28.
The Great Fire
MIDDLE HARBOUR, NOVEMBER 1826
It was Saturday 25 November 1826. Margaret and Catherine Kearns had decided to spend a few days in Sydney Town to break the boredom of Hunters Meadows. They had been inspecting clothes and fruit at the markets when the call ‘Fire!’ went out. The population was moving to the quay. As they got closer they saw flames and smoke filling the sky on the other side of the harbour. Even here they could feel the heat of the fire and hear the sound of the crackling wood.
The great fire was moving from west to east. Margaret and Catherine were fully aware of the danger it posed to Tommy, Barney and Thomas Pender if it continued on its present path. It was too much to hope that the wind would abate, but a shift would do. The fire was moving rapidly, consuming everything in its path. While they stood watching, the fire reached Milsons Point, on the point opposite Sydney Cove, burning homes to the ground. Margaret and Catherine hoped their menfolk were aware of the danger heading their way and were prepared. There was nothing they could do.
The whole of Sydney Town had witnessed the great North Shore fire. All afternoon they had seen the smoke and flames blanket out the sun. It looked like hell had descended on the community. By nightfall all the houses on Sydney’s northern shoreline had been consumed and were just a pile of smoking ashes.
A reporter for the Sydney Gazette filed his copy:
Never before was any thing equal to the devastation which the fire has effected. The grass is destroyed for miles upon miles and the trees are continually falling, to the danger of the traveller beneath, from the effects from being burnt at the roots.
The smell of fire pervaded everything and flying embers were a source of worry for everyone, in case the conflagration spread to other areas of the colony.
That morning, Tommy had woken with a bad feeling in his blood. It was going to be a bad day but he could not understand why he felt that way. The air was dry and crisp. There was no wind. Even with the sun barely up, it was a very warm morning. The summer solstice was still about a month away and the sun was rising further to the south each morning. Tommy normally liked this time of year. The days were longer and warmer and he could enjoy fishing and bathing in the sea. The seawater temperature had risen to a pleasurable degree.
It had been a period of dry weather, with little rain falling over the prior three months. The bush had dried out. Even the creek at the back of the farm, where they had erected stone embankments to build up water supplies, was losing volume. This was their sole source of drinking water and there was barely enough to maintain their needs. The cattle and farm animals were now drinking out of the swamp further along the beach.
It had been a good year for Barney and Tommy. The mid-year harvests had been one of the best yet, and they’d sold most of their wheat at the markets. They had a significant cash balance that they deposited with the Bank of New South Wales. They had continued the practice of having an indentured convict on the farm at all times. It made perfect business sense. In return for housing, feeding and clothing the convict, they received quarterly payments of two pounds two shillings for each convict, which over the year amounted to a tidy amount.
Thomas Pender, who had been with them for the last few years, was wanting to return to Sydney Town to look for a wife. But as Tommy kept reminding him, it was one thing to have the desire but there was still a significant gender imbalance in the colony. Back in 1824 Tommy had written a petition to the Governor pleading for the mitigation of Pender’s sentence based on his good character and work ethic but so far hadn’t received a response. It was too early in his sentence for the petition.
As the morning progressed, the stillness vanished and the wind picked up. At first it was a gentle breeze. However it soon turned into a strong gust. Due to the protection of the surrounding ridgeline the wind from the south and west was initially not noticeable to those at Hunters Meadows. The first inkling they had was a strange sound coming from the tops of the tallest trees as the branches and leaves were whipped into a fury. This resulted in a rain of leaves, as the dry foliage was stripped away from the branches. At the shoreline, instead of the waves rolling into the beach they were running away. The cause was a very strong hot westerly wind out of the dead heart of the country.
Barney first noticed the seawater behaving in this unusual way. Thomas Pender and Tommy joined Barney in answer to his calls.
‘The wind is getting very strong from the west,’ observed Barney. ‘It’s a very hot day, somewhere around eighty to ninety degrees. If there is a bushfire anywhere to the west of us it will be upon us in no time. We need to prepare for the worst.’
‘You’re right, man,’ said Tommy. ‘The bush will explode if a fire comes through. We’d better take all the farm animals out to the island. Don’t tie them, at least give them a chance to use their instincts if a fire gets near. Might not save ’em but what else can we do? Pender, can you do that?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll be off right away. I’ll take some water for them too.’
‘Wait a moment. Let’s first pull the boat into the water so we can escape if it gets bad fast.’
While Pender was moving the animals Tommy and Barney set about moving all the stored grain bags from the shed and placed them down on the beach with a covering of sand.
‘Hopefully the grain will survive,’ exclaimed Barney, sweating profusely from the effort.
Tommy and Barney had experienced bushfires before but no two fires were alike. At this stage there was no emergency but it was better to be prepared than get caught out. The rest of the morning was frantic activity.
It was midday or a little past when they felt they could relax. It was time for a meal and water break and quick wash in the sea. They were hopeful that no fire was coming.
As they were walking back up the beach from bathing they caught the first whiffs of smoke as it drifted over their heads.
The wind had picked up a few knots and was coursing through the trees. It was dangerous being anywhere near them, as heavy branches were coming down in the wind and bits of twigs and leaves were flying all over the place. The three men retreated to the waterline as far as possible from the maelstrom.
The sky in the west had turned a horrid red. Tommy imagined it was what hell would look like. The smoke was spiralling into the sky but driven flat by the force of the wind. It was dark and choking.
‘Tommy, this is really bad,’ said Barney. ‘We’ve never had a fire like this before. It’s coming straight for us. We’d better take everything out of the houses and put it on the beach otherwise it’ll all go up.’
‘Look! All the birds are flying away.’ said Tommy as they all scampered away to retrieve their belongings from the two houses.
They took everything that was removable: beds, bedding, tables, chairs, and papers among other things. In the thirty minutes it took to do this they barely had time to make it back to the beach as the fire descended upon them.
Tommy looked to the west … Time had run out.
The burning embers came first, followed by the roar of the fire. It appeared in the top of the trees as the wind propelled the flames forward. The fire bore down on Hunters Meadows like Armageddon.
They leapt into the boat and quickly rowed it to the lea of the island to shelter from the embers and the choking smoke. They covered their mouths with cloth to filter the air. Above them, the animals were bellowing in terror. There was nothing more they could do to help them. They just hoped they would survive.
From their position they could not see what had become of their houses but they could feel the heat and felt themselves cooking as the smoke filled their lungs and the flames consumed the oxygen in the air. It raged on for three hours or so. Then the heat started to abate. With nothing else to burn, the fire that had moved out along Middle Head was dying as it reached the sea.
As the reddened sun began to set, the worst was over and the smoke began to dissipate. The men emerged from their
sheltered position behind the island.
Hunters Meadows had turned black. The acrid smoke filled the air. There was no sign of any greenery. All sign of their houses had been erased. Their crops and orchard had similarly been erased. The trees were blackened, and many were still alight. The ground was covered in smoldering trees, branches, stumps as well as ash. As they watched, now and again, a weakened branch would crash to the ground. It was far too dangerous to venture to the sites of their former houses.
Their livestock had survived the terror of the afternoon, as had their personal items. They retrieved a few of the bags of grain from the beach and fed the animals. This reassured and relaxed them.
‘Well, my good men, where do we start?’ said Tommy. ‘We have lost virtually everything. This is like starting all over again. I am not sure I can do it.’
‘Course we can, but not tonight. The fire at least has saved us some work,’ said Barney with a twinkle in his eye.
‘And what’s that? This better be good.’
‘Less ground to clear next year! Come on, let’s put the tent up on the beach, have a strong cup of tea and think about it in the morning.’
Considering what they had been through in the past twenty-four hours, the three men were in comparatively good spirits. When the time was right they would hire some skilled hands to rebuild the farm. Until then they would continue living on the beach.
The following day, Sunday morning, 26 November 1826, the rising sun shed light on the devastation. The air was still thick with smoke as timber and fallen logs continued to smolder where they lay. Everywhere was ash and the eerie sight was made more poignant by the early morning sea breeze still lifting burnt embers into the air.
Tommy O’Neil and Barney Kearns peered at the land that had been their farms. The houses, fences, the orchard and this year’s crop were no more. Everything they had built had been obliterated in a few short hours.
Tommy bent down and picked up a burnt piece of wood and crushed it in his hands. Gone were the decorations Anne had placed in the house, the garden she had lovingly tended; all consumed by the fireball. He wiped the tears from his eyes and turned to Barney.
‘Look mate, there is nothing for it, we have to rebuild,’ he said defiantly.
Shortly thereafter Tommy and Barney saw a boat heading their way. The boat was making its way through the dirty brown scum made of ash from the previous day’s fire. The scum coated the waters as far as the men could see. There were two figures in the boat. The rising easterly sun silhouetted the figures. At first Tommy didn’t know who they were. However, as the boat drew into shallower water it became evident the identity of the people – William Foster and Tom Brown, Tommy’s sons-in-law.
William and Tom had set out for Hunters Meadows at first light with a boat and a load of timber and carpentry tools. They reached Hunters Meadows mid-morning to find a tent pitched on the beach and the two old men and Thomas Pender drinking a cup of tea. Thomas Brown and William Foster’s arrival was extremely welcome.
William could not believe what he saw. There was nothing left of the farm and the houses. Further, it was clearly too early to start on any work. There would need to be good downpour of rain to put out all the ancillary fires and time for all the weakened trees and limbs to come down.
The ravages of the fire had scared Catherine Kearns and she had no wish to return to Hunters Meadows. Catherine Kearns, now thirty-five, decided it was time to forge a separate life from her uncle Barney.
She had earned her ticket of leave and said goodbye to her family and friends at Hunters Meadows.
29.
Paterson’s Plains
HUNTER VALLEY, 1828
It had been an arduous journey.
Eliza and Nicholas Nerney, together with their four children, had arrived at the 100-acre property named Bellevue at Paterson’s Plains in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. Bellevue was just one of many farms of similar large sizes along the Paterson River.
They had boarded a coastal ship in Sydney and sailed north to the port of Newcastle. On arriving they had met with the owner of Bellevue, William Evans, the retired surgeon of Newcastle.
Evans had experienced a chequered history in the colony. While practicing as a surgeon he had been imprisoned three times: once for debt, then for misconduct and later for illegally importing alcohol to Newcastle. Nevertheless, by the mid-1820s he had retired in Newcastle. He lived there while trying to manage his Bellevue property, some forty miles distant, which he had gained as a land grant. In Evans’s view, Bellevue did not provide enough financial returns, largely due to the dishonesty of his employees at the farm. Further, in 1825 bushrangers had ransacked the property. So he had reached out to his contacts in Sydney seeking an honest manager for Bellevue. The Nerneys had applied and been accepted by Evans to run Bellevue on his behalf. Evans had affirmed that Eliza and Nicholas were not expected to be farmers but rather they were there to provide oversight and manage the employees at the farm.
Having met with Evans at his home in Newcastle, the Nerneys had boarded a smaller boat for the trip up the tidal Hunter River until it reached a fork with its tributary the Paterson River. The sailing craft had then made its way up along the meandering Paterson River to Bellevue.
Bellevue had been operating as a farm for a number of years and 70 of its 100 acres had been cleared. There was a herd of cattle and a substantial flock of sheep as well as an orchard and a log barn. The Nerneys were very pleased to find a stone cottage in good repair that would be their home.
To relocate to Patersons Plains had been a momentous decision for Eliza and Nicholas; away from family and friends and giving up their cobbling business. It was the combination of two matters that had prompted their move: first the matter of Nicholas’s unjust sentencing to the treadmill in 1825, and then the latest incident, the burglary of Mr Marr’s premises. Just the thought of it made Eliza mad with anger.
In 1826 Eliza and Nicholas had been living in Phillip Street, Sydney. They had a full-time female servant. Nicholas operated his cobbling business from the ground floor of the same premises. Nicholas had an associate cobbler working there with him who went by the name of John Redmond.
The Nerneys lived in a sizable home and they took the opportunity to rent the extra room out to lodgers. This provided additional cash income to the family.
It was on Friday 29 December 1826 that a man knocked on the Nerneys’ front door.
‘Good morning, ma’am. Charles Gilliver is my name. I see that you have a noticeboard on the front of your premises saying “Room for Rent”. Would that be so then?’
‘That is so, Mr Gilliver. You are interested?’
‘Yes, ma’am, but not for me, for my master. He has just come from the Derwent and is currently staying at the Australian Hotel.’
‘How long does he plan to rent it for, Mr Gilliver?
‘Just short time, a week or so, ma’am, till my master returns to the Derwent. If that is all right with you, I will bring my master around in a few hours’ time so he can see it for himself.’
A few hours later Gilliver returned with another man whom Eliza initially assumed to be his master but was, in fact, a man by the name of Barlow.
Gilliver and Barlow arrived with two boxes and a large bundle. The bundle appeared to Eliza to be a bed, and was duly deposited in the room. Later in the day Gilliver reappeared and took away one of the boxes.
Barlow stayed at the Nerneys four nights up to the following Tuesday 2 January 1827. He left on the Tuesday and the Nerneys did not see him again. During Barlow’s stay John Redmond, Nicholas Nerney’s associate cobbler, had lent his jacket to Barlow. Barlow had not returned it to him.
Following Barlow’s departure the Nerneys’ domestic servant was going about her daily chores when she noticed John Redmond breaking into the spare room that had been rented to Barlow. She rushed to find Eliza. ‘Ma’am, Mr Redmond has just broken into the lodger’s room.’
‘What? That is not like M
r Redmond. Let’s go and see what is going on,’ replied Eliza.
Eliza and the servant girl headed upstairs. They ran into John Redmond, who, by now, was headed down the stairs.
Eliza stopped him in his tracks. ‘John Redmond! What do you mean by breaking into the lodger’s room?’
‘Ma’am, I lent him my good jacket and he didn’t return it. I went into his room to see if it was still there. It wasn’t there.’
‘But Mr Redmond, what’s that in your hand? It doesn’t look like a jacket.’
‘Honestly, Ma’am, I wasn’t trying to steal his belongings. I took a piece of muslin and a piece of calico as payment for me jacket.’
‘Mr Redmond, I will see you downstairs!’ replied Eliza as she continued on up the stairs.
On entering the room she saw a large bundle. What she had originally believed to be a bed was in fact a considerable quantity of various fine fabrics consisting of cloths and muslins, calico, umbrellas and more. Momentarily Eliza was at a loss. However, she quickly gathered her thoughts and knew she had to promptly report it to the police. Given Nicholas’s and her experience with the law there was not a moment to lose.
Eliza hurried down the stairs to find Nicholas.
‘Dearest, you must go and report this matter to the police. The bundle is very suspicious and the fact the two men have not returned even though they have paid for their lodging is also very suspicious. Go and find a policeman and bring him here.’
Soon thereafter Nicholas returned with the police. Eliza told the constable of the fabrics she had found in the room and the comings and goings of the men. She said she did not know the name of the man who had stayed at her house, only that he had been referred to as the master of a Mr Charles Gilliver who had rented the room on his behalf.
The Tailor and the Shipwright Page 21