Manasseh and Madeline Ward's first home

The last serious investigation into the Ward family was over 35 years ago, before the Internet age and the growing wealth of resources available to researchers. That family history concluded that after Manasseh Ward and Madeline Geary Henderson married in 1876, they set up home at the old Ward family property at Killcare, then known as Ward's Bay. This was a reasonable conclusion given that the property had been given to Manasseh shortly before they married. There was also an old family story about an incident during the birth of one of the children. The story was that Madeline urgently needed a doctor, and Manasseh's brother Ephraim set out from Ward's Bay in a rowing boat, to fetch the doctor from Mossman. Ephraim's efforts were in vain as the baby was still-born.

The story about Epraim's heroic efforts in rowing to Pittwater, then riding to Mossman are documented in several other sources, but the starting point of the journey is Gosford in some.

Our earlier researcher made the assumption that that the baby concerned in the story was John, who was born in 1884.

I have looked at this more closely over the last few weeks and obtained the original birth and death registrations for the three boys who died in infancy:

• Thomas Ward was born at Toorigal House, Kincumber on 24 March 1881 and died on 26 March, aged 3 days.
• John Arthur Ward was born at Toorigal House, Kincumber on 23 January 1884 and died at Kincumber on 25 July aged 6 months.
• Manasseh Ward jnr was born at Kincumber on 24 July 1885 and died at Balmain, 2 days after his first birthday.

None of the boys were still-born, but it is most likely that the story of Ephraim fetching help was for Thomas who died aged just 3 days old. 

I also asked myself why did the doctor not come from Gosford. I suspect that answer is that there was not a doctor in Gosford. Early historian George Fletcher (writing as 'Perong') mentions that the District Superintendent of Roads was looked on as the local doctor in the 'early 80s', so it is quite possible that he had not yet arrived in 1881.

We must remember that the practise of medicine was very different in those days to what we have today. The 1880s was still at the very beginning of modern medical science. The role of germs in causing disease was just becoming accepted and most doctors were trained under the apprenticeship scheme rather than by university study. In fact Sydney University started teaching medicine in 1881!

Digging a bit deeper, I discovered that the first two children, Madeline Ward jnr and William Ward were also born at Toorigal House in 1878 and 1880 respectively and notices were placed in the newspaper that the births occurred 'at their home, Toorigal House'.

On this basis I think it very likely that Manasseh and Madeline's first home was not at Killcare, but at Toorigal House, Kincumber. This makes perfect sense as it had been Manasseh's home for most of his life and his mother had moved to live in Balmain. The 'Toorigal' property remained in the Ward family until after Catherine Ward's death in 1898 and it would have been a far more suitable base for Manasseh's work as a teamster than the more remote Killcare property. Kincumber was close to the active centre of the timber and ship-building activities.