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BLUEHISTORY MOUNTAINS JOURNAL Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage Organisations Issue 7 May 2017 i i This project is supported by the Arts NSW Cultural Grants Program, a devolved funding program administered by the Royal Australian Historical Society on behalf of the NSW Government. Blue Mountains History Journal Editor Dr Peter Rickwood Editorial Board Associate Professor R. Ian Jack Associate Professor Carol Liston AM Professor Barrie Reynolds Dr Peter Stanbury OAM Design Mr Peter Hughes The Blue Mountains History Journal is published online under the auspices of BMACHO (Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage Organisations Inc.). It contains refereed, and fully referenced, articles on the human history, and related subjects, of the Greater Blue Mountains and neighbouring areas. Anyone may submit an article which is intermediate in size between a Newsletter contribution and a book chapter. Hard copies of all issues, and hence of all published articles, are archived in the National Library of Australia, the State Library of NSW, the Royal Australian Historical Society, the Springwood Library, the Lithgow Regional Library and with the Blue Mountains Historical Society Inc. Blue Mountains History Journal 7 2017 iv Go To Index Blue Mountains History Journal 7 2017 BLUEHISTORY MOUNTAINS JOURNAL http://www.bluemountainsheritage.com.au/journal.html (A publication of the BLUE MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ORGANISATIONS INCORPORATED) ABN 53 994 839 952 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ISSUE No. 7 MAY 2017 ISSN 1838-5036 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– CONTENTS Editorial Peter C. Rickwood ii John Jingery, Gundungurra man, and Robert J. O’Reilly, grazier, in the Burragorang Valley. Diana Levy 1 The Boulton Family of Verna, Wentworth Falls. Louise Wilson 11 Whispering Pines – an H.P. Oser house with a Paul Sorensen garden at Blackheath. Chris Betteridge 21 Soldiers Pinch, Blackheath: The history of its naming and development. Peter C. Rickwood 35 Watering the Gee-gees: A Survey of Blue Mountains’ Horse Troughs, part 2. John Low 49 Sandstone Caves in the Blue Mountains: their European Cultural Heritage. John R. Dunkley 65 Cumulative Index 85 Go To Index i Blue Mountains History Journal 7 2017 EDITORIAL Issue 7 of The Blue Mountains History Journal contains six papers. The first concerns the relationship between some of the indigenous and white people in the Burragorang Valley in the 19th Century. In it Diana Levy reveals some previously unpublished documents that relate to the iniquitous practice of ‘dummy purchasing’. Then come two papers about still extant buildings that have very different origins. Unravelling the history of Verna, a Wentworth Falls house that had once been owned by a family member early in the 20th century, has been a remarkable piece of investigative research undertaken by Louise Wilson. About the mid-20th century, the architect H.P. Oser designed a group of houses in Blackheath and Chris Betteridge, the descendant of the owner of one of those houses, Whispering Pines, has documented their features, construction and former owners. Finally a group of three papers have been included that discuss various natural and artificial features in the Blue Mountains. Soldiers Pinch between Blackheath and Mount Victoria has posed a traffic problem for two centuries and the sequence of attempts to fix that problem has been documented. That is followed by John Low’s promised Part 2 of his account of the horse troughs existing in the Blue Mountains - mostly are concrete artefacts but this time he has discussed three in the Upper Blue Mountains that were hewn out of sandstone. The final paper is an ‘essay’ by John Dunkley on some of the sandstone caves of the Blue Mountains, in part a description and documentation of the caves but also evaluating their ‘aesthetic, historic, scientific, social and spiritual values’. For the convenience of readers, at the end of this issue there is a cumulative list of the papers that were published in Issues 1 to 6. Extracts from this publication may be reproduced provided that the source is fully acknowledged. Dr Peter C. Rickwood, Editor ii Go To Index Blue Mountains History Journal 7 2017 JOHN JINGERY, GUNDUNGURRA MAN, AND ROBERT J. O’REILLY, GRAZIER, IN THE BURRAGORANG VALLEY. Diana Levy, 107 Bee Farm Road, Springwood, NSW 2777. [email protected] Abstract INTRODUCTION In the settling of the Burragorang Valley, the The records for Aboriginal people in the nineteenth Gundungurra inhabitants were displaced. Most of the century are far fewer than for settlers like Robert J. farmers who settled there were Irish, and Catholic. O’Reilly. What follows is but a small window into There was a degree of cooperation between these two the adaptation by ‘John Jingery, Aboriginal’ (all the groups, and it was thought that Robert J. O’Reilly documentation identifies him in this way) to European assisted Aboriginal man, John Jingery, to purchase a settlement of his traditional Gundungurra lands. [Other 40 acre selection, Portion 20, in 1875. Jingery spellings include Gandangara and Gandanguurra.] These two forfeited this land in 1877 - it had in fact been a men lived and worked in the environs of the dummy purchase for his boss, O’Reilly. The thread Burragorang Valley, which is formed by the Coxs and of John Jingery’s life is traced from primary sources the Wollondilly Rivers (Figure 1). and give some idea of how he adapted to Europeans. The traditional country of the Gundungurra is vast Key Words: Gundungurra, Aborigine, Conditional (Figure 2) and extends to the southern Blue Purchase, Dummy Purchase, Burragorang, Blue Mountains, The Oaks, Goulburn, the Abercrombie Mountains. River, Jenolan Caves, Rydal, Lithgow, the Wolgan Figure 1. Map of part of the Burragorang Valley (after Cooke 1955). 1 Dallawang Ridge 2 Robert O’Reilly dwelling 3 The Oaks 4 Grundy family holdings 5 Appletree Flat 6 Black Dog Ridge 7 New Yards & Portion 20 & The Shack 8 Pocket Creek 9 Kowmung River 10 Kowmung Lookout 11 Kanangra X to Y Scott's Main Range [‘Burra’ means kangaroo in the Gundungurra language (Russell 1914, p.14); ‘gurrang’ means ‘place of’ or ‘plenty of’ (Barrett 2015 p.22)]. Go To Index 1 Blue Mountains History Journal 7 2017 Valley and the western Blue Mountains. It borders Tharawal, Darug, Wiradgiri, and Darkinjung country. The Burragorang Valley is in the eastern part of those lands, bordering Tharawal country. With its steep inaccessible sides this valley is now the repository for much of Sydney’s water supply (Figure 3). Photo: Noel Rath, 2014 Figure 3. Coxs River dammed (Lake Burragorang) from Dallawang Ridge (1 on Figure 1). taking up tickets of occupation from the 1820s. One such was Robert Bernard O’Reilly (Robert Joseph’s father - b. unknown; d. 24/7/1873) who had been transported in 1820 from County Cavan when Ireland © Central Mapping Authority 1987 was under military occupation by the British, and he Figure 2. Aboriginal Lands (CMA 1987). and Brian Carolan were convicted of conspiracy to [Boundaries between these different Aboriginal nations are extremely contentious so although this map is now old it does murder. Brian Carolan (family name was shortened give a general idea of the terrain, the rivers and the neighbouring to Carlon later on) and Robert B. O’Reilly were in nations]. servitude to John Jamison for fifteen years and then their families began the settling process in the At the time of English colonization in 1788 all land Burragorang, as did other Irish Catholic settlers. Later was presumed to be owned by the Crown. Conditional R.B. O’Reilly selected land at the junction of Green purchase was introduced by the Government in 1861 Wattle creek and Coxs River (2 on Figure 1) where (State Records 2016) and it was a way of distributing there were large flats of good loamy soil. Local Crown land before it was surveyed. Certain historian Jim Barrett stated, conditions had to be met: the settlers had to pay a “Bearing in mind the friction which arose between deposit, they had to show that they intended to white man and black man as settlement of the ‘improve’ the land, and that they intended to live on Colony expanded, it is pleasing to record that it. They had three years in which to demonstrate their relationships within the Burragorang Valley were occupation of the land. Sometimes people would in general quite harmonious.” (Barrett 1995, p.112). build a shack and string up a washing line, then hang The idea that O’Reilly helped Jingery buy land clothing on this line to fool the inspectors into thinking supports this notion. that a little family did live there. “The (Lands) Department’s work was further John Jingery’s birth date is not known, so his story as complicated with the practices of ‘dummying’, established from primary sources began in 1871 with where a person would select an area only to sell by an English settler, John Grundy, and an Irishman, John pre-arrangement to another party, ...” (State Fitzgerald. John Grundy was an English free settler Records 2016). who came out from Yorkshire in 1840 at the age of 15 and worked in Campbelltown for a time. Then he The Burragorang Valley “purchased farming and grazing properties at The The first encroachment on traditional life in the Oaks (3 on Figure 1) and Burragorang, and went Burragorang Valley was probably the cattle which to live on the former property some 40 years ago.” escaped from the First Fleet settlers and found their - i.e. 1870 (Anonymous 1910). way to Cowpastures - out Camden way. Next the He was buried in the Church of England section of cattle duffers found the Burragorang to be a very The Oaks Cemetery. It is likely that John Jingery was suitable hideaway. More respectable settlers began Grundy’s stockman.