No 56 Clarendon

When you regard the Onkaparinga in normal times it is a quiet, well-behaved stream, as gentle as a maiden aunt. But there are times when it grows tired of its placid existence. Then it be comes ruffled and angry, and roars and rages like a young Niagara. These days, since the waters have been dammed, even its most furious mood causes no inconvenience to Clarendon.

But there was a time when the temper of the river mattered much — in the days before there were bridges, when coaches and teamsters camped along its banks for a week at a time, staring sullenly and irritably at the opposite bank, so near and yet so far, which the swirling waters prevented them from reaching. That was a common enough experience in early days. In the wet season no farmer dreamt of leaving for the city without first ascertaining minutely the state of the river. If he did the chances were that he would have to sit down on the bank and wait — and sitting in the rain, and sleeping in the rain, when the wood is too wet to produce more than a cheerless smoke, is an endurance test that, once tried, is never repeated.

Just above the existing concrete bridge is the old Tally Ho Hotel, now a bakehouse, in sight of which drenched teamsters and stranded coach passengers stamped about impotently, irritably aware that within its walls were warmth, shelter, and good cheer, just beyond their reach. They were like hungry boys with their faces glued to a pastrycook's window.

Clarendon Weir

Clarendon is the main source — practically the only one—of supply to the Happy Valley reservoir. The water is picked up at the weir in great pipes higher than a man. You will see from the photograph on this page how big those pipes are when you compare them with the gate and fence. The pipe line is three miles 28 chains long, and ends in a tunnel which conveys the water into the southern storage basin. In 1896 a weir was built across the Onkaparinga to dam the water back. It was constructed of huge blocks of marble. It forms a wall 25 ft. high, in which there are twelve steps. This wall is 10 ft. wide and 200 ft. long. These are all the statistics I propose to give you.

The water forms a huge lake. When it is necessary to replenish, supplies in the reservoir sluice gates are opened to permit it to enter the pipes. When sufficient water has entered the gates are closed. For the best part of the year, however, it is possible to gauge the consumption from the reservoir, and the gates are left open sufficiently wide so as automatically to replenish the supplies drawn off.

The Mount Bold water scheme, now in course of construction, is planned on practically the same lines as the Clarendon scheme, but on a larger scale. That, too, will dam the Onkaparinga. The Mount Bold site is about 35 miles above Clarendon. Building a dam like this is not exactly a winter job. When they were constructing the weir at Clarendon the lake was forced over a fair area of country, and men had to work in the river up to their necks in water, sawing down the timber, and blowing up the roots, which were then hauled out of the stream by oxen.

Wars Of The Churches

Clarendon in the dark ages I am writing about consisted of a handful of people. There was no Council of Churches and no talk of church union. On the contrary, there was a decided state of war between the different denominations. The little community was split into Wesleyans, Baptists, and Bible Christians, with a sprinkling of Anglicans and Roman Catholics. Each sect considered it was the elect of heaven, and all others were hopelessly beyond the pale.

You see, people took their religion those days with abnormal seriousness. I am not saying they should not. But very often they mistook the husk for the grain, and it didn't seem to occur to them that a man might just as easily enter Paradise in a grey suit as a blue one. For that, after all, was the only practical difference between them. Now most of the previously warring factions are united in one church, and the others are dabbling with the question of Christian union. Where, then, was the necessity for all this early bitterness and recrimination?

Where the weir is located now was the spot on the river where the Baptists did their dipping. The Wesleyans had their church on a hall which required 4,000 horse-power lungs to get there. I know, for I climbed there to look at the little churchyard, and finally found myself leaning against a fence, blowing like a bellows.

"Bit steep," said my companion. I think there was hostility in the glance I gave him, but I had no breath left to tell him what I thought of people who put a church in a place like that.

Anyhow, it isn't a church any longer. The district council have appropriated another disused chapel, the old Bible Christian building, as an office. I was told that Clarendon's first parson had to carry his water daily a quarter of a mile from the Morphett well to his hilly residence. So, you see, even pioneer parsons had a hard row to hoe.

Congregation Goes On Strike

I do not want you to imagine that Clarendon was the only place where these denominational differences existed. It was no better and no worse than any other place. Adelaide not excepted. At that time the biggest public question of the day was State aid to religion. The whole province was split over this momentous matter, which provided one of the most bitter political controversies in the history of South Australia, a struggle which lasted five years until the proposal for State aid was finally annihilated. The first general election in the province that of the "piebald Parliament" of 1851, was fought on this very question. I mention the matter to show you what a real thing religion was to our ancestors when the State was young.

What, you ask me, has this to do with Clarendon? Well, the history of Clarendon and the history of Happy Valley are one and the same. Both places come into the same district. And an incident occurred at Happy Valley on this very question which is well worth recording — that of a congregation going on strike.

In the first place, it is necessary to tell you that in the earliest days of the province the churches did actually receive grants from the State. In 1850 the Methodist Church received £426, and other bodies proportionate amounts. It was the acceptance of this grant which precipitated the crisis in the Methodist Church at Happy Valley of which I am about to tell you.

One Sunday in 1847 the Rev. William Longbottom rode on horseback to the Happy Valley Church to conduct service. But, as they say in the fairy story books, he waited, and waited, and waited, and not a soul attended. Puzzled and disappointed, he was about to remount his horse to return to the city when a former member of the congregation arrived, and told him he was wasting his time; that the congregation fiercely objected to their officials accepting State aid, and that, as some had done so, the congregation had decided to abandon the church en masse, and to worship in a more primitive form at some other place. As a matter of fact, the services were subsequently held from house to house, and some of the worshippers, no doubt, attended the church at Clarendon.

Local Preachers Hard Cases

They were rough days, these of the forties and the fifties — days of hard work, and days of hard times, but days of fervor and sincerity, too. I was told of local preacher whose Sunday best consisted only of the everyday clothes they worked in, their moleskin trousers and hob-nailed boots which had never known the touch of blacking, who tramped miles through the bush, and over the hills day and night to expound the gospels with a vigor and a realism which would startle us today.

"They were hard cases," said my informant.

Hard cases, undoubtedly. But they accepted the Bible at its face value, believed what they preached, and lived up to their principles — even though sometimes those principles were as narrow as the times.

Wine Cellar Like A Monastery

All this country — Clarendon, Happy Valley, Kangarilla— is good vine-growing land. Enough wine has been made there to form a giant lake. Now the vines are being rooted out as an uneconomic proposition. I don't like the look of it. It makes me wonder whether another big South Australian industry is "going west."

On the side of a hill I saw a church — nay, a venerable looking monastery, a group of buildings more reminiscent of the countless ages of Europe than the decades of antipodal history. Look at them in the photograph in the supplement and judge for yourself !

"What church is that?" I asked.

"That is not a church," was the answer; "that is a wine cellar."

It was the first time in my life that I didn't know the difference between a church and a wine cellar. I felt reasonably annoyed. The buildings certainly bore an ecclesiastical aspect. They were the cellars of the famous vineyards established in 1858 by Edward John Peake, who the following year became manager of the South Australian Railways, and subsequently an S.M. Cut into the stone in the gable of the residence is the inscrip tion, "Clarendon Vineyard, Edward John Peake. S.M., planted and built, 1858."

That was three-quarters of a century ago. The buildings give the impression of being twice that age.

Mr. Peake must have been an energetic man to run a big winery, the State railways, and as a sideline, fine the itinerant toper "five bob or seven days" in his leisure moments. The next occupant of the place was J. Gillard. sen., who conducted the winery for over forty years. The present owner is Mr. E. Mason. But now no wine is produced, and the vines which grew so luxuriantly up the sides of a nearly perpendicular hill are being rooted out to make way for an extension of the orchard. If tradition is correct, the first vines were planted in Clarendon by Sir John Morphett.

As I gazed at that hill, shooting straight into the sky like a miniature Mont Blanc, I was intrigued as to how they ever got a plough up there to till the soil. For there are sixty acres of hill and dale in that old estate— and, I should imagine, more hill than dale. The secret was that they din't use a plough at all. Every bit of that vast area was hand dug. Mr. Henry Mor phett, now a veteran of 82, was in those early days the champion digger on the property, averaging 30 rods a day.

Wine Poured Into A Creek

Wine, I suppose, is the oldest brand of headache-producer known to man. If there is any sort older, then it has I been forgotten. I know that the Egyptians walked home unsteadily in moonlight after imbibing various toasts to the peerless Cleopatra; that hic-ish youths strutted the streets of Rome noisily vociferating, "Aye Claudius!"; that Antiochus the Syrian habitually saw things that weren't there; and that Peisistratus the Greek founded his theory of tyranny on the dreams he dreamt sleeping across the table after a hectic "night-out"— all the result of imbibing deeply of the vinic product. And, as brother Jonathan might remark "That is sure going back some."

Now I want to tell you of an incident that happened in the early days near Kangarilla, Clarendon's next door neighbor on the Meadows side. It was the custom those days to supply the men on the farms with a bottle of wine as part of their wages. These men worked from sunrise to sunset for five shillings a day, and their dinner. There was no difficulty about supplying the wine, because nearly every farmer grew his own grapes and fermented his own liquor.

One day a workman imbibed too freely, with the result that he didn't know what he was doing, and broke his neck in doing it. That incident, as provincial newspapers are apt to remark, "cast a gloom over the district." Many farmers swore they would never supply wine again, and others went so far as to root out acres of vines. But one wine-maker went further than the rest. He and his wife swore they would never produce another drop of wine. At night they rolled the casks down to the creek, turned on the taps, and let the liquor drain into the water. Only when there was not another drop left did they feel satisfied.

The Stingy Housewife

The forty-fifties were the days of handwork. The women sewed by hand. The men sowed by hand. Crops were reaped by the sickle, and threshed by the flail. Harvest time was harvest time in more senses than one for the laborers, who went from farm to farm in search of work. The pay of the harvesters was five shillings a day with dinner thrown in.

In my previous article I mentioned Park Farm. One of the early owners of that property (I will call him Mr. Blank) possessed a wife who was notorious for her exaggerated sense of thrift. She had the idea that any thing would do to feed the workers, who slaved in the open from sunrise to sunset, thereby acquiring an appetite which would make Gargantua turn green with envy.

One midday when the first squad of the dozen workers came in to feed, they found the menu consisted of a dozen small buns — one for each man. The first comers ate the lot. The second squad sent for more buns. Thereupon Mrs. Blank came down to the shed in a towering rage.

"How dare you men eat two buns? How dare you? How dare you. How dare you?'"

Such was the burden of her lament, as she indignantly stamped about the shed, telling those big capacity consumers what she thought about their extravagance.

Marketing In The Early Days

We who sigh about the "good old days" would be cured of the complaint had we experienced them. Here is a picture of a farmer taking his wheat to Adelaide about 1850. He rose in the dark, and dressed in the light of a candle, or, more often than not, a rushlight. Kerosene lamps were not invented. Even the fowls were not up when he loaded his dray with ten 4-bushel bags of wheat, hitched up his bullocks, and started over the hills on his long journey to the city — three days there and back.

The tracks were innocent of metal. The soft mud absorbed the heavily laden drays almost to the axle. The bullocks strained to the tune of a cracking whip, and not all the driver's care in picking out his route could prevent the wheels from getting bogged. When, after many useless efforts, it was apparent that the sweating beasts could not pull the load out of the mire, there was no alternative to unloading the dray, carrying the bags, 250 lb. or more, one by one, to firmer ground, and reloading after the lightened vehicle had been hauled out of the sticky mess. A nice job for one man!! You may have my share of the "good old days."

When new settlers came into the district their flrst task was to cut down trees, and split slabs to make a hut. This was roofed with shingles, because there was no straw for thatching. Of course, they let in the rain. Then yards had to be made, fences erected, and the land cleared of thick timber. Bullocks drew unmanageable single-furrowed ploughs, and the sickle and the flail dealt with the crop. We, who came into the world later, confronted with the fait accompli, are apt to forget these things, and to rage and storm because the local council has not repaired a hole in the road which has been worn overnight.

Terrorised By Cattle Duffers

For many years this district, including Kangarilla and Meadows, was terrorised by a gang of cattle duffers, who were never caught, principally because the settlers had been threatened with death if they gave information to the police. Yet the thieves were well known. They were a father, his two sons, and two sons-in-law— all big, burly fellows, who would stop at nothing. Their period was 70 years ago.

To appreciate the story it is necessary to have an idea of the country in which they operated. You see, 70 years ago these hills were not as we know them. They were covered with high grass and thick timber which afforded safe hiding places for all sorts of bad characters — escaped convicts from New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, and other fellows of like ilk, including the unruly men of the Tiers, of whom I am to tell you in a subsequent article.

The police force was exceedingly small, there were few fences, and cattle grazed at will over a big stretch of country. The gang had their headquarters in a cave on the Onkaparinga. Many persons in the district knew the haunt, but they were afraid to tell, the outlaws having made it plain beyond possibility of misunderstanding that a revengeful bullet awaited anyone who opened his mouth too wide. On the other hand, many a settler received free meat through the operation of the "duffers.'"

Cattle used to be driven into the scrub and slaughtered. The hides were not kept, being considered too dangerous as evidence. The skins were put into a fire, and the meat placed in barrels in a cave. What became of it afterwards is mere conjecture, but the belief is it found its way to market. The Hon. John Carr was one of the victims of the "rustlers" — and there were many others.

It seems strange in 1933 to read that the raiders operated for many years, until the leader became too old for the job. That circumstance, and the fact that one of the sons blew his head off with a gun, put the firm into voluntary liquidation.

Could Not Civilise The Blacks

All this hills country, of which I have been writing, was overrun by blackfellows in the fifties, and the sixties. Once a year they would gather in all their numbers, and migrate to Adelaide for the blankets which were distributed to them annually. How Billjim kept his calendar I cannot tell, but he was always on time when the yearly festival come round. The meeting place prior to the great trek citywards was the comparatively flat piece of ground on the Onkaparinga which is now the Clarendon recreation ground. Here a big corroboree was held to celebrate the gathering of the clan, and was generally witnessed by large numbers of white people. The chief of the tribe was called by the whites "King Rodney." His spouse was "Queen Charlotte," and their daughter "Princess Amelia." They were very proud of these titles.

When "King Rodney" lay down for the last time and his spirit went roving over the happy hunting grounds of his ancestors, Mr. and Mrs. Daly— you will remember I told you Mr. Daly was an early schoolmaster— took the "princess" into their own home, and tried to civilise her. She was treated as a member of the family, given the same education as the other children, and taught to conform to the habits of the whites. But all the time her poor, black heart was yearning for the freedom of the bush.

No sooner was her protector cold in his coffin than the "princess" shed the vestments of civilised respectability and fled back to the wilds— education or no education. She died only a few years ago at the Point Pearce Station.

But, white or black, the maternal in- ... [?] ... I have come up against stories of the species. Wherever I have been on my rambles after notes for these articles I have come up against stories of the black woman's love for the white woman's piccaninnies. I encountered it again at Clarendon, where I was told the blacks were used as trusted guardians of the pale-faced babies. And they lavished just as much care on the baby girls as the baby boys, whereas their own tribal customs put the males so much above the females in prestige that if the latter grew too numerous they were murdered at birth.

Some other noted natives of the period were King Billy, who used to wear a red cap, which accentuated a rather hideous countenance of which the white children were afraid; Black Jane, Selena (whose story was so much like that of "Princess Amelia" that the two were, apparently, identical), Jumbo, and Old Charlotte.

Bullock Driver Who Didn't Swear

It was at Clarendon, too, that I encountered that rara avis, a bullock driver who didn't swear. This was Mr. E. Mitchell. I had instinctively understood that something like a university education in the art of blood thirsty vituperation was a necessary concomitant in the art of navigating Rusty, Strawberry, and other bovine dreadnoughts through the arboreal seas of the Australian bush. But Mr. Mitchell says not— and he ought to know, for he began bullock punching at the age of 14, and finished up at 65. And he says he never swore.

"Didn't you ever get bogged?" I asked in surprise.

"Often," he answered.

"And what did you do?"

"Unloaded and got out."

Well, candidly, if I'd had to unload and get out I'd have warmed the atmosphere with my lucid views until it blushed a vivid pink. And I have a very modest conception of my powers as an Australian linguist.

Mr. Mitchell's father (Caleb) was one of the earliest settlers of the Clarendon district. Mitchell, junior, seems to have spent his life leading oxen where they should go. He is one cf the few men living who has taken a bullock team down Rundle street. He has carted more teams across the ranges than he can remember — teams of eight patient, plodding cud-chewers — with- out even a "dash it." When a man tells you that in company you have to believe him— or fight. And I'm not much good at fighting.

Part of Mr. Mitchell's tasks in the days before he gave up this ultra respectable mode of old time transport was to break-in his slow moving steeds. I asked him how he did it. Now, when you get hold of a young steer full of pep and villainy it is apt to give him a mauvais quart d'heure as any bucking outlaw you may see in the yard of a northern station. But Mr. Mitchell's plan was simplicity itself. He first yarded the steer with an experienced bullock. They were left together for a day. Next he yoked the young ox to the old, and left them together for another twenty-four hours to exchange confidences. By that time, apparently, the old fellow's advice had had a sobering influence on the high spirited youngster, who next day was put more or less willingly with his com patriots in the team. And there you are !

I could go on talking of Clarendon ad. lib. But don't be alarmed— I'm not going to. All I have to say before closing this article is that I am very much obliged to the ladies and gentlemen who went to so much trouble to prepare the material for my use. They were Messrs. J. Harper Robinson (chairman of the district council), Reg. Morphett (district clerk), Henry Morphett, J. Potter, J. H. Dingle, E. Mitchell, J. Spencer, A. A. Harper, J. Piggott, and Mrs. E. Edwards.

NEXT WEEK: Story of Meadows.

Images:

• Adelaide's water supply. Pipes from the Clarendon weir convey the water three miles to the Happy Valley Reservoir. Note the size of the pipes in com parison with the fence and gate.

• The weir at Clarendon which dams back the Onkaparinga to augment the city's water supply. Mount Bold is a similar but larger scheme.

• Tally-Ho Hotel (now closed) in sight of which stranded coach passengers had to wait for days because they were unable to cross the flooded Onkaparinga.