Ted Brill stands outside the Ebenezer Church and surveys the paddocks before him.

It was here, two centuries ago, that Australia’s first migrant town was established.

On a ship built in Bangladesh, eight free families from different denominations arrived from Britain in 1802: Davison, Hall, Howe, Johnston, Johnstone, Mein, Stubbs and Turnbull.

“They wanted more freedom in their worship,” says Brill.

They weren’t convicts. They were merchants, teachers and religious ministers who survived floods and famine.

Before they built Australia’s oldest standing church and school, the Ebenezer families prayed under a red gum tree. Half of it still stands, a…

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