Mackerode at South Australia's Mount Bryan a memorial to enterprise of butcher Gustav Gebhardt
The South Australian state heritage listed Mackerode homestead built at Mount Bryan in 1873 for Gustav Gebhardt on a 27,000 acre property – one of the land holdings he bought around Burra in the mid north after starting as a butcher in the copper mining distcit.
The Mackerode homestead, just outside Burra near Mount Bryan in South Australia’s mid north, was state heritage listed in 1994 and remained a memorial to the enterprise brought by 19th Century German settlers.
Mackerode was built in 1873 for the pioneer Lincoln and Merino stud breeder Gustav Adolph Gebhardt on land formerly known as Wildotta. Born in Hanover, Germany, in 1833, Gebhardt migrated at 25 with brothers Carl and Ernst in 1858 after their parents died. They arrived in South Australia on the ship Ohio. Ernst became a bullock driver, Carl a Barossa Valley farmer and Gustav stayed in Adelaide, working as a butcher with Gabriel Bennett.
In 1859, Gustav married Caroline Wilhelmina Horstman, born in 1836 at Oldenburg, Germany. Gebhardt soon took his wife to the mega copper mining area of Burra and opened his own butcher shop, upsetting local butchers. When his cart was stolen and its wheel spokes sawn off, Gerhardt gained sympathy from the local miners, who became his customers. He did well and was soon able to buy livestock stock for breeding. Gustav’s brothers Carl and Ernst followed him and operated a butcher shop in Aberdeen, one of the areas around Burra, until 1879. Carl later leased his shop and premises to another butcher H.M. Goodgidge and later sold it.
During the 1860s, Gustav bought 2,000 acres at Mount Cone, near Mount Bryan, and 1,200 sheep. He lost most of the sheep in the 1863-64 drought but survived. Slowly he increased his land holdings and, in 1873, he built a home on his by-now 27,000 acre property that he named Mackerode. Here, Albert George Gottlieb, the last of his eight children, was born. Gustav’s wife Carolina planted, and watered by hand, many trees around the house and on the rest of the property. She often walked to Burra,10 kilometres away, to sell eggs and butter. Later, the Gerhardts had several domestics and even men servants.
During the late 1870s, the Gebhardts, like most of the mid north, suffered big losses from rabbits. Gebhardt advertised in the local paper for rabbit catchers, paying good wages and employed the night and day. In four weeks, they killed 60,000 rabbits but “as fast as he killed them, others came upon his property from surrounding Crown Land”. A few weeks later he advertised for 12 dogs and a working overseer to take charge of the rabbit catchers.
At first, Gustav used only Lincoln sheep and imported some England’s best for breeding and won prizes at the Burra and North East Agricultural, Horticultural and Floricultural Show of 1881. His brothers Carl and Ernst won many more prizes at the same show for their merino sheep. Gustav in 1882 sold all his Lincoln sheep to Patrick Gleeson of Victoria and bought 3,000 merino sheep to start a stud. He also became involved with Markaranko, a property on the Murray River. This wasn’t a success and, when the lease expired, he took his family on a trip around the world.
After the birth of his last child, and Mackerode running smoothly, Gustav became more involved in the local community and in 1883 he was elected a Mount Bryan district councillor. He started building a windmill over a well near the Mackerode house and pumped the water onto the garden. Although the water was slightly brackish, he soon had some excellent results.
Gustav retired in 1889 and bought a house in Adelaide seaside Brighton. He left the Mackerode estate to his sons Charles and Albert. Gustav had one last venture in 1898 – a 2,400 acre estate of Corryton Park in Pewsey Vale before he died at Glenelg in 1900. Gustav and Caroline's sons, and their sons, continued their pastoral pursuits around the Burra area. The Mackerode property became home to 7,000 carob trees over 128 acres, planted by Andrew from 1978.
The property was bought by the Rowe family in 2005 as a feedlot for their Princess Royal Station, near Burra, with its sheep feeding in the shade on carobs.
