Dalkey near Balaklava. Neumann graves in the Sichem Lutheran cemetery.
Sichem/ Dalkey Cemetery.
This is the only specific Lutheran cemetery that we know of on the Adelaide Plains. The cemetery, Lutheran church and government school were all established here by 1872 when the land had been recently acquired. The Hundred of Dalkey was declared in 1856 but no one took up land here until 1865. The first to do so was Ernst Traeger who took up 600 acres of land in 1865 which he soon increased to 1,700 acres. His grain was carted by teams to Port Wakefield the nearest township. The other pioneering families were two Schaeche families and the Stein family. They were soon followed by other German families – Winter, Lange, Beinke, Schoenbergh, Zobel etc. More German settlers followed in the mid-1870s. Wilhelm Schaeche sold five acres to the Lutheran church for a church, school and cemetery. 1869 was the year in which the school opened and it was also used as a church until a new church was built a year or so later. A new stone Lutheran school was built in 1906 but that school closed during World War One in 1917 by act of parliament. (Sichem was not one of the 69 SA place names changed by that 1917 as it was only a locality and that locality already had the name of Dalkey.) Pupils from Sichem School then had to transfer to the government Dalkey School which operated in the Bible Christian church. (The Dalkey School had opened in 1879 and finally closed in 1946.) The Sichem Lutheran church closed in 1899 as a new Lutheran church opened in Balaklava. Like the school room it was eventually demolished. The District Council of Dalkey was formed in Traeger’s home in 1875 and for many years into the 1890s Ernst Traeger was a local councillor. When the council chamber was built in the 1882 it was sited in Owen. Eventually in the 1930s it became the District Council of Owen. Locally the English settlers of Dalkey district called the village German Town rather than Sichem. Sichem was a Hebrew city near Canaan. The most famous resident of Sichem was a son of Ernst Traeger who invented the pedal radio which was essential for the establishment of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and later the School of the Air. Another Traeger son established an implements business in Hamley Bridge. The Sichem or Dalkey cemetery was established around 1870. Although later headstones were all written in English look for some of the early ones like the Neumann family headstones and Traeger family headstones which are written in old German script. Dalkey was named by Governor MacDonnell in 1856 for the Hundred. Dalkey was a seaside place in Dublin the home place of Governor MacDonnell the first Catholic governor of South Australia.
Dalkey near Balaklava. Neumann graves in the Sichem Lutheran cemetery.
Sichem/ Dalkey Cemetery.
This is the only specific Lutheran cemetery that we know of on the Adelaide Plains. The cemetery, Lutheran church and government school were all established here by 1872 when the land had been recently acquired. The Hundred of Dalkey was declared in 1856 but no one took up land here until 1865. The first to do so was Ernst Traeger who took up 600 acres of land in 1865 which he soon increased to 1,700 acres. His grain was carted by teams to Port Wakefield the nearest township. The other pioneering families were two Schaeche families and the Stein family. They were soon followed by other German families – Winter, Lange, Beinke, Schoenbergh, Zobel etc. More German settlers followed in the mid-1870s. Wilhelm Schaeche sold five acres to the Lutheran church for a church, school and cemetery. 1869 was the year in which the school opened and it was also used as a church until a new church was built a year or so later. A new stone Lutheran school was built in 1906 but that school closed during World War One in 1917 by act of parliament. (Sichem was not one of the 69 SA place names changed by that 1917 as it was only a locality and that locality already had the name of Dalkey.) Pupils from Sichem School then had to transfer to the government Dalkey School which operated in the Bible Christian church. (The Dalkey School had opened in 1879 and finally closed in 1946.) The Sichem Lutheran church closed in 1899 as a new Lutheran church opened in Balaklava. Like the school room it was eventually demolished. The District Council of Dalkey was formed in Traeger’s home in 1875 and for many years into the 1890s Ernst Traeger was a local councillor. When the council chamber was built in the 1882 it was sited in Owen. Eventually in the 1930s it became the District Council of Owen. Locally the English settlers of Dalkey district called the village German Town rather than Sichem. Sichem was a Hebrew city near Canaan. The most famous resident of Sichem was a son of Ernst Traeger who invented the pedal radio which was essential for the establishment of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and later the School of the Air. Another Traeger son established an implements business in Hamley Bridge. The Sichem or Dalkey cemetery was established around 1870. Although later headstones were all written in English look for some of the early ones like the Neumann family headstones and Traeger family headstones which are written in old German script. Dalkey was named by Governor MacDonnell in 1856 for the Hundred. Dalkey was a seaside place in Dublin the home place of Governor MacDonnell the first Catholic governor of South Australia.