Bethel Mission Station

Founded by Pastor Jacob Ludwig Dohne in 1837, the Mission Society is the oldest mission station established in the Eastern Cape by the Berlin Missionary Society. Dohne was one of Society’s first six missionaries to be sent to the Cape Colony in 1836 and settled at Franschoek – but left without permission to go to the Ciskie and work among the Rharhabe. He was granted 1 200 hectares by the chief of Ama Gasela clan, Chief Gasela, and established the Bethel Mission on the banks of the Hakele River – because the mountainous land in that area filled him with nostalgia for his own fatherland. Dohne’s wife and baby son died in 1842 and are buried near the mission’s church.