Danish sea captain Dirk Hahn's kindness leads to Australia's oldest German town in hills of Adelaide: Hahndorf
The memorial to Captain Dirk Meinertz Hahn in the main street of Hahndorf.
The name Hahndorf, for Australia’s oldest German township, honours the kindness and care of sea captain Dirk Meinertz Hahn for the 197 Old Lutheran refugees from Silesia and Brandenburg he brought on the three-month journey to South Australia in 1838-39.
The 35 families on Hahn’s ship, the Zebra, were the second group of Old Lutherans to arrive in South Australia, following Pastor August Kavel’s group on the Prince George in 1838.
Hahn, a Dane, who had gone to sea, according to his father’s wishes, instead of studying theology, empathised with his “very religious” Zebra passengers – very different from those he had experienced on previous voyages to America.
Surviving a typhus outbreak and Cape of Good Hope storm that shredded the sails, the Zebra reached Holdfast Bay on December 28 1838, but due to low water, didn’t reach Port Adelaide (Port Misery) until January 2, 1839. Hahn had become deeply concerned about his passengers and became their leader and spokesman as he tried to get them a lease on land near Port Adelaide.
By chance, Hahn met William Dutton, who spoke German fluently. Dutton offered the emigrants 100 acres near Mount Barker owned by himself and others.
Hahn went to inspect the land and found the view of it from the top of Mount Barker “wonderfully beautiful”. Hahn left Adelaide in February 1839, after his passengers began settling in at the site. He never returned to South Australia.
The village that the settlers named Hahndorf was established on old Prussian pattern, with a road down the centre and equal-size farmlets on either side. The narrow plots were divided into segments for mixed peasant farming. They survived a harsh first winter with lack of housing and food but determinedly tilled fields and built stone houses, with their first church established by 1840.
A plaque commemorating Captain Hahn was unveiled in the town in 1982.