Discover the story of ‘The Other Kavels’
Albrecht Kavel, a master tailor from Berlin, was 60 years old in 1826 when he moved with his wife, daughter and three younger sons to rural Klemzig in provincial Brandenburg, where his eldest son, August, had been installed as pastor. He could never have imagined that this move would eventually lead to a voyage across uncharted seas to an unknown and undeveloped British colony on the other side of the globe.
Ten years later, Pastor August Kavel was in London seeking a refuge for his embattled flock, while his family endured the oppression and impoverishment of his congregation as they petitioned the Prussian King for freedom of worship or the age-old right to emigrate.
Undaunted by taunts that he would not survive the journey, Albrecht was the first of the emigrants on the Prince George to sign—with a bold hand—the contract to repay George Fife Angas for their passage to South Australia. By late January 1839, after the arrival of the Zebra and the Catherina, Ferdinand Kavel could report to anxious friends back home that there were now ‘about five hundred Lutherans from a little district in Prussia here together in South Australia.’
In the brief four years before he was laid to rest in the Klemzig Cemetery on the River Torrens, Albrecht witnessed his family and community swear allegiance to the British crown, establish a Lutheran church with a network of schools, welcome Pastor Fritzsche’s contingent of 250 Prussian Lutherans, and build self-sufficient rural villages while initiating an ambitious plan to re-settle in the Barossa.
The Lutheran pioneers who laid these foundations have been known as ‘Kavel’s People’ since David Schubert documented their history in his landmark publication 40 years ago. In this companion volume published by Friends of Lutheran Archives, John Schubert follows the interwoven lives of ‘The Other Kavels’. He tells a new story of Pastor Kavel’s congregation, enriched with fresh insights from detailed records, glimpses of daring exploits, faithful perseverance, enterprise, personal dramas, and silent sorrows.
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