Rosewood History

John Henry JACOBS and Caroline Elizabeth DUTNEY

Name: John Henry JACOBS
Occupation: Cheese Maker, Drover, Stockman, Horsebreaker, Carter, Dairy Farmer; Grazier
Birth: 27th February 1853 Bembridge, Isle of Wight, England
Immigration: 3rd September 1854, the Tantivy arrived at Port Jackson, Sydney, New South Wales
Land: Resubdivision 35 of subdivision two of Free Selection 7L containing 2 roods (16 Albert Street, Rosewood)
Land: Resubdivisions 62 to 67 of subdivision 2 of portion 7, county of Churchill, parish of Walloon.
Death: 11th August 1936, at his residence in Albert Street (not No 16), Rosewood aged 83 years.
Burial: 13th August 1936, Stone Quarry Cemetery, Jeebropilly
Religion: Congregational
Father: Henry JACOBS (1829-1914)
Mother: Charlotte BUTLER (1828-1905)
Marriage: 10th May 1882, Eden Moor Methodist Church, Lanefield, Queensland (Rev. Paul Clipsham)

Spouse: Caroline ‘Carrie” Elizabeth DUTNEY
Birth: 14th January 1859, “Rosebank” near Rosewood, Queensland.
Death: 21st June 1933, at her residence Albert Street (not No 16), Rosewood aged 74 years.
Burial: 22nd June 1933, Stone Quarry Cemetery, Jeebropilly
Religion: Congregational
Father: Charles DUTNEY (1834-1906)
Mother: Emily Ann GILLETT (1838-1905)

John and Caroline didn’t have any children.

Caroline was born at Rosebank (later known as Moorelands) in the days when Rosewood was just a collection of scattered farms. She was the eldest daughter of one of the very earliest pioneer families and one of the first scholars on the roll at Calvert School and Rosewood State School. She worked to assist the A. & H. Association for 54 years from its inception. She was also one of the founding members of the Rosewood Country Women’s Association, and was still a member at her death. She was a most zealous worker for the Congregational Church where John was a Senior Deacon there for many years. On the day of her funeral members of the P.A.F. S.O.A. Lodge formed a guard of honour at her house and also at the graveside. The flag at the Farmers’ Hall was flown half-mast as a tribute of respect to Caroline.

John Jacobs came to Australia with his parents and older sister Ellen and his Uncle George Jacobs. John could remember wallabies and wild cattle as the only inhabitants of Rosewood in the days before the railway line was built.

In his early life John was was a stockman at Augathella Station. As a farmer and drover in the old days, he had a very colourful life, and in his long association with the district, saw it rise from a mass of scrub to a progressive community.

He farmed at Rosewood and Marburg, retiring from active work around 1897. He was member of the local branch of the P.A.F.S.O.A. (The Protestant Alliance Friendly Society of Australasia). He left his estate (realty £758, personalty £321) to his nephews Henry Arnold Jacobs and Harold James Jacobs (both Farmers).

(I haven’t yet located the Albert Street home where John and Caroline lived. I do know they did not live at No 16.)

Many of John’s recollections were recorded and, in the following, he tells his own story.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF ROSEWOOD. [Brisbane Courier, Saturday 29 November 1924, page 15]
MR. JOHN HENRY JACOBS can claim to be one of the oldest pioneers – if not the oldest of the Rosewood district. He landed with his parents in Moreton Bay on January 1, 1854, from the ship Tantivvie, and has spent 70 years of an industrious life in the district. “I was only a year old when we arrived,” he stated in the course of an interview. “There were two of us children my sister, a couple of years older than myself, and I. My father’s brother had been out here for some time, and saw the conditions were so much better than in the Old Country that he persuaded my father to come. “My father had served a seven years’ apprenticeship to dairying, butter and cheese making included, in England, so he thought that there would be much better chance here than at home, where one had to have a pocketful of money to make a start. We were met by my uncle, who was then working for Mort and Laidley, the owners of Franklyn Vale station. At that time the run extended from the Liverpool range to a couple of miles below the present Rosewood, down in fact to what is now called Keen’s Lagoon. I well remember father telling us, years afterwards, how he carried my sister, who was the heavier, and mother carried me from Ipswich to Franklyn Vale, a distance of 25 miles, in the one day. Considering that it was in the height of summer it was not a bad feat for two new-chums. Father worked for a time on Franklyn Vale, and then rented a block of land at the lagoon from Mr. Mort, who also rented him some cows, and he started dairying, making butter in the winter and cheese in the summer. He had a brand for the product, a ball and cross combined let into the cheese presses and into the butter pats, and I daresay there are people still in Brisbane who remember the mark. He remained at that for some 13 years, until land was thrown open for selection, when he took up a block close to the old home. At Rosebank dairy my father milked up to 100 cows. I remember my sister and myself walking in from Rosebank to Ipswich to see Lady Bowen turn the first sod of the railway from Ipswich to Grandchester. Word had come out that the sod was to be turned with a silver spade and I think it was the vision of the silver spade that brought us in to see the ceremony.”

THE DROUGHT OF ’78.
In 1876 Mr. Jacobs helped to take a mob of 1000 mixed cattle to stock up Burrundill, then taken up by the Moore brothers, and later was west of the Barcoo on Blackwater, where they saw a tree marked with a broad arrow and the date and month. This was taken to be a tree marked by the Burke and Wills party. Later, with Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Jacobs was one of the first two white men on Ambthalla station, and experienced the drought of 1878, when flour was a shilling a lb. in Charleville. For 17 days all the men on Ambathalla had to eat was English preserved potatoes and sardines. Mr. Jacobs married Miss Dutney, who was born at Rosebank, and the old couple, now in the evening of life, can look on the wonderful development of the State and feel that they have, taken a good share in it. An interesting reminder of Mr. Jacobs’ old droving and stockman days is a beautifully plaited 12 strand greenhide whip. Whip plaiting and greenhide working were at one time the evidences of the expert station hand, but, like the making of a cabbage-tree hat, seem to becoming lost arts.

THE EARLY DAYS. A PIONEER’S MEMORIES. [Queensland Times, Wednesday 28 July 1926, page 10]
One of the oldest residents of the  Rosewood locality is Mr. John Henry Jacobs, who has lived close to and in the town since his infancy. His wife, formerly Miss Caroline Dutney, was born at Keane’s Lagoon, near the town. Mr. Jacobs, who is 73 years of age, was born in England, and was brought to Australia by his parents, the late Mr. and Mrs Henry Jacobs when he was about 12 months old. They landed in Sydney, and, after a few weeks there, came on to Brisbane, and then to Ipswich as the father had a brother in the district, at Franklyn Vale. The bullock waggon which formed the regular Ipswich – Franklyn Vale transport service ran once a fortnight, and they had missed it by a day or two. They did not want to wait for the next trip, and decided to walk. They carried the baby in turns, and his older sister walked beside them. A few miles out of the town, in a lonely part of the bush, they quickly regretted their decision. Two big old men kangaroos hopped out on the bullock track a few chains ahead of them, and terrified the travellers. “Clearly they be not blacks, but they appear dangerous,” said the father, finding two stout sticks in the bush. “If they should tackle us, you whack into them with this stick, and I’ll do my best with this other one.” They pushed bravely on,  Mr. Jacobs in the van, and the enemy, which had previously not seen them, hopped off in as great a scare as the newcomers had had. When they arrived at Franklyn Vale, and Mr. Jacobs was talking to his brother, whom he had not seen for many years, he heard two kookaburras laughing uproariously. “What be that?” he cried in alarm, “Jackasses,” his brother replied. “They are up in that tree, but you can’t see them for the leaves.” “Well, I’ll be jiggered if ever I saw an ass at home that could get up a tree or make a noise like that,” he said incredulously. 

The family settled at Rosebank, afterwards called Keane’s Lagoon, on the “half-a-crown an acre” system, and began dairying. Mr Jacobs had had much experience in England, particularly at cheese making, and soon built up a big business at Rosebank. His cheeses were exhibited all over Queensland, and even at shows in the southern States, winning practically everywhere. His most formidable competitor was Mr. Hockley, another Rosewood district dairyman, with whom he generally divided honours in the bigger shows. He soon had a number of men working on the dairy. Among these were parents  and grandparents of present residents of the district. The blacks were very numerous in those days and had big camping places in many parts of the West Moreton district. Some of the tribes were considered dangerous. 

The earliest incident Mr. Jacobs remembers is that of a night when his father was away from home, and his mother was sitting beside the fire sewing. He and his older sister were playing on the floor when a light at the door caught his eye. A fierce looking black, stark naked, and flourishing a fire-stick and a stone tomahawk, had silently opened the door, and was entering the room, a frightful picture in the ruddy light of the fire-stick. Mrs Jacobs screamed, and one of the men from the dairy came running with a gun. Seeing the black fellow, he fired two shots. The black ran off, yelling. At dawn two of the men went armed to the blacks’ camp near the farm, but found it deserted, and the ashes of its fires still warm. 

WALK TO IPSWICH.
With a childish curiosity to see the silver spade which was to be presented to Lady Bowen, wife of the Governor of the day, Jacobs, aged 10 walked 12 miles into Ipswich to the ceremony of the  turning of the first sod of the Queensland railway system, by Lady Bowen, on February 25, 1864. The youngsters squeezed through the crowd, treading on many toes and adroitly turning to their advantage every movement of the forest of legs until they reached the front, where they had an excellent view of the whole of the proceedings, and the silver spade. Satisfied with the day’s excitement, and realising very little of its significance, the young colonists walked home again. A little later, Mr. Jacobs was present at the opening of the first section of the line, at Bigge’s Camp (Grandchester). He lived with his father until he was about 19 years old, and then went west with cattle for Mr. C. H. Gibbs,. father of Mr. H. V. Gibbs, solicitor, of Ipswich. After this trip he went to the west again with Mr. Gibbs, finding their way through the untravelled bush by quadrant. Dalby was then the terminus of the railway line, and he was for a time carrying provisions to the out-back stations in a big part of the western and southwestern areas, and taking wool back to the rail head. After three and a half years at this work, and with stock and horse-breaking, he returned to the Rosewood district, and In 1882 was married to Miss Dutney. He then went to live at Rosewood itself. Rosewood then was scrub, mainly brigalow and magnificent rosewood, from which it got its name. 

WALLABIES AND WILD CATTLE.
Mr. Jacobs remembers wallabies and wild cattle as the only inhabitants of Rosewood, in the days before the railway line was built. He recalls the construction of the Toowoomba-road, anal states that the impression that this work was done by convict labour was incorrect. He knew of only eight convicts in the road gangs which were supervised by a man named Watts. These men were on parole, and were receiving the same pay and working under the same conditions as the other men of the gangs. When the road was being built, colonial fever swept through the construction camp, and many of the men died. Seven men and a young woman were taken from the camps near Rosewood, and their comrades of the construction gangs were given permission by Mr. Jacobs’ father to bury them on on Island on Rosebank, below Keanes Lagoon. The men were buried in slab coffins, and two young men of the camp walked to Ipswich for a better coffin for the girl, and carried it back, 12 miles on their shoulders. The graves were fenced and marked but a bush fire came years afterwards, burned the fence, and the growth of bushes and grass in more than 50 years have hidden all traces of the graves. Mr. Jacobs alone of living men knows where the graves are. 

Before the railway, when the track to Toowoomba was always busy with bullock teams carting timber and wool and maize to the river steamers at Ipswich and provisions to the settlers in the far-back bush, the Inns at the Seven-Mile and near the site of Rosewood did a busy trade. At the Seven-Mile there was a community of Carriers and small settlers, Messrs. Alexander Grant, T. Donaldson, K. Welsh, George Williams, William Barrow, Thomas Head, W. Parrish, and F. Moore,. Mr. Moore opened the first hotel on the road, at the Seven-Mile, and hung over its door the sign of “The White Lion.” “The Rising Sun,” near Rosewood, was opened by a man named O’Brien. Both hostelries are long gone. “The Rising Sun” became a residence, and then a school, and finally was burned down. Its name was taken by a later hotel in Rosewood, Sloane’s Hotel, which is more than 50 years old. In the days of “The Rising Sun” the only settlers on the Bremer near Rosewood were “Twenty-one” Sullivan (whose Christian name is not remembered as well as the name the settlers gave him because of the number of children he had), P. Allam and Dan McAuliffe. 

EARLY SETTLEMENT.
Messrs. William Matthews and John Vance selected a great part of the township of Rosewood, then all scrub, the dividing line between their properties being approximately the present John-street. Mr. Vance in those days kept the railway gatehouse. Other gatehouse keepers before the station was opened and Mr. Black was appointed as station master were Messrs. Mathews and John Farrell, father of Mrs. B. Sloane. Settlement spread quickly, and the scrub was cleared, enormous quantities of beautiful timber being burned. The production of the district was assuming fair proportions. In 1877, when the Farmers’ Club, which preceded the Agricultural and, Horticultural Association, was formed. The station was built soon afterwards. Within 20 years Rosewood had become a progressive township, which was quickly growing. Maize growing, dairying, and cotton growing developed most, and the first co-operative butter factory in Queensland was established in the district at Lanefield. Rosewood was for years loading more maize than any station on the line. Mr. Jacobs has seen 25 trucks of pumpkins loaded at Rosewood in one day. On such production the town was built. Mrs. Jacobs remembers school picnics in the Rosewood scrub when the children had to pull aside the scrub vines to walk along a track in John-street. She was one of the first pupils at the Calvert school, which was one of the earliest schools in West Moreton outside of Ipswich, and later at the first school in Rosewood. Mr: George Vowles, the first teacher at Calvert, was the first white child born in Newtown, Ipswich.

Q.T. 3 September 1936

Q.T. 28 May 1938

© Jane Schy, 2024