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Clan Munro USA
Genealogy Pages
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 1850 - 1936 (85 years)
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| Name |
George Munro [1] |
| Born |
10 Jul 1850 |
Nowra, , New South Wales, Australia  |
- George was born at Cabbage Tree Flat.
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| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
1936 |
| Person ID |
I62861 |
Munro |
| Last Modified |
16 Dec 2011 |
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| Notes |
- **********
«i»George married Mary McDonald but details of his family are vague. Names suggested are Donald, Georgina and Alexander However George left lengthy memoirs, his first memory being of their house built of cabbage tree slabs at Good Dog Mountain, now West Cambewarra, NSW The farm fronted a small creek flowing into Tapitallie Creek. He remembered his parents getting news of the wreck of the Dunbar in 1857 and his mother crying and lamenting the loss of so many lives. At about this time his father sold the farm to Mr Moffit and the family moved to a farm on the Shoalhaven River about 6 km below Bomaderry, and lived there until 1866.
George was sent by his father, when 16, to the Richmond River to help his older brother William who had selected land at Steve King's Plain in 1866. He travelled with relatives and when they got to Sydney, there was no vessel likely to sail to the Richmond for some weeks so decided to go by the Clarence steamer Agnes Irving to Grafton. Then followed a 4 day overland journey to Casino, no road, only mere track. George joined William and began life on the selection which he said "did not appeal, being too young to understand things". Main work for new settlers was to fence as the station cattle were running on open country. There was no barbed wire and a lot of time and hard work went into the post and rail fences. Everything had to be split for humpies and barns. There was no 40 hour week - the days were not long enough. Provisions were hard to get and very often they had to grind corn and mix it with the flour to make it last longer.
After a few weeks on the farm, he had a chance to go to Lismore to play cricket, probably the first match played there. There were very few dwellings and only one hotel. It was a good day with a dance at night in the old Court House. George made his first visit to Coraki in 1867 to go to church. The new settlers had put up a little church and the Rev. Thom held services. .There were no other houses, only Mr Yabsley's further up on the South Arm of the river. This was a busy place, the big shed was finished and they were starting to build the barque "Examiner". George was on the deck when it was launched in 1869.
The cedar getting was in full swing and Mr. Yabsley was cedar king. Cedar was a good price, "the cedar people were the aristocrats of the river and the poor cockeys were nobodies". Cedar getters could get bullocks and rations on credit while the poor settler could not get a bag of flour. Money was very scarce and the nearest bank was at Grafton (100kms). Most payments for timber were done by order writers on an ordinary piece of paper and drawn on Sydney shipping firms. These would pass like notes from one to another and some were dirty and torn that they could hardly be read. In 1869 a lot of maize was planted along the river, but the March 1870 flood spoilt most of it. The water rose very high, came into the house but did not put the fire out.
George, his brother and George Thomas rowed a boat through flood and saw snakes by the thousand, every floating log and bush was full of them, plus rats, mice beetles and spiders. He then went to work at Wyrallah sawmill for 5/- a day humping boards. Prospecting with a friend at Jerusalem Creek followed, but finding nothing, they went to the south beach of Ballina and worked for some time making small wages. Leaving there they went nto North Creek doing clearing and digging cane holes, and George put in the first cane grown on North Creek for the Sharp Bros. who had a small mill at Prospect.
George's next employment was with Mr. E. Ross, a Richmond pioneer, shiipping agent and timber buyer for many firms in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. George had to raft the timber along the river to the waiting vessels and he learned something of navigation on the Richmond and the trouble experienced at the bar. He can remember 38 sailing vessels and 2 steamers anchored at Ballina; some were there for weeks waiting for favourable winds to get across the bar. One job was to ride to Casino with telegrams. There were no roads and he had to go round by Tintenbar, cross the creek, and head for Teven Creek, up Teven mountain, then through scrub all the way to Johnston's ridges. He had to wait for a reply and then start home again.
After the advent of tugs, Mr. Ross could not keep him on and got him a job with Mr. E. Coleman who had a contract for the telegraph line to the Tweed River, over the Night Cap, probably in 1874, the work taking about 5 months. At that time there was good money in cane cutting on the Clarence River so George put up his swag and started for the Clarence, going along the beach to Clarence Heads. He coo-eed for a boatman to take him across the river but was too late at the mill as they had taken on their hands the day before. Later he got a job at Mr Martin's small mill at Alumny Creek. After a short season there, he went cane cutting at Carr's Creek and then to Chatsworth Mill.
When the season finished, he started for the Richmond with a 40lb swag but lost his way, so turned back to the Clarence, it being Christmas Eve. He was famished by the time he reached the first selection where owner Mr. J. Kenny gave him a meal of beef and damper and boiled the billy. He went to the hotel at Chatsworth and found his old friend James M Kenzxie and helped him drive a mob of cattle to the Tweed. Then he had a spell at home. He worked again for Mr. Ross at Ballina, had job of rafting cedar at Brunswick to the heads,where it had to be surfed over the bar to waiting vessels. In 1877 he got a job with Mr. John Sexton who had the contract for a road from Emigrant Creek bridge to Ballina. George did his writing, kept the time sheets and was working foreman, the job taking 2 years. He became very experienced with a 30-ton punt carrying gravel, after making 221 trips.
Then he took a dangerous job punting material for construction of the first lighthouse at Richmond Heads. In the mid 1880's George took a contract to get and square the timber for the first four wharves on the Tweed. Prior to that he had been for a while in the ironbark industry with Bob Pyers at Deep Creek and had learnt the art of girder-making. Worked with WH Wilson getting timber for the Tweed wharves. This meant a few months hard work and many miles of walking looking for timber. The job was done to everyone's satisfaction, and George then went to Uki, and later returned to the Richmond to find things very bad including disease in the cane.
He went to Western Australia in 1895 at the time of the great gold rush at Coogardie, but got nothing except experience in a waterless, fly-infested place. He returned in 1896 and settled at Rowland's Creek. In 1907 he was living at "Bonnie Vale", Tweed River.
OLD SHOALHAVEN (Taken from the Memoirs of George Munr0 1850-1939, written in 1922, and held in the Munro file of the Richmond River Historical Society, Lismore NSW)
What memories the name brings to me where I spent my boyhood days. I claim to be the oldest born native male of Shoalhaven. I was born at Cabbage Tree Flat near Nowra on July 10, 1850, a notable time in the history of the country, turning the sod of the first railway in Australia. My first memory is living in a house built of cabbage tree slabs at a place called Good-Dog Mountain, now West Cambewarra. Our farm was fronting a small creek flowing into Tapitalla Creek. When I was six I remember my parents getting the news of the wreck of the "Dunbar". I did not know much about wrecks but I remember my mother crying and lamenting the loss of so many lives. When I was about seven my father sold the farm to Mr Moffit and we moved to a farm on the river bank about four miles below Bomaderry and there I spent the remainder of my boyhood days until my 16th year when I moved to the Richmond River and I have not been back since and that is sixty years ago. When I was old enough I used to go across the river to play with some boys who lived opposite. At that time there was no Nowra but there was Nowra Hill. I am not sure but I have been told since that this is the aboriginal name for this hill. Mr. Hyam's store and hotel were the furthest out buildings. There was a road running along the ridge which is now the main street of Nowra. We boys used to go up on this ridge to get geebungs and wild flowers especially waratahs which grew there in abundance. It was while living near Bomaderry that the great flood of 1860 happened. To tell of that in full is too much for me so I will only tell what I saw myself. We were taken in boats when the water came into the house on a day not easily forgotten when gale of thunder and lightning was raging. The wind was with us at first but going through the timber, limbs were fallling in all directions, but we got through to Bomaderry safely and went up to Hogan's house near where the Nowra bridge crosses the river now. Other people were there before us and many more came during the night. There was not much sleep that night; we young ones lay on the floor and the older folk sat up and watched the river. The rain cleared during the night and the morning broke clear and we were let out to see the river. The flood was then at its highest, and lo and behold it was a flood. The drift coming down was a wonder to see, houses, barns, several wheat stacks, furniture and all manner of things, and the masses of timber was amazing. I have seen many floods in the three big rivers in the north since then but never one like that.
Times were very bad for a year or two but with the spirit of the pioneers and some help from the Government, they soon improved and in a few years a memory was all that remained of the disaster.
After this Nowra took shape. The flood made it plain Terrara was not a safe place for a town and Nowra was an ideal spot, nothing on the coast to compare with it and so it grew and when I last saw it in in 1867, it was a busy village. I am now living on the lovely Tweed, a gem of the state for richness and scenic beauty. I am one of the very few left who have seen the Tweed in its virgin state. Still with all my life's changes I have never forgotton old Shoalhaven. «/i»
("Clan Munro Australia Newslwtter" - #28 - Don Munro, Editor)
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Compiled and edited by Allen Alger, Genealogist, Clan Munro Association, USA
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| Sources |
- [S804] Clan Munro e-files - Munro, Don, Don Munro, Clan Munro Australia Newsletter #28 - vol. 8, issue 3 - Dec 2011 (Reliability: 3).
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