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Sherwood
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CHARLES AND MARY SHERWOOD nee PERRY |
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(continued) PART THREE The Amazon took just over three months to reach Adelaide. Soon after arriving the two eldest boys, Alfred and Charles went their separate ways. Alfred married in Adelaide in 1858 and worked as a bank messenger. Charles junior found work on a station north of Adelaide at Crystal Brook. According
to Alfred's marriage certificate, Charles and Mary were living in Mt. Barker as
early as October 1858, some two years after arriving in Australia. Mt. Barker
is 40 kilometres south east of Adelaide.
Charles gave his occupation on the marriage certificate as
"Farmer."
In 1861, Charles and Mary leased 40 acres of land near Wistow.
Wistow is a small farming settlement 6 kilometres south-east of Mt.
Barker. The land is referred to as Section 2918 on the lease.
Charles leased the land from another Mt. Barker farmer John Eddy.
The lease, dated the 16 April 1861, was for a period of 5 years, with a
yearly rent of 40 pounds sterling. Charles
was given the option of purchasing the land for 400 pounds sterling when the
lease expired. That
same year (1861) Charles and Mary's son William married Jane Nisbit.
On the marriage certificate William gave Wistow as his place of
residence. William's sister Harriet and husband to be John Jarvis were
witnesses to the marriage. They
also gave Wistow as their address. The following year Harriet and John were
married. On the marriage
certificate, Harriet, John Jarvis, Charles Senior, and Elizabeth Sherwood
Senior all gave Wistow as their residence. They together with the younger
members of the family, Elizabeth, Mary Ann, Stephen and Frederick all spent
those early years in Australia at Wistow.
Harriet and John Jarvis went to live at Mt. Barker Springs, 5
kilometres north east of Wistow. From 1861 through to 1867 the following
entry appears in various South Australian Post Office Directories. "Charles Sherwood, farmer section 2918,
Macclesfield." My
understanding is that Wistow lies in the Hundred of Macclesfield. No entry for
a Charles Sherwood appears in any of these directories for the year 1868.
In 1869 a Charles Sherwood appears in Boothby’s Adelaide Almanac Town
and Country directory as a farmer of section 2897.
This was an adjoining piece of land to section 2918.
In 1870 and 1871 Charles
Sherwood is again listed as a farmer of section 2897 Macclesfield.
From 1872 on there are no further references to Charles at Macclesfield
in Post Office Directories. Charles’s mother Elizabeth died at Wistow
in 1873. It would appear the
family lived at Wistow from at least 1861 up until Elizabeth's death there in
July 1873. Soon after her death
the family moved to Penola. According
to Victorian Lands Department files Charles and Mary Sherwood
were living in Penola in 1874. A Charles Sherwood appears in Boothby's
Directory, as a farmer at Naracoorte Road Penola from 1872 to 1875. This was
most likely Charles and Mary’s son Charles junior. According to Victoria and
Its Metropolis Charles Sherwood junior spent 3 years farming in Penola prior
to coming to Victoria. Also
living at Penola at this
time was another of Charles and Mary’s sons Steven. Steven appears in Boothby’s Directory as a baker in 1875.
Around
1874 the family decided to leave South Australia and come to Victoria.
Charles, Mary and their son Charles and his wife Charlotte selected
land at Natimuk and Mt. Arapiles. One
of the earliest references to the family in Victoria is a land
assessment which was made on Charles Sherwood junior’s property at Natimuk
in March 1875. Charles junior had selected 320 acres there. His father
Charles senior selected 235 acres several months later. Both properties were
at Natimuk. The properties were directly opposite each other, divided by the
Apsley to Horsham road, now the Wimmera highway. Charles
senior had selected an additional 51 acres, which fell in the parish of Mt.
Arapiles. The Move to Victoria In making their way to Victoria, the family may have travelled along what was then known as the Gold Escort Route. It extended from Adelaide to the Victorian gold fields. To travel this route they would have left Penola and headed north to Naracoorte, crossed the border to Apsley, and travelled on to Edenhope. At Edenhope they may have detoured 30 kilometres south east to Harrow. It was here that Charles’ sister Jane lived. Leaving Harrow they had to travel north through Miga Lake to reach Mt. Arapiles. The mountain stands nine kilometres west of Natimuk and a further thirty-five kilometres or so west of Horsham. Rising 230 metres above the flat Wimmera plains, its craggy, weathered features rise up precariously in places. Its ancient cliff walls catch the suns light, exposing the rich colour, texture and beauty of the rock surface. The land Charles pegged out lay at the base of the mountain. From the mountain in all directions the plains were covered with the vegetation generally referred to as Mallee scrub. Dotting the landscape were stringy bark, stunted oak and box, honeysuckle and wattle. Gray kangaroos, echidnas, ring tailed possums, sugar gliders, scrub-robins and white cockatoos were just some of the numerous species of birds and animals. A few kilometres to the north were Mitre Lake and Grass Flat. It was here that the early settlers found grass highly suited for thatching the roofs of their houses. To this picturesque setting came other members of Charles & Mary's family. Their sons, Charles and Arthur and daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth at the time was single. She married Samuel Meek at Mt. Arapiles in 1877 and later settled at Kiata, a rural district not far from Nhill. Charles and Mary's son Charles, wife Charlotte and young family, in all probability accompanied them on the wagon trip across. The younger Charles selected land directly opposite his father's selection. A license for land at Natimuk was approved in October 1874. At about this time Arthur Sherwood was working in the Mt. Arapiles area as a farm labourer. A number of statuary declarations, lease applications and other correspondence between Arthur and the Lands Department, dating from 1877 through to 1879, show Mt. Arapiles, Natimuk and Kiata post office addresses. As Arthur moved throughout the West Wimmera, working as a shearer and labourer, he used his parents home at Mt. Arapiles and his sister Elizabeth's home at Kiata as a base. It's not known why Charles and Mary left South Australia at a relatively late age (both were in their sixties) and decided to settle in the Wimmera. Perhaps they were influenced by the fact that Charles’ sister Jane and her husband Thomas were living at Harrow, Victoria, some 60 kilometres from Mt. Arapiles. Another factor which I'm certain played a key role in their decision to leave South Australia was the Victorian Land Act of 1869. This Act required large areas of Victoria previously occupied by squatters as pastoral runs, to be made available for agricultural settlement. Farmers were able to select up to 320 acres. In order to select land, the selector studied maps of the district looking for likely sites. When an available site was found, he was required to mark out his selection. This was usually done by digging a trench 2 feet long, 6 inches wide and 4 inches deep in the direction of the containing sides. Pyramids of stone or posts were placed with notices on them at the corners of the allotment. At 10am, 7 August 1875, Charles complied with the conditions of the Act. The trenches, according to the Application for Licence had been dug previously. The land Charles pegged out was described on a Lands Department Survey Map as "Good grazing land wooded with oak and box." His selection consisted of 2 allotments, which were divided by a road forming the parish boundary. Allotment 1 was in the parish of Arapiles and consisted of 51 acres. Allotment 10 was in the parish of Natimuk and was 235 acres. The west boundary of his selection was boarded by the Arapiles timber reserve and Mt. Arapiles. The Apsley to Horsham road (now the Wimmera Highway) formed the southern boundary of his land. Directly across the Apsley to Horsham road was Charles’s son, Charles junior's selection. The occupiers of adjoining lands were Charles’s neighbours, Messrs Jones, Wyatt and Keyte. Once Charles had selected, it was necessary to obtain a license to occupy the land. On the 11 August Charles applied for a license on his selection. The license was granted on the 1 November. One of the conditions to be met after a farmer had selected land was to within two years of the license being issued, erect a fence around his property. The fencing enclosing Charles’s selection consisted of 37 chains of stub or picket, 72 chains of log, 79 chains of log and brush and 50 chains of brush fence. The cost involved in fencing in his selection was 96 pounds and 15 shillings. A second condition of the license was that the licensee cultivate one acre out of every ten acres held within the first two years of taking up license. Charles first crop was wheat, twelve acres in all with a yield of six bushels per acre. The following year he had ploughed and cultivated an additional 23 acres of wheat with a yield of 5 bushels per acre. The total cost involved in ploughing and cultivating the 35 acres was 70 pounds. Before the land could be ploughed and the wheat sown, Charles’s selection had to be cleared of the oak and box trees. By 1879, 3 years after being granted a license, 200 acres had been cleared at a cost of 7 shillings an acre. While the first years on the land were
taken up with fencing and clearing the selection and planting crops in order
to meet the conditions of the license, it was also necessary to build a house
in which to live. The house built
by Charles with the help of his son Charles, consisted of two rooms and
measured 12 x 24 feet. The walls
were of mud plaster and the dwelling was covered with a thatched roof.
The plaster for the walls was probably a composition of clay, sand and
chopped straw. The timber frame
of the house would then be daubed or coated with the mud plaster.
The cost involved in building the house was 25 pound.
According to the Shire of Wimmera Rate Books, Horsham District, Charles
built his house at Mt. Arapiles sometime between March 1877 and March 1878.
(Refer ). Other
improvements were a yard and garden. The
cost involved in establishing the garden was 5 pound. The selection also contained a dam which cost £10.00 to
construct and a well 60 feet deep. There
were also a number of troughs which were most probably used for watering the
horses. From reading correspondence between Charles and the Wimmera Shire Council, it appears that the road which formed the boundary between the Parishes of Arapiles and Natimuk caused some concern as it ran through the centre of his selection. Charles wrote to the Council requesting that the road be changed. By June the Council had failed to reply. This prompted the following letter. Natimuk Creek, June 30,
1877. Sir, Your obedient servant his Charles X
Sherwood mark On 24 July 1877 the Council wrote to the Minister of Lands and Survey recommending the closure of the road. "The Council find that the road if fenced in would be impassable owing to a large rock several feet high being right across and about half way through." The Council suggested the closure of the existing road would be offset by taking land elsewhere from Charles’s selection. The Council proposed that the new road form the boundary between Charles selection and the Mt. Arapiles timber reserve. The new road would according to the Council, be in the public’s interest and that Charles had consented to the alteration and exchange of lands. The Council's recommendation to close the road and build another along the west boundary of Charles’s selection was accepted. The road is now known as Centenary Park Road. It's not known what Charles objections to the existing road were and why he asked that it be changed. Perhaps he objected to fencing in the road. This would not only have been time consuming and costly, but also because it ran through the centre of his selection, it would have caused inconvenience and reduced considerably the area of his land. When a farmer had occupied his selection for a period of 3 years and had complied with the conditions of his license, he could apply for a lease on his selection. The term of each lease was 7 years. The leasee paid a yearly rent of 2 shillings an acre. Under the New Land Act of 1878 the rent payable was reduced to 1 shilling an acre. In April 1879, a letter written on Charles behalf was sent to the Lands Department requesting a lease under the New Lands Act. By May the following year Charles had not received a reply to his application for the lease. This prompted the following letter to the District Surveyor at Horsham. The District Surveyor, Natimuk.
Sir, I beg to inform you that I applied upon two occasions for lease
but suppose my application was mislaid. Approval for the lease was eventually granted and advertised in the Government Gazette on 30 July 1880. By this time Charles’s health had deteriorated and he was close to death. On the 31 July Charles junior sent a telegram from Horsham to the Lands Department Melbourne. The telegram read "I want lease as gazetted sent up at once, leasee dying of old age." Charles never received the lease. He died of cancer 4 days later aged 67. He was buried at Natimuk on the 7 August 1880. After
Charles’ death, his and Mary's selection was sold. Their son Charles also
sold his property. Charles junior
selected land at Tarranginnie not far from the township of Nhill. According to Arthur Gordon Sherwood his grandmother, Mary
Sherwood went to live with his aunt Elizabeth at Kiata.
Mary died at Kiata a little over 12 months after Charles’s death.
She is buried in the Methodist section of the Woorak cemetery.
No headstone marks the gravesite.
The location of the grave being, Row number 1, grave 8 on the cemetery
plan. Postscript In 1875, some 590 families from Victoria
and South Australia settled in the Wimmera.
Many of the early South Australian selectors came from Mt. Gambier and
Penola. The trip often lasting
weeks was made in German wagons, buggies, drays and carts. The
selectors brought with them their horses, cattle, agricultural equipment and
personal effects. Having
selected they began the arduous years of winning a living with crude
implements from their 320 acres... Cultivation
was primitive, with single-furrow plough drawn by two horses, one man holding
the plough and the other driving the horses...The wheat when finally bagged
was carted 100 kilometres to Stawell in a German pole wagon drawn by a pair of
horses. The grain was sold to a
miller, some of it being gristed for the farmers yearly supply of flour. Charles and Mary must have experienced considerable hardship in those early days at Natimuk. In 1875 the year they took up their selection, wheat prices fell due to a sudden increase in wheat acreage. The following years, 1876 and 1877 were drought years in the Wimmera. In 1876 wheat yields fell to about 10 bushels to the acre and in 1878 wheat prices fell again. Many families were said to have sold out while some simply abandoned their land as debts accumulated. When Charles died in 1880 a considerable amount of money was owed on his land. A total of 59 pounds and 8 shillings was due in rent repayments alone.
The
Family of Charles and Mary Sherwood CHARLES SHERWOOD born Fowlmere 5 Dec.1812, died 4 August 1880 at Natimuk. Vic.
- married MARY PERRY at Fowlmere 24/12/1833. - born Fowlmere 16 Jan.1813, died 15 September
1881, at Kiata. Vic. Age 68. Buried Methodist section. CHILDREN ALFRED (1834-1904) - married JESSIE McINNES and had three sons. CHARLES (1835-1915) - married CHARLOTTE BATTEN and had two sons and six daughters. WILLIAM (1838-1921) - married twice (i) JANE NISBIT and had three
daughters. (ii) SARAH HEADING and had
three sons and a daughter. HARRIET (1839-1910) - married JOHN DUFFIELD JARVIS and had five sons and four
daughters. ARTHUR (1841-1903) - married MINNIE FRY and had
two sons and three daughters. ALLEN (1843-1922) - married MELINDA HANCOCK and
had six sons and six daughters. ELIZABETH (1846-1888~ - married SAMUEL MEEK and had a son and daughter. MARY (1849 - married HENRY HENSTRIDGE - married JANE ARNOLD and had six daughters and three sons. - married ELIZABETH EASTWELL and had ; two sons and four daughters © R J Sherwood. 2001 Return to start of Charles and Mary Sherwood |
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