Return to: 'John MUELLER - Photographic Collection & Other Archival Material

Summary

This article reveals how John, a farmer from Paechtown, who lived for 30 years in an original half hipped, fachwerk, Paechtown farm house, came to hold so many historic photographs, his relationship to one of the photographers, & the connection between the photographer [DIEDERICH}, his wife [KUCHEL] & the photographed subjects.

The family names mentioned in this article:

MUELLER, DIEDERICH, KUCHEL, KUCHEL, MULLER, PAECH, KLENKE, LIEBELT, SCHULTZ, LUBASCH-GREISER, STEINBORN, ZEGEMSITERIN, SCHUETTE, PAECH, RICHTER, SCHUBERT, SEIFFERT.

Table of Contents

John Mueller 2020

1. Author's Note
2. How Did John Have This Historic Collection?
3. Descendants Found In The Collection
4. References
5. Bibliography
6. List of Tagged Pages in Mueller Photographic Collection

1.  Author's Note

John MUELLER and his family have collected these and hundreds of other family photographs while living in the same home for over one hundred years.  John MUELLER -  "I was born into a Fächwerk home, (half timbered) with stringy bark shingles and a half hipped roof, in Paechtown, when the house was already 100 years old. I lived there from 1945-1975, and my 'Photographic Collection' was stored inside a cupboard in the passageway". 

Janis Haynes 2019, Caloote Cemetery South Australia.This project began in March 2021, for the purpose of displaying John's  collection of some 300 hundred historic photographs. Where possible I have identified and examined the familial relationships between the subjects. Soon afterwards I met other Zebra descendants who I found I was also related to and I have been allowed to publicise their photographic & other archival material as well.  It was a year or two into the project that it was brought under the name of 'Zebra-Project'.

Many of the photographs in this collection have been caught on camera by photographer Rudolph Richard Edmund DIEDERICH [1854-1923] known as ‘Edmund’.  Edmund 's wife, Anna Elizabeth KUCHEL is John's great, great aunty and the author's 1C4R.  The KUCHEL family have connections with many passengers on the ‘Zebra’, and many of Edmund’s photographs are of his wife’s relatives, living in the Hahndorf area.

John is my fourth cousin and I first met him in 2020. On my second visit with John in early 2021, I began scanning his collection of family photographs.  Hundreds of them are squeezed into a number of large cardboard boxes.  After two hours together we had finished over 100 images but had barely made an indent.  I am thrilled that John has enthusiastically agreed to share these photographs on the Adelaide Hills LocalWiki site, built by John FINNIS. 

Please download any photographs that you are interested in and acknowledge John's ownership.

• Having scanned the front & backs of each photo the second part of this project was to identify & group the photos into families and research what the relationships were to John MUELLER and our shared ancestors.
• John MUELLER has so many historic photographs that I have divided them into a number of articles, based on the families or the locations depicted.
• To ensure correct provenance each photo has the rear page scanned and provided with each photo.           

2.  How Did John Have This Historic Collection?

John's six generations of ancestors include: KUCHEL-MULLER-PAECH-KLENKE-LIEBELT-SCHULTZ-LUBASCH-GREISER-STEINBORN-ZEGEMSITERIN-SCHUETTE

This is the home built by John's gg grandparents in 1850's.  Photo from Ron ROWE's  collection 1975 c.John's maternal ggg grandmother was Johanna Karoline KLENKE [1793-1831], the first wife of Johann Georg PAECH Snr [1793-1875] who is John's ggg grandfather. [1] [2]

Same house - Photo from John MÜLLER's collection 1912 c.  Photo by Edmund DIEDERICH

• Karoline died seven years before her husband left Prussia, on the 'Zebra' in late 1838.  Instead he was accompanied by his second wife, Hanna Rosina RICHTER [1811-1891], and their own two young children aged 4 years and 2 years. [3] 
• With them as well  were Karoline's older children, Johann 'Christian' 18 years, Johann 'Gottlob' 15 years, Johann 'George' 12 years and Johanne 'Luise',  8 years of age. [4]
• Hanna Rosina RICHTER had another 5 children in South Australia, born over a ten year period from 1841 to 1851. [5]
• Within 15 years [1854] of arriving in the Adelaide Hills this KLENKE/RICHTER/PAECH family built their home in an area, near Hahndorf, that became known as 'Paechtown'.
• All of the homes were variations of each other and all were fächwerk, with brick infill, half hipped roofing with stringy bark shingles.   It was this home/farmhouse seen here on the right, known as 'No 3 house Paechtown', that the son 'Gottlob' & his wife Johanne Eleonore SCHULZ  [who he married in 1846], established. [5]  This is the home that John MUELLER was born into, almost 100yrs later.
• It was 1945 and John was the only child born to his mother, Hilda, who was 20 years of age.  Also living in the home & farming the land at the time of John's birth were his grandparents Edward Otto MUELLER 63 years, Pauline Hulda KUCHEL 62 years and Hilda's two older bachelor brothers Edwin 31 years and Clarence 27 years.   Hilda's parents died in 1954 and 1957, followed by her brothers in 1969 and 1970.   30 years after John was born he moved with his mother into Hahndorf, and the boxes of photographs came with them. [6] 

3.  Descendants Found in The Collection                                                  

All of John MUELLER's photo collection was kept in a cupboard in the passageway of this Prussian fächwerk house built in the 1850's in Paechtown, South Australia.  Evidence recorded by Lothar BRASSE, in a taped interview with Oswald Friedrich 'Ossie' FAEHRMANN in 1975, provides evidence that Johann Carl Friedrich FAEHRMANN was the master carpenter for all of these redgum timbered homes and many others.

4. References

• David Schubert, Kavel's People: from Prussia to South Australia, 2nd end., Openbook Publishers, Adelaide, 1997, page 166
• Genealogy SA, Birth Registrations, 1842-1928, viewed July 2022
• Interview with John MUELLER, 2022.
• Genealogy SA, Death Registrations, 1842-1972, viewed November 2022

5.  Bibliography

• David Schubert, Kavel's People: from Prussia to South Australia, 2nd end., Openbook Publishers, Adelaide, 1997