AF Mollison wrote in his Overlanding Diary that when he crossed the Murray River on 22nd June 1837 he met Mr Hamilton Hume who was accompanied by Mr George Barber and Doctor Mackie of Yass – it is probable this was Doctor George Edward Mackay.
William Thomas, the author of A Month In The Bush, Jan 1837, mentions dining with a Doctor Mackay of Yass, pg 14, 29th April.
Hamilton Hume showed them the tree where he carved his name 13 years ago and all present searched the ground for signs of the clover and peach trees which Hume said he had planted during that visit. No appearance of them having grown was found. pg 14 An Overlanding Diary, by Alexander Fullerton Mollison.
* Mr Hamilton Hume was married to Elizabeth Dight – they married in 1825. Dr George Edward Mackay Hume’s brother-in-law in 1842 when he married Frances Elizabeth Dight in 1842.
*Mr George Barber was married to Hamilton Hume’s sister Isabella – they were married in 1815. George Barber was often a member of his brother-in-law Hamilton Hume’s exploring parties. Information from Australian Royalty website.
Dr George Mackay arrived at the Ovens River to set up a station in March 1838. He followed the King River south towards the mountains hoping to set up a station at Myhree. He arrived on the evening of the day on which Mr Faithfull’s party were attacked. There were two temporary encampments previous to his arrival, Mr William Bowman’s and Col. Henry White on the Ovens River. (1)
Mackay was quickly forced to abandon his Myrhee run fearing attack after Col Henry White and Peter Snodgrasses’ reprisal killing of indigenous people on the King River. (1) According to John Conway Bourke, the mailman who rode weekly between Melbourne and the Murray, one hundred Indigenous people were surrounded and attacked on an open flat plain. As the Indigenous people tried to escape across the King River they were shot, their bodies becoming ‘fish food’. (2)
According to JC Bourke, the slaughter occurred about 15 miles upstream from Col White’s. (2) This would place the event near Moyhu and very close to where Dr George Mackay was camped.
After the massacre of Faithful’s shepherds, a panic seized the small population of squatters and the workmen deserted their employers. Without their workmen, Bowman, Faithful, and White abandoned their cattle on their runs and Mackay was left alone with only three assigned servants, his freemen having absconded. (1)
In a few days, these assigned men told Dr George Mackay they would stay no longer, but offered to assist him back to the settled districts with his stock. Thus he was compelled to leave the Ovens. (1)
Mackay wrote in his Letter to the publication, ‘Letters of Victorian Pioneers,’ that he took his stock to Noorengong on the Mitta Mitta River. (1)
At the time Mackay took his cattle to Noorengong run it was in possession of William and James Wyse who had taken it up the previous year in 1837 for capt MacDonald. The run was located at the confluence of the Murray and the Mitta Mitta Rivers. (3)
Mackay returned to the Ovens after six months which would be around September when Rev Docker and David Reid arrived and took up Bontherambo and Carrargamungee respectively. (3)
When Mackay returned he found Chisholm had taken possession of Myrhee so Mackay settled at Whorouly. (1)
George Faithful had returned to Oxley Plains and Bowman to Tarrawingee. (1)
The reprisal killing led by Peter Snodgrass took place in the days after Dr George Mackay arrived at Myrhee so it has to be considered that Mackay took some part in the proceedings. He was medically trained so it stands to reason he attended the injured shepherds belonging to WP Faithful and any injuries sustained by Snodrasses men after the reprisal killing at the King River.
Dr George Mackay was a Scot, born in 1809 and studied medicine at Edinburgh University. He worked his passage to Australia as a ship’s surgeon and went first to Goulburn near Yass, then came to Whorouly (4) being among the first Europeans to take up land in Waveroo territory.
On 25th April 1839, an extract of a letter printed in newspapers was printed, titled, ‘The Hume’. The author mentioned the troubles the squatters were having with indigenous peoples.
The letter said, ‘blacks had speared nine head of Dr Mackay’s cattle and scattered his herd in all directions, and his (Dr M.’s) neighbours in that quarter, have sustained similar losses to a greater or less extent. The author sighed themselves as, ‘Monitor’. (4.1)
In April 1839, the same month as this letter appeared in the paper, Lady Jane Franklin was travelling north on the Sydney road. She was told by a Corporal at the Broken River that the Blacks campaign against Mr Faithful was, ‘lasting and at last counting of Mr Faithful’s sheep, 600 were missing—he is now at his 3rd station since his men were killed and is going to shift again on account of the blacks…..Mr Faithful’s neighbours do not suffer in the same way.’ (5)
Dr George Mackay and George Faithful (WP Faithful was residing at his Springfield station near Goulburn) both suffered attacks as did their neighbours according to the above accounts. Yet we know Rev Joseph Docker and Robert Brown among others as alluded to by Lady Franklin did not. It must be concluded that attacks on the Blacks after Peter Snodgrass’s reprisal killings still occurred. (5) (6)
The Commissioner of Crown Lands, Mr Smythe, visited Whorouly on August 21, 1839. He reported there were 16 residents, good slab huts and yards and the run was watered by the Ovens River. Smythe said the natives were numerous in this part of the country but very shy. Frederick Henry Morse was Dr Mackay’s head shepherd who explored with him the Ovens Valley in 1839. (4)
On May 27th, 1840, Merriman in company with Harlequin and 19 other armed Blacks visited Dr George Mackay’s Whorouly station and made demands. (6)
From the letter printed 13 months earlier, we know Mackay’s station was suffering attacks on cattle with spearings and animals being chased away. Merriman’s appearance with a group of his fellows would have instantly caused alarm.
Dr George Mackay had gone to Windsor near Sydney to propose to Fanny Dight daughter of John Dight. Mackay would be away for some time and had left his brother, John Scobie Mackay in charge. (6)
Rev Joe Docker believed the attack on George Mackays was planned to coincide with him being away and that the reason was due to a feud between Merriman and Benjamin Reed.
Benjamin Reed was the stockmen belonging to William Bowman who had Tarrawingee station just across the Ovens River from Mackay’s Whorlouly station. Bowman and his stockman had a marked hatred of the Blacks. (6) This would have put Merriman in a difficult position as Merriman’s birthplace was Tarrawingee. (7)
Aboriginal protectorate, GA Robinson said regarding atrocities upon the Blacks, ‘Bowman shot them wherever he saw them.’ (7)
Benjamin Reed received his ticket of leave in 1839 and in November of that year married Mary Goddfrey in Sutton Forest, she was 22 and Read was 31. The Reeds then returned to the Ovens and went to work for Dr George MacKay. (8) (6)
John Mackay was in the main hut and with him was Benjamin and Mary Reed and a bullock driver named Daniel Richins. (9)Then, unexpectedly, Charles Cropper’s overseer, Mr McDonnell arrived on a bullock dray and with the driver, that made five people at the hut. Between them, they had one gun. (6) (9)
According to John Mackay’s statement to GA Robinson, about 3.30 pm on 26th May, he heard a ‘cooee’ and recognising it is the call of natives he went outside to see what they wanted. He saw two men standing on a small hill armed with spears and with a gun in his hand he advanced towards them. (7)
‘What for you cooler?’ called Merriman. ‘What for you mankin (bring) musket?’
John MacKay pointed out they had brought spears. Merriman and his companion then tossed their spears aside.
Mackay said, ‘the native who spoke to me was named Merriman, he was short well built young man and his skin slightly pockmarked. He spoke good broken English.’ (7)
John Mackay reported that Merriman said he was hungry and Mackay obliged with food. Mackay noted the Blacks were dressed in clothing with their tomahawks in their belts.
According to Mackay, Merriman wanted to come into the hut but Mackay would not permit. Merriman replied he always stopped at the white man’s gunyah or hut. He pointed out that he was allowed in Robert Brown’s hut on the Murray River. (7)
However, Robert Brown had a different relationship with Indigenous people and employed them. We know that Merriman used a canoe to ferry passengers and mail across the river when it was in flood and Lady Franklin wrote that Brown had given a Black named Jem a loaded gun and employed him to keep the crows from his corn crop.
John Scobie Mackay said he gave clothes and treated Merriman very kindly but it was neither food nor clothes that Merriman had come for. Mackay refused to give Merriman what he wanted and thus had to take shelter in the hut in a siege that lasted two or three days.
During that time Merriman called out repeatedly for Mary Reed to be given over to him. He said that if she were handed over he would go away peacefully. (10)
“Turn out white gin along with black fellow, black fellow then all gone coolar.” Meaning by ‘coolar’ then all anger is gone. (10)
The men in the hut refused to hand her over and fearing the siege would end in their deaths Benjamin Reed attempted to escape. During the night he snuck away from the hut into the adjacent horse yard intending to ride to their neighbours to raise the alarm. However, Merriman and his comrades were on guard and surrounded Reed forcing him to retreat back to the hut. To prevent any further effort to escape Merriman and his fellows speared the horses.
Merriman could have set fire to the hut thus killing all the occupants but instead, he held out for the one person he considered could settle the account. He insisted he would not leave until he was given Mary Reed. Even after the attempted escape by Benjamin Reed the occupants were allowed to live in the patient wait for the white gin to be handed over.
Rev Joseph Docker, a neighbour, said Benjamin Reed and Merriman were in a feud. (6) We do not know the cause of the feud but can assume there was a debt owed by Benjamin Reed from his ill use of Indigenous women.
After the siege had been going some days a rider passed by and seeing the Blacks camped around the hut knew a raid was in place and rode away to get help.
Merriman and his fellow Blacks knew they had been seen and left the area. However, one of their number attacked the nearby watchman and his shepherd. The shepherd was ritually killed and his kidney fat taken. (11)
The official statements taken after the siege did not mention the feud between Merriman and Benjamin Reed. (11)
George Mackay wrote in his letter of 1853 to Letter of Victorian pioneers;
‘In May 1840, 21 of them, all armed with guns, besides their native weapons, attacked my station in my absence. They murdered one of my servants and burned my huts and stores, and all my wheat. Tea was worth at that time in Melbourne £20 per chest, and flour £100 per ton. Four horses, each worth £100, were killed, and only seven head of cattle, out of nearly 3,000, were left alive on the run. One hundred and eighty head exclusive of those found dead were totally lost. The rest were recovered, at such an expenditure of money and of personal energy, as have left me an invalid for life, and to this day comparatively a poor man.’
Around this time Dr Mackay was made a Justice of the Peace (JP). He was prominent in public life in the Ovens district and subscribed and promoted the national school system (public schools), supported the Anglican Church, public hospital, magistrate and police. (4)
Frances Elizabeth, youngest daughter of John Dight, married George Mackay on January 1, 1842 at Richmond in NSW. (4)
The “Tarrawingee” run was purchased by Dr George Edward Mackay on December 20, 1853, for £1 per acre under the government regulations of June 28, 1850. (4)
Dr Mackay was one of the founding members at a meeting of the Agricultural Society on April 4, 1859 at the Commercial Hotel and five trustees from among the financial members of the association were appointed to oversee the financial board. Dr Mackay was president from 1859 – 1867 and again in 1867 – 1870. (4)
He donated a silver cup “The President’s Cup” for the 1867 “best wine shown”. (4)
Lieutenant Frances Hare was lucky enough to be at Tarrawingee when Dr Mackay’s dinner party was rudely interrupted by the bushranger Meaken on June 23, 1855. He had threatened two of the ladies with a knife. Lieutenant Hare captured Meaken in the garden. Dr Mackay presented him with a gold watch inscribed, “Presented to Lieutenant Frances Hare for his gallant capture of an armed bushranger at Tarrawingee, the 23rd June 1855”. Dr Mackay said “…the garden looked as if a team of bullocks had camped there”. (4)
Dr Mackay died on August 9, 1867 (4)
(1) Letters of Victorian Pioneers 1853 – Dr GE MacKays letter No. 37.
(2) Letters of John Conway Bourke held at the Royal Historical Society Melbourne.
(3) AA Andrews – The First Settlement of the Upper Murray
(4) Article printed in the Wangaratta Chronicle, 2nd Oct 2020. Wangaratta Historical Society, Helen Al Helwani and an article from Trove Obituary Mr William Sinclair Mackay 13th May 1939
(4.1) April 1839 attack on George Mackay
(5) This Errant Lady, the journal of Lady Jane Franklin
(6) The Two Lives of Joseph Docker, J.M. McMillan
(7) Journal of GA Robinson 1839-52
(8) Births, Deaths & Marriages.
(9) ‘Daniel’ first name from John Scobie MacKay’s statement of the attack given to GA Robinson 14th Feb 1841
(10) Ogier’s reminiscences of David Reid, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-52773898
(11) Letters to Col Sec from Major Lettsom.
