INTERVIEWS WITH LOCAL PERSONALITIES

Recordings of the history of Violet Town and District are not numerous. There are one or two notable books written by historians that give an overview of past events however very few that record the personal versions of Violet Town’s past as experienced by the families that have resided in the area for generations.

Most of us have listened spellbound to at least one present member of those long term local families while they recounted events of their childhood or experiences of their great grandparents or even great great grandparents. Knowing the area ourselves we can picture and imagine how those experiences played out on the farms, in the hills or the town’s streets and buildings. We realise how privileged we are to be able to listen to this oral history.

But it is in danger of being lost as new people settle in our area and the long term residents who hold this oral history in their heads, become too aged to pass it on or have it recorded.

Hence this series of interviews which have been recorded and transcribed in this is a publication.

The concept of recording and publishing this oral history arose when Ross Dyson met David Underwood when he was walking his dog along Bushy Lane, just out of town. Ross is a relative newcomer to Violet Town and loves talking to people and finding out about their stories.

We hope you enjoy this.

DAVID UNDERWOOD

Ross Good Morning David, Ross Dyson.

David Good morning Ross

Ross Just to follow up our other discussion a few months ago now that got my interest about the Underwood family and the history of VT or your family’s history of VT.

So I thought we might start by me asking what your first recollections are? Who in the family first came here, when and why perhaps?

David Certainly Ross. My parents always told me , especially my Dad, about my great grandfather who came here they say as free men with his brother from Ireland but since then we have found out on the internet and so forth that they came here as convicts on a ship called the Daphne in 1819 and they were living, after they came here, I think it was 6 months later that they got their ticket – of –freedom by a court, and they lived in the Illawarra area of .

They were a couple of young blokes 19 and 21 or something, and I suppose they had to make a bit of a living and they certainly would have been working for people and then they got into a bit of trouble and of course being ex convicts I suppose getting into trouble in those times could have been a bigger thing. They were up on a charge of horse stealing at one stage but they were let off there.

My great grandfather whose name was Joseph Alexander Underwood and his brother was William. William got into trouble for some reason I can’t remember and he actually escaped from jail somehow. Then he was said to have joined up with bold Jack Donahue’s gang because apparently, so my father told me, they all knew each other over in Ireland and when they got together again, because they were all mates, apparently William joined up with Jack Donahue’s gang

Ross The Wild colonial boy

David Yeah Yeah. That’s right! So naturally the police would have been watching Joseph Alexander because they thought he might be harbouring some of the gang. Anyway they must have thought he could have been and the only way to get him out of the system was to get him in jail. So apparently, so my family believe, he had these brand new saddles planted in his shed and of course the police came along and he was arrested for that and he got 14 years in Norfolk Island for that. All ex convicts if they played up again when they got here in Australia, Norfolk Island was where they went.

Ross So that was about 1820?

David It might have been a few years after. Ross What was their crime in Ireland?

David That’s what we don’t know. We haven’t found that out yet. They came from County Antrim we know that and the town they were born in was Bally something

Ross Not Ballymore?

David It could have been. But it was in County Antrim.

Anyway we don’t know much about his first years in Norfolk Island but we believe that in the first couple of years they would have been all in chains and so forth. But later on apparently, according to my sister and brother in law, he was living in the barracks. Now that was because he ended up the assistant constable of the island. We don’t know how he came to that. I imagine he would have been put in the prison first but he ended up in these barracks.

Ross Perhaps his behaviour warranted ...?

David Yeah perhaps they found he wasn’t as bad as what ....

Ross So where was his brother all this time?

David They believe he was with the .. and then he might have actually taken over the Donahue gang after Jack Donahue was caught, but then they think he was shot by the gang because they thought he might have been a police informer. So that took him out of the scene.

Ross So he was shot dead?

David Yeah shot dead by the gang.

Ross So after Norfolk Island how did your grandfather find his way here?

Well the owner of Mangalore station who was a colonel Anderson wanted to run cattle on the station with a joint thing with his brother. His brother was a commandant at Norfolk Island - he was a colonel too, Colonel Anderson. He sent a message to his brother at Norfolk. He wanted 3 ex convicts from Norfolk to help with the cattle droving from Sydney to to Mangalore.

Ross So was Mangalore station that big that it encompassed this area?

David Not quite this area but down to the Goulburn River coming back this way getting closer to Avenel .

So apparently they found my great grandfather Joseph Alexander at the barracks at Sydney so he must have been still associated with Norfolk Island or associated with the constable job that he had there. They assigned him to this job of droving these cattle with two other ex Norfolk Island convicts

Ross No names of them?

David No, no names that we know of. But there was an overseer who was a free man who was supposed to be in charge of the operation. Anyway it turned out he was a bit of a drunk and all the way from Sydney down to Mangalore he’d just stop at every town at the inns and drink and let the others just continue on and then he’d catch up with them.

Ross It wasn’t a bloke named Paton? (laughter) So again what was the time frame roughly?

David This was about 10 years after he was sentenced to Norfolk Island so he obviously didn’t do the full 14 years.

Probably the dates are in that book there ** 1. I can’t quite remember.

Ross So he worked for Colonel Anderson?

David Yes he did yeah. Once he got to Mangalore he was actually the manager of Mangalore station for a year there because Colonel Anderson said he did such a good job. Because he actually took over the job of overseeing.

Ross He obviously saw the light of what leads to a better life to have graduated from NI in chains virtually to be a valuable employee here. So did he then go out on his own after one year ? .... or was he freed or...?

David He probably would have been freed. I think we did find some paper where he was granted a pardon. It was possibly Colonel Anderson at Mangalore who instigated that pardon because he was so happy about the job he had done. He found out about the overseer too that was just staying back at pubs all the time and letting the other 3 convicts .....

Ross So roughly how old would your great grandfather have been?

David Let’s see. I reckon, well he was about 19 in 1819 when he came out here. I reckon it was in 1825 or ‘26 when he was sentenced to Norfolk Island so he would have been 25 or so, then with another 10 years say, he might have been 35?

Ross So when did he marry?

David Oh a lot, years later. When he was 63!

Ross Oh right. He’d been saving up for the honeymoon!

David That’s it! And his wife was only 18 too. Ha ha Ross So from Mangalore he then selected land?

David Yes he bought the Stony Creek run which was actually owned by 3 young Scottish settlers called Speed, Binney and Anderson and they had the Honeysuckle Creek run. The Stony Creek run ...

Ross That’s further west of here. Earlston? Feltram?

David Yeah it would be out that way.

Ross Do you know how big that was?

David Yes 12,000 acres

Ross Oh

David Of course it would have been mostly bush in those days. I did see notes somewhere how many cattle and how many sheep he had. It wasn’t many.

Ross Is there a house there somewhere?

David Well I don’t think it would be the same house. Jo Beavis lives out that way.

Sue Oh yes! On that property or part of that property?

David It would have been part of that property for sure. There’s another house further down – the little bloke who worked down at the old service station – I can’t think of his name. We went out to a fire out there – he was living out there.

Ross So did your great grandfather marry when he was out there?

David Yes . Yeah, yeah. Oh well he might have even got married ... because he went down to - oh now wait a minute he came into town because he was more interested in having a hotel.

He only was out there for five years he had this big property, and he sold it they say in that book ** 2 to a bloke called Bond. He was more interested in this hotel.

Ross So with the money he got from that property he then came into Violet Town

David I’d say so, yeah. I don’t know whether there’d be much money involved in those times for property. Anyway where my house is now, that was where the old hotel with an inn.

Ross But that’s not the original building?

David Oh no no no! That house was built in 1890 and it was built behind the site of the old hotel but on the same block. Ross So it was called Underwood’s Hotel?

David We’re not too sure. We heard it might have been called The Union. I remember somebody telling me that.

Ross So that was what 18...?

David It would have been in the 1850s. About the time when the gold rush started.

Ross So he was about 50 then?

David He would have been. Yeah, yeah. Anyway he went down to Melbourne to find somebody to help him in the hotel. He came across this young woman that came out here – she was waiting for some other people to pick her up but they didn’t show up

Ross Hmm. Irish?

David She was yeah she was. Her name was Maria Brown

Ross So he whipped her off? That’s fascinating. So he was 50 odd and she was 18?

David No he was 63.

Ross Then?

David Yeah. I don’t know when they got married or.... he was certainly 63 when he got married.

Ross So how many children did they have?

David There was a few.

Ross As it was in those days.

David One of the children certainly was my grandfather ...

Ross I’d hope so!

(Laughter)

Ross So he ran the hotel for many years?

David Yes, yeah.

Ross Like well past 1890?

David Oh no, no! He died in 1879. So she took over. Actually he was still around when she started to get into the hotel business herself

Ross Well, 40 years difference between them? David Yeah, yeah

Ross Oh well that’s good succession planning .

(Laughter)

David Anyway she looked at the site where the Ellen Frances hotel is and said that’s a better ...well because the railway line had come through by then.

Ross Yes

David Well he might have put a bit of an idea into her head

Ross So the Underwoods built that Ellen Frances hotel?

David Yes. Well he might have been still around but they say she was the major ...

Ross It was built in the 1870s?

David Yes. I think there may have been a wooden hotel. It’ll say there in that book ** 3 where the bloke who was a brick maker in was given an order to make 5,000 bricks.

Ross So was the hotel again Underwood’s by name?

David No it was the Railway Hotel actually.

Ross So then she took over that and ran it with the help of her children?

David Yes.

Ross So how did the family go back into farming again?

David Possibly, when he had the hotel he had 170 acres of land but for some reason ... ** 4

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Footnotes

** 1 “that book” refers to “The Hoskin Album” written by Bruce Bennett

In this record on page 214, it relates that Joseph Underwood brought the cattle to Mangalore station and was manager there in 1838.

Also that he later in 1848 gained Squatting Rights on 12,800 acres at Stony Creek after being a farmer and innkeeper at his hotel on the road to Sydney.

Page 215 the record says Joseph built an inn on Mitchell’s Track which prospered during the goldrush years as the track became the road to Beechworth. ** 2 Stony Creek was sold in

Later, as recorded on P 216 it describes how Joseph and Maria bought the land near the railway line and built a second hotel in 1877. As Joseph aged Maria became the manager and when he died in 1879 the owner was officially listed as her son John Underwood (David’s grandfather).

** 3 In 1884 Maria ordered bricks from Euroa to have the hotel rebuilt in brick

In 1883 John Underwood married Ada Hoskin. They continued to live at Stony Creek until the house became too small for their family and they built a house behind the old roadside hotel in town. P 217

** 4 According to the book the Rates Books changed the listing of the old roadside hotel from ‘hotel with 170 acres’ to ‘house with 170 acres’ in 1877.