1920
Next day Sam and I walked up McDonald’s Track; walking leisurely and camping at a creek to boil our billy and take our dinner. Then we pushed on until we came to a track leading into Mr. Littledike’s selection. We soon found his camp, and waited there till he and his two men came in from their day’s work. They looked like aboriginals, as they had been “picking up”, as it was called, after the first burn. Mr. Littledike received us most hospitably. He was a true pioneer and one of the best bushmen who ever led settlers into South Gippsland.
Next day, Saturday February 26th, 1876, my good friend Mr. Littledike accompanied us four miles further up the “Track”. Surveyors were then cutting some of the lines of the blocks selected. We partly followed on their work, but it was hard and laborious toil, and it was not till 3.30 p.m. that I drove in the fourth peg with my name, and the date of pegging attached . . .
The land I then selected is that on which I now reside. It was all covered with dense scrub of hazel blackwood musk and tree-ferns. The large trees were blue gum, with a very few white gum. I had to cut down sixty blue gums on the two-acre site cleared for house and garden. One of these I measured when felled, and it was just over 300 feet.
I built my house with blackwood poles – four rooms and a kitchen. The poles were placed perpendicularly; then with a paling knife I split out enough laths to do the whole interior of the walls, and plastered them with mortar made of the soil without a particle of lime. Two of the ceilings also were lathed and plastered with the same materials. These four rooms are still standing, with the lath and plaster work in good order after nearly 40 years of use; the coolest house in Summer and the warmest in Winter to be found in Poowong. I also made and burnt a kiln of 60,000 bricks, and with some of these built the first underground cemented tank in the district which has been a boon every Summer since. The residue of the bricks I built into chimneys all around the district, for which payment was made.
The first religious service held in the district was an impromptu one, held in a tent on McDonald’s Track, about a mile west of the site of the township of Poowong, in the early part of the year 1877. The service was conducted by the Rev. J. C. Symonds, Wesleyan minister, during a visit to one of the early settlers, Mr. W. V. Hill; and at it was celebrated the first christening in the settlement, being that of David M., the infant son of the pioneers, Mr. and Mrs. James Scott.
The first church service in Poowong was held in the room where I am writing these notes. I wrote a notice and nailed it to a gum tree on McDonald’s Track, inviting the settlers and others to Divine Worship. This was held on Sunday, December 30th, 1877, at 3 p.m. Mrs. Burchett played on our harmonium and led the singing on that occasion, but to her great relief, on the next Sabbath Mr. Cook kindly volunteered his help. The congregations increased, and soon the house was too small, and at a meeting held, presided over by the late Mark Gardner, J. P., it was decided to build a church. An immense tree was felled, sawn into plates, studs, joists, rafters and weatherboards. The present site was chosen. A “Bee” was held, the ladies providing refreshments . . .
The Land of the Lyre Bird: A Story of Early Settlement
in the great Forest of South Gippsland, Gordon and Gotch for the
Committee of the South Gippsland Pioneers Association, 1920