No 36 Saddleworth

When you write about Saddleworth you must drag in Riverton. When you write about Riverton you must drag in Saddleworth. That is inevitable. The towns are only seven miles apart, were founded by the same man, on part of the same station, and their history in many respects is identical. This explains any overlapping which may appear in the story of Saddleworth which, as far as possible, is confined to the town proper.

Today, if you happen to be in Saddleworth at harvest time you hear the hum of the modern thresher. But in the Saddleworth of which I am going to write you didn't. Threshers and harvesters were unknown. The land was ploughed by spring ploughs which had no wheels, and were drawn by teams of bullocks, and when the crop materialised it was cut with a hand sickle. Those were the days of hard work. We think we work hard now. In a sense we do. But our labors are as nothing compared with the sweat and the toil of our forefathers who slaved from daylight till dark, and often after dark, working by the uncertain glow of a rush light. And, as a reward for their labors, they received a few paltry shillings which the meanest paid of our employee today would reject with scorn.

That was the earliest picture of Saddleworth given to me when I met Messrs. H. J. Dunn (chairman of the district council), J. H. Frost, George Baker, and George Crawford (district clerk) in the council chamber one morning recently. Mr. Crawford told me how his father, who lived with his parents three miles south of Saddleworth used, in his teens, have to ride 33 miles to the Burra to ascertain the price of butter, and then ride home with the information— 66 miles to get a market report. If the market was favorable the butter was put on bullock drays and sent to Burra to be sold; if it was not the butter was "potted." No cold storage to wait for better prices those days.

Saddleworth Laid Out

In last week's article on Riverton I told you that Saddleworth was laid out as a town by James Masters, a local pastoralist, in 1853. Masters bought the section (2800) on which the town stands for £80 in 1846. The formality of lodging a plan of the subdivision was not complied with. It never has been. He called the town after his birthplace in Lancashire. It is located at the junction of the Gilbert River and Coghill's Creek, the latter commemorating the name of Mrs. Coghill, who kept the first hotel in the town.

There seems to have been a good deal of irregularity about the land transactions of the early days. I was told that in some cases titles were never obtained for the land bought. When I wrote that Mrs. Coghill kept the first public house in Saddleworth I should have explained that prior to her advent, and before Saddleworth existed at all, even as a name, there was an isolated hotel on the old Burra road kept by Joseph Dunn. It was called the Saddleworth Hotel. You find the ruins of these isolated houses all over the north. In the days of the teamsters they were necessary landmarks on the long treks through the bush, for in those days few towns existed. A man couldn't say he was going to Saddleworth, because there was no Saddleworth. Instead he would say he was going to Brown's— Brown representing the keeper of a pub in the bush at some place without a name. The fate of these lonely old houses was sealed by the railway. The iron horse killed the teamsters, and the passing of the teamsters left the inns of the wilds without clients.

Tears And Laughter In The Pubs

It seems to me there is a strangely interesting story, a tale of tragedy and comedy, tears and laughter, in the history of our early pubs. You find it even in Saddleworth. In the old cemetery there I saw the grave of James Edward Sanders, popularly known as Jimmy. "Jimmy," in 1854, succeeded Mrs. Coghill as the purveyor of public refreshment to the thirsty souls of the burg founded by Masters. Anybody who has been in Saddleworth on a hot day, when the town, set in a valley between hills which cut off such breezes as might temper the merciless sun, knows just how hot the place can be, and just what kind of insatiable thirst it is possible to develop. "Jimmy" was a jovial host, the friend of all, the enemy of none. But that did not save him from a tragic fate. He was driving home from market one day in a light trap over the kind of roads which today would give the National Roads Association the jim-jams for a month, when a wheel hit a rut, and "Jimmy" was pitched out on his head. That was one day in 1860, and it wrote "finis" to the end of "Jimmy's" life.

Then there is the story of the affluent mailman who lit his pipe with £5 notes. I might be prepared to accept the romance of that piece of foolishness in the singular, but certainly not in the plural. Under the stimulating influence of Three Star men may do unwise things, but there are few who would be prepared to make a bonfire of their fortune for the amusement of their fellow men. It shows what sort of rollicking days there were in the sixties, when, to entertain a crowd of good companions, a man could sacrifice a £5 note on the altar of the goddess Nicotine.

Which reminds me of a monetary tragedy of another kind. Our forebears did not always have an unbounded confidence in the integrity of our banks. There was one man in Saddleworth many years ago who swore that he would trust no bank with his money. So he constructed a nice little cache under the floor of his house, and there in the dead of one night he deposited two £100 notes. No one knew they were there, except the man and some hungry rats. The rats got in first, and when the owner went to get his hoard all he found was some useless evidence of the expensive banquet those rodents had enjoyed.

The Rainberd Murders

In the fifties and sixties the Saddleworth country was overrun by blacks — not the semi-civilised, clothes wearing variety which most of us knew in the days of our youth, but barbaric stalwarts who could be trusted only while you kept both eyes on them. Where there were men about they were usually well-behaved, but if they only had women to deal with they were apt to become troublesome, it was when the blackfellow got drunk that he saw red. And in those days there was no law to prevent them getting intoxicants.

Mr. Baker told me of one occasion when his father's home was suddenly surrounded by a horde of shouting aborigines. The whole tribe was drunk, and for a while things looked ugly. The whites barricaded themselves inside the building, and prepared to put up what they expected to be the fight of their lives. Meanwhile one of them managed to slip out through a window, and went to the home of a neighbor named Burston for help. The Burstons turned out a party armed with long bullock whips, which they knew how to use. They got among the blacks with the lashes, and cut strips from them which sent them howling back into the wilderness. It was a tame ending to a desperate situation.

More grave was the tragedy on March 11, 1861, at Macrow Creek. It figures in the official records as the Rainberd murders. Rainberd was a settler who had a hut near the creek, 10 miles from Saddleworth. On this particular day he had run short of supplies, and had gone to town to set some. The blacks, as usual, knowing the white man was away from home, surrounded the hut where Mrs. Rainberd and her two children were alone, and demanded rations. The savages were drunk. The trembling woman told them she had none to give them, whereupon they attacked her with their waddies. Mrs. Rainberd and her children, Emma and Robert, were massacred, and the bodies stuffed into wombat holes. This crime created a big stir throughout the colony, and led to the legal enactment making it an offence to supply aborigines with liquor. The offenders scattered, but were tracked down by Constable G. Ayliffe.

On June 7, 1861, four of them were executed at the Adelaide Gaol. They were Warretya (alias Goggle-eyed Jimmy), Pilti Miltinda (alias Bobby), Tankawortya (alias Jimmy Alick), and Warretya (alias Kap Robert). The bodies were buried in the gaol grounds. A curious tradition survives locally regarding these executions. It is that the actual murderer escaped justice by turning Queen's evidence, thus hanging his companions.

More About Moorhouse

In my article on Melrose a few weeks ago I told you a little about Dr. Matthew Moorhouse, the first Protector of Aborigines in South Australia. I then promised to give you the main story of this fine old character when I got to Saddleworth. Well, here it is. But first let me tell you the connection of Moorhouse with Saddleworth. It was in this district that he first began as a pastoralist. That was after he grew tired of the thankless task of looking after the interests of the blackfellows. I can assure you it was no sinecure in the infant days of the province, when Biljim could stir up more trouble to the square mile than any meeting of the Australian Labor Party can do today— and that, to my way of thinking, is "saying some."

Moorhouse came to South Australia in his early twenties with the diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons in his packet. He landed at Holdfast Bay in July, 1839. The same ship brought out another pioneer-elect in the Rev. W. R. Newland, father of the late Simpson Newland, and grandfather of the distinguished surgeon-knight of the present day. At this time there were two applicants for the job of guardian of the dusky children of the bush— Moorhouse and a Wyatt. Governor Gawler hesitated a long time between the two, and at length chose Moorhouse, because Wyatt, in his Excellency's own words, "although a very worthy and talented man, and warmly attached to the natives, had not the constitutional energy to grapple with the difficulties of the office." Just what those difficulties were will appear presently.

As Protector of Aborigines Moorhouse travelled over various parts of colony in the days when travelling was something between the curse of Gomorrah and a permanent absence abroad. For three or four months at a time he was on the roads, living in tents, riding on horseback, travelling in bullock waggons, sleeping in bush shanties with snakes and centipedes for company, having a wash when he could get one, and more often going without because he couldn't, and generally "enjoying" all the privileges of moving about a young country that had no roads, no railways, no telegraphs, no pubs (worth the name), no street lighting— no anything that made life worth living. But those times produced men — and Moorhouse was one of them.

When the blacks of the Coorong, coveting the white man's goods, massacred the passengers and crew of the ill-fated brig Maria, which had the misfortune to be wrecked on the treacherous southern coast, Moorhouse was one of the men who accompanied the official party sent out to execute the white man's justice against the blackman’s savagery. Similarly when it became necessary to send expeditions to the Rufus River, to teach the Murray natives that it was against the code to butcher white men and run away with their sheep, Moorhouse went with the armies of retribution to see that his dusky wards were not subjected to punishment which exceeded their crime.

In the intervals between his journeying, Moorhouse had an office on North terrace, close to where the Public Library now is. When he wasn't in his office he was down on the banks of the Torrens, opposite the present Adelaide Gaol, conducting a mission for the blacks. In the end he grew weary of the cares imposed on him by his guardian ship of the natives, and retired from the public service. It was then he turned his attention seriously to "squatting,"' and joined Charles Swinden, in pastoral activities in the country which is Saddleworth and Riverton today.

In the midst of many activities, Moorhouse found time to enter Parliament. In 1860 he was one of the six representatives of the City of Adelaide, and for nine years he was C.C.L. in the short-lived first Waterhouse Government, which came into power to do a certain job, and resigned when it had done it.

It had been my intention to give you here the history of the Rufus River fight, based on Moorhouse's own report to the governor of the day. But space will not permit — and any way Saddleworth had nothing to do with that historic lesson which the whites gave the blacks, and which ended, once for all, the massed attacks of the savages on the parties coming overland from the eastern States.

That All Who Run May Read

They have a good idea in Saddleworth for announcing their social functions. It is a large notice board at the end of the main street. You cannot miss it as you pass. The dance is, as it always has been, the king of amusements in the country. Young people will motor incredible distances on winter nights over more in credible roads to attend a dance. There is a wonderful spirit of cooperation in the fetes, and fairs, and bridge parties, and local concerts, which make up the social round. And eats! Everbody takes a cake, or a plate of scones, or a jelly; the women are born cordon bleus. I like that spirit of comradeship, co-operation, and hospitality. Those people know how to get the best out of life. We of the capital have forgotten how to live.

Pioneer Posts

When you posted a letter in the fifties you never knew when it was going to get there. You couldn't say, "There now, Betsy will get that tomorrow night, and I'll have a reply next day." You just handed it to the postmaster— perhaps the postmaster general himself— and trusted to Providence. In the earliest days of Saddleworth there wasn't any post-office at all. If you hadn't got a horse you had to tramp six miles to Steelton for your mail, which came through three times a week on a pack horse. The first mailman was a man called Ansell. His successor was named Rapson. Then a post-office was opened in Sieckmans wheat store. That was a great event. It gave Saddleworth a new status. An assistant in the store was the first postmaster. After a period he was replaced by an official from the city, but the wheat store remained the postal headquarters.

Those days Steelton was a sort of metropolis compared with Saddleworth. The shops were there— about two of them I think— and the church. Saddleworth people went there to worship, travelling in a dray drawn by bullocks, just as, in the pioneer days of Adelaide itself, the local aristocrats used bullock drays to attend the official balls at Government House. Today the town on the Gilbert boasts of a fine institute. But it has a humble beginning. It was started as a small library in the home of W. H. Harry, the first public school teacher. This Harry, the father of a large family —one of the sons became Inspector Harry of the Education Department was a man of boundless energy. He was schoolmaster, clerk of the district council, overseer, librarian, and general adviser on all domestic matters of the residents, from a name for the latest baby to the best means of securing an overdraft on next year's crop. Then, finding himself at a loose end on Sundays, he filled in his time preaching all day in the local pulpits. I feel tired myself when I think of the things Mr. Harry did. But don't let me mislead you. Harry, though the first public school teacher, was not the pioneer wielder of the rod in Saddleworth. Years before that there used to be a small wattle and daub building in a corner of what is now the old cemetery, and there a small thin man with dark hair used to dispense knowledge and punishment in about equal proportions. His name was Gould.

Until I started these articles I never knew just what energetic people our friends the Methodists were. They seem to have done most of the evangelical pioneering of the north. I am getting tired of writing, "The Methodists were the first," &c. Here at, Saddleworth I ran up against the same old phrase. This time they began the religious history of the town with services in a private residence. Then they built the first church. Now there are four or five denominations, with handsome buildings. I suppose if I were to say there are altogether too many churches in most of our country towns to cater for the population I would run a grave risk of being "roasted" as an agnostic, or flayed as an iconoclast. So I won't say it. I'll just think it.

The Roman Catholics have put their church on top of a high hill. It is a striking edifice. It can be seen from miles around. But the climb on a hot day! Of course I had to do it. But my labor was in vain. The church was locked. I was surprised to find a churchyard there. The view from that hill was worth the climb--worth the heat, and the flies, the honest sweat, and the bullock driver's thirst. Mile upon mile of undulating, fertile country, stretching away to the ranges which hide the Burra thirty miles distant. It was from the top of that hill that I learned the secret of Saddleworth's normal prosperity. Those rolling plains, splashed with greens, and yellows, and browns, reaching back to the tree clad highlands, told it to me.

Floods

As the Gilbert, rising above Manoora, sweeps in towards Saddleworth, it takes a sharp bend. When the floods come down the water banks against this bend. Then there is loss and lamentation, and all parties combine to anathematise the Government. Not that I blame them for that. If I told you my opinion of the Government — any Government — you'd probably stand aghast at the torrent of my indignation. After all it is the privilege of the taxpayer to kick — it's the only amusement he gets for his money— but the trouble is he doesn't kick hard enough. The thing which annoys the citizens of Saddleworth is that bend in the river. They maintain if it was straightened out the water would have a better chance of getting away, and they wouldn't be obliged to have periodical boating parties in the streets, or to chase their expiring ducks and fowls across a madly swirling lake. I promised to make their grievance public, and I have done so. But, not being an engineer, and not having experienced the excitement of rescuing terror-stricken maidens from open windows, and absent-mindedly dropping them in the water when I meant to drop them in a boat. I can offer no personal opinion of value— except my firm belief that the Government is always wrong. My political beliefs are so fixed that I think I ought to be appointed permanent leader of the Opposition.

Politics Are Funny

Politics is a funny game. It is like golf—interesting but expensive. Presently we'll all be voting and working ourselves into a state of irrational excitement over the question of whether Mr. Richards or Mr. Butler is to pile up the next deficit. What does it matter, anyway— as long as the deficit is a substantial one? I'd just as soon be taxed by one side as the other— and that's all in the game for you and I. I never appreciated Mr. Kipling's "Pay, Pay, Pay" until I came back to South Australia. Now I understand it only too well. I know that as sure as I say to the wife, "My dear, I think you can have that new carpet next month," along will come a blue and pink plaster from Mr. Cornish, and once more my bank balance sinks to zero, and the carpet vanishes again behind the horizon— which is bad for trade as well as bad for me. What we want in this country is more honesty and less politics. We want to hear Mr. Butler say, "Well, Bob, that is a jolly good Bill of yours," or Mr. Richards say, "That's a great idea of yours, Dick, the best thing we ever had." But what we most want to hear them say is— "Well, boys, there's 25 per cent, coming off your income tax this year." But dreams rarely come true!

NEXT WEEK : Kangaroo Island. An Amazing Story of the Early Days.

Images

• Mr. H. J. Dunn, chairman district council.

• Mr. W. H. Harry, first public school teacher.

• How Saddleworth spreads the glad tidings of its social functions.

• Masters's old Commercial Inn (single storey), Grenfell street, city, on the site of which Brookman's Buildings now stand. The second building from the inn is the old 'Advertiser' office, and the building with the look-out the old 'Register' office. It was Masters who founded Saddleworth and Riverton.

• "Those rolling plains, splashed with greens, and yellows, and browns, gave me the secret of Saddleworth's normal prosperity."