Blanchetown. Information board on the historic site of Moorundie established by explorer Edward John Eyre. : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Blanchetown. Information board on the historic site of Moorundie established by explorer Edward John Eyre. / denisbin
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-改変禁止 2.1 |
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| 説明 | Blanchetown and Paisley. This usually bypassed Murray River town is one of the oldest river towns in SA but with two modern bridges across the Murray few ever venture into the old town. It was named after Lady Blanche, wife of our 6th Governor, Sir Richard MacDonnell. Blanchetown replaced an earlier settlement a few kms south of this spot called Moorundie. More of that later. Blanchetown was a very isolated spot being the only settlement between Truro and Wentworth in NSW when it was established. The nearest settlement was Mannum established in 1856 and the earliest town along settled along the Murray was Wellington established in 1840. Blanchetown was surveyed as a government town and laid out in 1855 and like Wellington it had a police presence and a police station from 1859 as there were no other law officials between Wellington and Blanchetown. This was frontier country. The government had decided to act and create a town at this place because of the birth of the River Murray boat trade after 1854 (Captains Randell and Cadell had had their race up the Murray to Wellington with paddle steamers and the Governor of SA Sir Henry Fox in 1853). Suddenly this areas were more attractive to pastoralists and traders. And as noted above the government had commissioned a rail survey and feasibly plan in 1856 for the extension of the railway line from Kapunda to Blanchetown. This was a very preliminary study as the railway line from Adelaide did not reach Gawler until 1857 and although it had been planned earlier the railway did not reach Kapunda until 1860! Despite this drawback the town of Blanchetown progressed because of the river boat trade and the opening up of trade links to the pastoralists up the Darling River beyond the early settlement of Wentworth. But its dreams of being a rail terminus and major port along the Murray never eventuated. Morgan got that prize and consequential wealth in 1878. Blanchetown was created out of Edward John Eyre’s 1839 Moorundie Special Survey of around 4,000 acres. Town lots were first sold in 1857 and the town soon had a hotel (1858), which was the license from Eardley Heywood’s Old Whipstick Inn which was first licensed in 1845 on his Portee Station. In Blanchetown it was named the Heywood arms which was later changed to the Blanchetown Hotel. Later came a Post Office and Telegraph Station (1865), a general store and Police Station. The current Police Station built in 1969 is not in the town but on the main highway near the roadhouse. A proposed Customs house for the river trade to NSW in 1856 never eventuated as it was later built in Morgan. Attempts were made to build paddle steamers in Blanchetown but only two ever completed. But the commercial ferry service across the river (from 1869) bought some business and trade to the town as did the mail and coach service from Truro to Wellington and sheep stations away from the riverbanks via Blanchetown. The government took over the punt service in 1879 as a sop to the town after the opening of the port of Morgan and the town losing its Sub Collector of Customs. In the same year 1879 the state school was built. No early churches were built here despite the growing size of the town. But like later Riverland towns Blanchetown would have been serviced the church paddle steamers. The Methodists had the paddle steamer Glad Tidings from 1894. This was a very appropriate name for a church boat. This was later replaced by the Endeavour in 1909. Once the Riverland towns were established between 1910 and 1920 the church paddle steamers were stopped. The Anglicans had the paddle steamer the Etona which operated up and down the river, including stops at Blanchetown, from 1891 to 1914 conducting baptisms, marriages, masses and even occasional funerals if they were in port when needed. Eventually Blanchetown got a church – the Paisley Lutheran Church on the eastern bank of the Murray which opened in 1903. Paisley was an early area for irrigated fruit orchards at Blanchetown. The Hundred of Paisley was declared in 1860 but it attracted few settlers until irrigation was possible after the completion of Lock One at Blanchetown in 1922. This new Lutheran church at Paisley had its own cemetery but the town cemetery of Blanchetown had opened in 1865. For many years Blanchetown was also serviced by the paddle steamer Pyap which was run by Eudunda Farmers a floating general store between 1908 and 1940. The big event in the history of Blanchetown was the erection of this first lock, number one at Blanchetown from 1915. The Prime Minister of Australia and our state Premier attended, as did many other state and national politicians when the start of work on the lock commenced in 1915. Such was the national importance of this event for all states using the Murray River. But lock number one was not completed until 1922 as the first of around 30 locks to control the flows of the river to ensure it was always navigable for paddle steamers. Alas, by the time the lock at Blanchetown was completed the river boat trade was already dying as motor transport was taking over. But this lock and the others up to Albury all helped with flood control, except in the years of major floods such as 1956. The second bridge across the Murray in SA was opened at Blanchetown in 1963. Unfortunately it was built on unstable land and the pre-stressed concrete bridge began to sink into the river by the early 1990s. It was consequently replaced with the current and second Blanchetown bridge in 1998. South of the road bridge and east of the Lock are 19 recorded Aboriginal canoe trees indicative of the importance of this place to Aboriginal people. Edward John Eyre and Moorundie and Portee Station.The real importance of Blanchetown lies with the settlement at Moorundie just to its south which began with Edward John Eyre but has now all been swept away by time and Murray River floods. Just the memorial to Moorundie and Eyre remains in Blanchetown. In 1839 explorer Edward John Eyre took out a Special Survey of 4,000 acres of land for £4,000 with Osmond Gilles along the Murray at this spot. He got the money for this from his profit of overlanding cattle to SA in 1838. It was a narrow 12 mile stretch along the banks of the river in an area with substantial river flats. Eyre also took out another Special survey further south with Osmond Gilles at the spot where Mannum now stands along the Murray. Eyre established the first white settlement anywhere in Australia along the Murray in 1842 at Moorundie. A fine sketch of his station homestead, really just a good hut, was drawn by General Edward Frome, the third Survey General of SA from 1839 to 1849 and it is in the Art Gallery of SA. Eyre was out to make money in the colonies hence his decision to be the second person to overland cattle from NSW to SA in 1838 after Charles Bonney and Joseph Hawdon had done the inaugural run earlier in 1838. His overlanding of cattle had shown him the country along the Murray so he knew where he wanted to select his Special Survey. Eyre subdivided part of his land to create the tiny settlement of Sturt (named after his explorer friend who had also overlanded cattle in 1838 to SA) but only one person appears to have joined him there as a land owner! He was one of the Hawker brothers of Bungaree, James Hawker who visited Eyre in December 1842 and purchased one acre of land from him in early 1843 on which to raise pigs. Hawker did not stay for long.After Eyre moved onto his 350 aces of freehold land in 1842 he planted lucerne, corn and wheat on irrigated river flats for fodder for his cattle. He built little weirs and channels to divert some of the river course. He also used a native grass which produced flowers heads similar to millet for his horses. It was this grass the pigs liked and partly explains why James Hawker wanted to raise pigs there. Eyre’s first crop of wheat grew to over six feet high. Eyre was respectful of the local Aboriginals but trouble had erupted with them by other white overlanders especially further up the Murray near the NSW border. Eyre was appointed a Sub Protector of Aborigines in 1841 and a small police presence and barracks were established at his Moorundie station. Eyre’s first houses was made of reeds but his £300 a year salary as Sub Protector of Aborigines allowed him to replace that with a stone house. The front rooms for the house were used as a Courthouse. He also had stone military barracks built. 13 soldiers and a Sergeant from the 96th Regiment were stationed at Moorundie and 3 policemen. With Eyre’s servants and workmen the settlement of Moorundie had 43 residents by October 1841. Eyre had some of his materials and supplies brought up the river from the Murray Mouth so that he would have a couple of boats to use on the Murray. Eyre resigned as Sub Protector of Aborigines in 1843 once white dominance and peace was restored along the Upper Murray. Eyre was restless and soon left his friend Edward Scott to look after Moorundie whilst Eyre went exploring again in 1844. Then a flood in late 1844 swept away Eyre’s small weirs, irrigation channels and the crops. At this point Eyre gave up on trying to farm at Moorundie and returned to England early in 1845. He then disposed of his lands in SA and in NSW where he had land near Queanbeyan. In 1846 he was sent to NZ as Lieutenant Governor with a large salary package before ending up as a very controversial Governor of Jamaica in the 1860s where he brutally suppressed a black rebellion. The ruins of the police barracks and his homestead at Moorundie were finally swept away by the great Murray flood of 1870 which was similar to the flood of 1956. But Eyre’s contribution to the exploration of SA is acknowledged by the many place names bearing his name. His farming efforts were not successful and did not bring him great wealth. Eyre’s friend and assistant E Scott who looked after Eyre’s Moorundie property when Eyre was away or exploring stayed on after Eyre left SA. Scott stayed at Moorundie until 1859 when he moved to property he had acquire at Nor West Bend- Morgan. Between 1854 and 1859 Scott ran a Post Office at Moorundie. A pound keeper operated at Moorundie for some year too and his name which is Nott was recorded in Notts Well near Blanchetown. The pound operated from 1856 to around 1861.Next to Moorundie station J Henderson took out a large leasehold property in 1841 which he named Portee station. This was acquired in 1845 by Eardley Heywood who held Portee station until his death in 1877. After Eyre left Moorundie in 1845 Heywood acquired the land as leased land which he added to his adjacent Portee station. Heywood then controlled the land from Blanchetown to Swan Reach along the Murray. He built a solid stone homestead for Portee near the river but this was swept away in a flood of 1852 so he built another homestead further away from the river atop some cliffs in 1853. It is still the Portee station homestead. Portee grew to 110 square miles of pastoral lease. The old homestead and outbuildings buildings still remain in private hands. For some years in the 1850s a district pound for straying sheep and cattle was operated by William Nott at Moorundie which was by then part of Portee station. In 1845 some of Eyre’s Special Survey lands to the north of Blanchetown (and Portee station) at Roonka were acquired as lease land by Lachlan McBean of Baldon station back near Truro. Heywood arrived in SA in 1842 at age 20 years but with considerable capital. He entered the pastoral industry with a cattle property at Beefacres near Adelaide in 1844 before taking up Portee. He also had houses in Adelaide, Gawler and Goolwa and his own paddle steamer for getting to Goolwa and back. Heywood’s properties were sold in 1879 two years after his death in 1877. His Portee station at that time covered 110 square miles; his Swan Reach and inland Murray Mallee runs covered 330 square miles; and he had 2,475 acres of freehold land at Portee. He also had stations both sides of the Victorian border north of Bordertown. Eardley had married but unfortunately his first wife and three of his five children all died of diphtheria within one week. Eardley Heywood died in North Adelaide and was buried at Gawler where he had donated generously to the St George’s Anglican Church organ fund. His land between Portee and Sandleton was resumed upon his death for closer settlement. Mainly German background settlers took up these marginal lands further north than Swan Reach. |
| 撮影日 | 2016-01-09 12:43:08 |
| 撮影者 | denisbin |
| タグ | |
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| カメラ | DSC-HX30V , SONY |
| 露出 | 0.003 sec (1/320) |
| 開放F値 | f/9.0 |