All Together Now

The Fassifern

In the second half of the nineteenth century, many people who migrated to Queensland settled in the Fassifern. Even people who had first landed in other districts eventually took up land there.

The Fassifern Valley

The name "Fassifern Valley" is much used but without actually describing where that valley really is, other than being in the South East of Queensland, somewhat inland from Brisbane. The first mentions of Fassifern Valley came from newspapers of the early 20th century to refer to farms hewn out of the the brigalow scrub in the Fassifern district, aptly called the Fassifern Scrub. The articles speak glowingly of a beautiful valley, rich in fertile soils. The area grew into a parish, a district and an electorate but Fassifern Valley was not mentioned with any of these.

In an attempt to locate it geographically, it's fairly well agreed to have its western boundary at the Little Liverpool Range. To the north is the district of Ipswich. On the south is the northern border of New South Wales. Yet the eastern side is a little blurry. Some say it stops at the Teviot Range yet many of the places supposedly in the Fassifern Valley lie on the eastern side of that range, perhaps the valley spread as far over as the Dugandan Range.

Running through the middle are the Bremer River and a number of creeks such as Warrill Creek, Reynolds Creek, Teviot Brook, Burnett Creek and Washpool Gully. It is now also home to Lake Moogerah and the Maroon Dam.

The eastern edge, the Little Liverpool Range, is a spur running off the Main Range, both of which are part of the Great Dividing Range. The Little Liverpool Range is famous for being the obstacle which was overcome by the botanist and explorer Allan Cunningham who was searching for a means to connect the coastal area to the Darling Downs lying on the other side of the Great Dividing Range and bordering on New England. The famous crossing he found on August 25, 1828 was eventually named Cunningham's Gap in his honour.

The Little Liverpool Range is also well known for being a hindrance to the construction of the Ipswich to Toowoomba rail line. To overcome the problem two tunnels were burrowed through the range, the first of which was the 120m long Little Liverpool Tunnel, and the other one being the 500m long Victoria Tunnel, the longest and oldest rail tunnel in Queensland. Being stone masons, the Schneider family, who arrived in 1864 and 1865 from Wuerttemberg in Germany, contributed by cutting the stone used for the Victoria Tunnel.

The official boundaries of the Electoral District of Fassifern, which existed from 1873 to 1992, very closely align with those of the Fassifern Valley itself. On the other hand, The Parish of Fassifern is closer to the original Fassifern Run established by John Cameron in 1842. As specified by government regulations, both a parish and a run were confined to about 25 square miles in size.

The Making of the Fassifern Valley in Prehistory

Long before Queensland separated from New South Wales, Australia had separated from the super continent of Gondwana, a huge land mass connecting Australia and the Antarctic. The drift started about 300 million years ago and the land masses were completely disconnected some 60 to 86 million years ago. Through the study of exposed land in the Antarctic there have been major discoveries revealing the previous existence of marsupials and similar rock and soil to Australia.

As a result of the migration of the Australian continental land mass over the tectonic plate known as the Australian Plate, enormous shield volcanoes were formed in what is now South East Queensland, in particular the Main Range Volcano, where Fassifern now lies, the Focal Peak Volcano near Mount Barney and the Tweed Volcano, centered on Mt Warning in the Tweed district. The first to erupt was the Main Range Volcano and resulted in much molten volcanic rock (mostly basalt) erupting and flowing over what is now the fertile valley of the Fassifern.

The Original Inhabitants

Well before the British invasion of Australia, the Fassifern was occupied by the Ugarapul (a modern term, otherwise Yaggerabul, Yugarabul etc) people who knew it by the name of Yagera (or Yaggera etc). How long they had lived there is uncertain but it is surmised that aboriginal people have inhabited Australia for the past 65,000 years or so, having also survived the ice-age.

Although most early 'settlers' have glowing reports about mixing well with the original inhabitants, their established way of life, or possibly their sheer existence conflicted most of all with the very English mentality of the Crown's newly appointed authorities, who came bearing guns, and used them openly against the 'natives'. The aim, of course, was to drive them and any native animals and plants out of existence.

Government surveyors adopted many aboriginal place names which continue being used today. The following lists some of those in the Fassifern Valley (derived from "Aboriginal Placenames of South East Queensland" - Qld Govt) from the Yugera / Yugarabul language.

Europeans are very often blamed for destroying the original landscape but it must be noted that for the 50,000 years before the Europeans arrived, the indigenous inhabitants regularly cleared the land for pasturing kangaroos.
As remarked in "An environmental history of Moreton Bay":

Flora and Fauna

The Fassifern Valley has a rather unique history when it comes to its vegetation and inhabitants and even today, some rare examples are still being discovered. After decades of clearing for cultivation, some remaining 'untouched' sections of rainforest and bushland are now part of national parks and wildlife reserves. Once upon a time, sub-tropical rainforests, eucalypts, vines, brigalow and heath were growing abundantly over the peaks, gorges, cliffs, ridges and plains of the Fassifern. Mount French is still home to the remaining brigalow scrub which previously dominated the area. Rare lichens and slender milkvines unique to Fassifern are still found in protected pockets on higher ground.

Brush-tailed rock wallabies and ground-dwelling black-breasted button-quails still find refuge in the mountains. On the brink of extinction, the 9.7 cm long Fassifern Blind Snake has been found living at Warrill View. Australia's largest nocturnal avian predator, the powerful owl, Ninox strenua is also present. Black cockatoos feed on forest she-oaks and peregrine falcons, capable of diving at over 180 km/hr, sometimes present their formidable predatory skills when chasing their prey. Many hundreds more different types of creatures nowadays find home in the Main Range National Park and neighbouring forests.

At the start of the eighteenth century, explorers in their travel notes often described overwhelmingly large groups of wallabies, wallaroos, emus, cockatoos, kangaroos, koalas and so on, which are unfortunately no longer to be seen in such quantities, having been driven off by aggressive culling and agriculture. The first pastoral runs were set up by squatters who drove their livestock into the plains for free. As time passed by the government demanded licensing of these runs at a nominal fee of usually 10 pounds per year, simply to keep track of who was where. Those runs eventually turned into leases and then selections, all controlled by the systematic occupation of the land by European migrants.

Exploration

The earliest Europeans to explore the region later known as the Fassifern were Scots. The first attempt was made in 1827 by the notoriously detested Commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, Captain Patrick Logan who hailed from Berwickshire in Scotland. At the very same time, the botanist Allan Cunningham, a Scot from Renfrewshire made his way up from the Upper Hunter Valley guided by the Perthshire Scot Peter McIntyre but the party was eventually forced back by the terrain. In 1828 Cunningham made another attempt, this time setting out from Moreton Bay, accompanied by Logan and yet another Scot, the Colonial Botanist Charles Fraser from Blair Atholl in Perthshire. Of course, Cunningham's main interest was his obsession over finding a gap in the Great Dividing Range that would allow the Darling Downs to be connected to Brisbane, for which he was successful on July 24.

Climate

Fassifern, being in South East Queensland has a sub-tropical climate influenced by tropical systems from the north and fluctuations of the high pressure ridge to the south which bring about warm wet summers and mild dry winters.

Places Named Fassifern

The name Fassifern can refer to many different places or political entities within this particular region. Following is a list of different uses of the name but generally are all referring to places within the Fassifern Valley.

The Beginning of Fassifern, The Run and The Neighbours

For almost two decades prior to British settlement of the region, the area now known as Fassifern Valley was included in the administration of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement of New South Wales. The settlement stretched from Stradbroke Island, across Redland Bay, through Brisbane and on to Limestone (Ipswich). As such, no land within 50 miles of these places could be occupied, namely by any squatters wishing to depasture their livestock. This all changed on 10th February, 1842 when the Governor of New South Wales, George Phipps, declared the penal settlement to be closed and the district open for free settlement. On the 5th of May, 1842, Governor Phipps proclaimed the Moreton Bay District to have come into existence.

John Cameron (1811-1862) didn't waste time to become the first to take up land in this new frontier having been granted a Depasturing License running from July 1, 1842 to June 30, 1843. Cameron was born 11 August 1811 in Stirling, Scotland and was the son of the former soldier, early colonist and pastoralist, Hugh Cameron (1774-1851) and wife Jessie Robertson (1789-1873), who had settled on 1280 acres they named Kingdon Ponds, near Scone in the Hunter Valley. Hugh's close friend, the Surveyor General, Thomas Livingston Mitchell, who had recommended the location, was instrumental in fulfilling Hugh's wish to establish a town alongside the property and name it Scone, after where the Stone of Destiny was held in Scotland.

In 1836, John had been the first settler in New England, having driven a herd of 500 cattle up from the Hunter Valley to his new property located at Abington Creek which he named Lochiel Run but was later known as Abington Station. Lochiel was a historic place just east of the Fassifern near Fort William in Scotland, and was once home to the Clan Cameron's chieftain, Donald Cameron. Another story has John taking up Bannockburn Station near Inverell in 1837, where his father Hugh was to remain after John moved to Fassifern. Soon to follow Cameron to New England were more Hunter Valley pastoralists. For instance, agent John Falconer took up Falconer Plain for Donald McIntyre as well as Guyra for Peter McIntyre.

Yet, John Cameron shouldn't be viewed as a lone settler in what was to become the Fassifern. Having firmly established himself as a squatter in the new district, he was soon joined by his his parents, Hugh and Jessie, as well as his four sisters and their husbands who also claimed the neighbouring runs. Some years later, in 1850, after having moved to Undulla, John was married to Emmeline Clark in Brisbane. Altogether the families took up large neighbouring runs which eventually became the district of Fassifern.

---

John Cameron sold Fassifern in 1848 to William Kent, a cousin of John Kent, who had owned Coochin Coochin. In 1849, John Cameron managed Moogerah for John Richardson and then took over Undulla lying east of Mt Flinders. In 1850 John Cameron Esq. of Undulla married Emmeline Clark in Brisbane. John's parents had obviously moved in with them, his father having been buried on Undulla, the next year, in 1851.

John's wife, Emmeline, passed away 3 Dec 1861 at the age of only 34, probably from complications after giving birth, and was also buried at Undulla. John became grief stricken and desperate and taken into the care of his wife's sister, Rachel, and her husband, Campbell Livingstone McDonald. Tragically, John managed to escape their watchful eye and took his own life on 18 Oct 1862. The orphaned children were left to the care of the McDonalds, as well as John's widowed sister, Jessie McDonald, and John and Jessie's mother, Jessie Cameron, nee Robertson.

The children of John and Emmeline Cameron were:
  1. John Hugh Cameron, b. 3 Jun 1851, Undulla, d. 31 Jul 1933 (aged 82)
  2. Emmeline Julia Cameron, b. 13 May 1852, Undulla, d. 1918, Brisbane (aged 65)
  3. William Robertson Cameron, b. 7 Aug 1853, Undulla, d. 1853
  4. Mary Alberta Cameron, b. 12 Feb 1855, Undulla, d. 5 Jul 1935, Brisbane (aged 80)
  5. Harry Sanders Cameron, b. 15 Jul 1856, Undulla, d. 10 Oct 1900, Pentland, Qld (aged 44)
  6. Thomas Robertson Cameron, b. 14 Sep 1857, Undulla, d. 22 Oct 1922 (aged 65)
  7. Ida Cameron, b. 1 Jan 1859, Undulla
  8. Jessie Jane Cameron, b. 10 Jul 1860, Undulla

Leasehold, Freehold, Selection

After John Cameron, Fassifern was sold to William Kent, then in 1857 it belonged to the partnership of E. & A. Wienholt and Kent. In 1860, under the partnership of Wienholt and J. Hardie, it was consolidated with the neighbouring Moogerah and Tarome, under the single name of Fassifern. After Hardie withdrew from the partnership, it was renamed to 'Estate of Wienholt and Co.' but by 1909, Fassifern only entailed the homestead block.

With Queensland having separated from New South Wales and becoming a colony in its own right, changes in government policy set forth a scheme to encourage settlement of the land formally only in the hands of a few run owners who had originally been squatters. All of the runs in the district, were at first split in half, with one part being leased, usually to the former lessee, and the other, called reclaimed land, which was then surveyed into smaller blocks and made available for selection by private people, namely migrants. Eventually all the land followed suit.

Needless to say, wealthy pastoralists and businessmen such as George Thorn, Benjamin Cribb and his brother-in-law, John Foote, as well as the Wienholt brothers, nabbed the opportunity first and snatched up an inordinate number of blocks which had become available. Before the full scale advertising of the estate, many German migrants saw an opportunity to take up the 'cheaper' land and work hard clearing the brigalow scrub country unwanted by those who preferred something easy.

In 1944, in a series of letters to the Queensland Times, Thos. W. Hardcastle of Carney's Creek via Boonah, recalled that the McDonald brothers cut the first track through the scrub towards Ipswich. At that time it was only a packhorse track. In the early days, the mail was run from Ipswich to Mt. Lindsay to meet up with the mail coming from New South Wales. It was simply tipped out on the side of the road and the settlers had to rummage through it to pick out their own mail.

Development of The Fassifern

As to be expected, the more the land was settled, the more commercial it became. Towns, villages and other settlements sprang up like mushrooms all over the Fassifern to deal with the increased needs, stemming mostly from private enterprise, especially in the agricultural arena. These places gradually became networked by roads and eventually by rail. In fact, it was the railway line and its stations which contributed greatly to the naming and growth of particular communities which, as time went by, became important centres for the district. The movement of goods in and out of the region was one of the most important facets of early life in this budding and blossoming district.

On July 10, 1882, the Fassifern Railway Line was officially opened and hailed as the first agricultural branch line to be built in Queensland. Initially it ran for 17 miles from Ipswich to Harrisville but by 1887 had been extended another 18 miles to reach Boonah and Dugandan, described then as a scrub farming district.

That year, a reporter for the Queensland Times captured the spirit of the new line by recounting impressions of it as a passenger on the train passing along it just before the line officially opened. He describes the countryside in glowing detail and includes some details about the residents, such as:


(the entire text can be read in the box to the right)

Here is a list of the rail stations in the Fassifern:
Fassifern Junction (where the Dugandan line splits from the Main Line railway), Shillito & Sons siding, Spanns siding, Little Ipswich, Noble Vale No 6. Colliery siding, Cattle siding, Churchill, Loamside, Hampstead, Purga, Goolman, Hillside, Rockton, Peak Crossing, Flinders, Churchbank, Harrisville, Wilsons Plains, Radford, Munbilla, Junction with Mount Edwards railway line, Anthony, Blantyre, Roadvale, Kulgun, Teviotville, Hoya, Boonah, Dugandan
Additionally were those of the branch line to Mount Edwards:
Waraperta/Warperta, Kalbar, Warumkarie, Fassifern Valley, Morwincha, Aratula, Mt.Edwards

Here is a list of the settlements in the Fassifern:
Allandale, Anthony, Aratula, Blantyre, Boonah, Bunburra, Bunjurgen, Charlwood, Clumber, Coleyville, Coulson, Croftby, Dugandan, Fassifern, Fassifern Valley, Frazerview, Frenches Creek, Harrisville, Hoya, Kalbar, Kents Lagoon, Kents Pocket, Kulgun, Maroon, Milbong, Milora, Moogerah, Moorang, Morwincha, Mount Alford, Mount Edwards, Mount Walker, Munbilla, Mutdapilly, Obum Obum, Peak Crossing, Purga, Radford, Roadvale, Rosevale, Silverdale, Tarome, Templin, Teviotville, Wallaces Creek, Warperta, Warrill View, Warumkarie, Wilsons Plains
(48 in all but of course there could be more, or less)

Fassifern Scrub and Agriculture

The lands of the Fassifern where a lot of Germans took up selections was originally scrub country covered by the extremely tenacious Brigalow. The name "Fassifern Scrub", though, was also the previous place name of Engelsburg which eventually changed to Kalbar. Yet many other places, such as Franklyn Vale, were still referred to as being in the Fassifern Scrub.

Fassifern was often a newsworthy topic in the papers, as the following snippets reveal.

In April 1866, Walter Hill, the Selector of Agricultural Reserves wrote in the Brisbane Courier: Later, in May 1877, a Special Reporter for the Brisbane Courier visited the scrub country: In the July 18, 1934 edition of The Bulletin, a writer said: This short walk through the history of farming in the area gives a bit of perspective as to what was going on at the start of settlement. The first crops of wheat grown in the district of West Moreton were under Government supervision at a place called Little Plain which is now known as the Ipswich Racecourse. That was while the area was still a Penal Settlement and after being opened up to free settlement in 1842, wheat was continued to be grown there.

Yet it wasn't until 1858 that the free settlers took up the cultivation of wheat. Despite the fact that some milling was possible at that time, only a few farmers were able to supply the necessary quantity for it to be profitable. As a result, and with the lure of government subsidies, there was a swing towards growing cotton. As to be expected there was quickly a glut on the market and the farmers rapidly lost interest.

Subsequently, there was a swing back to growing wheat, this time in the Rosewood and Fassifern scrubs as well as other parts of the district. The new farmers were also growing in numbers and were willing to work hard to produce enough to support their families. The German colonists were able to use hand mills to grind grains into flour to produce their own breads. In 1876, James Cribb opened a flour mill in Ipswich which supplied the necessary impetus to upscale grain farming to be profitable. This became a jubilant win for the farmers who were determined to grow something greater than simply allowing wild grasses to be turned into beef or mutton.

Ipswich and the Fassifern

At the time the Fassifern was growing, farmers needed supplies for running their business as well as markets to take their produce. These were early days for South East Queensland and Ipswich rapidly became more important than Brisbane. At the beginning of the 1860's Ipswich was declared a customs port and was connected to Brisbane via steamers travelling up and down the Bremer and Brisbane Rivers.

From Brisbane, which had the facilities for larger vessels, the collected produce could be sent further afield, especially to Sydney and from there to England. The quantity of passengers and goods being transported grew so quickly that the government decided that a rail connection would be the best solution to deal with the new demands.

The first railway in Queensland was built from Ipswich towards Bigges Camp (Grandchester) in the opposite direction to, and away from, Brisbane. The intention was to ultimately connect Ipswich to the Darling Downs, via Toowoomba. All of the parts for the railway including tracks and trains were made in England, shipped to Moreton Bay and delivered from there to Ipswich via the regular paddle-steamers.

The establishment of Bigges Camp as a base for construction, necessarily demanded a work force which was mainly provided by migrants, mostly German. The majority of these early migrants eventually settled on the land south of Bigges Camp, that is, in the Fassifern valley. Many of them had worked in Ipswich before turning to the railway, mainly because that is where the colonial authorities had sent them upon arrival.

When the new railway being built was extended to run through the Fassifern, greater opportunity and attractiveness to select the government promised land there, led to an invasion of Germans taking up land, clearing it, and creating farms almost out of nothing barring hard labour. Naturally enough, Ipswich remained the commercial center for this growing area.

Although based in Ipswich, entrepreneurs who also owned land in the valley, like Cribb and Foote, successfully set up branch shops in the area to aid farmers with supplies. There are glowing reports from some farmers who said they wouldn't have managed without their generosity, kindness and help.

Originally, farmers would travel to Ipswich with horse and wagon (known as the German Waggon), taking many days each way. The trip was difficult with crude roads and was made more difficult often having loads of produce which could spoil. With the rail, the time was sliced to a fraction and eventually with road transport and improved roads, the trips became matter of fact.

As time went by, Ipswich grew into a city and continued to be the thriving hub for the Fassifern. It became a place to work, a place to shop, with many food and department stores, service industries and businesses, including dentists, doctors, hospitals, schools, churches, funeral services, administrative, legal and justice systems, police, public service, public houses, entertainment, household supplies, clothing, motor cars, farm machinery and everything else the heart could desire became available in the thriving metropolis.

---

Ipswich Immigration Depot

Early in 1864 an immigration depot was nearing completion in Ipswich on the northern side of the Bremer River to house all migrants upon arrival in Moreton Bay. To transport them along the Brisbane and Bremer rivers to the depot, the government had acquired a steamer by the name of "Kate" which was built in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1864. It departed London on 30 August 1864 and arrived almost seven months later under sails, the masts of which were later removed.

Necessarily, those who settled in the Fassifern had to originally pass through an immigration depot, such as the one in Ipswich, or before it was finished, the one in South Brisbane. Reports about these depots are somewhat patchy and sketchy but always horrible. The conditions at times were often a cause for concern to the authorities who repeatedly announced that the situation needed looking into.

Unfortunately, a lot of people who arrived a little earlier in Queensland passed through the depot in South Brisbane. So it was, for those on the La Rochelle who arrived in 1864 around which time a writer for the Queensland Times said:
The South Brisbane Immigration Depot, or at least that which it was called, was actually made up of three large disused sheds, not even suitable for cattle, situated alongside Towns' Wharf at the end of Russel Street where a ferry crossed the Brisbane River to Queen's Wharf on the northern side. The shed for the married couples and their children was one huge open area without any ventilation, completely without any facilities or furniture and held an unbearable stench, reaching temperatures close to 40 degrees centigrade. Even though the shed wouldn't have been sufficient for 20 people, 200 or so immigrants were packed into it and were generally in a state of mayhem.

Eventually, there was a new purpose-built multi-storey depot constructed in William Street on the other side of the river near the Queen's Wharf. In time, it too was replaced by a larger building at Kangaroo Point. This location, known as the Yungaba Immigration Depot, had its first migrant occupants take up residence at the end of 1887.

It's worth noting that on September 3, 1864, both the La Rochelle from Hamburg and the Young England from Liverpool arrived at Moreton Bay. The La Rochelle had about 180 German immigrants on board. The Young England was carrying "about 800 tons of general Merchandise, a large portion of which is composed of railway plant" (Brisbane Courier 5 Sep 1864). This "railway plant" coming from England was required to build the railway line from Ipswich to Grandchester.

---

Boonah

Even though Ipswich played a large and important role in the development of the district, it was Boonah which became the commercial focal point of the Fassifern. Situated 30 miles (45 km) due south of Ipswich, Boonah gained its name from the last railway siding before Dugandan at the end of the Fassifern line, which was finished in 1887. At that time, the settlement was known as Blumbergville, named after the shop and hotel owned and run by the Blumberg brothers.

That year (1887) also saw devastating floods in the area with the result that the commercial district of Dugandan moved to higher ground in the nearby Blumbergville. By 1888, the post office in Blumbergville was renamed to Boonah Post Office and the Goolman Division council moved its office from Flinders to its new location in Boonah. Boonah remained the centre of the Shire of Boonah local government area until council amalgamations occurred in 2008 at which time it was merged into the Scenic Rim. From 1879 to 1890, it was the southern part of the Division of Goolman, the northern part being split off in 1890 to form the Division of Normanby. The name was officially changed to Shire of Boonah on 14 October 1937. In 1949, the Shire of Normanby was abolished and its southern part was merged with the Shire of Boonah. The area of the shire was almost 742 square miles whereas the Boonah district covered 552 square miles (over 143,000 hectares), the majority of which is used for pasture or cultivation.

---

The Electoral District of Fassifern

Representatives of Queensland State Electorates 1860-2020
- The Queensland Parliamentary Record 16th ed. 2021

FASSIFERN
Constituted by the Electoral Districts Act of 1872 as a rural electorate based on the Fassifern Valley and running from just south of Ipswich to the New South Wales border, it was derived from portions of the former East Moreton and West Moreton electorates. Successive redistributions greatly reduced the extent of the seat. Abolished in the 1991 redistribution and subsumed by the new electorate of Beaudesert.

    Dates                     Name
    25.11.1873 - 09.01.1874   Thorn, George Jnr.
    24.01.1874 - 12.03.1878   Thorn, John
    09.04.1878 - 07.09.1883   Persse, Fitzpatrick de Burgh
    07.09.1883 - 19.07.1887   Midgley, Alfred
    04.08.1887 - 10.05.1888   Thorn, George Jnr.
    10.05.1888 - 06.05.1893   Salkeld, William
    06.05.1893 - 11.03.1902   Thorn, George Jnr.
    11.03.1902 - 11.12.1902   Murray-Prior, Thomas Lodge
    13.01.1903 - 02.10.1909   Jenkinson, Charles Moffatt
    02.10.1909 - 28.03.1913   Wienholt, Arnold
    24.04.1913 - 02.05.1930   Bell, Ernest Thomas
    28.06.1930 - 11.05.1935   Wienholt, Arnold
    11.05.1935 - 17.05.1969   Müller, Adolf Gustav (Alf)
    17.05.1969 - 22.10.1983   Müller, Selwyn (Sel)
    22.10.1983 - 19.09.1992   Lingard, Kevin Rowson (Kev)
    

---