This story was first published in The Waterline News. By Libby Skidmore
IN DECEMBER 1839, the first Victorian settlers gathered in age-old fashion for the fellowship and goodwill the Christmas season brings. They met at the hut of Edward Hobson near Arthur’s Seat.
In attendance were Robert Jamieson and Samuel Rawson, the Meyrick brothers and the Desaillys who had settled in the Dromana area at Kangerong, along with George Smith and his wife, who were relatives of Edward Hobson.
IN DECEMBER 1839, the first Victorian settlers gathered in age-old fashion for the fellowship and goodwill the Christmas season brings. They met at the hut of Edward Hobson near Arthur’s Seat.
In attendance were Robert Jamieson and Samuel Rawson, the Meyrick brothers and the Desaillys who had settled in the Dromana area at Kangerong, along with George Smith and his wife, who were relatives of Edward Hobson.
Jamieson and Rawson had journeyed across from Western Port, near Tooradin in that December weather. They noted century heat followed by torrential rain and an extreme drop in temperature. Not far from Yallock they camped overnight, fighting off mosquitoes with branches of trees and sheltering from the driving rain under the dray, which had six-inch gaps in the floorboards.
At 2am, according to Rawson, “the weather changed and it became deadly cold, the rain changed into a mixture of hail, rain and snow, our fire was gone out and every particle of clothing we had was wet through.”
The men’s horses tethered to a tree were so cold they could hardly stand. The saddles were like sponges. At first light, the drenched pair set out in torrential rain for Hobson’s where they changed clothes and rejoiced with brandy and a hearty breakfast. On Christmas Eve, the house party celebrated with a bowl of “hot toddy and a good fire for it was cold enough to have one”.
“On Christmas Day we sat down a large party to dinner, the table covered with the usual English cheers, washed down by champagne in the drinking of which we did not forget absent friends. We were a merry party that evening though sitting in a hut, which a beggar in England would hardly live in, the walls full of holes, the roof covered with bark through the crevices of which a person may have crept with the greatest of ease, the floor the natural earth, and situated in the middle of the eternal forest.”
This party of young settlers, the pastoral population of the Mornington Peninsula at that time, did not break up till December 30th, when Jamieson returned to his station and Rawson took off for Melbourne for a few days.
From Western Port Chronology, 1798-1839, by Valda Cole, in the archive library of the Bass Valley Historical Society.
At 2am, according to Rawson, “the weather changed and it became deadly cold, the rain changed into a mixture of hail, rain and snow, our fire was gone out and every particle of clothing we had was wet through.”
The men’s horses tethered to a tree were so cold they could hardly stand. The saddles were like sponges. At first light, the drenched pair set out in torrential rain for Hobson’s where they changed clothes and rejoiced with brandy and a hearty breakfast. On Christmas Eve, the house party celebrated with a bowl of “hot toddy and a good fire for it was cold enough to have one”.
“On Christmas Day we sat down a large party to dinner, the table covered with the usual English cheers, washed down by champagne in the drinking of which we did not forget absent friends. We were a merry party that evening though sitting in a hut, which a beggar in England would hardly live in, the walls full of holes, the roof covered with bark through the crevices of which a person may have crept with the greatest of ease, the floor the natural earth, and situated in the middle of the eternal forest.”
This party of young settlers, the pastoral population of the Mornington Peninsula at that time, did not break up till December 30th, when Jamieson returned to his station and Rawson took off for Melbourne for a few days.
From Western Port Chronology, 1798-1839, by Valda Cole, in the archive library of the Bass Valley Historical Society.