#52 Ancestors Week 43 Transportation

#52 Ancestors Week 43 - Transportation

Dad really hated trains.  Given the chance to try, he might actually have enjoyed the Japanese Bullet trains, or the European TGVs, but the NSW Railway trains of the 20^th century were slow, dirty and often crowded.  Until cars and roads improved his travelling life from the mid-1950s, he was forced to travel by rail and every trip was a horror.

I have earlier recounted his trips by bus to University in Sydney from Lismore in the 1930s. (#52 Ancestors – Week 18).  The trip by train was equally unpleasant, as he describes here

“The train was not particularly comfortable, consisting often of what we used to call “dog-box” carriages long overdue for retirement, but at least offered some interest, provided, of course, that you kept the windows shut to avoid being showered with tiny particles of coal blown from the tender as the train hurtled (or more likely crawled) down the coast.

It was the part of the journey covered at night that was really hard to take.  After having already travelled for ten or eleven hours, you had to face, when night fell, another twelve hours of extreme discomfort that had to be experienced to be believed.  If you were affluent enough to afford a “sleeper”, you might not sleep very much but at least you could get your head down and might even doze fitfully, enough, at least, to give you the illusion of having slept a little.  Or, if you were fortunate enough to have only one other traveller in your compartment, you could both stretch out on a seat and sleep in a sort of a way, interrupted only by the visits during the night of a ticket examiner, or by the frequent stops of the train when it stood stationary for what seemed like hours, or backed up for half a mile or so to clear the line for a train travelling in the opposite direction.  The worst misfortune would be for a belated traveller to join the train and claim his right to a seat, thereby forcing you to sit up.

If, however, as generally happened, every seat in the compartment was occupied, then the night was really rugged, as you squirmed first this way then that way, trying to get your head in a comfortable position so that you could sleep sitting up.  The upholstery on the seats was not even comfortable for a passenger in a sitting position for whom it had been designed.  For trying to lie down or sleep sitting up, it was excruciating.

All sorts of expedients were tried.  If there were not too many people in the compartment, you could stretch out on the floor between the seats – that is if you did not mind someone’s foot in your mouth, or if you were prepared to seek cover as one of the occupants of the compartment decided to go to the toilet.  You could climb into the luggage rack – if you were small enough and if it wasn’t already full of luggage, as it usually was.  If you were in what was known as a “corridor carriage”, you could go out and lie down in the corridor – except that there was usually a constant stream of passers-by to the toilet, so that, in the end, you gave up and went back to your seat resigned to putting up with the discomfort and praying for the morning to come soon.”

Train travel became even more difficult during the war as troops crowded every train on the line.  And then even more difficult once we children came along.

For some crazy reason, Mum and Dad travelled by train from Young (in SouthWest NSW) to Brunswick Heads (far north NSW) to spend the long summer holidays.  I don’t know how often they did this, but they definitely did it in the summer of 1951/52, with three children (aged 6,2 and 1) and Mum six months pregnant. 

Even today this is a 21 hour trip requiring several changes of vehicle.  In those days there would have been at least two train changes – probably at Cootamundra and Werris Creek – and almost certainly one would have been in the middle of the night.

They did it, and I hope it was a good holiday, because the return trip was a nightmare.  One by one, the children became fretful and hot.  By the time they were nearly home, all three had spots. 

Chickenpox.

Small wonder then that when my youngest brother, born in 1965, announced at the age of about 8 that he had never been on a train, and it just wasn’t fair that he should miss out, it was Mum who boarded the XPT with him in Dubbo and travelled overnight in a sleeper all the way to Sydney.

#52 Ancestors Week 42 - Adventure.

#52 Ancestors Week 42 - Adventure

My husband’s family history has been fortunate to have been enhanced by two published accounts, both mentioned before in my #52 Ancestors blog.

In Week 26 (Legend), I debunked some of the myths perpetuated in the booklet written by Peter McCann, the grandson of the first Peter who was Paul’s 3 x great grandfather.

“History of descendants

Of

Peter McCann, Who Landed in Australia in 1799

And

the Establishment of the Cement Industry

and its

Development in Victoria.”

Peter’s fanciful retelling of his grandfather’s story continues with the story of his father, Nicholas, and here he is on firmer ground.  Born when Nicholas was only 24, Peter was actually involved in many adventures with him.

But first he had to survive the death of his mother, Catherine, in 1832, when he was only 4 years old.  His baby sister Anne was adopted by a kind and wealthy couple who loved her; Peter was sent, at the age of 5, to a school that sounds like something out of Charles Dickens.  He described it as “the most antediluvian scholastic establishment that has come within my knowledge”, a place of “starvation and neglect”, run by a couple called Howard who were drunken bullies.  He seems to have existed that year on stale bread, tea and boiled nettles and became filthy and itchy with lice.  The boys were caned for the smallest of transgressions and were all miserable and unhappy.

After about a year, Peter was rescued by his father, who was making a good living as a stonemason and builder and who planning to marry again.  Peter’s stepmother was Catherine Nelson, eleven years younger than Nicholas and working as a nursery governess.

In April 1837, Nicholas, Catherine and 9 year old Peter set off from Tasmania on board the “Thistle” bound for Port Fairy where Nicholas was to work for John Griffith.  The ship was a small schooner but it was packed with 50 people and several sheep.  The crossing which should have taken about 6 days, took 6 weeks!  A south-westerly blew them two hundred miles off course, and as the Captain struggled to deal with the conditions, Nicholas was thrown overboard.

Peter wrote: “I remember running to the stern of the boat, from where I saw the well-known head of my Father bob up like a cork.  I saw too that he had immediately turned on his back, so as to keep his face away from the waves and towards the ship.  Although he had heavy clothes on, including his boots, he seemed to be able to float breast high out of the water.  Fortunately he was a most expert and fearless swimmer and was able to keep afloat….we had on board some of the most expert boatmen in Tasmania and in less time than you could believe to be possible , they had one of the best whale boats down and launched…to our delight we began to have good hope that the small whale boat would be able to stand up to the violence of the sea.  But then the crisis.  I distinctly saw the stern of the whale boat approaching him, and when it came within a touch, a wave struck the boat and it went right over the top of my Father.  We were now afraid the keel had struck him and were afraid that he would be stunned.  But here his cool courage seems to have come to his aid.  He said, subsequently, that he saw the whale boat coming over him and shot down feet first.  This must have been the case, for to our great delight he shot up again near the stern of the whale boat and was at once pulled aboard by strong arms.  The boatmen lavished praise on Father for his bravery, without making any reference to the bravery of their own deed.”

Peter and his father lived for about a year at Griffith Island (now the site of the Port Fairy lighthouse) and Nicholas worked for a time as a whaler.

Peter’s adventures continued when his father selected a parcel of land between Port Fairy and Cape Otway and established a sheep station with a small flock of 1000 sheep.  Of course, this was a part of the country thickly populated with natives so it wasn’t long before there were confrontations.  Peter describes an initially friendly encounter with a large group who camped near their hut.

“There was a very large Lightwood Tree just facing the hut and my father said,” Peter it will not do for us to all go inside the hut so I shall watch outside under the tree.  Will you be afraid to stay outside”.  I said, “No, if you stay outside I will stay with you.”  My father was reconciled to this night in the open, but was prepared for War as well as for Peace.  He said, “Peter, don’t be afraid.  If anything happens there is nothing else to do but to attack them.  Of course, they are afraid of guns and of us.  If they turn ugly we must have a big turn up with the.  I have arranged with the other men (a bullock driver and another young squatter) what to do if anything happens”. We had not been down under the tree very long when we saw the shadow of something by the light of the camp fire, which proved to  be a black fellow.  He or another paid many visits of this kind during the night. However the night passed without any harm”

It was not long before relations became more hostile.

“My father was cutting some wattles, and not far from the house, when without warning, a large kangaroo spear landed and stuck in the ground near his foot.  Had it not been for his courage he would have lost his life.  The moment he saw the spear he seized his double barrelled gun and rushed in the direction from which the spear was thrown.  At the same time, he made the loudest and most unearthly noise that he could and ran holding the gun in one hand and swinging the axe in the other.  A blackfellow popped out from behind a tree, followed by several more.  My father pursued them but took care that his first steps in the chase were in the direction that put him between the Blacks and the hut.  Having achieved this he ran for the hut and arrived safely”

Nicholas decided to return to Geelong and the building trade.  By this time he had two more children to feed and educate, so the family returned in 1841, and settled there permanently.    Peter became a stonemason too – he and his father were responsible for many of Geelong’s early buildings, and when they purchased land containing sandstone quarried in the Barrabool Hills outside Geelong, they established the basis of the family fortune.   In 1850, the now prosperous Nicholas sent Peter to England to bring back his sister Annie who had been taken there by the Hopkins family when she was a small child.  In England, Peter met and married Elizabeth Begley and they returned to Geelong to establish a large family.  In the portrait below, Peter is celebrated as a pioneer of the Australian Cement Industry and one of the first directors of the Australian Portland Cement Company Ltd.

#52 Ancestors Week 40 - Harvest

#52 Ancestors Week 40 - Harvest.

I have been on the road for two weeks, so in the absence of any literal interpretations of this week’s prompt “Harvest”, I am detailing the harvest of information I gleaned from a visit to Whittingham cemetery, near Singleton during my trip away.

I knew that Joseph Whitten was buried there in a grave shared with his 6 year old son, Percival and his 16 year old daughter, Matilda, known in the family as Barney.

Joseph was one of the four Whitten brothers who came to Australia in the 1860s (see #52 Ancestors Week 31 – Brother).  Unlike the others, he did not take up farming land, but worked first on the team surveying the Great North Road (from Sydney to the north) before he became the proprietor of the Chain of Ponds Inn, in the Hunter Valley.

Two years after his arrival in the colony, in July 1865, he married Johanna Mary Devitt.  She was also born in Ireland, in Tipperary, and was 18 years old at the time of the marriage.  (We have always known in the family that Joseph became estranged from his brothers because he sold alcohol  - they were very strict Methodist teetotallers).

When Joseph died in 1895, he was only 56 and he left Mary with 10 children, the youngest of them only 9 years old.  His six year old son, Percival had died in 1890 and his daughter Barney was already suffering from the disease (consumption or TB) which was to kill her the following year.

Maitland Daily Mercury (NSW : 1894 - 1939), Saturday 22 February 1896,

page 4

CAMBERWELL.

OBITUARY. — It becomes my painful duty to have to announce the death of Miss Matilda Whitten, which took place at her mother's residence, Liddell, at four o'clock on Wednesday afternoon last. The deceased, had been suffering from consumption for some short time past, of which complaint she succumbed. Everything was done in the form of medical attendance and kind nursing to arrest the terrible insidious malady, but all in vain. The deceased young lady was scarcely seventeen years of age, hence we have "another rose nipped in the bud." The deepest sympathy is felt for the afflicted mother and relatives in their sad bereave-ment. The remains will be conveyed by train to-morrow to Singleton, and buried in the Church of England cemetery at that place

I arrived at the cemetery expecting to  see this grave, but I found a collection of Whitten graves enclosed within a fence.

Whitten graves at Whittinghma cemetery, Singleton

The grave to the left of Joseph’s is that of his eldest son, William Liddell Whitten, born in 1866.  William was married and had two small children when he died of pneumonia at the age of 30.  His headstone reads “In Loving Memory of William Whitten who died 16 June 1896 aged 30 Years.  What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.”

William and his wife Annie, had had three sons but the eldest (another Percy) died at the age of 2 in 1894.  Their other two sons were Halwyn Richard (known as Dick) and Liddell (known as Dell).  Both served in the military in WW1.

On the right of the main grave is that of Edward Whitten, who also died at 30.  Edward was Joseph and Mary’s third son, and he too was married at the time of his death, although there were no children.

His headstone reads (on the left side) “In Loving Memory of my Beloved Husband Edward Whitten died 15^th June 1904 aged 30 years.  And on the right side, “Resting till the Resurrection Morn”.

In front of the graves is a small headstone for Mary, Joseph’s wife and the mother of his children.

It reads, “In Loving Memory of my Dear Mother, Mary, wife of the above died 16 June 1906. Erected by her loving daughter Minnie”

Minnie was Joseph and Mary’s youngest child (1886-1967).  She, John (1869-1914) and Henry (1878-1938) were the only three of the ten children to live past the age of 30, which gives credence to the family story that one of the reasons the brothers left Ireland was to escape from the scourge of TB.  Sadly it seemed that Joseph brought it to Australia with him.

Mary Whitten actually married again after Joseph’s death, to George Cruikshank in 1902, but she lived only another 4 years before her death at 59.  I don’t know if she is buried in this family plot, or if the stone is simply Minnie’s recognition of her in relation to the rest of the family.  

After so many tragedies, the family rests in a peaceful corner of the Hunter Valley under gum trees and blue skies.