so long ago JH..a tad of info gleaned from the net

Stockwell is about 80km north east of Adelaide at the base of the Barossa Range east of Nuriootpa. It was founded by English migrant Samuel Stockwell on land bought from George Fife Angas in 1853 (just 2 years before the Nerlich’s arrival). This confirms the fact that the area was at the frontier of settlement in the mid 1850s. Samuel Stockwell sub-divided part of the land he bought into town blocks and offered them for sale on 4 April 1854, just a year before the Nerlichs arrived in SA. On another part of his land Stockwell built a steam powered flour mill, using the water from the nearby Stockwell Creek. The new town was on the same busy stock route to the River Murray as Truro. The route was pioneered in the late 1830s when cattle were overlanded from New South Wales. In the very early days, the town would have provided services for travellers: places to eat and drink (wine shops were not uncommon), accommodation and a blacksmith. As farmers arrived in the area, different services were required: carpenters, coach builders, wheelwrights, saddlers, bootmakers, a post office (in 1857) and hotel (1857), and general storekeeper. Mr A. Bamberger was storekeeper and first postmaster from 1857 until 1879 so the Nerlichs would almost certainly have known him. The hotel was completed in 1867 when Wilhelm was leasing his farmland north of Stockwell. It had twelve rooms and provided stabling for twenty horses. Its large reception room was used for Lodge meetings, dances and most other community activities.

With a large number of German migrants living in town, both meetings and entertainment at the hotel often had a distinct German flavour. There was the Bismarck Skat Club to play cards, the brass band and hunt club to name just a few. Daily mail deliveries were made by Rounsevell coaching line and later Cobb and Co. In 1877 (the year Wilhelm bought his Truro property), it was connected by telegraph to Adelaide but it was not until 1911 that a telephone exchange was installed.[9]