John McPherson

Story

In the late 18th century wealthy Scottish landowners were forcing peasant farmers off their small plots of land in order to use the land for the increasingly lucrative practice of grazing large herds of sheep and cattle. Unlikely future prospects for their sons lead many families from the Highlands of Scotland to migrate to Canada and Australia to start a new life.

John McPherson and his newly-wed wife Helen Watson left their Perthshire home in the Scottish Highlands and, on the 21st May 1825, embarked on the sailing ship Triton from the port of Leith, arriving in Port Jackson (Sydney) on the 25th of October of that year. Travelling with the recently married couple were John\’s parents Peter and Catherine, his three brothers Peter, Duncan and Hugh and four sisters, Annabella, Catherine, Margaret and Lorne Jane.

Although to date it appears no journals or letters have survived to tell us the personal shipboard experiences of this immigrant family ‘The Emigrants Guide to Australia\’ published by George Philip & Son in 1853 provides some interesting facts:

‘For the many months of the voyage wives were instructed to take three cotton dresses, one pair stays, four petticoats, sixteen chemises, two flannel petticoats, whilst husbands were instructed to take two fustian jackets, waistcoats and trousers, three pairs canvas trousers, one overcoat and two felt hats.\’

‘Men were advised that the wife make as many of her clothes on board as possible, as the occupation serves to pass away many an otherwise idle, heavy hour\’.

‘Matrons were appointed to undertake the motherly duty of seeing that all the young females are in their sleeping apartments at the proper hour.\’

Soon after arrival in Australia most members of the McPherson family had journeyed across the Blue Mountains in the footsteps of the explorers Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth. Initially John was employed by merchants Aspinall & Browne in the Bathurst region where John\’s father Peter had been granted 640 acres of land at Wallerwarang.

Certainly by 1828, and possibly as early as 1826, John McPherson was employed as an agricultural superintendent for non-resident owner George T. Palmer on his recently established property ‘Palmerville\’ at Ginninderra on Limestone Plains Ð today\’s Canberra.

John and Helen were the first resident white landowners on Limestone Plains. Their first two children Peter and Catherine had been born at Bathurst and Lithgow respectively. Their second daughter Helen Jane, born at Limestone Plains on January 27th 1830, is believed to have been the first white child born in this region.

In 1831 John McPherson was granted 640 acres of land to the east of Black Mountain at Limestone Plains. He named the property Springbank. Before the formation of Lake Burley Griffin, what is today\’s Springbank Island was McPherson\’s safe haven in times of flood, and was known as ‘Noah\’s Ark\’. Also included in his grant were part of Acton Peninsula, and that part of the now Australian National University which is to the west of Sullivan\’s Creek

At auction in 1836 John McPherson bought the 990 acres which comprised Black Mountain, and the Black Mountain Peninsula, much of this newly ‘acquired\’ land being of great significance to the Aboriginal people of this area – the Ngunnawal. The Peninsula was a prime corroboree site. For this superior piece of Canberra real estate John had paid two hundred and forty pounds and ten shillings (about $500).

Four more children, Jessie Ann, John Alexander, Joan Mary and William Duncan were born at Limestone Plains. And over these years, with the aid of convict employees, John\’s cattle, which in 1830 numbered 66, had become a sizable herd of a thousand head. Drought climaxing in 1840 had seriously affected the region and the family overlanded south to the Port Philip District.

Family tradition has it that Helen gave birth to their ninth child James Philip on November 20th 1842 en route to the Port Philip District (Victoria), a journey of many hundreds of kilometres.

This property, again named Springbank, John retained until 1852, in the meantime acquiring, in 1846, a pastoral licence for 52,000 acres near Streatham, on which he ran 40,000 sheep. On the shores of Lake Bolac, and called Nerrin Nerrin, it became the family home until subsequent moves took John and Helen to Moonee Ponds, and finally Helena House in Nicholson St Collingwood.

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