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from the title of an old sailor's song.^ Before European settlement, Daylesford and
Spring Creek, which lies four kilometres north west of Daylesford, occupied an area of
land knovm as the Wombat Forest.^ The forest extended over a distance of some sixty
kilometres between Creswick and Woodend (ref figure 8) and contained mainly
messmate, peppermint, white gum, stringy bark, swamp gum and spotted gum-trees.
With the area's heavy rainfall, trees could grow to a height of 35 metres and a
circumference of up to twelve metres. For the original European settlers, it was an
inhospitable land: rugged with mighty trees and a harsh climate. The various
aboriginal clans occupying the resource-rich area ~ the Kurang, Wumndjeri, and Jaara
~ had been brought into the care of the Loddon Protectorate at Franklinford prior to
1849.^ By 1861, the period just after the initial gold msh to the central highlands, the
total black population of the Loddon district had diminished to fifteen males and eight
females.'^ The white name Daylesford only appeared after the first land sales were held
in 1854 and Spring Creek received its title when whites recognised the value of the
natural spring waters flowing through the area (the Italian speakers being among the
first to note their value).
Whites had begun to move into the area known as Jim Crow in the late 1830s,
1840s and early 1850s. The area's first white settler was English sea Captain, John
Hepburn, who arrived on 15 April 1838 after travelling overland from Sydney. He
took up land near what later became Smeaton and built himself a grand home which
has survived more than 150 years. The Port Phillip District had not been the subject of
serious exploration by whites until as late as 1824. The pioneers discovered good
pastures but no settlement followed as the news was not made public. In 1836, the
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