Rosewood History. Qld.
Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld), Saturday 29 October 1927, page 13
LOCKYER VALLEYS. BLACKFELLOWS’ CREEK SETTLERS
MR. JOHN MADDEN, OF WOODBINE.
A SPARE BULLOCK BOY’S JOURNEYS.
The settlement on Blackfellows’ Creek above the Left-hand Branch at Mt. Sylvia, is about 41 years old. The late Mr. Mlichael Williams, Mr. J. Hansen, Mr. Emil Seiler, and Mr. E. P. Quinn were among the first settlers. Beyond the locality known as Woodbine, two or three miles above Mt. Sylvia, the creek divides again, the branch to the left being Black Duck Creek, and the right branch the continuation of Blackfellows’ Creek, Junction View school, 22 miles from Gatton, is at the meeting of the creeks. This part of the valley, and the upper stretches of the creeks, were settled considerably later than the lower reaches. Black Duck now has many farms up to Mr. W. Gould’s place. The farms do not go far up the main creek beyond the junction. Among those that are there is the old East Haldon homestead, which controlled much of the surrounding country before the station was cut up. Beyond it, 32 miles from Gatton, is the most distant house on the creek, at Point Pure holding, the grazing lease of which ran back into the country adjoining the Mt. Mistake timber reserves. It is practically all mountain country, the lease from which was first granted about 25 years ago to a man named Phillips. Others have been there, and since the War. Point Pure has been held by Captain Rankin.
Most of the Blackfellows’ Creek country, from Mt Sylvia up, is badly infested with prickly pear. The pear, Mr. J. Madden, one on the oldest settlers, says, was first brought to the district by squatters who brought it to the shepherds’ huts, thinklng that the fruit mighlt be of some use to them. Mr. Madden first saw prickly pear in Cunningham’s Gap about 64 years ago, when he was spare bullock boy with bullock drivers going over the range to the Downs. Another boy took him to a small clump of pear back from the road to look for fruit, but none was rlpe. A few years later he saw it again at Jondaryan. When he went to the creek, all the pear on the flats could have been cleared in a day. The cochineal parasite is doing great work along the whole creek, partlcu larly among the trees. It was intro duced only about two years ago, yet there is scarcely any pear about that is not heavily infested. Many of the farmers are confident that with the aid of the cochineal, the pear can be cleared out in a few years.
MR. JOHN MADDEN.
Old “Bullocky” Days.
Mr. John Madden (74), of Black Fellows’ Creek, is a merry old Irish man who has been observant throughout an interesting and in tensely active life. He came to Australia in 1862 from County Limerick, with his parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Madden. They lived at the Three-mile Creek near Ipswich, for a few years-a great place for a boy’s life’ in those days. Between the two bridges was a favourite camping place for the blacks, and he saw 1000 of them at a time with their wurlies between the One-mile and Three-mile-and, joy of joys for a boy, the whole 1000 in a great corroboree! Their yells could be heard miles away in the height of the blackfellows’ jazz parties. Mr. Madden remembers the police riding through Ipswich each day at sun down with stockwhips, driving the blacks out of the town to their camps. He saw many corroborees in his later life, but never any as big as some near Ipswich when he was a boy. “You could always get a corroboree of some sort for a bottle of rum,” he says.
Mr. John Madden
BEFORE THE RAILWAYS.
In 1864 he saw the first sod of the first Queensland railway turned at North Ipswich. A few years after their arrival in the country the family moved to the Bremer, about a mile from Rosewood, where they lived for many years. Though his home was there until he went to Blackfellows’ Creek 85 years ago, Mr. Madden saw a great deal of Queensland. He had started work a year or so after he came to the country. When he was nine or 10 years old he was a spare bullock boy, and travelled with bullock teams up and down the Ipswich-Toowoomba road before there was any railway. He was camped on the hill at Gatton when the town had as its only buildings, other than a hut or two, Cook’s public house and the police station. Boys were hard to get then, for his job of bringing on the spare bullocks and horses behind the waggon, boiling the billy, and doing similar odd jobs on the road. He was so small that he had to be lifted on his horse, and was not able to take the hobbles off the horses, usually part of the spare bullock boy’s work. The first trip was with a bullocky named Johnny Collins, with telegraph wire and insulators for Jinki Jinki, 20 to 30 miles past Nambour. Later, he went over Cunningham’s Gap to Warwick, three times with Phil. McGrath (now of Sandgate) and the late Mick McGrath, both bullock drivers in those days. Young Jack Madden was paid 10/ a week.
ON THE DARLING DOWNS.
Then, he worked for Darby McGrath, who held the country from Ipswich to the Normanby boundary, with sheep. Fifteen to twenty thousand were run near Mt. Walker in those days. A couple of years on the Downs, at Yandilla Station, on the banks of the Condamine, followed the first experience with sheep. In the second year there 125,000 sheep went through the sheds. Soon afterwards this station, owned by an Anglican clergyman, and a number of others, was broken broken up into smaller holdings.
Times were quiet, and Mr. Madden went to Rosewood again with his father, and when he was there the tin mines were opened at Stanthorpe. “I reckon that was the biggest rise Queensland ever got,’ he says. “Before they broke out you could get a man for 5/- a week. The inducements there raised the wages everywhere, and everything was better everywhere. The more wages the workers get in other Industries the more of the farmers’ produce they can buy. The first corn I grew. I got 8½d. a bushel for it, so I can speak from experience.”
ENFORCED FARMING.
Next, Mr. Madden took a contract for sleeper splitting for the Ipswich-Brisbane railway line, which was being built at that time. When he was 19 or 20 he married Miss Catherine Kellehan, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. John Kellehan, of the Bremer, and the same year bought a team of bullocks with which he started timber drawing. For a time he was hauling pine and other timber off the Bluff at Rosewood to the late Josiash Hancock’s mill in Ipswich, and then from Mount Mistake to Laidley and to Premier McIlwraith’s mill at Buraraba. He was making good money with the bullocks, and preferred the life to farming, and was determined not to settle on the land.
Then came the financial crash, and the banks closed, and there was not enough work to keep the bullocks going. He was forced by these circumstances to start farming, and bought his farm on Blackfellows’ Creek, which had been selected originally by William Bailey. It contained 76 acres, and the additional land he has bought makes his total acreage about 200. For the whole 35 years he has been doing general agricultural work and dairying.
Mrs. Madden died about six years ago. Mr. Madden has nine children, about 50 grandchildren, and 10 great children – “So I helped to populate Queensland,” he says. The sons and daughters are: Mrs. I. Colllngwood (Burnett), Mrs. J. Davidson, Mrs. W. Mahaffey. Mrs. R. Jones, Mr. P. Madden, Mrs. Henry Bauer, Mr. John Madden, Mrs. W. J. Friend and Mrs. Robert Black. Mr. and Mrs. Friend are on the old farm with Mr. Madden.