These pages – extracts from “The Rebel of Glenmalure. A History of Michael Dwyer”by George Cargeeg, relate mainly to Patrick Grace (1799 – 1972) , but have also much about his friend Thomas O’Shaughnessy ( 1799 – 1874) and their lives and those of their families.
CARGEEG P53 to 61
GRACE AND SHAUGHNESSY FAMILIES
My search in County Wicklow produced no evidence of either the parents of Patrick Grace or his place of birth. However, in County Kilkenny I found a man named James Grace (the name given to the eldest son of Mary Ann and Patrick Grace).
This Kilkenny branch of the Grace family lives in Craig-na-mannagh and a James Grace was born there in 1796. Patrick Grace was born in 1799 and while it is not known whether these two men were brothers, it is of some significance that James had a son named Patrick, who in turn had a son James, whose son was Patrick and his son is James (Jimmy). I have corresponded with the latter who, by the way, has a son named Patrick who has a son called James.
It is presumed that the Patrick Grace who married Mary Ann Hughes (nee Dwyer) was arrested in Ireland under the Insurrection Act of 1822. His Indents state that he was a native of County Wicklow but he could have said that to protect his family from harassment His trial was held in Wicklow on 19 April 1822 and he was sentenced to seven years transportation, though no crime was listed. He was nearly six feet tall with brown hair and grey eyes.
Patrick Grace was aboard the Countess of Harcourt which left Cork on 3 September 1822 and arrived in Sydney on 21 December. A rural worker, he was sent to work on a farm and later became an overseer for James Smithers. He obtained his Certificate of Freedom on 7 April 1829.
When Mary Ann married Patrick he was living at Barragarany and it appears that they went to live at Bathurst since the baptismal certificate for their first son James, who was christened at St Mary’s Cathedral, gives his parents’ address as Bathurst on 29 August 1835. Their second son, John, was also baptised at St, Mary’s Cathedral on 16 April 1837 but with no abode stated. The church records at Bathurst give their only daughter Catherine Mary as having been born 22 May 1843 and baptised 12 July 1843. Their abode was Campbell’s River, fifty kilometres due south of Bathurst.
Like many other Irishmen who had served their sentence, Patrick Grace decided to take his wife and family to the Lachlan River district where new grazing land was being eagerly taken up by pioneer farmers and graziers. They selected land beside THOMAS and ANNE SHAUGHNESSY who were also of Irish descent. and with whom they became lifelong friends.
Thomas Shaughnessy was born in 1799 and lived in County Limerick near Limerick City. His trial record in Ireland was well kept and he could be traced back to the place on which he was farming when arrested. He had been transported to New South Wales by the British under the Insurrection Act and arrived there on the Mangles in 1822.
While I was in Dublin in 1982 I procured a copy of Prisoners’ Petition No. 1771 which contained the name Thomas Shaughnessy with twenty-nine other petitioners’ names. This group was mentioned by Professor George Rude in Protest and Punishment. At the National Library I was shown a copy of the Limerick Chronicle No. 10,703, dated Wednesday 6 March 1822 in which was a lengthy account of his trial. (Appendix X)
Shaughnessy’s Indent Papers describe him as a ploughman, aged twenty-four with dark brown hair and grey eyes.
Thomas married ANNE BYRNE in Sydney on 21 May 1829. Anne Byrne, the eldest child of JAMES and SARAH BYRNE was born 24 December 1813. Their son THOMAS was born 1 January 1835 and baptised at St Mary’s. Cathedral in Sydney on 24 January of the same year. Their two daughters were born at Lachlan River: Sarah (named after Anne’s mother) in 1842, and Mary in 1847-8. James Byrne was a courier between Michael Dwyer and the leaders of the United Irishmen in County Wicklow and he was a witness of Dwyer’s escape from Derrynamuck (Appendix. III) His wife Sarah (nee FRANKLIN) came from County Clare. From there she went to Manchester and arrived in New South Wales on 25 October 1812, where she married James Byrne, my great great grandfather, in December of the same year.
By early 1848 the price of wool had fallen drastically. As carting the wool- clip from the Lachlan River area to Sydney would have resulted in a financial loss, Thomas Shaughnessy and Patrick Grace burnt their wool. They decided to overland to the Sheoak Log and Crystal Brook areas in South Australia where land suitable for growing wheat had recently been opened up. They considered mixed wheat-and-sheep farming a more reliable and profitable venture than just relying on sheep. Ironically, ‘Mulguthrie Station’, from where they departed, was later to become part of the Burrawong wheat lands that were considered as good as any in the country.
It is not known exactly when they departed from ‘Mulguthrie’ and all I had to draw on to piece this part of the family history together was family tradition, until Mrs Betty Collins of Eugowra kindly gave me a copy of the diary kept by Tom Shaughnessy junior.
According to the diary, the families with their stock followed the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers to South Australia until the Murray was close to Sheoak Log. The travellers then set up camp at that townsite.
An advance party that comprised Thomas Shaughnessy as leader, young Tom himself, aged thirteen, as drover; another stockman and three bullock drivers overlanded 800 head of cattle and twenty horses, in addition to the heavy bullock- drawn drays. Tom writes of a stockman’s horse putting its foot in a hole in the ground and falling on the rider, who soon after died and was buried beside the road. They fenced in the grave on the instructions of the local magistrate.
The advance party paved the way for the remainder of the expedition, leaving a clear cattle track for them to follow. They let it be known to the Aborigines they encountered that women and children would be coming along behind, in the hope that they would not harm them when they passed through their tribal lands. It was also the policy of the travellers to kill bullocks and give meat to the natives so as to remain on friendly terms with them.
The second party was headed by Patrick and Mary Ann Grace, with Mary Ann’s son by her first marriage William Hughes (then about twenty years old); and the young Grace children – James 13, John 11 and Catherine 5. With them were Anne Shaughnessy and her two girls – Sarah 6, and Mary barely one year. There could have been other people helping with the bullock wagons and farm animals.
The route traced the Lachlan River to the Murrumbidgee and then down that river until it flowed into the Murray. When they had to cross the Darling River at its junction with the Murray (where Wentworth was later established) they were assisted by Aborigines with canoes. The drays were floated over on ‘casks with their mouths down’, controlled by ropes from both banks of the river, while the stock swam over. When the other side was reached a bullock was killed and the meat shared with the native helpers.
At a point on the Murray opposite Gawler they left the river behind and pushed on to Sheoak Log to await the arrival of the second party. It is likely that Thomas senior went on horseback to meet the second party containing his wife and daughters and returned with them.
Records in Adelaide reveal that Thomas Shaughnessy purchased Section 1684 adjoining the townsite of Sheoak Log and Patrick Grace took up Section 1683 on the same day, 19 January 1849.
In 1850 a second son, JOHN was born to Thomas and Anne, and in 1853 their third son PATRICK was born and the family name was changed to O’SHAUGHNESSY – which it may well have been in years gone by before the British caused many Irish families to drop the ‘0’.
In young Tom’s diary we read that soon after their arrival in Sheoak Log, William Hughes, James Grace and John Grace each drove bullock teams carting copper ore from Burra-Burra mine to Port Adelaide and later to Port Augusta. HUGHES family history follows that of Grace and Shaughnessy in this book.
Thomas O’Shaughnessy senior farmed at Sheoak Log until 1862 when he moved to Crystal Brook, where he found an unrelated family of the same name already there.
Tom O’Shaughnessy junior was a very observant young man and travelled through the Victorian gold-diggings and outback New South Wales where he was a teamster and cattle-drover among other occupations. He married MARGARET WALSH in Cowra in 1856 and died there in 1911.
John, his younger brother, married ELIZABETH FITZPATRICK in Adelaide in April 1878. They had four sons and a daughter and throughout his life he used the name Shaughnessy without the ‘0’, as does the rest of that branch of the family today who live in Adelaide and the Australian Capital Territory. John Shaughnessy was a fine horseman and teamster and went to Western Australia during the goldrushes in the 1890’s. He is said to have died near Marble Bar.
The third son, Patrick (Paddy) O’Shaughnessy, married MARGARET BROWN in about 1872, He was farming with James and John Grace in the 1870’s before moving to Port Gerrnein where he had the Mail contract between there and Port Pirie. My Uncle Jack told me that he remembered his Uncle Paddy possessing an enormous Irish Wolfhound.
Paddy and Margaret’s offspring were as follows:
- MARY, who married JACK CROSIER.
- ROSA, unmarried and looked after her crippled brother TOM.
- KATHERINE, who married WALTER DOUGLAS McARTHUR.
- ISABELLA, became the wife of ARTHUR DIX.
- ANASTASIA MARGARET, married ALEXANDER FARQUHARSON.
- JOSEPHINE, remained a spinster.
- FRANCES whose first husband was ROY DAVEY, and second CHARLES BERRY.
- EUGENE, who married MAE YOLUNDE and lived in Dowerin, Western Australia.
Patrick Grace went in for land dealing in addition to farming at Sheoak Log, and over the years had 15 sections adjoining each other on the east and north-east of the townsite. As he bought land he mortgaged it to purchase more, selling some of it off from time to time as well as leasing other property. Before his death he settled his property on his two sons James and John who settled down and established themselves as farmers.
By the 1860s James and John were engaged to marry the O’Shaughnessy sisters.
- James Grace married SARAH O’SHAUGHNESSY at the Catholic Church Sts Peter and Paul in Gawler on 25 February 1862, and she bore THOMAS, November 1862: ANN, October 1865: JOHN JOSEPH, March 1868: and SYLVESTER September 1871; and
- John Grace married MARY O’SHAUGHNESSY at St John’s Catholic Church in Kapunda on 24 April 1865. Their family comprised: WILLIAM, born 1866: THOMAS PATRICK, born 1868: SARAH, born 1871: and ELLEN, born 1873
.
In 1873, the year after their father died, the brothers sold out. James moved with his family to take up land at Narridy where he farmed and had a butcher’s shop, and another shop at Georgetown.
John moved with his family to Crystal Brook to assist his wife’s parents on their farm.
On 8 February 1864, BRYAN FARRELL from County Wicklow arrived in Sheoak Log to join his uncle, Hugh Farrell who had the local store. Bryan met Catherine Mary Grace and married her in Saints Peter and Paul Church in Gawler on 17 September 1867. The celebrant was Father Christopher Augustine Reynolds, pastor of Gawlertown who subsequently became the fourth Bishop of Adelaide, and fourteen years later, the first Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide.
- Bryan and Catherine Farrell had a daughter, MARY ANN (nicknamed Mary Kate) and a son, PATRICK HYACINTH FARRELL born 1869.
Mary Ann Grace died on 28 September 1869 at Sheoak Log at the age of seventy, after a life spent mostly as a pioneer in outback Australia.
Bryan Farrell (as he was known in Ireland, on the shipping list, and at the time of his marriage) died on 2 February 1870 at Sheoak Log where he was recorded as BERNARD FARRELL following his death.
Patrick Grace died 29 April 1872 at Sheoak Log and his Will mentions his daughter Catherine as the widow of Bernard Farrell. The Bunyip newspaper from Gawler on Saturday 4 May 1872 printed Patrick Grace’s obituary.
These three family members are buried in Willaston Cemetery in a common grave, enclosed with an iron fence, with a spreading almond tree shading the large slate tombstone engraved with their names and the dates of their deaths.
Bernard Farrell’s widow, Catherine Mary, married PATRICK COGHLAN at the Catholic Presbytery in Kapunda on 19 February 1873 with BRIDGET McDONAGH as witness. Later that year Bridget married THOMAS FARRELL, first cousin of Bryan (Bernard) Farrell and son of Hugh Farrell (who had the store in Sheoak Log).
At the end of 1874, on 5 December, Thomas O’Shaughnessy died at Crystal Brook. His son-in-law John Grace took charge of the funeral arrangements. The burial took place in the Roman Catholic section of the Georgetown Cemetery. The grave, enclosed with an iron fence, has a marble tombstone.
I am indebted to Mrs Nell Grace who in 1926 gave an address to a Society in New South Wales, an extract of which follows:
‘In 1877, there being a bit of a land boom in South Australia’ James and John sold out at Narridy for good prices and made up their minds to look for country in the Colony in which they were born. Mrs Sarah Grace, aged 84 in 1926 wrote:
“We left Narridy on 20 July 1877 and travelled up the Murray River to Echuca. After staying there for some weeks we came back to Benanee Lake and took up land there in October of that year. Three selections of 680 acres each were taken up by James Grace, John Grace and Patrick 0′ Shaughnessy. A grass-right of 1920 acres was attached to each 640 acres of Freehold; thus the three men held 7680 acres in one block. On this they ran sheep and proceeded to farm between 400 and 500 acres. The Graces grew three crops at Benanee, all of which were good, and one was six feet high in places. The seed wheat was brought from Echuca by boat. For the ploughing, a team of bullocks and two teams of Clydesdale horses with double furrow ploughs, were used in turn. James and his brother-in-law ‘Paddy’ did the driving. John sowed the seed. For the second crop. a stripper was bought from James Martin, the maker, at Gawler for about sixty pounds. ”
‘Two adjoining sheep stations on the Murray River near Gol Gol were taken up by the Grace brothers in 1880, James acquiring ‘Culpra’ and John ‘Bengallow’.
Anne O’Shaughnessy died at ‘Culpra’ on 30 July 1889 aged 76 and owing to the fact that her death was registered in New South Wales where the certificates contain more information than in South Australia, her parents’ names became known, thus linking the Grace family with James Byrne of Wicklow and Sarah Franklin of County Clare.
James and Sarah Grace now had a family of nine children and in addition to Thomas, Ann, John and Sylvester [previously mentioned: Editor], there were now:-
- JAMES PATRICK born February 1874:
- WILLIAM HERBERT born March 1876:
- KATHRINE born February 1879,
- FRANCIS DWYER born September 1882, and
- MARY SARAH born May 1885.
John and Mary Grace by 1892 had six sons and three daughters. Besides William, Thomas, Sarah and Ellen [previously mentioned: Editor], there were now:
- JOHN JOSEPH born 1876:
- MAUD born 1878:
- SYLVESTER born 1882:
- MICHAEL DWYER born 1887 and
- JAMES born 1892.
The Great Depression struck in the 1890’s and the two Grace families were caught up in it, and with the finding of gold in Western Australia at Coolgarthe and Kalgoorlie, there was a boom that induced the family of James to leave ‘Culpra’ and go West.
The first to go was Thomas, who made the journey by ship in 1893 and with a horse-and-cart took stores from Albany to Northam where he decided to sell the stores there and then, and convey traveller’s swags to Kalgoorlie, instead of taking the stores to the goldfields.
Tom eventually opened a store in Kalgoorlie and in 1894 John, Sylvester, James and William arrived in Albany and took on various occupations in the timber country of the south-west until they joined Tom in Kalgoorlie the following year.
The five brothers were mostly engaged in operating a salt water condenser and a grocery store that had its stocks replenished by Tom, who made sea-trips to Adelaide for that purpose.
In Adelaide there were now others of James’ family who had left ‘Culpra’ and in May 1898 they sailed for Fremantle and the whole family was united in Kalgoorlie, the ‘boom-town’ of the West. ‘
Meanwhile John Grace and his family retained the property of ‘Bengallow’
until John died there on 25 July 1901, and he was buried in Gol Gol Cemetery with a white marble headstone over the grave and an iron fence enclosing it. Red flowering geraniums were growing at the graveside when I last visited it
John’s descendants remained for the most part along the Murray River in New South Wales and his eldest son William Sydney married ELLEN HAINES who became the family historian. They had a sheep station called ‘Tara Downs’, 12 miles north of Wentworth that was taken up about 1910 and sold in 1936 when William died; and their son James Sylvester owned a sheep station named ‘Milpara’ not far from Wentworth on the Broken Hill Highway, that is now run by James’ son Bill. William Sydney and Ellen had ten children.
The second son, Thomas Patrick, married LOUISA HUSSEY and owned the sheep station ‘Norwood’ at Kyalite near Balranald. They had five daughters including FLORENCE and PATRICIA and one son, JOHN, who took over the property that is now owned by his son MICHAEL.
John and Mary’s three unmarried daughters were Sarah, Ellen and Maud. A son, John Joseph married ANNIE BENFIELD and they had a hotel in Boort, Victoria where they lived with their five sons, one of whom named KEVIN went to Queensland and married DOREEN GILVARRY , while another called TERRY married JOAN ROBERTS.
Another son named Sylvester, married RACHAEL NORRIS and they became the parents of a daughter MARY who married ERIC WEYMOUTH; they had ten children, and a son JOHN who married a widow with children. Sylvester and Rachael lived between Euston and Mildura and when Sylvester died in the early 1950’s he was buried near his father in Gol Gol Cemetery. A son, MICHAEL DWYER, namesake of his Wicklow ancestor, married ALICE LILLIAN (VERA) CRONK, and was a surveyor around Deniliquin on the irrigation system. Their daughter PEGGY married WILLIAM SQUIRE PYE.
The youngest son of John and Mary spent his life in Melbourne where he was taken by his mother after her husband died. James was said to have married and had a son, KEITH, who was killed in an accident.
Mary Grace (nee O’Shaughnessy) went from Melbourne to Boort where she spent her last days with her son John Joseph and died there on 3 January 1921 aged 73 years. She is buried in Boort Cemetery.
James Grace, following his death on 14 February 1904 at his home in Hannan Street, Kalgoorlie, was laid to rest in the Kalgoorlie Cemetery with a white marble cross at the head of the grave. Later his eldest son Thomas was buried with his father.
I will give a short history of each of the children of James and Sarah.
Thomas, who was born 28 November 1862 at Freeling in South Australia was very tall, with a good head for business as he was used to managing stores which he owned at various times in different towns of Western Australia, including Kalgoorlie, Pingelly, Kellerberrin and Brunswick Junction. At one time he managed a hotel and he became involved in the building trade. He married HONORIA HOWARD and their family consisted of five daughters and one son. Thomas died in 1931 in Kalgoorlie.
Ann was born on 6 October in Clare, South Australia, and as the eldest daughter she remained the life-long companion of her mother and never married. Ann died 23 September 1948 and is buried with her mother in Karrakatta Cemetery.
John Joseph was born 5 March 1868 at Sheoak Log in South Australia and was a trapper, miner, farmer, sawyer, sleeper-cutter, carpenter and builder, as well as operating a salt-water condenser.
He turned 50 while in the trenches in France in the Great War and was said to have been the first to farm with tractors in the Bencubbin area of the Western Australian wheatbelt. His sister Mary, as a widow, became his farming partner in 1924 and the original property is still in the family. John Joseph, a bachelor, died on 2 July 1945 and is buried in Karrakatta Cemetery.
Sylvester was born 25 September 1871 at Sheoak Log, and was a storekeeper with his brothers in Kalgoorlie, Pingelly and Dowerin, also he was a carpenter and builder at Dowerin and a rabbit trapper at Tammin. He married ANTONIA HOEPNER and their family was made up of three sons and four daughters, and he spent his last days prospecting for gold and using a dryblower gold extractor at Southern Cross where he died on 14 August 1945.
James Patrick, who was born on 15 February 1874 at Narridy, South Australia, often worked with his brother John at mining and rabbit trapping in addition to operating a salt-water condenser in the goldfields. Later he was rabbit trapping at Tammin with Sylvester and Frank, before joining Frank in West Leederville in the occupation of preparing rabbit carcases for the meat trade. James died 9 October 1952, as a bachelor, and is buried with John and Frank in Karrakatta Cemetery .
William Herbert, who was born 13 March 1876 at Narriday, was with his brother Frank in a butchering business in Pingelly, and later was with Sylvester running a store at Dowerin, which town was then the head of the railway line. William farmed at Cuballing before taking up land as a pioneer in Korrelocking, and he married SOPHIA BIGGIN, their children being five sons and four daughters. He died 16 April 1943 and is buried in the Wyalcatchem Cemetery.
Katherine, who was born 26 February 1879 at Euston in New South Wales married BERTHOLD NENKE and they farmed at Kukerin in Western Australia where they had a family of one son and three daughters. Her mother’s birthday record book gives the name as Kathrine, however Kate died on 28 December 1948 and her tombstone in Karrakatta has the name Katherine.
Francis Dwyer, known as Frank, was born 27 September 1882 at Mildura across the river from ‘Culpra’ sheep station where the family lived in New South Wales. He came to the West in 1898 with his parents and three sisters and worked with his brothers in their Kalgoorlie grocery business, after which he and his brother William had a butcher shop in Pingelly. From there he went to Kalamunda as a market-gardener and later was rabbit trapping at Tammin before becoming a partner in a vehicle-body building business at Leederville, after which he ran a greengrocery shop at West Leederville as well as a rabbit-meat processing and freezing business. He married MABEL POCOCK, and died on 31 May 1966 and is buried in Karrakatta Cemetery .
Mary Sarah, born on 15 May 1885 in Mildura not far from ‘Culpra’ Station, came to Western Australian with her parents, brother and two sisters in May 1898. When they joined the other five sons in Kalgoorlie, Mary attended the Catholic Convent and in 1908 she went to Pingelly where her brothers owned a store. Cargeeg Brothers bought the shop from Grace Brothers and Mary met LEONARD CARGEEG. They were married in Northam on 17 February 1909. Leonard was an accountant and when his two younger unmarried brothers enlisted at the start of the Great War, he was called on to manage the farming property ‘Parkfield’ near Australind.
Victor Cargeeg was killed at Gallipoli and his brother Reginald died of wounds received there. Leonard was killed in a machinery accident on the property on 2 August 1923 and Mary went into a farming partnership with her brother, John Grace, at his wheat growing property at Bencubbin.
With the commencement of Word War II, four of Mary’s children enlisted in the Forces and she went to Perth to live. She died at Mount Lawley on 10 September 1972 and was buried at Karrakatta. She was a Life Member of the Country Womens’ Association. Her children were Vera. George, Grace, Harold, Maybelle (Polly) and Frank.
Catherine Mary, the only daughter of Patrick and Mary Ann Grace (nee Dwyer), following her marriage to Patrick Coghlan (Coughlan, Caughlan) at Kapunda in 1873 lived with her husband and two children from her previous marriage, at Sheoak Log where Bridget Coughlan was born in 1877. The family then travelled to the north of the state to take up land at Bendleby and Johnburgh and in April 1904 Bridget died and was buried in Orroroo Cemetery After Biddy died, the other family members moved to Elliston, where Patrick Coughlan and Patrick Farrell farmed and had a saddlery shop and Mary Ann Farrell (known as Mary Kate) was married to JAMES JOSEPH DOWD who was the publican in Elliston from 1904 until 1917.
Catherine Mary died at the residence of her son-in-law in Elliston on 26 July 1912 and was buried at Colton Cemetery with a large marble headstone in the shape of a cross over the grave. Here also her husband Patrick Coughlan is buried, he having passed away on 6 September 1916 in Elliston. Mary Ann Dowd nee Farrell died at Port Lincoln on 24 September 1924 and is buried in the Catholic section of the Cemetery while Patrick Hyacinth Farrell died at Wudinna, as a bachelor, on 2 October 1942.
HUGHES FAMILY
Not long after he arrived in South Australia, William Hughes married MARIA (surname unknown) and there is evidence of a son named JAMES born about 1852. It is presumed that William branched out on his own as an employee on sheep stations, as we read in the Business Directories that he was manager of the ‘Chowilla’ sheep station near Renmark from 1860 to 1870.
James Hughes was employed on ‘Chowilla’ for a few years following 1870, however there is no further history of him except for the possibility that he was the James Henry Hughes born c1852 in South Australia and died 4 November 1920 at Meningie and mentioned in the South Australian Biographical Index.
Maria died at ‘Chowilla’ in December 1868. WILLIAM married AMELIA MARY GLENIE in Adelaide in 1870 and they had seven daughters and one son, HENRY, who died aged six months. Of their daughters:
- ADELA, is said to have married a man named FERRARI at Wagga. ETTY and HENRIETTA were thought to have been spinsters.
- MERIA (BIRDIE) and JANE MAY were buried in West Terrace Cemetery in a grave with their mother.
- THERESA went to Western Australia, was a tailoress and died unmarried in 1950.
- GERTRUDE LUCY married JOSEPH JOHN SCOTT in Kalgoorlie Western Australia in 1913. The Scott children were:
- MARIA, married BASIL SMALE.
- KEVIN, who married ANGELA GASTALDO.
- JOSEPH JOHN, married MARGARET GRIEVES (1) and BONNY STANTON (2)
- BERNARD, who wed MOLLY HAWKINS.
There is no known record of where and when William Hughes died.
[The Rebel of Glenmalure, A History of Michael Dwyer, by George Cargeeg.]