by Greg Towner
In 1906 Hunter Schwonberg of Maclean left Australia as crew on a sailing vessel for a life at sea. Hunter was the second child of Frank and Ellen Schwonberg of Maclean. Frank and his father Joachim were the proprietors of the Schwonberg shipbuilding business in Maclean first established in 1866, and it was only natural that Hunter would pursue employment in a maritime field. Several of his siblings also gained employment in the marine industry, Claude (killed in WW1) as a purser with the North Coast Steam Navigation Company, Tom and Bruce as shipwrights.
The adjacent photographs come from Adele Gordon (nee Schwonberg), and as they are in her possession along with other historic family photographs are bound to depict Hunter and a sailing vessel he worked on in that 1906 era. Before departing Maclean in 1906 Hunter had previously worked on this or another similar vessel.
At some time, Hunter had a fall from the rigging but was not seriously injured. The next incident was when his ship was becalmed for a lengthy period somewhere off South Africa or in another more likely account off the coast of Gibraltar. This was sufficiently annoying to Hunter that when the ship arrived at Gloucester in the US state of Massachusetts, he had changed his mind about a life at sea.
He took a train to Cleveland Ohio to get far from the ocean and begin a new life.
In Ohio Hunter met and married Myrtle Cook who had a connection with the marine industry via freighters working on the Great Lakes. Cleveland is on the shore of Lake Erie and shipping would enter the Cuyahoga River at Cleveland. Hunter had not escaped that far from a maritime environment.
Hunter and Myrtle had one son, three daughters and eighteen grandchildren and of course many more descendants in subsequent generations. Until now none have ever made the trip to Australia let alone to the Clarence River area and Maclean. Many have a keen interest in their family history, which has been well documented, and have a desire to visit Maclean for its beauty and history.
After 118 years since Hunter left Australia, his great granddaughter Laurel Ermatinger-Badyk visited Maclean on 28 December 2024 during a driving holiday on the East Coast of Australia with her husband Tim Badyk. Tim is an Aussie born in Victoria who grew up in Brisbane and a keen surfer familiar with our Far North Coast beaches. Tim moved to the Tampa Bay area in Florida about ten years ago to be with Laurel and on this trip of just under three weeks brought two of his favourite or maybe shorter surfboards with him from the States.
Tim and Laurel have completed an epic road trip in a very short time, driving from Sydney around the coast to Melbourne then along the Great Ocean Road to Warrnambool, inland through Dubbo to Noosa, then back to Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Pottsville and arrived in Maclean on December 28. They stayed overnight in Yamba after Tim jumped in for a surf at Angourie.
In the few hours spent in Maclean with cousins Greg and Doug Towner Laurel and Tim visited the Schwonberg Slipway site and were shown the Schwonberg display in the Maclean Museum after first enjoying lunch at the Lawrence Tavern. It has been very timely that the Clarence Valley Council just recently undertook to maintain the slipway site and Laurel was able to see it looking quite presentable. A demonstration of the value of preserving our historical sites and of course the displays of our heritage in the Museum.
As a final act during her visit to Maclean Laurel left some of her mother’s ashes in the river. Hunter Schwonberg would have enjoyed his time growing up in Maclean around his family’s boat-building business, in the township and on the river. An appropriate place for some of his granddaughter’s ashes and the return of some of his DNA.