Johann Friedrich Krummnow

Johann Friedrich Krummnow (or Krumnow) (1811 – 3 October 1880) was a German-born settler in Australia. He arrived in South Australia in 1839 and in 1852 he founded a community named Herrnhut located near Penshurst in western Victoria. This was Australia's first intentional community based on the principles of shared property and fervent prayer. Krummnow died at Herrnhut in October 1880.

Arrival in Australia Johann Friedrich Krummnow was born in 1811 in Posen, Kingdom of Prussia, (later known as Poznań, Poland) and was raised in a German community. He worked as a tailor, cobbler and teacher and was an adherent of a variety of the Moravian Brethren within the Lutheran faith. He arrived in Port Adelaide, on 22 January 1839 from Hamburg on the ship, Catharina, with a group of dissidents, 'Kavel's People'. On board ship he taught girls but was deemed "not completely satisfactory and the community did not allow him to teach in Australia".

A similar description appeared in the Hamilton Spectator in November 1880:

Fearing possible excommunication from the Lutheran church for his unorthodox religious views, Krummnow left South Australia. they purchased of land near Mount Rouse, in western Victoria about north-west from Penshurst. As the leader and a naturalised British subject, the title deeds were in Krummnow's name. The settlement was named Herrnhut – after a Moravian Brethren refuge in Saxony – and numbered less than 40 individuals. Krummnow had made the title of sale in his name alone, despite having used funds from the community to purchase the land. His refusal to change this prompted several members to leave the community and leave with nothing.

Herrnhut opened its doors to impoverished and destitute peoples as well as providing shelter, food and money for Indigenous Australian communities in times of crisis. At one stage Herrnhut "gave sanctuary to over three hundred aborigines who hunted kangaroos on the property and left many middens at their camping ground". Some accounts recall Heller as a wild woman possessed of an uneven temper, whose followers brought discontent to the austere Herrnhut community. One unsubstantiated source tells of how the Hills Plain people introduced musical instruments and dance into the community. In a short time, a rift was apparent between the old and new settlers, and by late that year, Heller and her followers left. Heller settled away in Hochkirch (now Tarrington) and married a fellow Hills Plain and Herrnhut resident, Ernst Scholtz. After his death, the local folklore records that he was buried face-down so as to prevent his soul from rising to Heaven. According to Charles Meyer in the Victorian Historical Journal (1978), "rom available evidence there is no need, to accept the rather biased description by 'Vagabond' (S. James) that the women and young girls 'toiled in the fields early and late, some clothed only in an old sack – toiled as hard as any negro slave. It is currently out of print. On 26 February 2003 Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National transmitted "Herrnhut" on Ark Stories with the presenter, Rachael Kohn, interviewing Metcalf about the settlement, Krummnow and some of the mistakes early settlers made in rural areas.