Elizabeth Hepburn

History

Born in 1805 Elizabeth was the child of Thomas and Anne Combes. She was baptised at the parish church of Cowley, and at the age of 25 married John Hepburn on 17 May 1830 at St Anne, Limehouse.

Elizabeth Hepburn sailed to Australia with her two sons.

Elizabeth, John Stuart Hepburn and their family of two set off on their overland journey on 15 January 1838, from Strathallen, St Vincent's. 1838, and arrived in Victoria in April 1838. They travelled through Yandoit around 13 April 1838 from<> arrived in Victoria in April 1838. They travelled through Yandoit around 13 April 1838 from<> arrived in Victoria in April 1838. They travelled through Yandoit aroourney on 15 January 1838,arrived in Victoria in April 1838. They travelled through Yandoit around 13 April 1838 fromund 13 April 1838 from Strathallen, St Vincent's County, settling at Smeaton Hill two days later. Hepburn chose the district after meeting a party of explorer Major Mitchell’s men returning after travelling across Western Victoria. At the time of the overland journey Elizabeth Hepburn was 33 years old. Her daughter Alice (7), and son Thomas (2). The party included 10 men driving 1400 sheep, 50 rams, 200 wethers and 18 bullocks.

Elizabeth Hepburn was the first white woman to overland from New South Wales to Victoria. Travelling from the settled districts of New South Wales to the Port Phillip district in the company of her husband and two children, Elizabeth Hepburn was entering the unknown. Her journey would have been long and arduous, and her thoughts would have turned to the potential dangers of her new home far from civilisation and medical assistance.

Of Elizabeth Hepburn’s four sons and six daughters all but two were born at Smeaton Hill. Lucille Quinlan in her book Here My Home reflects on the early days at Smeaton: “…the Aboriginal women were consumed with curiosity about the white lubra and her piccaninnies so oddly covered from head to foot. They were fascinated, too, by the white woman's preoccupation with strange domestic tasks. They marvelled to see her washing the strange body-coverings on a bench outside the hut and hanging them out to dry, to see her busy with utensils for which they had no name, to sniff the odours of food they could not recognise - new-made bread and stewing meat. So, with curly-headed babies peeping over their shoulders from possum skin rugs, they ventured from the screen of the wattle and tea-tree, behind which they had been observing all these things, and descended on the hut, giggling and chattering and exclaiming.”

Eventually Hepburn was to control 48,000 acres of pastoral land. The Smeaton holding lay along the northern side of Bullarook Creek (Birch’s_ from Newlyn to within a few miles of Clunes township, from there to the north easterly boundary ran north easterly to Deep Creek to continue to Eganstown into the Bullarook Forest. In the south, Langdon’s Creek was the boundary.

Elizabeth Hepburn died at Caroline Street, South Yarra on 06 May 1869, aged 64 years. She had moved to South Yarra with her four I married daughters when her son, George, took over Smeaton House. <> She is buried in the family cemetery at Smeaton.

Legacy

Elizabeth Hepburn and her husband, John, as Squatters at Smeaton Hill, were the earliest white settlers in the district. The Shire of Hepburn takes its name from theirs as does the Hepburn Mineral Springs.

See also

John Hepburn

Benjamin Hepburn

Smeaton

Obituary

DEATHS. - HEPBURN. -On the 6th inst., at her residence, Carolins-street, South Yarra, Eliza, widow of the late John Hepburn, Esq., J.P., of Smeaton-house, Smeaton, aged sixty-four years.

The remains of Mrs Hepburn, the relict of the late Capt. Hepburn, of Smeaton, were interred in the family cemetery, on the Smeaton estate, on 9th May. The attendance at the funeral was very large, comprising not only the leading inhabitants of the Creswick district, but also persons from Melbourne, Ballarat, and other places.

Notes

LETTERS FROM VICTORIAN PIONEERS. In 1853, the then Governor of Victoria, Mr. La Trobe, contemplated writing a history of the colony, and it is a pity he did not do so. He did the next best thing, namely, he wrote to a number of early settlers, asking them for their personal experiences. He received a number of letters, and retained them until 1872, when he handed them over to the Hon. James Graham, M.L.C., a good old pioneer himself, who deposited them in the Melbourne Public Library, where they now remain. The Trustees of the Public Library published them in a book in 1899, and we make the following extracts from a copy of the book lent to us by Councillor Angus M'Naughton : Mr. JOHN HEPBURN writes: (Continued.) Some few months after this several parties of natives made their appearance, but always disappeared when I showed my face. On one occasion I heard two shots fired. I went to see what was the matter. The shepherds saw several blacks on a plain not far off. I went in the direction, and saw a number of men all running off as fast as possible. I pursued, and overtook two men and a woman. The men both took safe positions behind a tree, and balanced their spears. I got off my. horse; laid my gun down; showed them my bare hands. After a short time the oldest man came out on to open ground, using his spear as a staff; the other kept his safe post. The old man began to talk at a great rate, and frequently pointed to the Loddon, of course relating all that had transpired there, which I could not understand. The old man perspired so, the perspiration dropped from his nose profusely. I left them and returned home. In less than an hour two shots were again fired. The horse being ready, I started off to the shepherds, but could not find them. The two flocks were mixed, and I saw one sheep lying on the ground. I rode up, and found a fine ewe with a long spear driven right through her. I pulled it out; she got up, but soon died. The shepherds all this time were watching my movements, and after a short time made their appearance, and took the sheep homeward. We saw nothing of the natives. The men said they never saw them even when the sheep was speared although within a short distance. No more was heard of the natives for some months. The spear was newly scraped, no doubt for the purpose for which it was used. The next party that made their appearance were much bolder, and insisted on camping alongside of my folds. These were evidently natives from another quarter; they had a few iron hatchets, and began to strip the bark off the trees and build their mia-mias. I took the trouble of carrying some of the bark to a distance, but this would not do. I then ordered them to remove; but no, all efforts were in vain. They had a dog, which they tied up by the fore paw to the neck, showing they knew what sheep were. I had my double-barrelled gun and two useless double-barrelled pistols. I discharged all the four barrels, and they could see nothing, and did not know from whence they were taken. I shortly after this left them, but intended watching their movements. I returned in an hour; found all the fires out and the whole of the natives gone; saw nothing more of them. In the latter part of this year, 1838-say November, for I only write from memory-I was sheep-washing; had always carried either a double-barrelled gun or rifle; but this being the first day of washing, I did not take my gun. In returning home in the afternoon late, I saw the blacks had. set fire to the grass closer to my home station than I liked. I began to fear something serious had happened. On approach I saw one of the shepherds crouching behind a tree. I rode up and asked where the sheep were. His reply was, "The blacks had taken them." I asked which way they had gone; he pointed to the east. I made for the hut as quick as I could. The double-barrelled gun was loaded be fore I left; the rifle lying in the case out of the stock, but loaded and capped. Mrs. H. was in great fear, but had not given way until she saw me. I took both guns, and off I went. A man of the name of George Cook, a prisoner of the Crown, who was hut-keeper, had left hut and come to Mrs. H.'s assistance; he now followed on foot as fast as he could. The grass being long, I got on to the tracks of the sheep, and presently saw them, with four men hustling them along; but, the weather being hot, they did not make much progress. They kept at the sheep, expecting to get them into the timber; but I was too quickly on them, and they ran for the timber themselves, but made no resistance. I headed the sheep homeward, and met Cook, quite out of breath; the poor fellow could not speak for some minutes; he brought the sheep back, and then the cowardly shepherd made his appearance. When sundown came I found an other shepherd did not come home. He also left the sheep, but not one was lost; he did not return to the station till morning, being lost in the bush all night. Now for Mrs. H.'s story. About noon, about 30 men mustered round the hut; they had a musket, and wanted powder. Mrs. H. sent one of the children for old Cook, who shut his hut door and answered the summons; he loaded all the muskets and carbines, placed them all in the hut, and covered them up, determined to defend, if required. While Cook was thus employed Mrs. Hepburn took them some tobacco; but this weed was not known to them at this time, for they threw it all away. She then gave them some flour. Old Cook, being an old poacher, knew well the use of firearms, and boldened by their peaceable, friendly appearance at the time, although suspicious of them, asked to look at the musket they had, opened the pan, and unperceived drew the point of his thumb across the pan, which act cleaned the priming clean out, which saved his life, for shortly after this act the same black laid the musket on the top of a round post about 30 yards distant, took a deliberate aim, and snapped the musket at Cook. Cook perceiving his danger, rushed into the hut; Mrs. H. made her appearance at the door with a brace of pistols. The natives then fled. Cook fired a ball over their heads, and it was in their retreat they took the sheep; but they made a clean sweep of the men's blankets, &c. This was the only time any attack was made on the hut; there were several other times I turned out the men to drive them off the run. The number of sheep lost never exceeded ten on any occasion, and all the depredations were by natives belonging to other districts, which I learnt in the course of time. A friendly intercourse was first made in a very extraordinary way. I was from home, and the women visited the station. Mrs. H. treated them well, end shortly after this about seven or eight of the women belonging to the tribe that claimed Smeaton as their beat, or, as they called it, Koorootyngh, came to the station. They had left all their usual traps, and fled to the huts for shelter; nothing could drive them away; but no force was used for that purpose; they stopped about six or eight days, and after this we had many visits from them; but finding the men making too free with them, I gave them very little encouragement. So after all my residence amongst the natives I never learnt a word of their lingo. Nearly the whole of the tribe be longing to this district is dead. I only know of one in existence that was born on my station, and he is about fourteen years of age, but looks quite a man in his prime. I do not know of a woman that was on the station twelve years ago; if there be any at the protectorate, the fact is not known to me. I do not believe I have seen a native black or party of blacks for these last four years that stayed a night on my run. I believe Mr. Robinson and Mr. Parker made their first appearance here in 1840, but I have no date-perhaps 1841. Their object was to form a station. I strongly recommended them to take up Jim Crow, now Mount Franklin, for an aboriginal station; but this did not meet the views of the above-named gents, and of course it was not done at that time, although it was after wards. For a time the natives appeared to improve much under the management of Mr. Parker; but of late years. the number has been limited, and principally children have been kept. Some of the young men have turned out very well as bullock-drivers on the station, and made themselves useful other wise. All I can say about the natives only shows I know nothing about them, or at least very little. Some of my southern neighbours could tell better tales of them; but it will be seen that I have not cultivated their acquaintance much. With respect to the country generally, I know a few miles round. I shall commence at the River Loddon, and come southward. On the Upper Loddon, about Glenlyon and Holcombe, there is some good land, but most of it heavily timbered. The whole of the Upper Loddon is volcanic, and where the earth has a reddish or chocolate colour, it is generally very good; but in this district it is so in small patches only. There is plenty of'fine slabs of slate between Holcombe and Kennedy's station, with patches of good land the whole way down, but not to any extent. About Kennedy's and down to Hunter's there are fine flats of considerable extent. On the Government reserve for the aborigines there is also some good ground, with a great deal of bad, much of which will be at no distant period trenched for gold. At Joyce Bros., Bucknall's, and McLachlan's, there is but little that would be considered good land, although the flats on the creeks have produced crops of wheat much heavier than I could on much better land. On my run there is much good land to appearance, but the crop is below the average of my neighbours, which I can only attribute to. the want of proper drainage, the land being very wet in winter. To get a good crop, wheat ought to be put in in the month of March or April, in order that the wheat may be well rooted before the wet weather sets in, which is generally about the latter end of May.

The summer frost is also a great drawback, particularly for horticulture. Gooseberries, currants, cherries, and raspberries do well; vines not at all. At only 20 miles to the north, vines grow well, and produce good crops. The land on. my run is very prepossessing in appearance, but in many places there is only a shallow soil, which lies on a bed of lava, which dries up early in the season; but this is not the case all over it. There is some very fine land. The Seven Hills is much the same, but all the best land on that station is heavily timbered. At Glendonald there is little good land, but it might be much improved. Clunes and McCallum's perhaps have less good land than any other runs of the same magnitude in this part of the country. Glendaruel, Coghill's, and Dowling Forest, with Wynholm, have perhaps more prime land than any country of double the extent in this part of the country. On the Leigh River there are many good spots, and through towards Burrumbeet and Burnbank, not to the township (which is poor), but as far as Robertson's and Skene's, there is some beautiful country. To the south-east of Ballan and much of the Pentland Hills is a first-rate country for wheat or other grain. The average crop of wheat grown at Smeaton for twelve years does not exceed 20 bushels per acre. At Dowling Forest and Glendaruel, about 30 has been the average to the best of my knowledge. My in formation is very limited, and having no general knowledge of the qualities of land, it must therefore be taken for what it is worth. Nearly all this memo. is written from memory. I forgot to state that Lee had, after his conflict with the natives, to be sent to Melbourne for surgical assistance, and had a piece of a spear nine inches long cut out of his back by Dr. Cussen. One word more in favour of old hands. On our first expeditiin 1836, Mr. John Gardiner had a prisoner of the Crown from V.D. Land, brought to Sydney by permission of Governor Arthur. That man has been in my service for these last ten years, has a family, and is a well-doing man. I do not make these statements as an advo ate for prisoners, for I am not; but it only shows that prisoners are sometimes painted in worse colours than they deserve. I may also add that I have had many other old prisoners in my service, and have in general found them very good servants-the Pentonvilles being the worst without exception. English training avails little in this country. I trust I shall not be considered partial or egotistic in these memoranda, for I can only state what I know myself, and what I have learnt from others, to a very limited extent. The first Commissioner of Crown Lands for this district was Peter Snodgrass, Esquire, now M.L.C.; the next, H. F. Graham, Esquire; then Foster Fyans, Esquire; after him F. A. Powlett, Esquire; the new one I have not seen. I have had disputes about boundaries settled by all the above gentlemen, and also by Mr. Grimes, and in' all cases without favour or affection to any party or parties. So much for the officials. It may be considered I am some place hunter, or looking for some favour. This is not the case. I look for my rights as a British subject, and will maintain them too, so far as my knowledge goes. I unfurled but one flag, and to that I will adhere, I trust, for the remainder of my life, however long it may be the pleasure of God to spare me. The quickest, easiest, cheapest, way to rid a poultry house of all kinds of lice is to thoroughly scald with boiling water, with sufficient salt added to make a brine. Apply t:he remedy once a week for three weeks. He started out on a small scale by purchasing a dozen eggs from a poultryman who kept full blooded Plymouth Rocks; then he purchased a dozen eggs from a man who raised thoroughbred Wyandottes. In time he had a brood of twenty chickens, six roosters and fourteen pullets. The next spring he separated his two breeds of fowls, and carefully labeled with date and kind each egg laid by his hens. For over reaching-" forging," lower the front foot, shorten, the toe and bring the heel up and set the shoe well back. Set the hind shoe'ahead and out down the heel. Most blacksmiths do the opposite. Stay with your horse while he is being shod. It is worth a good deal to be able to tell a good cow when we see one. Many rules have been laid down for the guidance of the man who sets out to buy, but after all the best and safest is the word of an honest man, the man who wants to sell. The man who yells, "Get around there!" at his horses, and punctuates his command by a whack on the side of the animals, need not be surprised if some morning he gets. as good as he gives, and if he does, there will be a job for the doctor, right lively. You have met such men sometimes. They tell of a man who talked fruit trees and fruit culture all the way in the train. He had been attending a horticultural meeting, and was chock full of the subject. Everybody sitting near him went home feeling that he must set out trees and take care of them, or die. Enthusiasts come in for a lot of unjust criticism, and they can stand it. Their shoulders are broad. They are carving the world to-day, and they always will carry it.

Newspaper Reports

BEFORE GOLD SENT MEN MAD - Captain John Hepburn, of Smeaton Hill, Blazed the Trail of the Pioneer by MARY E. WEBSTER

WE have celebrated the achievements of the pioneers who came by sea to Portland and through the Heads to Port Phillip. Now comes the turn of those who drove their flocks and herds through the dense bush and over hills and streams along the way traced by Hume and Hovell.

One of the earliest among these overlanders was Captain John Hepburn, who had followed the sea from the age of 13 years, and whose ship, the Alice, was well known in Australian waters. It was from John Gardiner, who had made a passage with him from Van Diemcn's Land, that the suggestion came to try life as a settler at Port Phillip.

It may seem a matter for regret that the daily entries made by Captain Hepburn, of Smeaton Hill, in a certain old leather-backed ledger, affectionately preserved by his granddaughters, should not date from that 15th day of April, 1838, when he took up the country on a spur of the Dividing Range, the beauty of which had charmed him on his first visit with Gardiner in 1836.

Captain Hepburn had Joined forces with the Coghill brothers, three of whom settled on Glendonald and Glendaruel, in the Immediate neighbourhood of Smeaton. According to the diary, there was frequent and friendly intercourse between the two families. Situated as Smeaton Hill is, in the heart of the gold country, It must however be conceded that the years 1846-51, covered by the diary, are of particular interest.

THE pastoral life, depicted from day to day in the plainest terms, was about to be interrupted, and Captain Hepburn appears as a typical and impressive figure, dismayed at the inrush of gold seekers into his lately won pastures.

"The captain's domicile," says "The Argus" of 1851, "has the appearance of an English gentleman's park." Then follows the significant announcement: "A Government township is to be immediately surveyed and sold close to the house."

This house had replaced the primitive hut of the 'thirties, and the diary traces every stage of its construction, which lasted over two years. It still stands, and is occupied to-day by a prosperous dairy farmer.

"Brought John Gill from Melbourne," one entry runs. John Gill was the architect of the Baptist church in Collins street, and he designed two buildings in 1848 in Bourke street for Mr. A. F. Mollison. Another entry tells us that the name of the builder was Lake.

A few more quotations may be permitted:"All hands digging at the foundations... Two sawyers to saw timber for the house... Self in search of a quarry for stone... A heavy fall of snow... Builders and trenchers all idle... Two men to prepare yards for brick making... Teams drawing wood to burn bricks... Bennett burning his first bricks... Returned from town with carpenter to put up roof... A dray arrived with the hearth stones from Geelong ... all safe . . . Harry went to the forest for rafters..." And at last he is able to write on 19th October, 1850: - "Plasterers finished their work this day."

CAPTAIN HEPBURN and his wife were married in London in 1830. Of their four sons and six daughters all but two were born at Smeaton Hill. During the building of the new house it is recorded in the diary that the Rev. Mr. Chyne came from Burn Bank (Lexton) and "baptised Jane and Annie, also the joiner's child." Names of other visiting ministers of religion recur, among them that of the Rev. Thomas Hastie, so long and so prominently associated with the Ballarat district.

Benjamin Hepburn was John's half brother and many years his junior. He spent some time at Smeaton Hill to gain the experience which enabled him to set up a stock and station agency in Ballarat. His doings' are recorded in the diary: now mustering cattle with Captain McLachlan, their neighbour at Glengower, at another time visiting the pound at Macedon to recover strayed beasts.

Benjamin Hepburn's wife provided one of those links, with the past which some delight in tracing. She was born in Brussels during the Waterloo campaign, her father being an officer In Wellington's forces.

One of the best-known features at Smeaton Hill was the water-mill on Birch's Creek, erected by Captain Hepburn about 1841. Hither came drays with grain from neighbouring stations; from Captain Langdon at Bullarook, from Mr. Hunter at Tarringower, from Mr. D. C. Simson at Charlotte Plains. In 1848 there was a dry season, and in July the mill temporarily stopped working.

From the diary a clear picture emerges of the early times before the days of fencing, surveying, and of well defined boundaries. The run consisted of several stations, each with its hut, its shepherd, and flock. At night the sheep were folded inside hurdles, and there were watch-boxes for the men. The supply of reliable shepherds was very inadequate, and the diary abounds with expressions of anxiety on that subject.

Of free labourers, It is noted that 20 absconded during the two and a half years beginning at the close of 1840. Men deported on the Pentonville system are mentioned as well as old-time convict servants. Delinquents had to appear before the bench of magistrates at Burn Bank (Lexton).

Many sheep were lost owing to "rushes" by native dogs, to straylng, theft, smothering during a panic, to storms, fires, and floods. The names of the different out-stations have a pleasantly familiar ring in Australian ears: The Plain, the Tea-tree, the Lagoon, the Springs, &c. Koorootyngh, the native name for the locality, was retained for part of the run, Smeaton being a Scottish name with family associations.

The nearest post-office was at Jim Crow, now Daylesford. This peculiar name was bestowed not only on the township, but also on a creek, and on a local mountain range; Its origin was a popular ditty of the period, introduced into London in 1830 by a negro singer known as Adelphi Rice. It is said to have created an absolute furore, and was the first of a flood of negro songs.

Another theatrical memory is stirred by the mention in the diary of a traveller calling himself "The Wizard of the South," who must have delighted the unsophisticated station hands with his tricks of ventriloquism. By 1855 this man, Jacobs, had developed into "The Wizard of Wizards," and was playing to crowded audiences at the Royal Montezuma Theatre in Ballarat.

Captain Hepburn's diary comes to a close in the early years of the gold era. After the finds at Creswick's Creek on Clunes Station, in July, 1851, at Buninyong in August, and at Ballarat and Mt. Alexander in September, Smeaton seemed to be at the very heart of a golden circle, and gold was found in lesser quantities on Smeaton Hill ground. There is a distinct note of regret and bewilderment in the diary.

Short of hands and no likelihood of getting any more.

Another entry follows: "Many thousands of men passing during this week to the gold diggings at Mt. Alexander . . . counted ... 59 carts and 1.149 men between Mr. Campbell's station and this ... 17 miles . . ."

The new era had begun

Captain Hepburn died on August 7, 1859, and was buried at Smeaton.

External links

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--Clare K. Gervasoni 15:47, 12 July 2013 (EST); --C.K.Gervasoni 22:41, 9 November 2013 (EST)