NEW BOOK!! The Hotels of Early Highfields 1865 - 1940. Only $25 + postage
Launch 18 April at the Farmers Arms at 10.30. Contact Linda for details. Go to the Hotels section for some details.
If you want to update or change any information, please contact lindaagalligan@gmail.com
Photograph March 2017 by L Galligan showing the Coffee shop and Cuckoo Clock shop.
Imagine in 1870's the Farmer's Arms pub on this same site (from "From Tall Timbers" p 57)
Cabarlah is a rural village on the New England Highway 18 km north of Toowoomba, situated in the Geham Parish of Aubingy County. The suburb of Cabarlah has an approximate area of 20 km². It is surrounded by the suburbs of Fifteen Mile to the north east, Geham to the north, Highfields to the south, Kleinton to the west, and Murphys Creek and Spring Bluff to the south east[1]
The original Aboriginals of the district were probably the Jarowair. Neighbours of the Jarowair people included Waka Waka, Giabel, Jagara, Barunggam, Kaiabara, Kabi-Kabi, Undanbi and Batjala (Geham SS 1996). (see maps below). In the 1880's or 1890's Captain Blaney, a governor of the Toowoomba jail retired and built a house he called Wirra Wirra House. This, it was said, was named after a tribe of Aboriginals whose habitat extended from near Cabarlah to Hodgson’s Creek[2].
The Toowoomba Regional Council (2019) state that "The Jagara people were of the foothills and escarpment, Giabal were of the Toowoomba area and the Jarowair were of the northern areas towards and including the Bunya Mountains (Booburrgan Ngmmunge meaning our mother's breasts[3]).
A 2017 thesis by Deborah Swan (Bunya Tukka Tracks) showed that there is evidence of many trade lines in Southern Queensland to the Bunyas and coastal New South Wales (see map reproduced by Swan). Mr T.W. Black contributing to the History of Geham School in 1971, told of 'large numbers of aboriginals were in the habit of passing to and fro in the district, and on several occasions conducted corroberees' (p 11)
The Darling Downs was originally known as the 'upland area' and indigenous people of this area used a technique in hunting food where they would burn the grasslands as the new, green sprouts attracted animals. This earned them the name 'Gooneburra', or, 'the ones who hunt with fire' by the coastal tribes.' [4]
The Gummingurru stone arrangement at Gowrie Junction (Jarowair people), is one of Australia's most important historical Aboriginal sites and estimated to be around 4000 years old. This site is an Aboriginal Bora, or ceremonial, site and was used as a men’s initiation site. It was also a site where different tribal groups met on their way to the Bunya Nut Festival.
In the late 19th century Gumminggurru was still being used for ceremonies and male initiation, but by the early 20th century most of the Aboriginal people of the Darling Downs had been removed from local properties and into the towns. [5]
A 1930 article has it as a 'Native name of the mountains in the neighbourhood'[7]
The Queensland Railway guide has Cabarlah as a Wakka name for the black opossum[8]. A 1944 letter to the Railway has this version as well. Another source suggests it was thought that Cabarlah derived from an Aboriginal expression describing the ring-tailed possum.[6]
Figure 1: Traditional owners of Aboriginal land[11]
Figure 2: Movement to the Bunya Gatherings[12]
Figure 3: Aboriginal land (languages) http://www.nrmrq.org.au/aboriginal-language-revival-in-the-condamine-river-catchment/
From the 1850's the settlement at around Toowoomba grew rapidly. There was a strong demand for timber, and timber mills spread north along the Highfields Range. From the 1860’s to 1883 the area was called Five-Mile Camp within a larger area of Highfields. It may have also included the area of Geham.
In 1860 the land in the area was gazetted the Royal Agricultural Reserve.
A newspaper article on 16 March 1865 suggests very little development before 1864 ("almost uninhabited") in this wider Highfields district.
The article to the right describes Highfields and its extent in 1865 from Stony Pinch (just outside Toowoomba, current Mt Kynoch) to Perkin's Hotel at the first sawmill near Geham. At one stage Highfields did extend from North Street (Toowoomba) to Roasalie Shire, and area of about 182 000 hectares.
Early settlers in the parish of Geham, would have included Sondergeld, Wilkes, Bishop, and Larkin. The article (10 Nov 1865) highlights the selection of land from the Agricultural Reserve between 18 and 80 acres. Highfields Paddock was just outside Geham Parish. By November the same year the size of some land packages had changed to between 5 and 10 acres near Bishop's Paddock (this was probably between Sondergeld's and the street known as Shostaki Rd) and 40 acres near Sondergeld's.
The article also names Bishops Paddock; Sondergeld’s farm; Kynock and Megard’s farms; Timothy Larkin (so he may have owned portion 293 – 300 or could be to the West as they are on Reedy Creek. Larkin also owned land to the south almost bordering Geham Parish (in Toowoomba Parish) on Reis Road.
Part of Map of Geham Parish, 1941
While some sources claim Highfields was named after a pastoral run, north of the township[9], French (1991, p.8) suggests that Edmound Pechey named the area "after his school in Essex"[10]. There is a place in Essex called Highfields. There was a 120-acre portion of land called "Highfields" just inside Toowoomba parish on the border with Geham (por 1049) and owned by C. Tewes. At some stage Pechey did own farmland on the Highfield Road (probably this portion 1049), and does name his residence as Highfield/s in 1864. I cannot find a pastoral run of that name.
The name Highfield/s does not appear in the newspapers until 1864.
A further explanation could be that it is simply because it is located on "high fields":
Where then, is Highfields? I have come to the conclusion that there is no such place. I found settlements styled Geham Creek, Cooby Creek, Meringandan, Crows' Nest, Reedy Creek, but no such place as Highfields, I was obliged to draw conclusions as to the origin of the name, and arrived at it very simply.
Leaving Toowoomba, I found that the road ran along the crest of the Range for many long miles. The height of this road and the adjoining district above the plain caused the name of Highfields to be awarded to the locality.
Brisbane Courier (31/03/1877, p.7)
Certainly in 1865 it could have just been the small community next to the newly built Sawmills:
The saw mills of Messrs. Degen ad Co., commanded a large share of attention. It appears there was not a house standing twelve months ago, where now is the flourishing town of Highfield's. The mills alone give employment to seventy men, and the inhabitants number about one hundred and fifty to two hundred. The village already boasts of a chapel and schoolhouse combined. Stores are springing up, plans and specifications are already prepared for a first -class hotel, and houses are being built in all directions; and there is no doubt that when once the road is cleared between Highfields and Toowoomba, the place will go ahead rapidly. The scenery in and about the neighbourhood is picturesque, the climate delightful, and the hospitality of the residents unbounded, and to all who are fond of a day's holiday in the country, we would advise them to pay a visit to the thriving little town of Highfields.
Unfortunately, the sawmill burned down in 1865. Imagine the livelihoods of those people now uprooted due to the loss of the Sawmill which was the reason for the ‘township of Highfields’ growing so rapidly. William Perkins would have been devastated as, not only did he have the prospect of losing his job (being the manager of the Sawmill) but his newly built hotel would no longer have the patronage of the workers. A further blow happened when it was decided to build the new mill a few miles to the north. However, the name 'Highfields' endured.
In 1879, there was mention of townships along the Highfields Road, with Five-Mile being described as 'Koojarawon, some four miles further on [from Highfields], where there is a blacksmiths shop, a lockup, and (familiar conjunction) two public houses' (DDG 16 April 1879 p3). However, this area was not often described with this name, but (before 1883) was often called Five Mile Camp as the 'men working on the roads, railways and tree felling, camped in their tents on por 540 and surrounds" (Bloom, p10). Por 540 is between Costello Road and Evans Road East.
From 1883-1885 the Divisional Board office was listed, by the Post Office Records as at being at “Five Mile, Highfields”. The names Cabarlah, Geham, Pechey, Perseverance, Pipeclay, Ravensbourne and Hampton came later (1870’s to the 1880’s).[11]
The Australian electoral rolls for Queensland, Darling Downs, have a separate division of "Cabarlah" listed from 1903 to 1906, but from 1908 it changed to "Highfields".
In 1867 there was a request to the Mayor:
To His Worship W. H. Groom, Esq., 1 M.L.A., Mayor of Toowoomba. We the undersigned residents of Toowoomba, beg to request that your Worship will be pleased to convene a PUBLIC MEETING for the purpose of taking into consideration the advisability of organising a prospecting party, in order that certain localities in this district that present auriferous indications may be tried by competent gold miners. (DDG 23/03/1867 p2)
This prospecting party may have taken place as there is this news item (from the Brisbane Courier in 9 June 1870) perhaps very short-lived.
In the Toowoomba Chronicle in 1928 (22 Nov p. 19) an article on the search for minerals
SEARCH FOR MINERALS.
It is asserted that gold in payable quantities does not exist on the west of the Main Bange. As to the correctness of that statement appears unchallengeable. That there are deposits of gold in scattered areas within fifty miles of the crown of the Range has been demonstrated, but anything in the shape of pay dirt has not materialised up to date. As early as the mid-fifties gold was found at Lucky Valley, a few miles south of Warwick. In the sixties a rush set in to Talgai, and some nice specimens were unearthed at Darkey Flat (Pratten), Canal Creek, and Thane's Creek. Quito a little township sprang up at the latter place, but only a few posts and several shafts now remain to bear witness to feverish labour disappointed hopes of sixty years ago, when the lure of the gold drew hundreds from all parts of the infant colony. One miner, named Prosser, more enterprising than his fellows, tunnelled into a mountain, and sank a shaft, but, though he struck a reef, the stone did not pan out enough gold to pay for its further development, and it was abandoned, after hundreds of pounds had been spent in the quest. Thane's Creek was given best early in the sixties, but for many years Canal Creek furnished small pickings for many prospectors. In the after years it was left to the Chinese, who can apparently eke out a living where a white man would starve. The find of the precious metal was not confined to the Warwick district. It is on record that Alexander Herlich—who shot Martin Klein—who lived the life of a hermit in the pine forests near Crow's Nest, sold several ounces of gold at Ipswich, which, presumably, he unearthed in those scrubs. It is also on record that the late Mr. Arthur Lloyd struck gold in the early seventies in one of those forests, and left a pick and spade at the shaft, intending to bring a party of townsmen out to show the "find," but died a few days after his return. That plant has not since been discovered. To sum up, gold mining has contributed little to the wealth of the Darling Downs, and those engaged in it have realised that they had not struck the royal road to a Rolls-Royce.
[1] https://www.mycommunitydirectory.com.au/About/Suburb/Queensland/Cabarlah
[2] http://downsfolk.wikidot.com/aborigines (http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/35931764?)
[3] http://www.tr.qld.gov.au/our-region/history/indigenous-history/7870-indigenous-history
[4] Jerome, P 2002, ‘Boobarran Ngummin: The Bunya Mountains’, Queensland Review, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 1-5
[5] http://www.gummingurru.com.au/Site+History
[6] http://queenslandplaces.com.au/cabarlah
[7] http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/35931764?
[8] https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:216412/AU4011_Queensland_Railway_Guide.pdf
[9] Highfields and Highfields Shire | Queensland Places
[10] French, M. (1991). Pubs, Ploughs & 'Peculiar People': Towns, Farms, and Social Life. USQ Press, University College of Southern Queensland.
[11] http://www.storytell.com.au/High_Site/history.htm
[13] https://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30105422/swan-bunyatukka-2017.pdf (page102 from Sullivan 1977:18)
