The hermit didn’t speak for forty-four years until the cows literally came home. I told a version of this story live on Ipswich’s West Bremer Radio.

One morning in 1930, twenty-year-old Harold Zabel met an old man at the Minden post office, which is a little place twenty kilometres west of Ipswich, just past Marburg, Queensland.

The man said in a hoarse whisper, “The cattle are trying to get in. Try and get a good long post to stop them.”

Harold was surprised by the request and responded by saying, “Well, I had better be getting back to my ploughing.”

The old man replied, “Yes, I suppose I’m keeping you too long,” and the pair parted ways.

That was perhaps the most astonishing conversation in Queensland or even Australian history. That’s because Harold had known the old man all his life, and every morning Harold had said “Good day, Dick,” but the old fella never said a word.

In fact for forty-four years, the entire district believed the old man was deaf and dumb. The news of the man having spoken caused a sensation and many people believed it was a miracle, others said that it was the shock of the cows literally coming into his home.

The man’s name was Richard William Middlestadt and was at least seventy-eight years old.

Middlestadt had been living on a little reserve close to the Minden State School and was known to everybody as a deaf mute, communicating by writing on a slate whenever he needed food.

He never cut his beard or hair and it flowed over his shoulders and down his chest like a great horse’s mane. On the reserve he built a shelter and lived the secluded life of a hermit.

Middlestadt claimed he was born in New South Wales in 1852 but had lost all his documentation. He said he’d travelled over most of Australia as a drover, went mining gold on the Palmer River field in North Queensland, and for almost half a century had been living in the Minden district thanks to the charity of locals. He admitted acting deaf and mute but had forgotten why.

Constable “Jock” Greenhorn, who was in charge of Marburg police station, took Middlestadt back to the station to look after him. Mr Adolph “Otto” Wenck then took the old man home where he cared for him.

Middlestadt’s hair and beard was cut, and he was admitted to the Dunwich Asylum on Stradbroke Island. He lasted less than three months and passed away.

Meanwhile, five years later Constable Greenhorn was killed instantly in a head-on collision at the Marburg railway crossing. His wife, who was in the car with him, miraculously survived without a scratch.

Otto Wenck was a talented violinist from Denmark, and a published composer in England. He lived a further eleven years before he passed away on his property at Coolana outside of Marburg.

As for Harold Zabel who was the first person the hear the Minden hermit speak, he got married in Minden. But his wife died just months later so Harold married his first wife’s cousin, and they lived happily ever after in Forest Hill.

Harold lived to be ninety-one years old, passing away not all that long ago in 2001. It would have been fantastic to have had the opportunity to ask him again about the day that the deaf-mute hermit ended his silence.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON WEST BREMER RADIO.

Photo credits:
Representation of deaf-mute hermit Richard Middlestadt and the offending cows, 1930 – CoPilot image.
Zabel’s farm at Minden – Brisbane Courier, 3rd April 1926, page 15.
Scholars of the Minden State School, 1926 – Brisbane Courier, 3rd April 1926, page 15.