When the city meets the bush

An excerpt from an old Parish Map of
Kincumber showing the two properties.

In my last post, I told the harrowing story of the early life of Madeline Geary Henderson, my great-grandmother. The story ended with her moving to live with her brother at Brisbane Water. She was a 21-year-old widow with a small daughter.

Madeline and her brother Robert lived in a cottage on a farm that Robert had inherited from their grandfather, Robert Henderson snr. It was one of several properties left in trust. In the will, it is described as follows:

... all those one hundred acres of land situated at Cockle Creek Brisbane Water in the County of Northumberland aforesaid granted by the Crown to me by Deed dated the thirtieth day of September One thousand eight hundred and thirty nine...

Robert Henderson snr had purchased the farm from the original grantee, William Blizzard in 1828, for a little over £12.  When Torrens Title was introduced it was described as 'Portion 29 in the Parish of Kincumber', so that is the number shown in the above Parish map (dated 1929). Madeline's brother would later sell the property to an intermediary who on-sold it to Mary McKillop for the development of her home for boys. 

The next property but one was known as 'Toorigal' and had been the home of William Ward and his family for more than 20 years and is shown as Portion 115 on the parish map (William Ward purchased the property in the 1850s). William had died in February 1876, but his wife Catherine was probably still running a general store at Toorigal when Madeline and baby Josephine arrived.

You can imagine the stir that the arrival of an attractive young woman would create in the small community. The Ward household included four young people of Madeline's age, including Emily who was 25, Manasseh 24, Emma 21 and John 19. But Madeline was a shy and retiring girl, so it may have needed some sort of event to bring the young people together.

If family stories can be believed, the catalyst turned out to be an unruly dairy bull. Madeline was a city girl, who had spent most of the previous ten years in a boarding school. She was caught in the open by the angry animal and sought refuge in a nearby tree. 

Manasseh Ward was a country boy. He was a superb bushman, expert in handling horses and cattle, so a dairy bull was no challenge. He happened to spot the young woman was trapped and came to the rescue.

This was a momentous meeting of two families with a long history in the Brisbane Water district. Manasseh's father and Madeline's grandfather were among the very first European settlers in the area over 50 years before. The young couple would marry within a year of their first meeting and would go on to establish a large family of their own.