Johann Haussman, along with 5 others, offered to undertake missionary work in foreign lands
on behalf of the Gossner Mission Institute. Through mediation with J. D. Lang they were
sent to Moreton Bay to establish the Zion Hill mission in 1838. The mission was abandoned
in 1850. Haussman continued is missionary work throughout Queensland, especially his
endeavour to bring Christianity to the Aborigines. In 1845, at Burpengary, he nearly lost his
life to an Aboriginal attack. Fortunately he survived and lived to the age of 90.

Throughout his lifetime, Haussman maintained a passionate interest in mission work, and was at times the sole advocate of Aboriginal mission work in Queensland. He insisted that ‘these people are meant to be saved’ and that the German Lutherans in Queensland had a ‘moral responsibility’ to do so. He was one of the first Gossner disciples, and like Gossner, he attempted to draw on the loyalty of his surrounding German community. He sought to combine the successful settlement of German migrants with productive enterprise into which Aboriginal people might be drawn. He was instrumental in settling a new wave of German immigrants in the Beenleigh and Logan areas in the 1860s and became the patriarch of the German settlers in southern Queensland. Zion Hill was the first mission in what later became Queensland. It was intensively staffed yet surprisingly harmonious, and functioned to facilitate the settlement of Moreton Bay. The Missionaries are remembered as the first free settlers of Queensland, producing the first free-born settler children in Queensland.

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Domestic Intelligence

The Moreton Bay Courier
19 January 1856

Classified Advertising

The Brisbane Courier
15 May 1886

FIFTY YEARS AGO-CXXVII

The Brisbane Courier
20 January 1906

WHERE ONCE THE SAVAGE ROAMED

The Brisbane Courier
19 July 1930

That Reminds Me

The Courier-Mail
1 December 1937