It is likely that Sampson Flat was named after the Sampson Family who were early settlers in the district. John Sampson migrated with his wife, three sons and two daughters from Cornwall, England to South Australia in 1849. Initially the family travelled to the Burra District where John worked in the copper-mines.
After two years the family moved to One Tree Hill where John purchased land from the government and began farming. He called his property ‘Precolumb Farm’.
Late in 1851, John and one of his sons followed the gold rush to the Victorian goldfields and were quite successful. After four months they returned to their home at One Tree Hill. John’s sons helped to reap the crops on their father’s farm and then would receive £1 per acre to help on neighbouring farms. James, John’s third son, married Emeline, the daughter of Samuel Crittenden of Smithfield.1
John sold one acre of the ‘Precolumb Farm’ in the northeast corner of Section 4233 in the Hundred of Munno Para, for £5 to a management committee on 19 April 1855 for a school. Built by the community, the school was privately run until 1876 when the Minister of Education took it over. The school closed in 1938 and the building is now privately owned.2
Acknowledgements1. City Of Playford Local History Collection, One Tree Hill, n.d.
2. Sarah Laurence and Taylor Weidenhofer (comp), City Of Munno Para Heritage Survey 1996, Department Of Environment And Natural Resources, South Australia, 1996, p. 210.
