Thomas O’Shaughnessy’s Diary Part 1 1835-1851

THOMAS O’SHAUGHNESSY’S DIARY.

COWRA AREA – 1837 and 1838

 FROM MEMORY AND AS TOLD BY OTHERS.  From what I can remember and what I have learnt from others, sometime in 1837 (he was born  on 1 January 1835) left Edmund Markham’s place on Milburn Creek and went down the Lachlan River to farm a place for John Neville. They named the station ‘Tomanbil’.  Father lived there to about the end of 1838. We left “Tomanbil” and came back to Edmund Markham’s, and lived there for a short time. Father went to the  Bald Hills  afterwards owned by Boland.[1] Father intended to take up a station there but the place did not suit him.[2] From there to Bungirrilingong?? – five miles above Goolagong on the Lachlan River and took a run there. He took Cornelius Daly as a partner in the station. This happened sometime in Nov 1839.

The first time I remember eating a piece of pumpkin. The blacks brought some with them. They cooked a piece and gave some to me. Father kept a dairy and butter and cheese.

Thomas Iceley owned Bangaroo Station on the opposite side of the Lachlan . Every beast of ours that would cross the river, he would impound. We had to leave Bungirrilingong – about 1843. My father took up a run on the west side of the Lachlan River at the junction of Milburn Creek. Cornelius Daly took up the next run below us. I used to walk three miles to school to Spring Vale, Edmund Markham’s place, and back again in the evening except on Friday. I stayed all night for half Saturday school. (By this time Thomas was eight years old.)

Father made butter and cheese. We took a load of cheese to Goulburn and (sold) it there, and went from there to Gundaroo – across the centre of Lake George. Most all of the lake was dry at this time. My Grandfather and Grandmother, the Byrnes, lived at Gundaroo. We stayed there for ten days and came from there home. My uncle, John Byrne, came and lived with us. The next year we took a load of cheese and a hundred fat bullocks to Sydney. Father, mother and I went.

1844

After returning home we had the great 1844 flood in the Lachlan River.[3]

My uncle, John Byrne, married Mary Dowd[4] of Great Kangarooby Creek. He took up a small run on the opposite side of the river to us and lived there.

1848

About 1847[5] My father made up his mind to start to Adelaide. We had a team of bullocks, about 800 head of cattle and 20 head of horses. Long Tom, or Thomas Lovett, with a team of bullocks and a married man named James Argent, with a team of bullocks, joined us. A young man named James Butler, and I drove the cattle and Bill Jones drove the bullock team.

We passed through Cowra[6]. There was one Public house, just opened here[7]. Passed James Sloan’s North Logan. He kept a store and shanty here.

We kept to the river to ‘Bangaroo’, lceley’s station. Crossed the river there at Towney’s Fall, passed Goolagong, followed the south side of the Lachlan River to ‘Cadow’ John Strickland’s Station. We crossed the river at Cadow and down the north side to Quoogong’. Crossed there again on the south side and followed down to ‘Mulla Mulla’, Evan Evans’ station. Crossed the river again, no grass and very little water in the river. We followed the river down to Lake Waljeers[8] – any amount of grass on the lake. From starting (the journey)  up to here were a great many cattle. The cattle got very poor and the water holes being so boggy we were pulling the cattle out every day and leaving them behind.

We stayed three weeks at Lake Waljeers, Peter’s Station. Our cattle got strong again. Any amount of frontage to the river could be taken up for runs.

We made a start and camped on the river about 10 miles below the lake. Next morning some of the working bullocks were missing. Argent and Butler went to look for them. They saw a mob of cattle out on the plain. They galloped out to see if their bullocks were amongst them.  Argent’s mare put her foot in a hole and turned over on top of Argent.[9] Butler caught Argent’s mare and got Argent onto the saddle and held him on and started for the camp. Argent kept getting worse. He took him off the horse and laid him down by a tree about a mile from the camp. Butler came to the camp for assistance. When they got to the tree again, Argent was dead. We brought him back to the camp. We sent a man to Phelp’s Station. Phelp was a magistrate. He sent an order back to bury him.[10] We did – by the roadside and fenced in the grave. From there we followed the river down past Phelp’s and Shadwick’s station called ‘Two Flock’.

Six miles lower down we passed James Tyson’s place.[11] He was living in a reed gunyah. He had a few cows. He had not long taken this run up. From Tyson to the junction of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee River are all reed beds. All this country was Government land. The old squatters of those times did not like this kind of country for grazing on account of the reed beds and being subject to floods. We followed the Murrumbidgee down to Jackson’s station at the junction of a creek that feeds Lake Walgerie; a small lake about three miles from the Murrumbidge.  We followed the Murrumbidgee down to its junction (with)  the Murray River. Here the country back from the Murray River is not so good. In some places, the mallee scrub comes close on the banks of the river.

From here we leave the river and pass through a mallee for 12 miles. We had to camp in the mallee as it got too dark to get through. Next day we passed Mt Dispersion, a red sandhill on the bank of the Murray. At this place the blacks attacked Major Mitchell, the explorer.[12]  We travelled down the Murray River to Jenkin’s station on a high bank over the river. At this station they had a small swivel gun mounted on a stump. [13]Sometime previous, the blacks were troublesome.  I believe the owners were forced to use this gun.

From Jenkins’ we came to the junction of the Darling River with the Murray.[14] Poor country along here. Mallee scrub with red sandhills running on to the banks of the river. There were about 400 blacks camped here at the crossing place. We shot a bullock for the blacks. They then commenced to take our things across the Darling River in canoes. The blacks  tied two casks, mouth down on the centre of the dray and pulled them across with ropes. We swam the cattle and horses across and killed another bullock for the blacks. The nearest station to the crossing place was 6 miles below on the Murray. Tooth and Newman’s. And nearest station on the Darling was 25 miles up.

The country on the Adelaide side of the Darling is more open. We followed the Murray down. We crossed the Anna Branch – a creek that runs from the Darling into the Murray. From there to ‘Moorna’ – Captain Bagot’s station. From Moorna we followed along the Frenchman’s Creek  to Lake Victoria, boundary between South Australian and New South Wales.[15] This is a most beautiful beautiful lake – high white sandhills around it – the lake is 25 miles around. It is fed by the Rufus, a creek running from the Murray.

The blacks here are not to be trusted.[16] Any amount of game on the lake. We followed the lake around for 5 miles and then left it. Went through 12 miles of mallee scrub to the fresh water holes. All the water in the lagoons here is salt, all but this one water hole. Tom Lovett shot a very large red kangaroo here. From here to tumble down, Yarraman Creek and from there to Chowilla on the Murray, James Chambers’ station. There are so many creeks running in and out of the Murray River they keep you out from the river.

From Chowilla to Ral Ral Creek, from there to Spring Cart Gully – here the high red banks come on to the river. They rise all at once off the low flats on to the high tableland. We leave the river here and pass through mallee and quandong scrub to the Lake Bonney. This is a small lake 2 miles across. Between the lake and the river, James Chambers has a station called ‘Cobdogla’. From the lake to Overland Corner. Here, you rise off the flats onto the Murray Cliffs. The banks to the Murray in some places are 200 feet perpendicular into the water. From here we keep on the cliffs. The mallee scrub follows the cliffs.

Devlin’s Pound -10 miles from here we passed the seven sandhills. Little Yarra. The Broken Cliff, Reedy Flat, Harry Weston’s Pound. The North West Bend. And from there to Moorunde[17]. Here the road leaves the Murray for Adelaide. We passed through 14 miles of mallee. Out on to a plain and 12 miles across to the accommodation yards.  A spring and a creek here but the water is very brackish. The hills here are clear – all but a few ‘she-oaks growing on them.

From here we travelled on passing a great many German farmers until we came to the She Oak Log Public House on a plain.[18] Camped here intending to have a look around. The She Oak Log is 35 miles from Adelaide and 8 miles from Gawler Town.

SHEOAK LOG, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

After camping about a week, my father took up 80 acres frontage to the main Burra road and bounded the She Oak Log Public House land. We made up a team of bullocks. Butler and I started work on the road to cart copper ore from the Burra Burra mines to Port Adelaide about 100 miles.

A short time after this Patrick Grace from the Lachlan River brought  some cattle and bullock teams and took up land next to us. He sent three bullock teams on the road. His two sons, James and John and stepson, W. Hughes driving them. [19]Our cattle ran about the plains. We carted copper ore to Port Adelaide for 12 months. The copper mining Company opened another port called Port Augusta, north of Port Adelaide. Most all the copper ore went to this port afterwards. About this time a large English company built a smelting furnace close to Burra Burra mines. After the smelting works started the Copper Mine Company sent nothing but the very best ore to England. Captain Roche was the top Captain and Captain Dick the underground captain on the Burra Burra, and Williams, manager of the Smelting Company.[20] 

About this time a cousin of my father’s came from Tasmania. His name was John O’Brien. Father gave him a team for a start. We worked constant on the roads until the great rush of 1851 in New South Wales

About this time, Thomas Walsh came to our place from Goolagong on the Lachlan River. He wanted me to go to Sydney with him. I believe we worked on the roads for about two months after this. This was a very dry season. No grass for our bullocks. We had to cut she-oak for them. It was the driest season since we moved to Adelaide. About this time gold was discovered at Mt Alexander [21] in Victoria. People began to move about more – gold now.

Thomas Lovett, John O’Brien, James Holden[22] and I made up our minds to go and have a try at the diggings. We bought picks, shovels and other things we might want. We got a to drive us to Adelaide. We intended to take a passage from there to Melbourne. When we got into Adelaide, we met a man we knew that had just landed from the diggings. He had about 1lb weight-of gold in nuggets. He advised us to go by land to the diggings and that he would go with us and show us how to get the gold.

SHE OAK LOG TO THE VICTORIAN DIGGINGS – EARLY 1852.

We returned to the She Oak Log again. Thomas Lovett took six bullocks, a dray and his wife him. John 0′ Brien, James Holden and I took a horse and cart with us. We went across Lyndoch Valley, and over the Barossa Ranges to the head of the Langhorns Creek. Followed it down through hills and rough country to where the road coming from Adelaide crosses Langhorn’s Creek Bridge, going to Wellington  crossing place on the Murray. This is where the Murray River runs into Lake Alexandrina. This is a fine lake but country around here is nothing but a sandy desert. There is a Public House on each side of the river. We crossed over in a punt and followed the lake around to Lake Albert. Some days this lake is fresh – other days salt. It is part of Lake Alexandrina. From there we crossed 12 miles of a sandy desert on to the Coorong –  this is a narrow strip of water – very salty – only a small sandhill between it and the sea – also part of Lake Alexandrina. It is 40 miles long and an average width would be about 1 1/2 miles. The Ninety Mile Desert comes close on  to the Coorong its whole length. You can sink close to salt water through soft white limestone and get fresh water in 2 feet.

We followed along the Coorong to Freshwater Creek – There is a Public House here. This creek comes from the Ninety Mile Desert. Any amount of blacks here on the Coorong, all kinds of wild fowl, plenty of mullet. The blacks catch them in nets. I saw blacks carrying water in a white man’s skull. From Freshwater Creek to Tilly’s swamp. A man named Tilly keeps an accommodation house and shanty. We leave the Coorong here and pass through Biscuit Flats. The ground is covered with white limestone, all sizes, and the thickness of biscuits. This country is all swamp and sandhills and poor country for grass. Kangaroos very plentiful. We travelled on to Reedy Lake Public House. A (road) turns off here for Portland Bay. From Reedy Lake to Mosquito Plains – the boundary of South Australia and Victoria. There is a  Public house and a store. This is a good country for grazing. We travelled through the same sort of country to Horsham, a township on the Wimmera, a large creek running towards Portland Bay. You can see the Grampian Hills from Horsham. Here the 90 mile desert road to Adelaide turns off. From Horsham up the the Wimmera to Four Posts Township. One Public house, one store. From here we travelled on to the Loddon River.  Splendid country about here from the Loddon River to Forest Creek diggings, near Mt Alexander. The first sight I got of the diggings, it opened my eyes to see so many white tents and crowds of men working along the creek, some cradling, some carrying wash dirt in bags, and some with buckets. We camped on the Forest Creek that night. [23] At this time there was a great rush to Bendigo Creek about 30 miles further on. We agreed in the morning to try. We pushed on. We got to Bendigo early on the second day. [24]

BENDIGO DIGGINGS – MARCH to MAY 1852

The diggings were in a gully running into Bendigo Creek, named Golden Gully. There were about 500 diggers on the ground. We had to camp at the Sheep Wash Creek, 3 miles from Golden Gully. This was the nearest water. Gilbert, the Commissioner, had his camp there.

Any amount of shanties on Golden Gully. The head of Golden Gully was surfacing from that down to 20 feet. The next day nine of us agreed to work as mates for two weeks. Joe, the Jew, to work the cradle at the Sheep Wash, Tom Lovett, with his two teams to cart the wash dirt and supply us at Golden Gully with water.

My mates sank a shaft in Golden Gully 10 feet deep and got payable gold. I had to look after the tents and cook. In my spare time I used to be fossicking on a surface hill near the tents. I struck a run of gold in red clay one foot deep and 4 inches wide and 6 inches thick. I followed the run until it run up to the surface, one inch below the surface. I got a nugget of 2 lbs and some pennyweights in the two weeks. I got 9lb weight of gold during this time. My mates got a lot of wash dirt and sent it down to be washed but the man at the cradle always said it was poor. At last we realized we were being robbed. My mates went down to the Sheep Wash and searched Joe the Jew and his tent and found 5lbs weight of gold, so he and us dissolved partnership. After the two weeks were up we separated – four in each party. We sunk a few shafts lower down Golden Gully near its junction with Bendigo Creek.

Every Sunday there used to be great drinking and fighting. Any amount of shanties and thieves.

We had to get a licence for gold mining, £1.10.0 per month. After a short time we took up a claim at the foot of the White Hills. We were about the first party to sink there – about 20 feet sinking. We got good payable gold on the bottom – very fine gold. Then came the great rush to Long Gully about 2 miles over the ridge. We pegged out a claim there. I took my horse and cart and shifted by camp to Bullock Creek in a paddock of Campbell’s,[25] a little above a public house and store of Campbell’s. The Commissioner and Police left the Sheep Wash and camped on Bullock Creek for water.

I used to take water to my mates in Long Gully and bring back two three bushel bags of wash dirt in and cradle it every evening. Sometimes I would get 1Ib weight of gold – down to 6 ozs. We worked in Long Gully about 2 months when my mates John O’ Brien and J. Holden got homesick. I sold my horse and cart. We left all our tools to our other mate named Threadway, a beardy preacher.

BENDIGO TO MELBOURNE –  MID 1852

A little man named Paddy Pop, an old Bathurst (acquaintance) agreed to take us to Melbourne in a light German waggon and two horses. A German priest named Cromweter was a passenger with us. It commenced to rain the morning we started. We camped inside Kyneton. Four Public houses, some stores. Cleared up during the night. Next morning we made another start. We passed through Black Forest – the roads in frightful condition. Drays bogged and broken all along the road. We camped about 6 miles past the old Bush Inn.[26]

The next day we reached Melbourne. Tried to get lodgings but there was no chance. Every livery house was full. We had to put our tents up the first night at the foot of Queen Street on the banks of the Yarra River.

We met Thomas Tool and his wife and Daniel Tool and his wife. They were in the same fix as ourselves. Could not get lodgings. They camped with us. We took watch in turns. There was not one hour during the day or night butt some person was calling out murder or robbery. The next day we shifted out camp over Princes Bridge and camped there all day and night.

MELBOURNE TO ADELAIDE TO SHE OAK LOG – MID 1852

The next day we took passage steerage in the ‘Louisa’ Brigantine bound for Adelaide. There were about 80 Cornishmen aboard, John O’Brien, James Holden. The Tools and their wives took a cabin passage. I believe we were about 15 days going to Adelaide. We almost ran out of rations. My mates and I caught a great amount of barracoota. We landed at Port Adelaide early in the morning. Crowds of women assembled at the wharf to see us land, all making enquiries – had we seen their husbands, fathers, brothers, as if we knew every man on the diggings.

We went in a bus up the city of Adelaide. Seven miles from Adelaide we took the mail coach to Gawler Town 27 miles from Adelaide, the main road to the Burra Burra Mines. A young lady and I were the only inside passengers. She asked me to show her some gold. I had a nugget in my belt weighing two pounds. I put it in her hand. She almost fainted. When she recovered from the shock I believe she fell in love with me or the nugget.  I don’t know which.

My mates and I stayed in Gawler Town all night. This town is on the Gawler River. It is all a plain from here to Adelaide. Next morning we took the coach for the She Oak Log, my father’s place, 8 miles from Gawler Town.

In a few days after coming home, I went to Adelaide and took up two 80 acre blocks of land, about one mile and a half from father’s place.

To return to O’Shaughnessy Main Page, click here.

To go to Part  Two 1852-1853, click here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

  1. “Bald Hill” is out past the Grenfell Golf Club about eight miles from Grenfell. It is the location of Edmund Markham’s 38,000 ac. “Licence”  in the year to 30 June 1840, the second year of the Govt issuing Licences for £10 to graze etc beyond the “Limits of Location”. He didn’t renew – understandable given the terrible drought at the time. Connor (sic) Daly was his “employee”  on the land at the time of the Lands Commissioner’s visit on 10 October 1839. Cosby’s Report stated there were three persons on site. Presumably , the other two included Thos O’Shaughnessy Sr. ↵
  2. “That summer of 1839-40 was one of the hottest and driest in our history. Not for the next hundred years did that part of Australia – the present Sydney Catchment Area and far beyond it – experience a more devastating drought than that which began in 1836 and did not break till 1843. The rivers trending east had ceased to flow, while the Murrumbidgee and the Murray were only a chain of water holes for hundreds of miles. The land everywhere was as dry and as parched as a desert and looked as if it would never grow grass again.” [‘The Men of Thirty Eight’ by John O’Brien.]↵
  3. In September, ’44, Charles McAlister  stated “the great flood out in that part was then subsiding, and coming along by the river (Lachlan) we saw several carcases of horses and cattle high up in the branches of the trees. About two miles from Nevilles, we saw the tree where two men belonging to Lees’ Station had taken refuge from the flood, staying there a day and night before they were rescued by blacks in their canoes. Hundreds of drowned sheep were lying on the flats, and the late Mr. James Butler, of Merriganowry Station, lost over 1000 fat sheep in the back- wash of the river, which, of course, had overflowed its banks for miles. It was the greatest flood ever known on the Lachlan side.” [Charles McAlister: Old Pioneering Days in the Sunny South. A trip to the Lachlan just after the Drought.]↵
  4. Reg Bathurst V18463939162B/1846. So his reference to marriage in 1844 is in error.↵
  5. The departure for South Australia from the Lachlan was more likely 1848.↵
  6.   In September, ’44, Charles McAlister recorded that “there was no sign of a town at that period, the only house near the present town site being that occupied by the district pound keeper, a Mr. Best.” [McAlister.]↵
  7. This was the original Fitzroy Hotel, which, in 1846, was a rough bark building with a shingle roof. Also known as the Fitzroy Arms, the hotel’s management changed frequently in the early years, passing to John Millar in 1850, David Middlemiss in 1851, and William Ousby in 1854. [Joan Marriott: Cowra on the Lachlan.]↵
  8. Part of the Lachlan wetland system. Lake Waljeers and Ryans Lake are shallow depressions. These wetlands are considered to be a good example of River Red Gum / Black Box vegetation association in western NSW. When flooded the area supports large numbers of waterbirds.↵
  9. James Argent –  I think I know who he was.  There was a family at Boorowa called Argent who were stock and station agents – I think he was one of them, but I will have to do a little more research to make sure. (From John McInerney  4.8.2004.)↵
  10.   No death record in NSW Records↵
  11. James Tyson (1819 – 1898) was 29 at this time and had not yet achieved the financial success of his later life. He was born on 8 April 1819 near Narellan, New South Wales, third son of William Tyson and his wife Isabella, nee Coulson, who had arrived in the colony on 19 August 1809 in the Indispensable with a seven-year sentence for theft in Yorkshire. James worked from age 14 as an agricultural labourer, and bootmaker’s apprentice. In 1845 he embarked on an unsuccessful farm development with his brothers. In 1846 , with his brothers William and John, he moved to Tyson’s run (Toorong) on the west bank of the Lachlan near its junction with the Murrumbidgee. It was here that Thomas O’Shaughnessy passed by with his family and cattle in 1848. Early in 1852 James and William arrived at the Bendigo goldfield with a small mob of cattle, set up a slaughter-yard and butcher’s shop and in three years established a business which was sold late in 1855 for an estimated £80,000. He built his substantial wealth over the next 46 years. He took up land in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. By 1898 he owned more than 5 million acres, breeding and fattening stock for the metropolitan markets. He was a member of the Queensland Legislative Council in 1893-1898. He was a magistrate, and a prominent lobbyist against the building of the Queensland transcontinental railway line by overseas capitalists on the land grant system; he opposed the Victorian border stock tax and campaigned actively for the land tenure reforms embodied in the Crown Land Acts of 1884 in New South Wales and 1885 in Queensland. Generous to a wide range of charities, he contributed £1000 to the New South Wales Sudan Contingent and variously to the building funds of the Women’s College, University of Sydney, and the Church of England at Leyburn. He died, intestate and unmarried in 1898, leaving £2.000,000. A B “Banjo” Paterson wrote of him is his poem ‘T.Y.S.O.N.’↵
  12. “In 1836 Mitchell set out on an expedition to explore the Lachlan, Murray and Murrimbidgee Rivers. An incident which occurred on the 26th May, 1936 was recorded in his journals. They were camped on the banks of the Murray River and nearby a group of 200 Aboriginal people were performing a corroborree. Mitchell was convinced this was the prelude to an attack. When some of the scrub was set alight nearby, he ordered his men to open fire on the group and keep firing as they attempted to escape by swimming the river. Seven Aboriginal people were reported killed and many more injured. Mitchell reported his ‘satisfaction’ with the events and named a nearby hill Mt Dispersion. [“Blood On the Wattle – Massacres and Maltreatment of Australian Aborigines since 1788”  by Bruce Elder.)↵
  13. There has been much speculation that the “swivel gun at Jenkins’ Station” had been taken to and left on the River by Captain Sturt in the 1830s. See Peter Reilly’s web page http://users.rsc.net.au/~pereilly ↵
  14. Captain Charles Sturt discovered the junction of Australia’s two mightiest river systems – the Murray and Darling – in the 1830s paving the way for what was to become the thriving river port town of WENTWORTH. The overlanders followed the explorers, using the routes along the river the drive their cattle to the Adelaide markets. The trail along the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers became so popular it became known as the Sydney/Adelaide ‘highway’. The junction stopover at the Murray/Darling junction became an established camp known as Hawdon’s Ford. By the mid-1840s the junction settlement had become “McLeod’s Crossing”, named for the first residents of the fledgling settlement.↵
  15. Not so, though many thought so at the time.↵
  16. During 1841 a succession of droving parties were attacked by aborigines. Four Europeans were killed, several wounded, and sheep and cattle dispersed and stolen. Several police and private expeditions were mounted to recover stock and protect oncoming stock and their drovers. In 1841,  25 well armed men protecting 6,000 sheep, 500 mixed cattle, plus horses and 3 drays set out for South Australia from Gundagai. On August 26th, as the party approached the Rufus River, they were attacked by a large number of Aborigines. This attack was repulsed by the overlanders with some 15 natives reported killed. In an attack on the following day, and, while the cattle were being crossed over, the aborigines attacked in numbers. Again they were repulsed and suffered considerable loss of life. The official death count for the two day confrontation was, therefore, 35 Aboriginals killed. This became known as the “Rufus River Massacre.”  [Glenie]↵
  17. MOORUNDE: Now called Blanchetown. At the time O’Shaughnessy crossed the distant NSW/Victoria border, the location of problems between aborigines and drovers, this was the nearest location of a Police Station.↵
  18. GERMANS IN COLONIAL SOUTH AUSTRALIA. The history of the Germans in South Australia went back to the very beginning of the Colony. The Prussian Government commenced an era of persecution on the Lutherans during 1830 and that was so unrelenting that many decided to emigrate, having heard of the new British settlement in South Australia. By 1850 the number of Germans had increased to 8,000.[Smith, Russell.]↵
  19. 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. [Cargeeg.]↵
  20. Notation on the page margin:”Kapunda Copper Mine discovered 1843 by Francis Duthie. In 1843 ‘Capilarda’ copper mine discovered by Francis Dutton, Charles Bagot. In 1845 Burra Burra discovered by a shepherd named Picket. BURRA  was an extremely successful copper mine with rich ores, from 1845 to its closure in 1877. Its workforce in 1850 was 1,000. [Smith, Russell.↵
  21. Now called Castlemaine.↵
  22. That James Holden would have to be the one who was married to Bridget McNamara in 1865 and lived at “Woden” (now in the ACT) and at “Holden’s Creek”, on “Burra” Station near Queanbeyan, then later went to live at Forbes. Bridget had been previously married to Patrick Lawler. (From John McInerney 4.8.2004).↵
  23.  While Thos O’Shaughnessy makes no reference to the time taken to reach Bendigo from South Australia, another traveller who travelled the same route at about the same time stated his party took five weeks. [Snell.] When travelling from Adelaide to the diggings in January 1852, Snell, after passing some very beautiful though hilly scenery, reached Macclesfield, where the public houses were placarded “No credit till the gold fever is over”. He reached Wellington, a wretched sandy place on the banks of the Murray – only two houses there. Inn and Police Station. Ferry crossing. Toll. Tilly’s Flat an immense swamp extending upwards of a hundred miles in length and averaging five miles in width.Mosquito Plains “ a dreary flat country about 12 miles across.” Wed 7 April 1852 G A Gilbert signed his Licence for which he paid over ½ oz. Of gold. Certificate stated £1.10.0; 3.5.1852 Rain completely flooded the Tipperary Gully and most of the holes were filled with water; 7.5.1852 The Golden Gully is nearly deserted and the Bendigo Creek, being filled by the late rains, is crowded with tents and cradles. 15.5.1852 A mounted policeman rode up the gully, informing that the Commissioner had pitched his tent at the foot of Golden Gully. 19.5.1852 Rained. Lot of water in his (Snell) hole. 30.5.1852 Walked to Eaglehawk Gully and Surface Hill. Thousands upon thousands of tents and ground dug up in all directions; 16.7.1852 At Eaglehawk Gully. 50lbs flour £3; 2 lbs tea 7/-; 10 lbs sugar 15/-; 27.7.1852 Receipt for gold signed by Saml John Cooke, Commissioner. 29.7.1852 Started for Melbourne Mt Alexander – new wooden township (probably Elphinstone) – Coliban River – hill near Kyneton, Mt Alexander behind and Mt Macedon ahead – Campaspe River – Mt Macedon – Keilor Plains.[SNELL]↵
  24.  BENDIGO - The greatest Victorian goldfield, with a total output of 22,198,000 oz. (to 1954). In its record year (1856) its yield was 661,749 oz., and it was said to have produced 4,500,000 in the first decade. Discovered in 1851 it was at first considered part of the Mount Alexander field, but the riches at Eaglehawk Gully (discovered in April) and Red Hill (May) drew 40,000 to the field in the winter of 1852. [From Grolier Encyclopaedia under heading GOLD].↵
  25. Donald Campbell 1813 – 1868 Arrived in the Colony ca. 1836.  Squatter/publican/sheep farmer. Born Appin, Scotland. In 1813. Took up pastoral lease of Bullock Run in October 1846. 54,251 acres. Carried 5,000sheep. Established and  opened in 1846 the timber built ‘Argyle Inn’ at Bullock Creek, where the track forked to the Loddon River, it being one of the first licensed inns in the district of Sandhurst. [O’DONOHUE]↵
  26. The Bush lnn, on the site of Gisborne today, pastoralists' place and built by George J. Stokes, was well known in the early 1840s. It was a quiet place on the old track to Swan Hill, patronised by shepherds and the squatting gentry.Stokes got out when gold digging began and Walter Presnell, his successor, sold the hotel to Michael Curtain in February 1852, when the hordes of would-be diggers poured along this road to Mt Alexander. Grog and accommodation houses sprang up along the route every day. The Bush Inn was on the edge of the Black Forest,where the legendary Black Douglas and his gang held up all and sundry. A writer in 1852 counted fifty-nine bullock and thirty seven horse drays drawn up at the Bush Inn. The noise of shouting men and of dogs could be heard. [Flett.] See also “A Lady’s Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia 1852-1853” by Mrs Charles Clacy.↵