10 Facts About August Engelhardt

In 1894 when August Engelhardt was just a teenager his mother died, this was followed in 1896 by the death of his father.

On 15 September 1902, August Engelhardt arrived in German New Guinea in the West Pacific via Ceylon.

August Engelhardt obtained on 2 October 1902, from Queen Emma Kolbe's Forsayth Company, a coconut and banana plantation of 75 hectares on the coral island of Kaka Kon for 41,000 marks.

August Engelhardt told a German civil servant of the government, that by June 1906 he would leave on the next available steamer for Germany, but died, possibly of malaria, in September 1906.

In 1904, August Engelhardt became ill, after a drought reduced the fruit crop in 1903 with the remaining fruit crop wiped out in a storm in spring 1904.

In 1909, August Engelhardt closed down his "Order of the Sun" colony and visited German New Guinea.

In 1910, August Engelhardt tried to register a plot of 50 hectares on the island Towalik as his property, in the land register.

In early 1915, during World War I, August Engelhardt was interned for three weeks in an Australian camp in Rabaul as a prisoner of war, but was dismissed as a crank.

August Engelhardt then returned to Kabakon now occupied by Australia, where Gordon Thomas of the Rabaul Times visited him, in 1915.

August Engelhardt continued to advocate sun worship and coconuts until he died in early May 1919 in his mid-40s.