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Bethel Mission
Located in
South Africa :: Eastern Cape
:: Stutterheim
Category:
Attraction :: Mission Station
The original Mission Station founded on the 2 January 1837 by a Pastor J.L Dohne of the Berlin Missionary Society was destroyed in 1846 during the battle of the Axe. Pastor Dohne who was at first excited about the area he has been given later grew cynical after losing his wife in childbirth and his baby boy a few months later, and left the area soon after the church was destroyed. He was followed by Pastor A Kropf who rebuilt the mission station until it was burnt down again in 1850. He rebuilt it again but in a much simpler way and it was more a collection of huts than an actual church. It was replaced by the church still standing to this day in 8 August 1865. Pastor Kropf who translated the Bible into Xhosa as well as compiling a Xhosa-English dictionary stayed at the missionary station till his death in 1910. The Bethal Mission Station consists of the church, cottage, the school, cemetery and rectory. The rectory is a stone building and was probably built while the Kropfs were in Bethal and is still in use as a home today. Pastor Kropf used the school to teach the local Xhosas to read and is buried in the little cemetery along with his wife and members of his family. To the North of the rectory the graves of Pastor Dohne's wife and son is found.
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