Missionary John S Austin, at 70, from his book
Trauma and tragedy in the life of a Hunter Valley preacher in the 19th Century
As a young circuit preacher at Murrurundi, in the Upper Hunter Valley of NSW in the 1860s - then later at Maitland, Singleton and Newcastle - the Reverend John S. Austin had his fair share of near-death experiences, witnessed a fatal traffic accident in High Street, Maitland and lost his daughter in a drowning tragedy in the Hunter River. The Methodist minister John S. Austin lived into his 80s and wrote an autobiography with the unpromising title Missionary Enterprise and Home Service, a Story of Mission Life in Samoa and Circuit Work in New South Wales.…