The Paddington Cemetery Part 2

In the centre of all the Paddington cemeteries stands that devoted to the Roman Catholics of a past generation.

It is said to be still the only Catholic cemetery consecrated in Queensland. This means that it was all consecrated at one time. The usual custom is to consecrate each new grave. The ceremony was performed in the year 1858, by Archbishop Polding, of Sydney, one of the earliest and ablest of the Roman Catholic prelates in Australian history. The ceremony was solemn and impressive, and there was a great gathering of the Catholic people. The cemetery in those days was merely a patch of ordinary forest, covered by coarse grass, bushes and trees. The Archbishop’s gold Pectoral Cross fell off his breast into the grass, and no one saw it fall. When the loss was discovered, they searched for it in vain. An advertisement appeared in the “Courier” offering £5 reward, but there was no response. The cross was regarded as lost beyond recall, and superstitious people considered the loss an evil omen for the new cemetery. No finder appeared, and no emaciated, conscience stricken wallaby hopped along with it as did the jackdaw of Rheims with the Cardinal’s ring.

Then came a remarkable series of events. A man, whose name is forgotten, came out as an emigrant cook, on board a vessel called the Alfred. He was one of the spectators at the consecration of the cemetery. A few weeks afterwards, whilst on board the steamer, Bredalbane, at the Present Queen’s Wharf, he fell overboard and drowned. When the authorities opened his clothing box, there, lo and behold, lying on top, was the Archbishop’s lost cross. He had known it was a valuable article of solid gold, and was waiting to get a bigger price than the £5 reward. Of course, every good Catholic firmly believed that God had drowned that man for his sacrilegious appropriation of the cross! There must be a divine judgment in such cases. We can recall a man who stole a priest’s horse, and three months afterwards he became a member of the Queensland Parliament. This shows that no man can appropriate sacred property without some awful fate overtaking him.

We were on a visit to Cunnamulla seven years ago, when some impious ruffian stole £3 / 15s out of Father O’Sullivan’s room in the Catholic Church. The genial priest assured us that the man would most certainly be struck down by lightning.

But that is a digression. There were many graves in the catholic cemetery before it was consecrated by Archbishop Polding (ancient text missing)

Louis Schneider was a saddler who died on April 27, 1868, aged 30. His widow, Maria Jane, afterwards married Joseph Baines, and became Mayoress of Brisbane. When Baines died she married a contractor named Ryan, who built the Roman Catholic Church at Kangaroo Point and the Palace Hotel at South Brisbane. The lady had then a German, an English, and an Irish husband. Perhaps she was solving some great ethnological problem, or was like the Irish bigamist who was proved to have married six wives, and explained to the judge that “he was merely trying to get a good one!” She is still in robust health, drives out daily, and owns the Pineapple Hotel.

Mrs. Sybella Clune died in Margaret Street on June 11, 1863. The headstone was erected by her only surviving daughter, a Mrs. Cameron, who was afterwards lost in the Fiery Star, which was burned at sea on Good Friday. Thomas M. Clune died on April 10, 1853, aged 27, and the stone was erected by his sister.

John McCabe, who died in 1861, aged 53, was one of the leading merchants of that time, and also owned a number of teams. He also owned Queen’s Wharf, and a large area of South Brisbane. His store was in George Street, at the corner of Charlotte Street, opposite the old “Courier” office. John McCabe and Jeremiah Daly were great chums, and in their many visits to hotel parlors, McCabe’s toast was, “Here’s to oor ainsells, and whaur will you get the like of us?” It is clear from this that McCabe was a Scot. His toast was like the Highlanders’ prayer, “Lord, send us a guid conceit o’ oorsels!” Of the Daly family we have much to say in a future article.

Sarah Jones who died on October 10, 1867, aged 49, was the wife of John Jones, who kept the St. Patrick’s Tavern in Queen Street, where Tronson’s shop is today. Old residents speak of her as a fine specimen of a woman, and a great favourite.

Two children, one two years and the other four months, died on December 3, 1864. Their parents were the once well known Mr. And Mrs. Darragh of Kangaroo Point, an old time honored family, for many years in the butchering and hotel trades at the Point.

Catherine Sneyd, who died aged 46, on July 23, 1858, was the wife of Samuel Sneyd, the first chief constable and jailer in Brisbane. He was a Baptist and she was a Roman Catholic. On the day of her funeral the service was to be conducted by the Rev. Dean Signey who waited at the grave for an hour after the appointed time, and then went home. When the coffin arrived, the service had to be read by a layman, and much strong feeling was shown for some times afterwards through the absence of a qualified priest. Mrs. Sneyd had nine children and on her grave is this verse:

The Sneyds lived in a house in Adelaide Street between the present Parcels Post and Finney Isles corner, where was the first bougainvillea vine ever grown in Queensland.

A few readers will remember a wild young Irishman named James McGowan who had a farm at Lytton and was killed off his horse on February 18, 1875, aged 29. There was nothing McGowan loved but a fight. He was always “blue moulded for want of a brain ” and would offer cheerfully offer to fight all hands, anywhere, at any time. On one occasion he took possession of a Methodist Church, and challenged the whole male congregation to mortal combat. The Methodists regarded James as a man possessed of devils, and fled. He was a fine type of fighting Irishman, and we mourn over the grave of that young warrior cut off untimely in his youth. We miss these fiery spirits at the peaceful elections of today. His sister, now dead, married Adam Fiebig, who still owns the old Crown hotel in George Street. Fiebig still has a great veneration for his dead wife.

James Cash, who died on December 15, 1870, aged 68, was an old pioneer who was farming and timber getting at the Pine River, where “Cash’s Crossing” is still a landmark in the district.

In the same grave is Mary McQuinney, his wife’s mother, who died on May 20, 1870, and his daughter Mary Ann, wife of Pat Hughes, who died on November 23, 1872, aged only 21. An appalling number of young wives, under 26 years of age, died in those early days, apparently from bad nursing, bad medical attendance, or no attendance at all. Ignorant midwives have filled many graves.

Under one stone is Patrick Mooney, a Tipperary man, who died on September 20, 1851, aged 51, also his eldest daughter Mary Scanlan, who died on April 6, 1873, aged 40, and James Mooney, his eldest son, who died on August 31, 1873, aged 44. Mooney was a fine specimen of a man, six feet four, who kept a hotel at the corner of Russell and Stanley Streets, South Brisbane. Mary Scanlan was the wife of Jeremiah Scanlan, who kept the Queensland Hotel in Edward Street, about 25 yards below the present Metropolitan, then kept by Mrs. Duncan. Jerry was an old policeman from New South Wales. He did well in Brisbane, and owned both the Queensland and Metropolitan hotels. Opposite Jerry was the once fashionable Menzies boarding-house, which still stands there, but the Menzies are both dead. One daughter married Thomas Bryce, of the Bryce Carrying Company, and another married West, the merchant, of Townsville. One of Jerry’s nieces, a Miss Cuneen, married Ferdinand Papi, an Italian, the present head teacher of the Woolloongabba State School, and became mother of Bertram Papa, the lawyer, and the fair Amy Papi, a name known in the social columns.

A Daniel Tracey, who died on October 4, 1853, aged 55, and his widow Catherine on September 3, 1871, were a couple of fine people who lived in Margaret Street, and their daughters, very handsome girls, all died young. One daughter, Mrs. Brown, died on October 20, 1866, aged 30, and Ann on November 30, 1869 aged 22. The stone over the grave was erected by the daughter Bridget, “in affectionate remembrance of her dear parents and sisters.” She, too, had only a short life.

Alice Higham, (pronounced Hyam), who died on August 8, 1872, at the age of 80, was the wife of Higham, who was a timber getter on the Tweed River in the early days. They both came out in Governor Darling’s time. She was a grand old woman, the soul of honesty and hospitality.

Christopher Weir, who died on July 23, 1873, aged 61, was a cabman who once kept a hotel out beyond the Hospital, on the Bowen Bridge Road. Michael Weir also kept the same hotel. It was a great resort of the young bloods of those days, and many a lively scene was enacted in that now forgotten house, which has long ceased to exist.

We find that another cabman, still alive, the well known Jack Sweeney, of the George Street stand, buried his young wife Catherine, aged 25, and her infant son, on July 24, 1869. Sweeney was once a very smart policeman stationed at the Towers, Ravenswood, and Cooktown.

Honora Thomas placed a stone over her husband, John Thomas, who died on April 3, 1864. They kept an hotel in Queen Street, where Alexander Stewart and Sons’ warehouse stands today. The same house was kept as the “Donnybrook Hotel” by a Mat Stewart, a very unusual name in hotel keeping. On the grave of Thomas we find:

Widows as a rule, lack a sense of logic, or they would not so often consign their departed husbands to where they apparently meet with peace and rest for the first time. In this case, too, the poetry is deplorably defective. It is the kind of verse that is composed in a hurry while you wait.

Margaret, wife of Thomas Faulkner, died on January 18, 1869, aged 41. One of her grand daughters is the wife of Under Secretary Brady, of the Works Department.

There is a handsome stone over the grave of Francis Murphy, who died on August 15, 1872, but so far no information concerning him is available.

There is one peculiar inscription over the grave of a young wife, named Janet Murphy, who was born at Grafton on April 3, 1853, and died at Brisbane on November 18, 1872. She was thus only 17 years and eight months old, and the stone says:

There is said to have been a John Murphy for many years a messenger in the Lands Office, where he was succeeded by Gamble. Janet was the wife of a John Murphy.

An old military warrior is represented by Patrick John Burke, of the 56^th Queen’s Own Regiment. He died on March 17, 1867, aged 80 years. Doubtless he did some hard fighting in that in that famous old regiment.

Robert Eaton, who died on December 2, 1861, aged 62, was a compositor on the “Courier,” at the corner of Charlotte and George Streets. The old office is now a boarding-house. What ghosts of old compositors must meander in silence through the rooms when all the boarders are asleep! Eaton’s mother followed him to the grave on April 2, 1874, aged 74. Remarkable is the number of those whose age is the same as the year of their death.

Joseph Brown, who died on January 29, 1868, aged only 33, was a drayman, and “a good, true man,” as an old colonist describes him, who lived out at Teneriffe.

John Ede buried a child aged five on January 14, 1851. Ede was a watchman in Queen Street. One son, Willie Ede, is today a cabman at the Central Station, and one is a vanman.

Ellen Lonergan, who died on November 27, 1870, aged 25 (another at the fatal age), was wife of John Lonergan, still a drayman in the Valley. His second wife was a Miss McIver, sister of McIver, a well known blacksmith in the Valley today.

In 1858 a man named Jerry Scanlan kept the Surveyors Arms in Queen Street. It was between Albert Street and Stewart and Hemmants’ warehouse. I knew Scanlan when he was in the police in Warwick, also when in the Border Police, under Dr. Simpson. The Surveyors’ Arms was a one story wooden building. Scanlan was a saddler by trade. As I left Brisbane in 1858, I can’t say what became of him.

Those unhappy types of men and women who rise in the night to take a dose of medicine, and make the deadly mistake of selecting the wrong bottle, are represented by John Guilfoyle, who died on January 24, 1874, aged 27. He was a compositor at the Government Printing Office, and the headstone informs us that it is “ a tribute of respect to his memory by the men of the Government Printing Office.” He was only a young man, but was married, and his four year old son had died on March 8, 1871. The father of John died on November 7, 1858, aged 41. He was a quarryman, who worked on the old Kangaroo Point quarry, where the Naval Stores are today. The son who died had risen from sleep, and instead of a bottle of medicine prescribed by Dr. Bell, he got a bottle of carbolic acid, drank some before the dreadful mistake was discovered, and died a cruel death.

Even doctors fall victims to these fatal errors. Some readers will remember Dr. Clark, who once practised in Stanthorpe. He went to live in a New South Wales town, we believe it was Gulgong, and one night he rose to get some medicine, took the wrong bottle, and when his wife awoke in the morning, he was lying dead beside her.

A John Meillon, who died on August 1, 1862, had a brother Joseph Meillon, who was educated as a lawyer and in 1869, went to practice at Grafton on the Clarence River, the other lawyer being George Foott, who had succeeded James Lionel Michael, a well known literary man who was drowned in front of his on house. Henry Kendall, the poet, was a clerk in Michael’s office. Foott’s wife, his second wife, was the widow of Boulanger, a name known to the music world as a brilliant composer.

Sarah Jones, who died on October 10, 1867, aged 40, was the wife of John Jones, who kept St. Patrick’s Tavern, in Queen Street.

There is a neat stone over Francis Murray, who died on August 15, 1873, aged 37. He had a cabinet makers shop in Queen Street, next to Paddy Mayne’s butcher’s shop, which stood on the present site of the British Empire Hotel. Beside Murray are his two girl children, Isabella Jane, died June 23, 1870, and Annie Maria died October 23, 1873, one three and one sixteen months. Murray was once Mayor of Brisbane, was also fairly well to do in cash, and advanced a considerable sum to Sir Maurice O’Connell, who was unable to repay it and the Government had to overcome the difficulty with a special appropriation.

Paddy Mayne died in the backroom of that Queen Street butcher’s shop, and Bishop O’Quinn and Joe Darragh, who was a cousin of the Bishop, were with him when his will was being made. Mrs. Mayne was supposed to be a Protestant, and Mayne had a big powerful coachman, also a Protestant. When the will was being made, Mrs. Mayne suspected that she was not receiving due consideration, and she sent the coachman in to remove the Bishop and Darragh, and removed they were. However she had no reason to complain of her share in the will. She afterwards gave the coachman a farm at Moggill, and conferred an annuity on Tom Slaughter, the accountant. Both Mayne and his wife were very good hearted liberal people, who did many generous acts. It is a crying shame that Paddy had to confess on his deathbed to a murder committed by him when much younger, as the legacy it left his family proved to be horrific. Mrs. Mayne was a fine specimen of a woman, and an excellent wife and mother. She is said to have sent for a priest when dying, and to have admitted that she was a Catholic.

Near to the grave of Mayor Murray, is that of Elizabeth Baines, first wife of another Mayor, the E. J. Baines of a previous article. She died on March 3, 1863, aged 39.

A boy named William Costelloe, who died on May 11, 1861, aged 15, was the son of a man who had held a high position in the Inland Customs’ Revenue Department of Ireland.

Eliza Quinn, widow of James Quinn, kept a hotel at German Station. Quinn was formerly a clerk with George Edmonstone, one of whose daughters married John Markwell. Edmonstone was a Queen Street butcher, a genial, amiable, old gentleman, who became a member of Parliament. The present writer had many a chat with him from 1875 to 1877.

On January 1, 1865, D. H. O’Leary buried his infant son Daniel Michael. Daniel senior was a son of Tom O’Leary, the father of Jack O’Leary, for years clerk of the Cairns Divisional Board, and now Traffic Manager on the Musgrave Tramway Company’s line from Cairns to Harvey’s Creek, on the Russell River. Jack’s mother, a dear old lady is still alive and well, and a regular attendant at the Catholic Church in Brisbane. The O’Leary family were mostly brunettes and Jack, as every Cairns man knows, has a decidedly auburn tinge in his hair.

Catherine Queely, who died on January 5, 1865, aged 16, was the daughter of a shoemaker who came over from New South Wales, and opened a shop in Albert Street, a few doors from Queen Street. The daughter was a fine specimen of a girl, and her death from typhoid fever nearly broke Queely’s heart. A brother of Queely was killed out on the Dawson on the same day as the 19 people were murdered by aboriginal attack on Horatio Wills’ Cullin-La-ringo Station, on the Nogoa, October 17, 1861. We have stood over the grave in which 16 of the 19 were buried.

In four fragments is the stone that stood over the grave of Kate Agnes Hickey, who died on October 28, 1863. Hickey was a resident of the Valley.

Richard Belford, who died on April 28, 1865, was once editor of the “Courier,”, and afterwards editor of the “North Australian,” the leading paper in Ipswich of the early days. Bishop O’Quinn brought that paper to Brisbane, and it is represented by the Catholic paper, “Australian” of the present day.

Daniel Lyons, who died in 1865, aged 60, was father of Daniel Lyons, a saddler in Turbot Street in the early days, and brother of James Mooney, a hotelkeeper in South Brisbane, one of whose sisters became the wife of J. M. O’Keefe, ex-M.L.A., for the Lockyer, a man likely to bound into the aroma with a wild Hibernian war cry at any moment.

John Ahearn erected a neat stone over the grave of his brother Denis Ahearn, a native of Donickmore, County Cork, who died on February 12, 1875, aged 32, the fatal age of the Ahearn families, as three of the men died at that age.

When Camille Desmoulins, of the French Revolution, was before the revolutionary tribunal, and asked his name, he replied, “I am the age of the ‘bon sans culotte,’ Jesus – an age fatal to revolutionists!”

Apparently the age of 32 was as fatal to the Ahearns as 37 to the French patriots. These Ahearns, who were carpenters, finally left for California. The Ahearn family mentioned in the last article are still represented. Two of the girls married two of the brothers of Cahill, the present Commissioner of Police, and both of the brothers died. The widow of one is now the wife of the well known and popular hotelkeeper Denis O’Connor, who has given his name to “O’Connor Boatshed,” and is an enthusiast in rowing and other athletic circles. A brother of the sisters is now on Charters Towers.

The J. W. Buxton who once had a stationery and fancy goods shop in Queen Street, and whose wife died on January 21, 1867, was a man of considerable means. He became infatuated with an actress, and fled away with her, leaving a very fine wife, who was immeasurably the superior of the actress in physique, intelligence and character. Why a man sometimes deserts a splendid woman for a worthless specimen, or a woman forsakes a splendid man for a contemptible weed, are two conundrums beyond the reach of human intelligence.

One of the daughters, Marion Flora, died on May 23, 1873, aged only 29. She was the wife of James Chapman, father of Ebenezer Chapman, now a builder in Fortitude Valley. Jessie Lamont lies in the Presbyterian ground, near to Margaret Elizabeth Bethune, wife of David Lachlan Brown, head of the firm of D. L. Brown and Co. He died not long ago in Toowoomba, and his first wife died on April 29, 1869, aged 33, at “Langlee Bank,” Bowen Bridge Road. The stone says:

“Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

His second wife, still living, was a daughter of the Rev. George Wight, once Immigration Lecturer.

George Lindsay, described as “son of the late George Lindsay, of Aberdeen,” died on April 20, 1873. He was an elderly man, confidential clerk to John Bourne, who built the Brisbane bridge of 1873.

Lindsay died in the year the bridge was opened. There was a great demonstration at the opening, and Dr. Carr Boyd wrote a long celebration poem in the “Courier,” over the “nom de plume” of “Ralph de Peverial.” Boyd is represented today by his youngest son, Gerald, who is in the Lands Office, and the second son, known to the press as “Potjostler,” is in West Australia. The eldest son David was a surveyor. His widow is wife of the present Dr. Brown of Rockhampton. She was one of several sisters, all handsome women, daughters of a Mr. Ransome who was once C.P.S. at Goodna, and lived at Little Ipswich.

The Jeremiah Daly referred to before a s a chum of merchant John McCabe, was father of the once well known barrister and Crown Prosecutor, Tom Daly, one of whose sisters was Judge Miller’s first wife. Another married the Hon. Sydney Dick Melbourne, and one married a son of Christopher Newton, head of the Sydney firm of that name. They were all fine looking women.

Buried somewhere in the catholic cemetery is a man named Barrett, who died in 1867. Barrett had come out in the last convict ship, which landed him at Sydney in 1840. That ship was called the “Eden,” a facetious name for a convict vessel. Barrett had revealed a conspiracy on board, and as a reward he received a reprieve. After five years in Sydney and Illawarra, he came to Moreton Bay, and joined a party of timber getters on the Tweed. One of the party was a man named Robert Cox, a victim of one of the most notorious murders in Queensland history.

Cox and Barrett came to Brisbane on a visit in March 1848, and stayed at Sutton’s Bush Commercial Hotel. On Kangaroo Point, corner of Holman and Main Streets.

On Sunday night, March 26, Cox was murdered under diabolical circumstances. His body was cut up and his head cut off. The head was found by a dog, in a baker’s new oven, in a building erected for John Campbell, father of the present Amity Point Campbell. A man named George Cummins found the trunk of the body on the mud foreshore of the river, where it was left by the retreating tide. Parts of the body and three shirts, soaked with blood, were found in a well. The cook at Sutton’s Hotel was a man named William Fyfe, who was a friend of Cox, who was staying with another friend, named Moseley. Fyfe and Moseley, and a butcher named Lynch, were arrested, but the final proceedings were taken against Fyfe only. The enquiry lasted five days, and some remarkable evidence was given, all reported in the “Courier” of that date. Fyfe was committed for trial, sent to Sydney, tried and found guilty, and hanged, protesting his innocence to the last.

He had written a long speech for the scaffold, but was not allowed to deliver it, but the public heard it afterwards.

This atrocious crime is introduced for this reason. Twenty years ago, in North Queensland, the present writer met a son of Barrett, and heard the whole of his father’s story of the crime, as told to the son. It is quite different from anything so far published. Barrett’s story was that Cox, and three others, well known men then (including one Patrick Mayne), and long after, were sitting drinking and card playing in Sutton’s hotel, when a row started between Cox and one of the others, who picked up one of the old heavy brass box snuffers, with the projecting sharp point to adjust the wick. He threw this at Cox, and it struck him on the temple, and the sharp point entering the brain and killing him. There was no murder intended by anybody, but worse than murder followed. The other three men in terror of the consequences, at once conspired to put the guilt on Fyfe, who was not even in the hotel. He was over in North Brisbane, and did not return until nearly daylight. But the apparent evidences of guilt were woven around him with such devilish ingenuity, supported by the evidence of the three conspirators, and the female relations of one of them, and that of two others secured by special inducement, that Cox had enough against him to send any man to the gallows. And two of the conspirators were in Sydney and saw the innocent man hanged. Such was the tale told by that Barrett who sleeps there in the silence of the Paddington cemetery.

Will you kindly correct the enclosed paragraph, referring to the late J. T. Scanlan, of whom I am the niece mentioned in your last edition of “Truth,” wherein Mr. J. T. Scanlan is referred to as “an old policeman.” Mr. J. T. Scanlan was a mining surveyor, many of his plans, with his signature attached, being still in the Lands Department Office, Brisbane. And he, with others of his profession surveyed Sydney for its first water mains. He was the proprietor for many years of the Queensland Hotel, Brisbane, which is still remembered as being the rendezvous of traveling surveyors, sea captains etc.

The Church of England cemetery is on the slope of a ridge, on the south side of the Paddington cemeteries, enclosed with a paling fence, in a fair state of preservation.

So far as examined the oldest grave dates back to 1847, when Samuel Henry Copperthwaite was buried, on May 27. The most recent graves are dated in 1875, so apparently all funerals after that went to Toowong. Except on three or four graves the lantana has been kept out, and the ground is clear. But there is the same dismal spectacle of fallen and leaning and broken stones, as in the other cemeteries. Evidently grass fires have killed some of the trees. Among those that remain are a few that date back to the start. There is a silky oak at least three feet in diameter, and a fine grey ironbark very little less. The others are Moreton Bay ash, blue gum, cypress pine, and a few figs. The old road winding through the ground is still clearly defined, though unused for over thirty years. What a long line of hearses and sad processions passed along that road, in the vanished years that saw so many “white robed forms of friends long given, in agony to the earth and heaven.” There must be thousands of dead in that graveyard, since the burial of Miss Hill, Walter Hill’s daughter, in the Toowong cemetery in 1871 up to the present day, that graveyard has received 29,600 dead, representing a period of 26 years. At Paddington, the Church of England ground received bodies for 28 years. The graves are in rows over the whole area, probably not more than one in fifty with a headstone. Conspicuous here, as in other cemeteries, is the small number of old people, the great number of children, and young men and young women. The great majority are under 40.

On entering the gate, the eye is caught at once by three graves that call back many historic memories. A blue granite eight foot high monolith, the Egyptian symbol of the Supreme God, stands on the grave of Arthur Stuart Bernays, the eight month old child of Lewis Adolphus and Mary Bernays. This child died on May 16, 1865, or 42 years ago. The fact is recorded on a square of marble screwed on near the top of the monolith, which is a miniature of that Cleopatra’s Needle that stands 68½ feet high and weighs over 185 tons. As that was sculptured more than 1500 years before Cleopatra was born, it is not clear why it bears her name. Bernays, the father of that child of 1865, is the present Clerk of the Assembly, a position he has held since the first Parliament of Queensland opened, in the old convict built stone building in Queen Street, afterwards the Supreme Court.

We may marvel at the fact the L. A. Bernays has seen all our Governments and their supporters come and go, and sat and listened to their oratory – and is still alive! He is probably immortal and will be sitting in the house a thousand years hence.

Close to the gate is one of the neatest and best kept tombs in the cemetery. It bears the name of Medora Ann Little, who died on February 27, 1872, aged 37. The Spanish name of Medora was probably taken from the Medora of Byron’s “Corsair.” Mrs. Little was the wife of the once well known Crown Solicitor, Little, who tells us on the tomb that:

We cannot improve on those old eulogiums of the Hebrew prophets. They were eloquent and expressive. Contrast this zenith of epitaph with the nadir on that of the gravestone in Massachusetts, USA:

It is remarkable that the British race, in Britain and America, is responsible for the most ridiculous epitaphs on record. No other race appears to have placed puns or sarcasms on the graves of the dead. Who but a Yankee would record this on a gravestone in Iowa:

And we go to a grave in Cheltenham for a specimen of what the rustic chaw-bacon of England could do on a headstone:

No such epitaphs are possible on an Australian tombstone. Such a stone would be capsized, or smashed, as being an insult to the dead.

After this digression, we return to an iron railing enclosing two remarkable pioneers, prominent in early Queensland. These graves have also been well kept. Here lies Richard Jones, M.L.C., of Sydney, who died on November 6, 1852, aged 70. He was known to the public of that time as “Merchant Jones,” a man who invested a lot of capital in squatting in the first years of the Darling Downs. The first sheep that ever came over the range, belonged to Jones. They were brought through Cunningham’s Gap, in 1842, by a man named Summerville, who was Superintendent for Jones. He took up Tenthill and Helidon stations, and put the sheep there. Another superintendent named Rogers, at the same time took up Grantham station, and took there a flock of sheep owned by George Mocatta, who took up Innes Plains on the Logan.

Writing in 1876, John Campbell, who took up Westbrook in 1842, said, “I had resided for some months very quietly on the Downs (1842), intent on getting my cattle broken into their runs, when I was one day astonished at hearing a French horn being blown, and looking out over the plain (Westbrook) saw a single horseman approaching. Upon coming up he proved to be Mr. Summerville, the superintendent for Mr. Richard Jones, whose stock it appeared was on its way to what is now Helidon station.”

Buried beside him is John Stephen Ferriter, who died on October 21, 1865, aged 63, another squatter of the early days. Ferriter and Uhr were partners. One of these Uhrs was once Sergeant-at-Arms in the Assembly. John Uhr was killed by the blacks at Sandy Creek, near Gatton. Other Uhrs were officers in the native police, and well known in the north especially Darcy Uhr. Pioneering squatting was a different business from squatting of today. The number of whites known to be killed by blacks in the first ten years of settlement were 254. The number of blacks killed by whites 254x

When Rogers went to Grantham station, near the present Laidley, he took possession of about 400 sheets of bark the blacks had stripped for their own wet weather camps. These had been taken off ironbark trees, after the rough outside was knocked off. Rogers gave nothing in return, and Campbell said that this act of mean robbery led to the murder of at least seventeen white men, mostly shepherds.

Then the Sydney Government sent up a detachment of soldiers, who were quartered at the foot of the range, to protect dray traffic. The camp was long known as the “Soldiers’ Barracks.” Those were days when John Kemp estimated the fighting strength of the Helidon district tribes at twelve hundred men. If one had only complete reminiscences of Richard Jones and Stephen Ferriter, the two men side by side in the Paddington cemetery, what an interesting picture they would give us of those long vanished old, wild, rough days.

When Jones died he was member for the Stanley boroughs, in what is now Queensland, in the Legislative Council of New South Wales. He had been chairman of the Bank of New South Wales, Sydney. He died out at New Farm, and the body was brought by water to the Queen’s wharf, from whence a funeral procession of about 500 people followed it to the cemetery.

The chief mourners were Thomas Jones, J. S. Ferriter, Daniel Peterson, and William Uhr.

Jones, who was a native of Wales, and came to Sydney in 1819, married in 1823, Mary Louisa Peterson, by whom he had two sons and four daughters.

His daughter, Mary Australia, married Captain W. B. O’Connell, Minister for Lands.

Ferriter’s widow, a tall, handsome woman, resided for about 20 years in No. 2, Hodgson Terrace, with a maid, who stayed beside her to the last.

“John Stephen Ferriter, R.N., was the Agent for Immigration, and lived in a cottage adjacent to the stone barracks between George and William Streets, afterwards the Colonial Treasurers’ Office. He was somewhat addicted to bad puns, but otherwise of a kind and gentle disposition.”

Thomas Grenier, a youth of 17, who died on August 25, 1857, was the eldest son of Thomas and Mary Grenier, who kept a hotel at South Brisbane at that time. It was the chief resort of the squatters, and there was many a wild scene there. On one occasion some joker packed all the knives, spoons and forks from the breakfast table into a valise of old Captain Collins, who calmly rode away with them to the Logan, and got home before he discovered the contents.

In the meantime Grenier had the blacks’ camp searched, and much suspicion fell upon innocent men, until choleric old Collins walked in, and banged all the cutlery on the table, with language that nearly set fire to the house.

The Grenier family owned much property in South Brisbane, including Highgate Hill.

A 22 months old child of J. C. and Emily Vidgen, was buried on March 25, 1866. The mother is also dead. She was the first wife of the well known and much liked secretary of the Brisbane Gas Company. She was a Lancashire girl, but they were married in Scotland. Vidgen’s second wife was a Miss Mossop.

In the notice of Crown Solicitor, Robert Little, we omitted to mention that his first wife was a Miss Geary, daughter of old Captain Geary. His second was a Miss Bramston, sister of Bramston, once Attorney General – 1870 –74. He also held a seat for three years in Herbert’s first ministry.

Bramston and R. G. W. Herbert, our first Premier, batched together in the house well known as “Herston,” near the children’s hospital. The name was thus constructed. They took the “Her” from Herbert, and the “Ston” from Bramston, and made a blend of “Herston” out of the first and last syllables. G. P. M. Murray, our ex-P.M. calls his house “Yarrum,” his own name reversed.

Amongst those buried in that Church of England cemetery, unknown and unrecorded, is a man whose name calls back an episode of 1842. At that time, there was an Eaton Vale station, on the Downs, a young Jackaroo named Barker, who in after years became the Hon. Wm. Barker, of Tamrookum station, on the Logan. An old man named Kelly and his wife and son, were traveling as hawkers, and camped on the present site of Leyburn, then taken up as a station by Pitt and Banifant. This Pitt gave his name to the present Pittsworth, and one of his daughters married the late Macdonald-Paterson.

Two men posing as shearers joined the hawking party. On the second night out from Leyburn, these two persuaded young Kelly to sleep at their fire, and shot him dead while he was asleep, their intention being to kill old Kelly and his wife, and take all the property. But old Kelly heard the shot, got his gun and went over to the camp. The two scoundrels ran away, and afterwards separated. One went towards the Clarence, then called the “Big River,” and the other, after going nearly to the Severn, doubled back to the Downs. He was a small dark man with one eye, and his name was Selby. He went to Jimbour woolshed, left there and went by Westbrook, on the way to the main range. Having accidentally shot off one of his fingers, he made for Rosewood station, to have his injury seen to by Dr. Goodwin. Young Barker was one of the pursuers on his track. Selby left Rosewood and went towards the Logan, evidently making for the Clarence. The hutkeeper on Telemon was a ticket-of-leave man, named Brown. Barker gave him a description of Selby, and also told him there was a reward of £100 for his capture, consequently Brown was on the lookout for him. Two days afterwards, Selby walked up to the hut, and Brown recognised him at once.

He acted as a genial host to Selby, while he sent an aboriginal secretly for assistance. Selby was taken to Maitland, tried and hanged, an act of justice due directly to Barker and Brown. Brown died in 1856, in Brisbane, and lies in the Paddington cemetery. He got the reward and a free pardon for the capture of Selby.

Barker, and Murray-Prior, and C. R. Haly married three sisters named Harper, all very handsome women. Prior’s wife was the mother of Mrs. Campbell Praed, and Mrs. John Jardine.

In your issue of 8^th instant, in “Bygone Brisbane,” you refer to the Paddington cemetery and record the name of “John Randall,” November 31, 1873, first headmaster of the Normal School. If your scribe had taken a little more trouble, he would have read “John Wood Rendall,” and not “Randall.”

The man you refer to was the first headmaster of the Normal School from Separation until his death, and he had a great deal to do with moulding the character of a heap of old Queenslanders and lost his life through tolerance and conscientiousness. “Bible in State Schools” is again in the air. My father, John Wood Rendall suppressed, without authority from the then Board of Education, a book of (up to that time) religious instruction, not in accordance with the views of a considerable section of the 500 odd parents of children then attending the Normal School. His thought was every denomination had an hour to devote to this, and there was a classroom set apart for any parson or priest who liked to claim the privelege.

The Board of Education called my father to task, and as a “Rendall” of “Rendall,” Orkney Islands, he stated he alone was responsible for this act. Henry Palmer Abbott, then general manager of the A.J.S. Bank, formally proposed he should be dismissed, and Arthur Hunter Palmer slated Abbott as he deserved to be slated.

My father went out to his home before Palmer had spoken and that night he had brain fever and died, and I do think, considering he was the first man in this State to make such a stand, the truth ought to be recorded.

In one grave, which ought to have received a little more attention, are Louisa Tully and her month old child Blanche.

She was the first wife of the late William Alcock Tully, ex-Surveyor General, and eldest daughter of the late Simeon Lord, of Eskdale station and son of Simeon Lord, one of Sydney’s best known men seventy years ago. He was generally known as “Merchant Lord.” The Eskdale Lords once lived in Tasmania, where they had a station called Bona Vista, near Avoca. Fred Lord, of Brisbane, some years M.L.A. for Stanley, was born at Bona Vista, on November 8, 1841. The station was once stuck up by two notorious bushrangers named Dalton and Kelly. While they were inside the house, Constable Buckmaster came onto the verandah. They fired through a glass door and shot him dead, one ball striking him in the forehead. Nobody else was hurt. Lord’s daughter, Louisa, was then a child. She was born there in the year 1837, and died in Brisbane on February 20, 1866, aged 29. Her only sister married a Lieutenant Airey, who came to Sydney and Brisbane as a Lieutenant of Marines, in the Challenger with the Duke of Edinburgh, in 1868 and 1869. He became in after years, the late Lieutenant Colonel Airey, of Sydney.

One of the Challenger’s men died in Brisbane and is buried at Paddington. His name was Percival Perkins Baskerville, Commander in the Royal Navy. He died on March 1, 1869, aged 21.

One of Louisa Tully’s brothers, Robert Lord, was once member for Gympie. His widow is the present wife of Sir Horace Tozer, Queensland’s Agent General. Louisa Tully left two sons, one of whom is in ‘Frisco, and the other in Sydney. Tully’s second wife was a Miss Darvall, sister of Anthony Darvall, for many years manager of the A.J.S. Bank in Ipswich, and a candidate at the first federal elections.

The first Mrs. Tully had five brothers, William, Robert, Frederick, Alfred and Simeon. The first two are dead. Simeon, one of the owners of Eskdale, has also an oyster farm at Lord’s Creek, Southport. One his daughters, Ruby Lord, is at the convent school at Warwick, and exceptionally clever at woodcarving and fancywork.

W. A. Tully, husband of Louisa, was once a very prominent Brisbane man. He was born in Dublin in 1830 and graduated as a B.A. of Trinity College in 1852. In that year he came to Tasmania, and met the Lord family. He stayed there until 1863 and became Inspecting Surveyor in the Survey Office. In 1863 he came to Queensland, and in 1864 was Commissioner for Lands in the Kennedy district. In 1864 he was transferred to the Warrego. In 1866 he was appointed Chief Commissioner, and then Under Secretary for Lands. In 1875 he became Acting Surveyor General, and in 1883 was appointed Surveyor General. Finally he became a member of the Land Board. He and the second wife, Miss Darvall died, and are buried together in Sydney. The first wife, Louisa Lord, is alone in the Paddington cemetery.

Charles Henry Rawnsley, who died on January 16, 1873, aged 55, was a staff surveyor who surveyed much of the country around Brisbane.

He purchased land and built “Witton Manor” on it, at Indooroopilly, the house long occupied by D. C. McConnell, and afterwards by Andrew Bogle.

Rawnsley took some interest in natural history, and was the cause of a curious discussion in the “Courier,” on a supposed new bower bird which was actually named “Ptilonorhynchus Rawnsleyi,” and held that name until Gerard Krefft, of the Sydney Museum, proved it to be an immature male Regent bird, with only part of the yellow colors displayed. The Rawnsley’s “satin winged bower bird” retired into oblivion. Charles Coxen, Sylvester Diggles, and Gerard Krefft, were the principal writers in this old time long dead controversy. One of Diggles’ sons is in the Electric Telegraph office.

William Grosvenor Armstrong was the year old child of Octavius (and Jessie Augusta) Armstrong, one of our veteran police magistrates, still in service at the Central Police Court, and residing at South Brisbane. The child died on May 29, 1872, and the stone says,

“I know, Oh Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thy faithfulness hast afflicted me,”

The name of Georgina Hely, who died on September 10, 1866, as the widow of F. A. Hely, of New South Wales, at the age of 71, recalls an old and remarkable family of the early days. Hovenden Hely, a giant of six feet six, was one of the men who started with Leichhardt on his second expedition. He and Leichhardt and Daniel Bunce (“Old Ironbark”), left Sydney for Raymond Terrace, on the Hunter River, in the steamer “Thistle,” on September 30, 1846. From there they came overland to Jimbour. However, Hely’s experience with Leichhardt were not pleasant, and the expedition returned from the Mackenzie River as a disastrous failure. When Leichhardt started west on his last trip, in 1848, and no traces of him were discernible for three years, Hovenden Hely went out in 1852 with a search expedition, but his two blacks deserted him, and he returned to the coast, after being within two days journey of where the wild blacks told his own blackboys the Leichhardt party were all killed.

Hovenden Hely had a number of sons, who ranged in height from 6ft to 6ft 4in., and three of them are well known in Brisbane. The Georgina Hely, of the Paddington cemetery, was mother of the wife of the late W. L. G. Drew. She was a tall handsome woman.

William Yaldwyn, the now retired police magistrate, of Brisbane, buried a six weeks old child on May 12, 1867. Yaldwyn’s second wife is a daughter of the genial Phil Agnew, Post and Telegraph Master of Dunwich. The child of 1867 was named Duncan Francis. Yaldwyn was one of the early squatters of the Dawson, and was out there in 1861, when 19 people were killed on Wills’ station on the Comet.

Mary Ellen, the wife of T. H. B. Barron, was a daughter of Arthur Wilcox Manning, once Under Secretary. This was the Manning whom a relative named Bowerman, also in the service, struck on the head with a tomahawk, and badly wounded. Parliament in an hour of unreasoning sentimentalism, rushed through a “Manning Pension Bill,” giving him a pension of £600 per annum, and £300 yearly to his widow if she survive him. Manning died after drawing about £20,000 and his widow still draws the £300.

Bowerman’s tomahawk will probably cost Queensland about £30,000. And Manning went to live in Sydney, and not a penny of the pension has ever been spent in Queensland.

Barron’s first wife, Miss Manning, died on December 21, 1866. His second wife was a daughter of the once Registrar-General Blakeney, and she is still alive. Both wives were fine looking women. The only daughter of the second wife is married to a son of Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer.

Charlotte McKeand, who died on April 19, 1865, was the wife of a giddy financial agent, McKeand, who had an office at the top of Queen Street, beside where a chemist named Drew had a shop, near where Dr. Hugh Bell resided, at the corner of Queen and George Streets. McKeand made much money and lost it again in a fashion common with giddy men, and all that is left to perpetuate his name is his wife’s grave at Paddington. He was the sixty per cent magnate of that period. He owned the land now occupied by James Cowlinshaw and Herbert Perry, on the Breakfast Creek road.

Henry Kingsmill Shaw and his wife Helen, buried a year old infant on November 29, 1874. Shaw was one of the managers of George Raff and Co., and had a tragical death in a lagoon near Dalby. He stripped to swim in after some ducks he had shot, became entangled in the weeds, and was drowned. The present writer remembers the sad event. The widow married again, and kept Auckland Villa, Tank Street, as a boarding house.

Tom Haynes, who died on June 12, 1875, was coachman for Governor Cairns, who put a large, horizontal slab, with a cross, over his grave, and an inscription to say it was a record by the Governor.

Charles Street, who died on September 23, 1873, aged 42, was engaged at Pettigrew’s Sawmills in William Street. His brother was father of the Street sisters who had an artificial flower and dressmaking shop in the building now occupied by the Protector of Aboriginals. One of these sisters married J. G. Drake, and another was the wife of Inspector A. D. Douglas.

Daniel Weinholt, over whom is a fine marble monument, died at Cleveland, on February 28, 1865, aged 43 years, leaving a widow and four children. He was a son of the then late J. B. Weinholt, of Kent and Weinholt, who were among the early squatting families of Queensland. The monument was erected by the brothers and sisters.

Thomas Burnett Temple, M.R.C.S., who died on June 10, 1864, aged 32, was a young doctor who came out for his health, and died of consumption. His mother lies beside him, and Cecil Burnett Temple, a child of 13 months. The mother died on November 24, 1873, aged 50. The grave has a marble slab on a large stone cross.

Inside one railing is a row of five headstones, over F. J. Barton, and his two infants, Charles Samways Warry, Albert Barton, Thomas Symes Warry, and Thomas Warry. F. J. Barton, who was a doctor, died on August 31, 1863. He was married to a Miss Warry, who, as Barton’s widow, married Dr. Hugh Bell, and, on a trip to Scotland, was lost in the Fiery Star, which was burned at sea, on Good Friday, 1866.

Barton was one of the first doctors of the Brisbane Hospital, when it was in George Street. Albert Barton, who died on February 23, 1864, was his brother. The stone says:

Thomas Symes Warry was a chemist in Queen Street. He died, unmarried, on August 19, 1864, aged 42. The stone says:

This Warry was a humorist. On one occasion he induced Billy Brookes to climb a greasy pole in front of his shop in Queen Street. Those were days when Billy was not the severe good templar he became in after years. The pole climbing scene was exhilarating. Billy, with the aid of sandpaper on his hands, and got about half way, then slid down with great celerity. Then he and Warry went over to call on “Pretty Polly,” at the Treasury Hotel, to drink confusion to greasy pole climbing.

“Pretty Polly” afterwards married a man named Moffit, and they kept the Royal Hotel, opposite the Post Office for years. After she became a widow, Polly went to Charters Towers, and died there.

The mother of the late Tom Pratten, of the Railway Department, was a Miss Warry.

Emily Gertrude, was the year old child of Sheppard and Emily Smith, and died on February 24, 1862. Smith was the first manager of the Bank of New South Wales. He was a tall, fine specimen of a man, about six feet two, and his wife was a little woman. The smallest women never seem to hesitate about facing giants.

Richard James Coley, who died on September 12, 1864, aged 60, was Sergeant-at-Arms in the Legislative Assembly. Coley came to a tragical end at the cottage still occupied in George Street, close to Harris Terrace. His son came to an equally tragical end in after years. One daughter was married to a squatter named Thompson, on the Dawson, and another married C. B. Dutton, once Minister for Lands, Minister for Railways, and Minister for Works and Mines, in the first Griffith Ministry. Beside Coley are his two little girls, of 8 and 13. The first died on March 4, 1845, the other on June 30, 1851.

Sarah Emily Harris, who died on September 17, 1866, aged 78, was the mother of John and George Harris, once the leading Brisbane merchants and shipping agents. George married a sister of the late George Thorn, of Ipswich, and their well known home, “Newstead,” at the mouth of Breakfast Creek, was famous for its generous hospitality. Mrs. Harris, who is yet alive and well, is still a fine looking woman. She is mother of the well known Did Harris. The mother of J. and G. Harris is described as a grand old lady. Both brothers are dead. John Hurrow Turner, who died on July 20, 1862, was manager of the Union Bank in Brisbane. He was born at Milthorp, in Westmoreland. It is rather singular to find two John Turners, managers of the Brisbane Union Bank, and no relation to each other. John Hurrow Turner came up from Melbourne to take the place of John Sarjeant Turner, whom the directors wanted in Melbourne for some special work. He came up also in the hope of improving his health, but consumption had too strong a hold, and he died while in Brisbane, at the early age of 36.

On reading your articles on the Paddington cemetery, in your interesting paper, I noticed a slight error, which, as an old Brisbaneite, I would like to correct.

In one of the paragraphs, you mention that W. J. Buxton, who kept a stationer’s shop, deserted his wife for an actress, when in reality it was a man named H. Shepperson, who had the shop after Buxton, and who was also a theatrical agent for any companies coming to Brisbane. I cannot call to mind the name of the actress, but she was in the burlesque line, which was at that time very common.

I hope I have not taken up too much of your valuable space, but as a constant reader, I think that anything relating to history of our city ought, if possible, be correct.