Skeleton in the Creek

It's Friday the 18th of June 1920 and Alexander Crowe, a World War One digger, is chopping wood on his farm at the Soldier Settlement near Campbelltown. Crowe's block was on the far eastern boundary of the settlement with a creek running through the rugged portion. As he was chopping wood he saw a curved shape bone lying on the ground. After curiously scouting the ground in the vicinity and much to his horror, found a human skeleton partially dressed in men's clothing lying in the dry creek bed. The police were immediately notified and they began to identify the skeleton.

Initial newspaper reports before identification described the scene. They wrote that the nature of the bones indicated that the man was in the prime of his life when he died. They theorised that the man could have stumbled over the bank of the creek and lain there without attracting assistance. The right knee was dislocated it was also noticed.

Early reports also suggested that the body had been there for around 12 months. Also in the creek bed were six bottles of vanilla essence, three pennies and four half pennies plus some cordial bottles. Police however initially had little to go on to identify the body.

Dr Mawson of Campbelltown then examined the remains. He was of the opinion that they were lying exposed for at least six months, and were those of a young man between 5ft 9in and 5ft 10in high. Several bones were missing and the doctor believed that they were taken by wild dogs.

News of the discovery reached Victor Thompson of Parramatta. He was quickly on the scene and was convinced that the skeleton was of his father Nathaniel.

Sixty year old Nathaniel Thompson lived in Landers Street, Redfern and worked as a cordial maker. He had recently lost a son and was greatly affected by this. One day in February that year he had set out to visit his mother's grave in Liverpool. Before he had left the family gave him three pennies and four half-pennies to take with him. Being a great walker he had decided to walk the journey but became lost as night approached. The Campbelltown Herald went on to explain that "the place where the deceased was found would give every reason to believe that an accident happened, and the death was due to exposure". Further adding support to the son's belief that this was his father was a distinctive broken tooth and a newly soled boot.

This was all I could locate on this story. I find it strange that Nathaniel Thompson would stray as far as the Soldier Settlement at Campbelltown on his way from Redfern to Liverpool.

                         Soldier Settlement, Waminda Avenue, Campbelltown


Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

VINCENT, Liz 1994
Tales of Old Macarthur Country
Picton: Liz Vincent

Bathurst Times, Monday 21 June 1920

Campbelltown Herald Friday 25 June 1920

Joe Quinn

I was recently contacted by a researcher investigating the life of Australia’s first major league baseball player, Joseph J. Quinn.  Quinn is something of a forgotten hero in Australian sport – he played 17 seasons in the American major leagues between 1884 and 1901, mostly as a second baseman, and he was so popular with the American public that he was voted “Most Popular Ballplayer” in 1893!  It was 102 years before another Australian was drafted into a major league team, which may explain the lack of research and recognition of Quinn’s achievements in the land of his birth, although he was inducted into the Australian Baseball Hall of Fame in May this year. 

Most of Joe Quinn’s childhood was spent in the Campbelltown area before he immigrated to the United States with his parents and older brother at the age of 11 in 1872.  He was actually born in North Ipswich, QLD, in 1862, to Patrick and Catherine Quinn, but the family are thought to have moved to Campbelltown around 1866 due to the severe drought and subsequent high levels of unemployment in Queensland.

But the Quinns’ lives in Campbelltown between 1866 and 1872 are a bit of a mystery.  Joe’s father was an illiterate labourer with a history of finding work wherever he could get it during his travels around Australia – he had previously worked as a farmer, miner, and railway navvie.  The Quinns were Irish Roman Catholics and it may be that both Joe and his older brother Patrick jnr. attended St. Patrick’s school on the Old Menangle Road.  But there are very few employment or education records from this period – can anyone shed any light on this family and their lives?

It is anticipated a book about Quinn’s life will be released later this year – details to come.

 

 

This photograph of Joe Quinn was taken in 1890 in Boston

Written by Andrew Allen

Kenny Hill

Kenny Hill was the name given to the rise out of Campbelltown near today's Narellan Road heading towards Narellan and Camden. It was named after Dr William Kenny, an early doctor in Campbelltown.

The hill is best known to locals as the steep gradient that 'Pansy', the steam train that once ran on the Campbelltown-Camden line, had to confront regularly. It was once written that "Any day of the week one may see the "tram" panting and puffing, emitting clouds of angry smoke up the preposterously steep grade of Kenny Hill. Sometimes it fails to make the grade. On those occasions it retreats in rage and humiliation to take another run at the hated lines."

The gradient was the steepest used by adhesion locomotives in Australia. Due to the steepness of the gradient of 1 in 19 between Campbelltown and Kenny Hill, there were often multiple attempts made at ascending the grade. It resulted in passengers disembarking from the train and walking alongside it, leaving their bags on board. Often the train would reverse back down the hill, stoke the engine up, and have another try! When trains could not successfully ascend the hill, the train would be divided and the second half of the train (usually where the passengers were carried) would be left standing on the line until the first half of the train had been stowed at Campbellltown. These delays were a source of annoyance and inconvenience for passengers. The ascent was made harder when it rained as the train found it harder to get traction.

Kenny Hill was the second station on the line after leaving Campbelltown. It was a station with a simple platform with no shelter. Trains only stopped there if the driver was notified that passengers needed to stop. The station was located just to the west of the water canal near Narellan Road. Those with a sharp eye can make out the remains of the old line at Kenny Hill cut into the embankment adjacent to Narellan Road.

The Campbelltown-Camden train service ceased running on New Year's Day 1963.

This is an interesting image taken on 15 September, 1963. It shows Narellan Road at Kenny Hill with the train line very close to the road. This shot was taken just nine months after the last train ran on the line. (Hugh Bairnsfather Collection).

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

NEWMAN, Cindy
"The Camden Tram"
In Grist Mills
Vol.9, No.4, November 1996

Camden Tram Will Pass Soon
In The Sunday Herald, 14.10.1951, p12

The Presbyterian Cemetery

The Presbyterian Cemetery was originally a gift made to St. David's Presbyterian Church by Alexander McDonald, most likely in the 1830s. The deaths of his two children Jane and William are the earliest deaths shown on a monument in the cemetery. Alexander's own death was in 1847.

There are 177 monuments in the cemetery recording the deaths of about 326 persons. The cemetery has some notable Campbelltown names that rest there. These include:

John Kidd- owner of Blair Athol. He was an MLA for Camden in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Thomas Swann- well known photographer from Wedderburn.

Percy Marlow- member of Campbelltown Council from 1926-56 including mayor for 3 separate terms.

Samuel Bursill- mayor of Campbelltown 1909-1914.

James W. Kershler- mayor of Campbelltown 1930-1937.

In 1987 that portion of the cemetery lying adjacent to Moore Street was resumed to allow for widening of the road to become the Moore-Oxley Bypass. The Department of Main Roads compiled a register of all persons buried in the affected area and contacted those descendants who were able to be located. In March 1987, graves and/or memorial stones were moved to other locations within the cemetery or other cemeteries.

A total of 17 remains were exhumed and reinterred into another section. All but one of the 55 headstones were relocated to another section and they now stand in 4 rows in the north-west corner. These remains were left in their original burial place under the new road.

St. David's Presbyterian Cemetery, Broughton Street, Campbelltown before the widening for the Moore-Oxley Bypass. 1984 (Copyright Verlie Fowler)

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

HOLMES, Marie
The Presbyterian Cemetery Campbelltown

Trivia Answers

Answers to last week's trivia questions are:

1. John Farley
2. 1820
3. Mad Dan Morgan
4. High Street
5. Kath Whitten
6. Pansy
7. Harley Daley
8. Dr William Mawson
9. Minto
10. Kentlyn

Here's how your score is rated:

9-10: You're an expert on Campbelltown's history!
5-8: Good effort!
2-4: A little more reading required
0-1: Better come and visit us at the local studies section at H.J. Daley Library!