Barkstead - Mollonghip

BARKSTEAD BATTERY 

Ballarat Courier (Vic.: 1869 - 1883; 1914 - 1918), Tuesday 6 July 1915, page 5 

BATTERY AT BARKSTEAD, Monday. The Government battery near Barkstead is now in a completed state, and crushing will be commenced almost immediately. It is understood that the first crushing to be put through is from Strickland Bros. Pioneer mine. The battery is in every way an up-to-date plant, being complete in every detail. It is situated about 20 chains (400 metres) below Mullins' dam, where an abundant water supply is assured. The fall is all that can be desired, and concentrator, Berdun pan, cyaniding plant and settling pits are arranged to its best advantage. The mill is driven by a suction gas plant. The plant has been declared by those competent to judge one of the best of its kind in Victoria. It is hoped that the installation of the battery will give a stimulus to prospecting in the locality. 

* One chain is defined as twenty-two (22) yards or sixty-six (66) feet.  

20 chains equal approx. 400 metres 

 

ANDERSON MILL SITE.  

Melbourne Argus 25th January 1879 

ANDERSON BROTHERS AND THE GOVERNMENT. 

(FROM THE CRESWICK ADVERTISER, JAN 21) 

Owing to the withdrawal by the Government of the licence of the Messrs. Anderson Brothers, the proprietors of the sawmill at Barkstead, nearly 60 sober and industrious men have been thrown out of employment. Unfortunately for them, there is nothing else they can turn to; their whole resources being cut off. Most of them have been in the Messrs Andersons' employ for many years, some as far back as 20. The men having discussed among themselves their situation, decided to make an offer to the Messrs. Anderson to take the mill upon terms. Not wishing to see their valuable plant standing idle and being loth to sever a connexion which had been in existence so long, the offer was entertained by the firm, and the men given to understand that if they could procure a licence, the whole of the plant would be handed over to them. 

 

 

BARKSTEAD TOWN 

The Ballarat Evening Echo, Thu 30 Apr 1914 

ACCIDENT AT BARKSTEAD, Monday 

A most painful accident happened here to Mrs G. Adams, of Barkstead and daughter of Mr and Mrs McCarthy. She had taken her husband's dinner out into the bush, and picked up a fern hook, which is used by her husband for cutting eucalyptus bushes. By some means or other, the hook struck her on the back of the hand, causing a painful wound. The point of the hook came out between her two fingers. On arriving at the Daylesford Hospital, she was in a weak condition owing to loss of blood. She is progressing favourably under the care of Dr. Liddle 

 

ANDERSON TRAMWAY 

Ballarat Star, Tuesday 18 March 1873 

The Anderson Brothers, of the Barkstead Sawmills, are how employing steam power on the tramway from. the mill to the forest, a distance of seven miles. A diminutive locomotive does the work heretofore done by horses; 'The engine, which has only been, at work a few days, cannot be said to be in full working trim, but its usefulness and the saving of labour are manifest. Four full trucks are easily drawn along by the engine, and it took, two or three horses to draw one truck when heavily laden. 

ANDERSON TRAMWAY 

Ballarat Star, Friday 15 January 1875 

As Mr James Anderson was proceeding along the tramway, early on Wednesday morning, towards the mill at Barkstead he discovered that a bridge erected by his firm, on which the trackway was laid down, was on fire and burning fiercely. The bridge being situated between five or six miles from Dean. Mr Anderson hastened on to the mill, and returned with a number of the hands, and after severing the connection on both sides, it was with some difficulty extinguished. No time was lost, as immediately on his return the requisite timber was cut, and steps taken immediately to replace the bridge. The fire is supposed to have been the work of an incendiary, as no person resides near the spot. 

 

Ballarat Star, Friday 6 February 1885 

During the progress of a bushfire at Barkstead, on Wednesday, a large portion of the tramway connected with Anderson Bros. sawmills was utterly destroyed. 

  Locomotives on the Anderson Tramway 

 

The first tramway known to have used steam locomotives was that of Anderson Brothers, running from Dean, via Barkstead, to Korweinguboora in the Wombat Forest, south of Daylesford. The tramway was about 5ft 3in gauge, using iron-strapped wooden rails. Andersons had been using tramways for 10 years when in 1873 they decided to try a locomotive. It was constructed by the mill’s fitter, Mr John Dalziel, using a Garrett traction or portable engine as a basis. Perhaps surprisingly – in view of the subsequent results with homemade locomotives – it worked! So much so that Andersons obtained a second locomotive, this time built by the Union Foundry in Ballarat. Apparently, a Marshall traction or portable engine was used as a base, and the locomotive was described by a newspaper reporter as having a double 8-inch cylinder with 14½ inch stroke ... on top of the boiler ... to allow its working by chain gear’. The locomotive had four coupled wheels, with a chain running from the front axle to a drive shaft on top of the boiler. It also worked satisfactorily. The two locomotives remained in use on Andersons’ tramway – which was 23 km long – until 1886 when the Andersons left the sawmilling business.  

One of the reasons these locomotives were successful was probably that the Wombat Forest was less rugged and mountainous than most of the forest areas that were later developed. 

Ballarat Star (Vic.: 1865 - 1924), Tuesday 3 July 1883, page 4 

A TRIP FROM DEAN TO MOUNT PROSPECT 

(BY OUR ALLANDALE CORRESPONDENT) 

In my last I had arrived at Dean. I now proceed further, commencing in the town of Dean, in which there are two public houses. One, is kept by Miss. Walsh, the Prince of Wales hotel, and seems to do a very good business. The other is kept by Host Martin, who has been there over 20 years, and he seemingly has a very good trade. There are also the requisite stores, blacksmith and wheel wright's shop, all seeming to do a good business. The State school is just opposite and is a wooden structure. The teacher Mr Flemming is a man highly respected and is considered a most efficient teacher. The school is well attended by scholars, but to their loss Mr Flemming is leaving to go to Broomfield school as head, teacher. He being a musical man, Broomfield will hail him more on that account, and as the musical talent of Allandale district is in Broomfield, he will be a great acquisition to them. Passing on, we arrive at Dean post office. Mr Naples is in charge, and as his name for regularity and order is so well known, it requires no further comment from me. I gave a call on Cr William Anderson, jun., who was hard at his books, and his affable manner, at once engaged my attention. He is one of the young men you so rarely meet with. This being the depot where all the sawn timber from Barkstead is deposited, you will naturally expect it is a busy place. Everything in the greatest order here, and around this place there were a great number of cottages, tidy and well-kept outside. There is also a chapel belonging to the Wesleyan persuasion. We pass the homestead of Mr James Anderson, of Anderson Brothers, a large dwelling, and all the requisite outhouses belonging to a farm outsteading, and everything is in “apple pie” order. We next arrive at the residence of William Anderson, jun., which is a beautiful place. Tall Scotch fir trees, of which there are three rows, are growing between his dwelling and the road. The land here is considered to be the best and highest priced land in the shire, and the crops all look well. The potato crops are not all dug yet, but they are all good. I now proceed to Happy Valley, crossing the tramway of Anderson Bros., on which is conveyed the timber from Barkstead, and I pass several farms which call forth no special mention. The roads are in a deplorable condition, and scarcely passable and are unmade. At Happy Valley there is not much to take your attention. The State school house appears to have seen better days, and I should say there ought to be a new one erected. The boundary of Creswick Shire is close to this schoolhouse, and I would suppose it to be about 13 miles from Kingston. There is no public house, that I saw, and the place is in the commencement of the forest. Returning, we cross Anderson Bros, tramway again and pass Scobie’s and Mrs Smith’s farms, very snugly situated under the hill, and arrive at Hill’s hotel. We run into Pinchgut, which is in the forest, and pass several farms and Flossa’s (the charcoal burner’s) homestead. Of course, burning charcoal is carried on in the bush, and he employs some eight or nine men. He does a large trade with the mines at Spring Hill and many other places. The land to the east of his dwelling is about the poorest in quality that I have seen in my travels. Returning back to Hill’s hotel, I then make for Rocky Lead. The. road through here is unmade, and l have to pass through the back portion of the Long Swamp. The flying survey of the railway to Ballarat is near this spot. Arriving at Rocky Lead it at first sight denotes that gold digging has been carried on to some extent, but it looks very quiet now. There are a good number, of houses there, and I think it is principally kept going by the splitters, and farming. As tap the forest here returning to the main road and proceed along the eastern portion of Mr Fry’s Euston Park Estate, I arrive at the old hostelry called the Foresters’ Arms hotel. The Hepburn Rocky Lead Company's claim and plant are about half a mile from here. I run up to Langdon’s Hill or Shingletown and pass some beautiful homesteads amongst which is the dwelling of the president of the shire. There is a State school house and dwelling. The teacher’s name is Mr Ick; he is brother to the Presbyterian minister of Sandhurst. It has a good attendance and is well looked after. There are not many houses about here, and the place is close to the forest and the schoolhouse. You can see it miles away, standing on a hill. The land about here is of good quality, and the crops all look well. I then run down past Mr George Greaves' farm, on which a perfect mansion of a Homestead. Everything is in the greatest order, and I should say he knows how to farm. I now come on to the road which leads up to Mr Durose’s hotel and store, and in running up pass, several good and snug farms with capital homesteads, amongst which is Delames Brothers, from which ground a large crop of potatoes, was taken this year. Hoctor's is right opposite. There are rented farms of the Hepburn Estate. I then follow up nearly a mile, and arrive at Darose's hotel and store and post-office, and find him just as jolly as he used to be 10 years ago, when I first knew him. This is a very old established hotel and from the kind obliging manner of the host and his family I am sure he is well respected in. the district. This place is kept up, principally by farming and teamsters passing in the summertime. Mr Durose says he thinks there will be a greater quantity of crops in this year than last. Most of the farmers around right up to Bullarook village and Mount Prospect are very old residents in the district. I now run down to Mount Prospect, a distance of about two miles. The land all belongs to the Hepburn Estate, and is good and the yearly rental ranges from 10s to 11s per acre for all cultivated land, and for grass 5s to 6s. The fences are mostly of post and rails, and good. The farms are not very large, running from 150 to 200 acres. I return to Bullarook village, and on my way pass the Presbyterian Church, the pastor of which is the Rev, R. G. Taylor, who has this church under his charge as well as that at Smeaton. The land of Burns has a great many of its sons resident here, and the church is very well attended. I pass about the best crops I have seen in all my journey between this and the village, and passing through, the village, get through the creek as best I can, uttering some unparliamentary language at Mr Short, the contractor, and arrive at Allandale pretty tired after my day’s run, I have travelled upwards of 40 miles for the day. I might add had I had more time on my hands and ought to have called in at the leading farms in my trip I could have given you a great deal more relative to the class of stock, kept; but the farmers in the Creswick Shire are noted through the colonies as stock breeders of all descriptions, particularly the Clydesdale horses, many of which at various ages would stand well in any show yard as prize-takers. There are other portions of the shire I intend at some future time to give you an account of, but I close this with simply saying that everywhere I have travelled looks prosperous. Each and all do their best to advance their own individual interests, and the prosperity of this their adopted land. 

The Slaughter of Trees (part) By Gib Wettenhall April, 2016

John La Gerche, the region’s first forester aptly described the gold rush era as involving “a great slaughter of trees.” But before we get to La Gerche, one of the greatest agents of tree change in the 2nd half of the 19thcentury were the five Anderson brothers, with their state-of-the art timber tramway system and sawmill at Barkstead, in the heart of the Wombat Forest.
 
Fresh from Scotland, the Anderson brothers hit on a steadier source of income than gold panning – large scale tree felling. They started small with a sawpit at Dean. As their appetite for trees grew, they put their engineering experience to work, eventually building the longest timber-extraction tramway system in Victoria – a system that hauled clearfelled trees on top of the Divide for 23km from Musk to Dean into the maw of their centrally placed sawmill at Barkstead, which at its peak employed 150 men.
 
As the ancient Greeks and Romans could have told the Anderson brothers, all good things come to an end. No sooner had they commissioned two specially commissioned steam locomotives from a Ballarat foundry, pulling 3-4 train trips of logs into the Barkstead mill, day in, day out, than – surprise, surprise – the trees within their license area ran out, a mere 15 years since their start-up sawpit at Dean. 
 
So what did the Andersons do? They brought on a bush war, encroaching on the licensed territory of two other powerful sawmillers, Thomas Crowley and Patrick Fitzpatrick. This was to prove a fatal mistake. Crowley and Fitzpatrick had mates in the Victorian Parliament and they complained that the Andersons were “ravaging” their forest. So, in 1879, the Andersons lost both their sawmill and tramway licenses and were forced to abandon Barkstead.
 
Many of the 60 sawmill families stayed on, squatting on the clearing in the forest that once was Barkstead, passing on their land from generation to generation, until the Kennett Government in the 1990s took offence at their socialist lack of title, privatising all blocks and selling off excess common land. 

John La Gerche started out in forestry as a sawmiller, went broke and sought a more secure public service career as a bailiff-forester. For two decades, he literally rode around on a white horse and camped out in the Wombat Forest, attempting to stop the depredations of the moonlight prop cutters, marauding wood cutters, bark strippers, goat herders, gold sluicing parties and prospectors – many of whom inhabited as well as invaded the forest.
 
Bailiffs wore a broad-brimmed hat. La Gerche preferred to identify as a forester and effected their beret. In 1887, in the face of bureaucratic penny-pinching and prevarication, he set out to establish an experimental plantation in sheltered Sawpit Gully, close to Creswick. From a 2 acre plot it grew to 300 acres in size and contained numerous species of trees selected by La Gerche to “suit the climate.” Few, however, were indigenous to either the region, let alone Australia.
 
La Gerche was a man of his time. The newcomers saw Australia as an alien place. They set up acclimatisation societies to transform the countryside into a place that was more like ‘home’ (meaning the British Isles). They imported all manner of what were to become pest plants and animals. This second wave of invasion included willows and hawthorn, blackberries and broom, blackbirds and sparrows, rabbits and foxes.
 
An ideal acclimatisator, La Gerche didn’t value native trees as an essential part of the country’s web of life. He saw the slaughter of trees through a different lens; as “wasteful” and “wanton” destruction of productive resources. Consequently, his plantation of useful trees is home to many different types of pines from Corsican to Caribbean and has a splendid 125 year old oak gully.

While perhaps not politically correct, you can experience the towering pines and autumn glory of the oak gully on a 2.4km walk that wends through La Gerche’s creation. Interpretive signage explains its history and the different tree species are named. 
 
As the jewel in the forest’s crown, La Gerche’s plantation became the catalyst for establishing the imposing School of Forestry next door in 1910. You can still walk through its grounds, passing gracious Victorian era Tremearne House and the forbidding castle facade of the old Creswick hospital built in 1863. 

 
The slaughter goes on and on 

The slaughter of trees didn’t stop with the founding of the School of Forestry. It was to go on and on in the Wombat, eventually only ceasing after three decades of overcutting for woodchips at the end of the 20th century. The chainsaws were finally stilled when the last of the sawmills, Dwyers at Leonards Hill, closed down in 2006. 
 
Today, what we have inherited is a baby forest, a pale shadow of its former glory and biodiverse abundance in the Aboriginal land management era. Hopefully, time and better custodianship on our part will heal the wounds of the past … but that’s another story.

 

Researched and Compiled by Andrew Parker 2021