one was a waiting room and the other his consulting room. He would also issue a doctor’s certificate to give people time off work when they were ill. The birth certificate for Bernhard Zwar in 1876 gives his father’s profession as ‘Homeopathic Doctor’.
Land The Wends who went to Australia usually found the pioneering conditions there far worse and more primitive than they had imagined, and they struggled to come to terms with their decision to migrate until they purchased their own piece of land. It was not uncommon for the Wends to write their first letter home to family and friends only as soon as they had bought a piece of land, even if it took several years before they could put down a deposit on a few acres. This was the case with Michael Zwar and Johann Mirtschin. Michael’s first letter home was so late his brother Johann had left for Australia before it arrived. Peter Zwar built houses in the Ebenezer District and farmed some
rented land until he could buy a farm and build a house on it. Then
he was a farmer for the rest of his life. One of the Lords developed a wonderful natural park on the edge of Drehsa, including statues in strategic places and trees that attracted the birds, and one can still take a walk through this area of beautifully developed woods today. The Zwars owned their house and its block of land in Drehsa, but the land they worked as gardeners (small crop/market gardening?) would have been rented from the Lord of the Manor. About the time the three Zwar brothers left for Australia some land was coming on the market, but few people could afford it. Johann was a wheelwright in Saxony. In most of the colonies in Australia one needed to be naturalised to own land, and in his application for naturalisation in South Australia Johann put down his profession as ‘farmer’. It was a common practice for the Wends to club together to buy a piece of land, and then divide it up among themselves. The Council Rates Assessment Book for 1867 shows Johann Zwar owned one piece of land along with Andreas Kleinig (St Kitts section 3006, 80 acres). Section 2995 of 80 acres was owned by J. Schneider, J. Kleinig, M. Wenke, J. Zwar, A. Mickan and J. Dallwitz. Section 2996 of 81 acres was owned by Andreas Mickan, W. Wenke, J. Dallwitz, A. Schneider and John Zwar. The rate on agricultural land was 5 shillings per acre, and for
grazing land it was cheaper.
If one owned 499 acres of agricultural land in Germany one would
be an extremely wealthy farmer. The land in Australia is not as
fertile. In Australia 499 acres was enough to sustain a farmer and
a large family in the 19th century. One hundred years later a cereal
crop farmer could not survive; but a grape grower might do well
if the land were suitable for vineyards. (Johann Zwar Life Story to be continued.)
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