Back in about 1970, Colin Maybury went on an overnight bushwalk with his two daughters in the Gloucester Tops area of NSW. Searching for dry kindling in an abandoned hut, he found three very old letters. Sensing these may have been of interest to other people, he transcribed them and wrote an article around them. He had planned to wait until 1987 – a hundred years since the first of the letters was written – but his elderly mother asked him to publish them earlier, since she wanted to see them in print “while I’m still alive”. Col took his article and the letters to The Newcastle Herald where he asked to speak to a sub-editor. He was led to the office of the editor, who agreed to pay Col $75 for the article. “He took his pencil and started drawing lines through words and sentences and I pulled him up. I told him the story had to appear exactly as I had written it,” Col recalled. Surprisingly, this was agreed to and the article was published in its entirety. It is reproduced below in the original words of Col and the writer of the long-ago letters. Col kindly agreed to let me republish the article here. Unfortunately my clipping does not include the date but Col estimates it was about 1985. Col donated the original letters to the local history museum at Gloucester.

Down in the valley history stirred

By Colin Maybury

In a narrow valley of the Gloucester Tops the Manning River is formed as an icy cool rivulet murmuring over rocky beds and the roads are concrete fords. Here, where the mist frills the valley in the early evening as the sun sets of the towering tops, was an old abandoned cedar homestead surrounded by unkempt fruit trees. It seemed a perfect place for myself and two young daughters to camp. So we prepared the evening meal.

The night was cold and fresh and the brilliant stars contrasted starkly with the brooding, silent mountains. All this made us contentedly satisfied with life as our crackling fire lit the sparkling dew drops on the branches of the old apple tree.

As the early morning sun peeped through the rising mist, the dew-soaked firewood refused to light, so I walked alone towards the old house.

In a ramshackle wedge-split lean-to were some old dry papers, soon a bright fire was blazing in the rock fireplace and the aroma of the heating coffee pot filled the air. The cheery fire soon threw back the clinging mist. Savouring the warmth and the brightening day I fed the remaining papers into the fire when I saw three old letters and stopped to read them.

There in the dawn, alone, and at peace with the world I read the letters of Duncan McPherson. I realised that in my hands I held three pages of history. Not the history of the academic but the thoughts and ideas of the common man, of a man who was a credit to the British nation; a man who at the time of these writings had all the traits that were best in the Victorian era, a man of strong family responsibilities, of courtesy and pride, particularly pride, in the position, of wealth and pioneering ability of the British people.

Such a man was Duncan McPherson, steward of the cargo ship Ventura, and these are the letters written by him to his young cousin Margaret Mary McPherson, of Dingo Creek on the Upper Manning, near Gloucester. The letters begin on November 28, 1887 and continue through until January 10, 1888, covering only two months, but these letters by their detail show more of Duncan McPherson that most people can record in a lifetime.

(The letters are published as they were written, including misspellings.)

Port Melbourne, Nov 28^th, 1887

Dear Cousing,

I again take the opportunity of writing you a few lines to let you know that I have arrived in the country again after an interval of a few years. I trust you are well and hope you have been Successful with your Sellection that you wrote me about when I was here last time. Things has been very quite at home in the old country, but by all accounts I here trade has been as bad as out here.

I would like you to let me know if you have ever heard anything of my Cousing Duncan, you may remember that I wrote about hime last time that I was here in the Lady Cairns. If you have heard anything of him will you kindly let me know because none of our friends has ever heard anything of him this long time.

I am at present in a first-class ship built of steel and all the latest improvements. I have been with this captain for 5 years in other Ships. I have been in good health since I last wrote you. I suppose there will have been some changes in your family. Your father is he still alive I am almost afraid to ask the question. I hope so and well.

My Cousing Duncan in Glasgow told me to give you and the rest of the family his best respects. We will leave this about Christmas for Newcastle for a cargo of coal for San Francisco and home to some port in the United Kingdom. I would very much like to see you at Newcastle when we come around there if you could spare the time, and if you would send me one of your father portraits if you have got one and I am sure I will be for ever indebted to you. If your father is still alive give him my very best respects, if I could get away I would come up the Manning to see you but I can’t be spared on board ship.

I will now conclude in the mean time with best wishes to you all.

Your Effectionate Cousing,

Duncan McPherson.

Adress Duncan McPherson, Steward Ship Ventura, port Melbourne

Georg McPherson, Dingo Creek

Ps. I see by the papers that newsouth Wales is going to change the name of the Colony to Australia. Can you tell me what the idea is of these agitators; don’t you think that it is an absurd idea. Is it ashamed of the name it bears at present that is some is ashamed of it I suppose but I for one fail to see either reason, sense nor logic in it, but different people different minds.

[“These agitators” that Duncan refers to in his letters were principally our fathers of Federation whose leader was Sir Henry Parkes. In 1887 in disgust, with the bickering States or colonies, he proposed that he would change the name of New South Wales to Australia this would then force the other States into federation. It was a tongue-in-cheek move and could not be implemented but it had the desired effect of stirring up controversy and discussion that eventually led to Federation in 1901.]

Ship Ventura, Melbourne 21/12/87

My Dear Cousing,

I received your kind and welcome note and I am glad to learn by it that you are all well as it leaves me the same at present. I received the car all right. I think I got a Card of George before when he had no beard and one of yours, but if I am wrong not having seen my cousins it is not to wondered at that I should not know which is which but I will put the name on this one so I will be able to tell the original if ever we should meet. I am very sorry to inform you that I can not get away from the ship to visit you but believe me nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to have been able to do so.

We will leave Melbourne on Saturday first the 24^th december for Newcastle and we will likely take 8 or 10 days to load probably longer, so if any of my Cousings could spare the time to come down to Newcastle I would be very proud to see them I can assure you.

I ommitted to ask after your mother in my last letter but beleive me the omission was not intentional on my part. When I sat down to write the thought struck me my Uncle will most likely have passed over to the great majority and I have never seen him in fact I have never seen any of my Fathers Brothers. Uncle Duncan died before I knew anything about him. I have seen my two Aunts Mary and Janet they too are dead and gone and now your Father is the only one that is left of the family. You can tell your Father that the property in Callander was sold long before my grandfather died.

I am glad to hear that Samuel and William have got settled down so comfortably and you say that you are about to change the name McPherson for Laurie and if my good wishes do you any good I wish you every success through life. I think that I amentioned in my last letter than I was married and had four children 3 boys and 1 girl, Alexander & Duncan & James and Margaret I am 36 years of age now how old is George, I suppose he is the eldest.

I intend to settle in Australia in a year or two after this. I think I will take a bit of land somewhere in South Australia, what is the conditions that you get land in New South Wales. I think that you have got one of my cards but if you have not got one I will send you one. I enclose a note to your Father you will try and get your fathers card for me, will you not, I have got one of your Aunt Mary at home I might get some taken of it, if I have time this passage.

I will now conclude with best wishes to all not forgetting yourself . . .

Your Effectionate Cousing

Duncan McPherson

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and many may you see as we say in Scotland.

Ship Ventura, Jan 10^th 1888

Dear Cousing,

I wrote you on the 27^th December advising you of our arrival. I would like to know if you received it as I sent it with the butchers man that brings the beef on board the mornings, and I sent your father two papers with a note enclosed to your father about the question that you asked me about in your note that you sent me in Melbourne. It surely takes a long time for a letter to reach you the postal accommodation must be very bad indeed. We will sail from this in 10 days time, from this you might write to me in San Francisco and I will try to reply to your letter.

I am sorry I could not come to see you but it is not my fault you see when we are not our own masters we cant always do what we would like.

Potatoes here at present are three pounds per ton I think that is very dear, we want three tons I you had been nearer I could have given you the order for them. You will have a bad market for your produce where you are, that is the worst part of the farming in Australia there is no convience for getting your produce to market in some places as yet, but time will change all patience is everything in this world.

It is a miserable place this Newcastle besids the towns at home in England and Scotland and Padysland and as for the Statesmen they would be a credit to Billingsgate among the fish wifes of that place of slang and other talk to nice mention here. They want to cut from the Mother Country and if I had my way I would do what the majority f Britains would do, give it to them lag, and bag, and baggage, our trade would not suffer in the least by the transaction and our ships would sail the Seas and open up trade wherever we would go as of old.

America was the same way, they got there independence and we never was more prosperous after it. We have got our poor it is true but what nation has not, let her be every so prosperous there is plenty here for so small a place as it is. As McAulay said to Dan Oconnel when he was abusing him (and his party) in the house of Commons he said we have sufferd for you to put you in possition you no stand that you may not be less than a British Subject but he said we never will suffer to be more.

Good Bye

Remember me to all

Your Effectionate Cousing

Duncan McPherson.

[Dan O’Connell was an Irish patriot politician fighting for Irish freedom through the Westminster Parliament, and McAuley, the then Prime Minister. A story told about Dan O’Connell is that some of his constituents came to him very agitated about a sign advertising for labour outside one of the large baronial farms owned by the British landed gentry in Ireland. At the head of a large crowd Dan set out to see for himself. Milling and vociferous, the crown came up to the offending sign. It read: “Workers wanted, only English need apply”. Dan sized up the mood of the angry crowd and, standing on a fence, said: “My friends, I can’t see why you’re so upset. These very words are engraved on the gates of Hell”.]

The Newcastle Morning Herald of 28/12/1887 records in its shipping columns the arrival in Newcastle of the ship Ventura and Duncan McPherson in these words:

“The C.S. Ventura under Captain A. Cumming, a ship of 1667 tons, has a good passage of 63 hours from Pt Philip Heads. It left there on Christmas morning and arrived at Newcastle at 5 pm on the 27^th December. Ventura is nearly new, this being her second voyage and the first venture to Yokohama then to ports in Java, then loading for home. Ventura is now only four months from Liverpool and has discharged over 3200 tons of cargo in Melbourne. It is one of the finest ships afloat, in perfect order and well worth inspection. The captain has been for years in the colonial trade but has not been in this port for 20 years. The vessel is consigned to J. & A. Brown and is to load a cargo of Wallsend coal for San Francisco.”

There is no further mention of the Ventura but on January 19, 1888, its port number of 39 is given to another ship indicating that the Ventura sailed on the tide of January 18, 1888, laden with its cargo of Wallsend coal en route to San Francisco then continuing down the west coast of the Americas around Cape Horn and back up through the Atlantic to Liverpool. This was a total journey of some 40,000 miles and 18 months during which time the Ventura sailed around the world and, as Duncan put it, “They opened up trade wherever they went”.

A link with the living

In researching the origins of these letters I learnt through the Lauries, who are still large landholders in the region, of Mrs Irene Carey, the only surviving child of Margaret Mary McPherson-Laurie. She is a kind, gentle lady in her seventies, now living in retirement in Tuncurry.

What an interesting lady she is. We talked of her blood-ties: “true blue Scottish, with the McPhersons and the Lauries. She showed me her paintings, that recorded the life of an artist in love with the bush, particularly the area of her childhood.

Joseph E. Laurie and his new bride, Margaret Mary, settled in 1888 on a small property in a cedar house they called Invergordon after a town in Scotland, a property that by hard work they increased to 17,000 acres, farming and grazing sturdy shorthorn cattle.

Mrs Carey’s eyes moistened as she produced her own paintings of her father leaning on the sliprails of Invergordon, his ever-present Scottish History open in his hands, the house and towering mountains behind. And there was one of her mother, the girl to whom Duncan McPherson had written, then in her twilight years, seated in front of the open hearth fire holding a cup of tea, her long auburn hair now tinted by the silvery dye of time and wound into a tight bun. Margaret Mary’s contentment with life shows graphically in this scene of so long ago.

Mrs Carey told of her visit to Scotland and of finding her cousins, the McPhersons, who at that time owned a tea house. They were very pleased to see her, exclaiming: “Look! Look! It’s our cousin all the way from Australia to see us. Sit you down and have some tea and cakes.” And then ever the canny Scots: “That’ll be two and sixpence for the tea”.

This was a fine family tied together by their Scottish heritage, true pioneers of Australia and Duncan McPherson, a man who had the wisdom to see ahead. As he put it: “You will have a very bad market for your produce where you are. That is the worst part of farming in Australia; there is no conveyance for getting your produce to market in some places as yet but time will change all.”

And change it did, changed by the efforts of our hardworking, thrifty pioneers, men and women who accepted and conquered this harsh alien land with its vast distances and isolation and grew to love it and become a part of the Australia they handed down to us.

When Col Maybury wrote his article, the wonderful Trove online repository of newspapers and other information didn’t exist. A quick search today yielded some results that would have been helpful at the time. This one, for example. And this one too.