December2012 - Signpost Magazine

The Orchard Family in Cockatoo
By Arthur Wintle
John Orchard selected 151
acres (61 hectares) on Cockatoo
Creek in the centre of what later
became the town of Cockatoo, and
moved his family there in 1883. Not
until 1903 was John able to pay off
the land at one pound ($2) an acre
and obtain title.
Much of what follows is from the
recollections of Myrtle Grayson, who
was John and Sarah’s granddaughter.
After the backbreaking work of
clearing, John planted raspberries and
red and black currants, which grew well.
He supplemented his income by
catching birds. Able to mimic birdcalls,
he trapped finches and other small
birds by putting birdlime on twigs.
(See also Helen Coulson, Story of the
Dandenongs, 1959, p. 240).
John had a draught horse and a
covered wagon, which he used to
transport berries and birds to the
Eastern Market at the top end of
Bourke Street.
The house was wattle and daub,
saplings plastered with mud, with a
rammed earth floor.
The fireplace took up one end of
the house and the doors were arranged
so that the bullock could pull a large
log in one door and continue out the
other, leaving the log to be rolled onto
the fire. The fire was kept burning day
and night and Sarah did all the cooking
on it.
Sarah was midwife to the district.
(Also Coulson, p. 44). According to
Myrtle, she did not lose a mother or
child. She continued to perform this
letters
I
have made a number of
requests in recent years for
a footpath to be installed
between the main entrance to
Worrell Reserve, Emerald and
the bus stop/U3A building.
A gravel path meandering
through the garden that fronts
onto the main road would be
okay.
Forced to walk behind parked
cars and dodge traffic on the
roadway in and out of the reserve,
I was bumped by a reversing car
34 Signpost Community Magazine Inc. - December 2012 Volume 104
service even when she lost all the fingers
on her right hand except the thumb and
first finger in a sausage machine.
Sarah died at Cockatoo in 1909,
aged 64. It is unlikely that she fell in
the fire and burned to death, as Myrtle
believed. A doctor certified that she
died of ‘cerebral haemorrhage and
heart failure.’
The 1909 electoral roll lists John
and his sons David, John Samuel and
Richmond as farmers at Cockatoo
Creek. Charles was a sawmiller.
By 1914 the three youngest sons,
Charles, Richmond and David had
married three of the McBride sisters,
daughters of James and Caroline,
who kept a store, post office and
guesthouse in Cockatoo. All but John
and Richmond had left town.
When the narrow gauge railway
came through in 1900, John lost his
frontage on the Cockatoo Creek. At
some time in his declining years, the
property was subdivided and sold off.
John died in 1915 at Cockatoo.
As Myrtle told it, John liked fishing
and was found sitting with his back
against a tree, his line still in the water.
The vague death certificate does not
contradict this romantic story. The
doctor certified that he died of ‘old
age and syncope’, which is the medical
term for fainting!
John had no real estate, but a tidy
sum, 384 pounds, to distribute among
his children.
Richmond’s wife Caroline died in
1921 and within a few years the last of
the Orchards had left Cockatoo.
Letter to our new councillors
and have seen school kids and
mums with little children and
prams scramble out of the way.
This problem has escalated since
the recent development of that
end of town. A pedestrian having
right of way in a carpark/road
is of little comfort when you
have been knocked over unless,
of course, we have to wait until
someone is killed to qualify for a
path.
Concerned Emerald resident
NiBB
John and Sarah Orchard
& QuilL
The carpark/road area in question