3 Mt Gambier

Mount Gambier was not founded as a town until 1854. As a town it was originally known as Gambierton. According to Wikipedia:

Hastings Cunningham founded "Gambierton" in 1854 by subdividing a block of 77 acres (31 ha). From 1861 to 1878 the Post Office was known by this name before reverting to Mount Gambier. Local government appeared in 1863 when Dr Wehl, who now owned a substantial millhouse on Commercial Road, was elected chairman of the District Council of Mount Gambier.

In this section we document when various Heins arrived and where they lived. More personal details of them. what they did, and stories of their descendants, will follow in Chapters 4 to 8.

Christine Hein was the first Hein to arrive in Australia. She arrived in Adelaide in 1855 by means still unknown, at the age of 22. It was very unusual for a woman of her age to travel by herself. However she married Emil Boehm in a private house at Stepney soon after arrival, in 1855. Their first child, a girl, Charlotte was born in Stepney in 1856. Christine and Emil were among the first arrivals in Mount Gambier, in 1858. The remaining two children, both sons, were born in Mount Gambier. Land does not seem to be formally allocated until 1861, and Emil and Christine were thus among the first. Their block, of 1/2 acre was what are now 1 and 1A Power Street, but the house they built is no longer there. Emil appeared to continue his trade at this time as a mason, and we assume they traveled to live in Mount Gambier because of work prospects.

Emil and Christine continued to live there until their deaths in 1885 and 1901 respectively and then title was transferred to daughter Charlotte, by then Mrs EE Boys (EE Boys being a draper who worked at Fiddler and Webb).

In fact Ernest Edward Boys, a grandson of John Norman of Normanville, had left Adelaide to make a fresh start in Mount Gambier. In 1885 he purchased a house on the SW corner of the intersection of Lake Terrace West and Wehl Street South. In 1888 he married Charlotte Boehm, who was generally known as "Lottie" and their two children Leslie Norman Boys and Edgar Theodore Boys were born at home there. The house was still standing when photographed above in 1988 behind what was then the Grandview Hotel but all is now levelled, to be replaced by a resort. But this house backed on to the Valley Lake, which Les and Theo Boys used in order to learn to swim.

The elder son of Emil and Christine, Adolph, had an accident from which he recovered, when young, but changed his name and spent most of his time in Victoria, where he died, having never married.

The younger son, Julius, known to Les and Theo Boys as "Uncle Julius", has a colourful history, which will be told in the next chapter. He lived in various Mount Gambier addresses before being buried with his parents in Mount Gambier, but his son lived in Millicent and then moved to Adelaide. As Les and Theo Boys had jobs which took them to other parts of South Australia, and eventually Adelaide, there are no descendants of Christine who lived in Mount Gambier after Julius' death, living at South Terrace, in 1943.

But in 1877, after the death of his parents in Hamburg, Christine's brother Julius August Louis Hein, who we will refer to as JAL Hein to avoid confusion with others having the name Julius, arrived in Mt Gambier also, with a wife and family which had been born in Hamburg.

For the first few years it seems the family lived and worked on Barrows farm at ‘Pine Hill’ on Penola Road, during which time the two youngest children went to Attamurra School. Documentation indicates that by 1886 the children were going to Glenburnie School and indicates that the family had moved on. Much later they moved into 16 Wehl Street South, still standing as photographed above in 2016. It stands opposite the end of Helen Street. In fact this house was kept in the family and later occupied by son August and his family.