introduction

introduction
I moved to Narbethong with my family in 1950 having spent my first six years at
Marysville. Following the death of my father, Forester Bryan Mole, in a gelignite
explosion in the Black Range at Narbethong, I moved away with my mother Eunice,
and siblings Bill and Betsa in 1956. Fifty five years later, after many reminiscing trips
to Narbethong, I was asked to undertake this project - the brainchild of Nancy Leslie.
I was humbled; the answer was a resounding ‘yes’, because I have a deep affection for
Narbethong, the place of my special and significant childhood memories.
This is a history of Narbethong as remembered by many of its associates and with
input from various sources - families, individuals, historical records, newspaper
articles, letters, photographs and post cards.
My thanks to all who generously assisted with time, documents, photographs,
personal records and interviews. And thank you especially to June my ever
patient wife who coped with life while I spent well in excess of a thousand hours
interviewing, researching, writing and assembling this document!
Information stored in this form should not be underestimated; it prevents distortion
by word of mouth re-telling over the years and loss of history during ravaging
events. Some conflicting recollections challenged the editor, but others were
included as received, because their confirmation still eludes discovery and perhaps
all have certain truths when viewed from different perspectives!
So, is it Narbethong or Nar-be-thong? An aboriginal word meaning cheery or
cheerful place, or with origins from Narberth in Wales? Frederick Fisher emigrated
from near Narberth and built a shanty and hotel there in the early 1860s beside a
creek crossed by the Yarra Track; now Fishers Creek in his honour.
Regardless of the origin of its name, Narbethong is a scenic hamlet nestled in the
mountains of the Great Dividing Range - on the Maroondah Highway between
Healesville and Buxton - eighty six kilometres north east of Melbourne. Its latitude
is 37.50º South and longitude 145.68º East and it is 345 metres above sea level. The
lowest recorded rainfall is 753.5 mm in 1967 and highest 1755.9 in 1939.
One of three towns (Buxton, Marysville and Narbethong) in the Alexandra Shire
known colloquially as The Triangle, Narbethong is the south west point of the
triangle they form on maps.
15
History of Narbethong
First surveyed in 1865, with white settlement dating back to the early 1860s,
Narbethong’s hotel, The Black Spur Inn and guest houses, The Hermitage, St Fillan,
Narbethong House and Nithsdale, were stopping places for the likes of Cobb and
Co coaches and their passengers en route via the old road to Gippsland goldfield
towns such as Woods Point and Walhalla. The demise of horse drawn vehicles saw
companies such as MacNamara’s, Roche’s, Sheehan’s and McKenzie’s continue
service across the Black Spur using motorised vehicles.
From its early days of settlement Narbethong has been involved in the timber
industry, and many sawmills, loggers, and paling splitters operated in forests of the
area. Although sawmills no longer operate there, a pine plantation of ever increasing
size continues to flourish in the foothills of the Black Range to the west of the town.
With drawcards of the magnificent forests, fern gullies, waterways, and mountains
of the Black Spur and Acheron Valley, some of the pastimes enjoyed today are bush
walking, hiking, horse and mountain bike riding on the many tracks and trails,
along with hunting, fishing and four wheel driving.
The book is, perhaps, a ‘work in progress’ as inevitable inaccuracies and arrival of
‘new’ information may necessitate future editions. It was edited and assembled by
John Mole, with considerable support of a committee of Narbethong stalwarts - all
voluntary. Those assisting with preparation of various sections for publication were:
Black Spur - Max & Nancy Leslie, John Mole
The Hermitage - John & Val Stafford
Hotel - Black Spur Inn - Narbethong House - John Mole, Dawn Brettoner
Post Office - Brad May, Rosemary May (nee Oxlee)
State School Nº 3459 - Rosemary Sisson, John Mole, Dawn Brettoner
Church & Sunday School - John Mole, Irene Grevis-James
Hall - Judy Pertzel (nee Lovett)
Fire Brigade - Graham Eddy
St Fillan - Rex & Helen Goulding, John Mole
Forestry & Sawmills - John Mole
Individual & family memories of Narbethong - Edited contributing authors’
writings. See list on next page
Identities, Interest & Infamy - Various sources
Please forward constructive comments regarding inevitable errors and omissions!
On behalf of the Narbethong History Group I proudly present this record with the
sincere hope that you find absorbing reading in its pages.
John Mole.
Editor
16
Committee of the Narbethong History Group formed to assist with this project:
Max & Nancy Leslie, Graham Eddy, Dawn Brettoner, Rex & Helen Goulding, John & Val Stafford, Judy
Pertzel, Rosemary Sisson, Tony & Rosemary May, Val Cockerell, Lorraine Eastaugh, June & John Mole
Contributing Authors:
Jan Barnes, Christopher Baulch, Dawn Brettoner, Bess Bryant, Leigh Bryant, Lynette Bryant (nee Pitts),
Janice Cocard (nee Menz), Peter Crooke, Cornelius & Maree De Groot, Greg Dickson, Peter Downes,
Pamela Drysdale (nee Fraser), Janet Dyer (nee Dickson), Anne Eastaugh, Lorraine Eastaugh, Graham Eddy,
Catherine Fraser, Bruce Foletta, Thomas Friedel, Andy Friedel, Jill Goulding, Rex & Helen Goulding, Irene
Grevis-James (nee Wuttke), Robert Griffiths, Betsa Hutson (nee Mole), Gisela Kaempkes, Joanne Kasch
(nee Sims), Sally & Bill Kellas, Michael Kudelka, Marcia Le Busque (nee Stanley), Max & Nancy Leslie,
Tony & Barbara Lester, Rosemary May (nee Oxlee), Alan Menz, Bill Mole, John Mole, Grace Murray (nee
Carson), O’Meara Family, Jim Oxlee, Olive Oxlee, Tom Oxlee, Judy Pertzel, Vicky Pigdon (nee Bartlett),
Tom Pritchett, Janet Ray (nee Leslie), Jill Robins, Kim Rycroft, Meg Sorenson, Richard & Maureen Sims,
Rosemary Sisson, Dennis Smith, John & Val Stafford, David & Lee Stickles, Kathleen Willems, Nell
Woods, Robert Yeates.
Acknowledgements:
Appreciation is extended to the following publications, individuals, libraries and
internet sources (and those inadvertently omitted) for their invaluable assistance;
Narbethong Post Office Centenary, 1883 – 1983: JF Waghorn. Of Many Things & Many a Mickle: Alan Mickle.
Fronds from the Black Spur & Songs From the Hills: Marion Miller Knowles. The Roche Approach: (a history of
Roche Bros Pty Ltd) by Peter Donovan. The Roche’s of Adelong: Kath Sloane. JW Lindt Master Photographer:
Shar Jones. Timber Mountain: N Houghton. Black Spur Veterans: Marjorie Rixson. A German Church in the
Garden of God: HD Mees 2004. Forests of Ash: Tom Griffiths. Healesville History in the Hills: Sally Symonds.
Weekly Times, The Argus, Healesville Guardian, The Advertiser and other periodicals: State Library of Victoria
(SLV) and National Library of Australia (NLA) via Trove: www.trove.nla.gov.au. The Public Records Office
of Victoria (PROV).
Elizabeth Welch, (Community Arts Development Officer, Murrindindi Shire Council), Murrindindi Shire
Council, Redfish Bluefish Creative, Dawn Brettoner, Rex and Helen Goulding, John & Val Stafford, Judy
Pertzel, Nancy and Max Leslie, Peter Cobb, Robert Lovett, Frank & Alf Pfeiffer, Rosemary May (nee Oxlee),
Janice Cocard, Laurie Ritchie, Bert Semmens, Harry Whiteley, Shirley O’Meara, Des Morrish, Alan Morris,
Alan Paton, Marcia Le Busque, Janet Dyer, Betsa & Geoff Hutson, Noel Hulbert, Diane Batchelor, Pat
Torbitt, Harry Whiteley, Joan Shepherd, Robin Rishworth & Nola Sarah, Peter & Judith & Sally Crooke,
17
History of Narbethong
(v) Claire, born 1904 Dunedin, New Zealand, married Dr AS Fitzpatrick and had two
children. She won scholarships to CEGGS and the University of Melbourne where
she was one of the first female engineering students. A journalist, who wrote feature
articles for The Age newspaper, she was also a surveyor, a goat breeder, and a political
campaigner who was passionately concerned about the environment.
Claire Fitzpatrick
Recollections of Claire - about 1991 - with reference to her home at Narbethong, give
credence to her writing skills - with some liberties taken by the editor:
On holidays from boarding school we walked sixteen miles from the morning train at
Healesville over the Black Spur to Narbethong, then a further two to Springbank.
1 Now Mt Gordon
2 Near the Wolfram
Mine on the
Narbethong side of
Marysville
Then there was Mt Dom Dom, Bald Hill1 - the further hump of Acheron Hill, Steavenson
Falls, and finally an overnight sleep at Wolfram Creek2 with a rug, a ground sheet and a
‘hip hole’ - no sleeping bags then, a moon, and a lyrebird dancing and rehearsing calls on
his mound under a tree fern a few feet from our chilled bodies. We breakfasted, washed
in the swift little creek (gasp!) and climbed to Mt Strickland’s four thousand foot
summit to see the sun rise through rough pinkish trunks of a stand of woolly-butts...
Today, a non school day, Mother took the others in the buggy to the blacksmith, ten
miles away, to have the horses shod, buy a bag of potatoes, one of oats, and to lunch
with her friend two miles further on...
Before leaving she said - ‘Father is finishing his plans and specifications for a bridge over
Fishers Creek, so you can get him his lunch. There’s the cold wing rib and the mustard
pickles we made last Summer. We’ll be home by five, in time to milk - don’t forget to
practice your music’.
They left, and I thumped out my hatred of Czerny and the ‘A’ major scale until Father
said: ‘Shut that instrument and let me get on with my work’.
3 Undoubtedly Stony
Creek that ran through
the Anderson property
to join Fishers Creek.
228
Sandals and hat were shed at the thirty acre slip rails as I took my anger to be washed
away by the little stream. Wild violets, maiden hair fern, moss and red toadstools were
in the new Spring grass as I lay belly flat on the bank trailing fingers in icy, splashy
water, enjoying the red, green and ochre smoothness of the pebbles on the coarse sandy
bed of the busy, happy little stream3. Sun through white-gum branches dappled its
dancing ripples. Perhaps a leisurely blackfish might slowly tail-wave upstream from
Fishers Creek. Quiet now!
There were flame breasted robins last time - and now the blue wrens could be planning a
family - lie very still! Peace took over. Spring sunshine, clear rippling water on its way
to Fishers Creek, blue and white violets and bright, round pebbles and yes! Father blue
wren and his brown clad family flitting, hoppity-flutter, house-hunting? and a shining
copper-scaled skink sunning itself on the mossy log. All wove their magic and soothed
my savage breast.
The shadow of the white tree trunk on the opposite bank reached my head: it must be
midday. Father’s lunch!
Nearly eighty years on I sought once more the gentle healing of that special place of my
childhood. The track from the Maroondah Highway still crossed Fishers Creek but the
planks of the new bridge did not rattle to warn the house of the rare event of visitors.
The hill up to the main gate seemed less steep now, than on those hot days of tired feet
walking the last stretch home from school. Now a forbidding mesh fence and padlocked
gates protect a Forests Commission house and a flourishing plantation of pinus radiata.
The hill behind was still there, although it seems to have shrunk. I scaled the fence and
walked the 150 yards to where the house should have been. No house, no tank stand,
no orchard; but there, running cold and clear, was the water race1 that had supplied
the house, dug with pick and shovel by Father and Uncle Jack in the ‘90s (1890s) when
Father had selected the 450 acres2 from the Lands Department. And there to the north
east was Mother’s pride and joy, the cryptomeria, and the two silver birches she had
planted by the well and culvert; a hammock slung between was mother’s resting
place and the branches a surreptitious hiding place for chore dodgers, and reading and
writing! The cow-shed, barn and cart-shed were gone.
The water race has altered. It used to supply the hydraulic ram that pumped water to
our high tank stand and supplanted the well from which water had to be bucketed.
1 Rex Goulding, Laurie
Ritchie & John Mole
visited the ‘Springbank’
& Nursery site in 2013 &
found no buildings, no
fence, only bare ground
with recently planted
tiny pine seedlings
amongst a few steel
& concrete relics, but
nearby, still flowing
with crystal clear water,
was the Anderson’s
water race!
2 Originally selected
only 320 acres
Fishers Creek was now behind high barbed wire fences reinforced by blackberries and
prickly moses - regrowth after clearing of the creek’s banks - and the little stream was
no more. There were no blue wrens, no robins, no wild violets, red toadstools, maiden
hair, or mossy logs. The 400 acre paddock - now Forests Commission - had young pines
flourishing, beautifully free from weeds. Progress had won!
(vi) Joan, born 1907 in Belfast - died 1994, married Alan Jones, a grazier, and
had two step children. She studied horticulture at Burnley College and Reading
University and worked with Edna Walling and also at Coombe Cottage - Dame Nellie
Melba’s home at Coldstream - as head gardener. She owned The Hermitage on the
Black Spur at Narbethong for twenty years, from 1933 until 1953. Joshua built a wall
on a spring above The Hermitage to create a dam for its water supply.
Joshua Anderson died on 18 October 1949 aged 84, his wife having predeceased him
in 1945.
‘Springbank’ homestead still existed in November 1933 when the FCV were
negotiating to purchase the land for a nursery site from a subsequent owner.
Joan Jones
Photo: John Stafford
229
History of Narbethong
saws - all provided at their own expense.
The ridge along the top of Poley Range divided the then MMBW (Melbourne
Metropolitan Board of Works) water catchment area from the Forests Commission
of Victoria (FCV) controlled area. Water falling on the eastern (MMBW) side of the
range found its way into the Yarra River to enter the ocean through Port Phillip Bay
while on the western side it flowed inland via the Murray River system eventually
reaching the ocean in South Australia!
In earlier times, using draught horses,
log trolleys on timber and steel rails,
long lengths of cable, steam winches,
and gravity lowering gear with pulleys
and bull wheels, logs were hauled from
deep in the bush across valleys and over
mountains to the mill. These operations
required highly skilled men, usually
self taught, but safety precautions were
a low priority then, exposing them to
dangerous situations with high risk of
death and serious injury.
‘One stick too many’.
Feiglins truck at their Nº
1 Mill in the 1940s
Photo: Peter Evans
collection
1 The Kerslake’s were
paling splitters, who
lived at ‘Somers Park’
(not Feiglin’s Mill) on
the Acheron Way, but
their main - & lucrative
- business was trapping
possums for their skins
196
According to Bill Maxwell jr who lived
with his family at the Nº 1 mill, the small
Nº 3 mill (30) operated for a short time in
1940 at the top of the lowering gear track
where logs were lowered down the steep incline to the Nº 1 mill. The mill was further
back behind the winch hut and used for cutting small billets.
Bill Maxwell added that there was one, or possibly two, huts at the Nº 1 mill that
were about ten feet wide by seventy feet long, to house single men. Arguments were
frequent, he said, across the six or seven low partition walls! The three mill houses
were occupied by: Bill (Scotty) Maxwell (blacksmith) and his wife Eileen who were
there first in 1937-1938, Bill Turner’s family was second (Bill was sawyer) and the
third family was Tom O’Meara senior (engine driver and filer) and his wife Lil.
When the 10 January 1939 fire razed everything there, most sheltered at Narbethong
but Joseph and Judah Feiglin with several workers managed to escaped by sheltering
in a dugout at the mill. Seven others perished on the Acheron Way trying to escape
the inferno by car. This part clip from the Healesville Guardian of 14 January 1939,
reports on their fate.
On Tuesday night, Mr Ken Kerslake1, a paling splitter at Feiglin’s Mill, realising the
danger, decided to make a dash to the Marysville road. Taking his wife and daughter,
Ruth, aged five, in his tourer car, Mr Kerslake set out from the camp on the five and a
half mile dash... They were followed by Frank Edwards, Mrs Kerslake’s brother, in his
open car, and about two miles from their home are said to have taken on board three
Greek quarry workers who had left the shelter taken by other men in a creek. At dawn
on Wednesday Mr J Ablett, walking along the Acheron Way, found Edwards’ car on
the edge of the banked roadway. On the ground near the driver’s seat the charred goods
which he had tried to save from the Kerslake home.
A little farther on, Kerslake’s car was jammed against a burning tree. Half a mile nearer
the Marysville road Ablett found the body of Mrs Kerslake, huddled on the roadway.
Near her was the body of her husband, who apparently had gone back to her assistance.
A few yards away, lay the body of their daughter, and about ten chains on was the body
of one of the Greeks, but no trace could be found of the other two Greeks. The people were
only two miles from safety when their car apparently crashed into a fallen tree.
Part of another article in The Argus (Melbourne) on 12 Jan 1939 reports:
Warburton, Wednesday; After having been imprisoned by flames in a dugout at Feiglin’s
Nº 2 Mill in the Acheron Valley for eighteen hours, seven timber workers escaped death
to-day.
Both Feiglin’s Nº 1 and Nº 2 mills were destroyed. One of the men - Mr. George Unger - was blinded by the smoke, and so over-come by the
heat that he was unable to leave the dugout, and a companion - Mr. J Huey - remained
with him while the other five walked nine miles until they were picked up and brought
into Warburton. The other men were Messrs W. Bromley, J Woodall, ‘Snowey’ Venell,
K Tuckett, and Pat Healey. ... The men had been in the dugout until late this afternoon,
and were all in a weakened state. However, the five men set out for Warburton ... as they
walked, blazing tree trunks fell in their way and several times they escaped death by a
miracle. Shortly after 6 pm they reached the Donna Buang road where they were picked
up by a passing truck driver, who brought them into the township...’
The Nº 2 mill was rebuilt at its Acheron Way site within one month of the fire by a
co-operative effort of employers, employees and the local community. The larger
Nº 1 mill and the seasoning works (kiln dryers) were operational a few months later,
with the lowering gear also replaced. Bert Semmens says that a new small diesel
electric powered Nº 3 mill (31) was built in 1941 on the west side of the Acheron Way
two miles up from the old quarry. It was short lived, being dismantled the same year,
sent to New Guinea and assembled by an Australian team for the war effort.
Jim Oxlee1, eldest son of Narbethong Postmistress Olive and Harry, notes:
Continued p 202
1 Jim’s story, page 374
197