Chapter 5

Samuel Otoo Hassall was born in Coventry at about 9 am on 13 May 1796 and baptised at the West Orchard Independent Church on 25 July, just before his parents boarded the Duff to journey to the South Sea Islands. Because they knew they were going to Tahiti, his parents named him in honour of the young King Otoo who had been there when Captain Cook had been in Tahiti.

Samuel Hassall became a wool-grower and farmer, gaining invaluable experience as Assistant Superintendent of Government Stock to his father, Rowland, between 1814 and 1819. Later he became the Superintendent, a position he held until his premature death in 1830.

In 1818 he received a land grant in his own right at O'Connell Plains near Bathurst, which he named Milford, but he was mostly engaged in looking after his father's 400-acre farm, Macquarie Grove on the Nepean River at Camden.

He later worked his grant of land at Bathurst and another extensive grant at Boorowa. He was responsible for a large number of convicts and regularly received assigned convicts, including skilled mechanics, when transports arrived in Sydney.

Among the hazards of farming in remote areas were the frequent thefts which occurred. Samuel Hassall was robbed of horses by William Poole and others at Bathurst in 1822, by James Connor and James Heacott in 1823, and by a convict who robbed his house in the same year. He also charged one of his assigned convicts, John Phillips, with neglect of duty and the convict received 25 lashes for it.

Living at Macquarie Grove was not without its dangers. In 1816 Samuel wrote that "the blacks were very troublesome" to surrounding settlers, notably Messrs Oxley, Macarthur and himself, and they had to combine "to defend their lives and property". The white men were warned not to cross the Nepean River for fear of their lives.

On one occasion Aborigines from the Cunderarah tribe attacked a group of white men, barring their way and showering them with sticks and stones. Failing to drive them off with shot, the white men retreated hurriedly,some taking off their boots to run faster and some simply rolling down a steep hillside to safety. They rushed to warn their womenfolk of the imminent danger and one of the women elected to remain with her husband and perhaps die with him, while Samuel took his mother, who was visiting, to the safety of a neighbouring farm. A group of armed men and soldiers marched in pursuit of the Aborigines, who had murdered three of Macarthur's servants. A small battle took place and after several days, during which time the properties in the district were closely guarded, Samuel received a note from Henry Byrnes saying that one of Hassall's shepherds, Bromby, had been killed. Eventually the Aborigines retreated.

Having been brought up in such a devout family, it is not surprising to find Samuel Hassall's name as a subscriber of the Auxiliary Bible Society of New South Wales. Like his brother, Thomas, he seems to have swung his religious allegiance behind the Church of England and supported Marsden.

He was particularly supportive when Marsden objected to the former convict, James Bradley, setting up a Sunday School in the Wesleyan Chapel. The main crime seemed to be that the Sunday School could take pupils from the one supported by Marsden. Samuel Hassall described Bradley as a "snake in the grass". This seemed pretty strong language to describe one who had been one of the more successful teachers in Parramatta and who had taught Samuel's own sisters in premises rented from Mrs Shelley. There was such ill feeling about Bradley's Sunday School that some of the respectable women such as Mrs Hassall, Samuel's mother, and Mrs Oakes and other "Respectable and Virtuous Mothers of Families have ceased for a long time to visit the house where he resides", namely that of their beloved friend and neighbour Mrs Shelley.

Samuel Hassall married Lucy Mileham on 22 November 1819 at St John's, Parramatta in the famous triple wedding with his brother Jonathan and sister Mary.

But earlier Samuel had tried to court Anne Marsden, the daughter of Rev Samuel Marsden. As Mary noted in a letter to their brother Thomas in England, Anne had played "hot and cold" with him and "behaved with rudeness" to him. And their father, Rowland also wrote: "She seemed to slight him and treated him in a way I should not like to mention, and wish to forget!" Ironically, three years after Samuel's wedding, Anne married Thomas!

 

Lucy Mileham was the only surviving daughter of Dr James Mileham and Elizabeth Price, with whom Mileham had formed an alliance until her death in July 1818 when she was buried under the name of Elizabeth Mileham. James Mileham then married, on 2 June 1819, Susannah Kable of Windsor. He died on 28 September 1824, aged 61 and his widow survived him on a pension of £100 a year until she died on 20 June 1885.

Dr Mileham was born circa 1764 in France, which he left during the Revolution, and was appointed assistant surgeon in New South Wales, which he reached in June 1797. He worked in Sydney and Parramatta until he was transferred to Norfolk Island in 1799 where he remained until 1802. Mileham was then appointed to Castle Hill in 1804 and then to Newcastle, where he was arrested for disobeying orders and brought to Sydney for court martial for failing to attend a woman in child birth and was publicly reprimanded. He was then sent to the Hawkesbury in 1808 and remained in the Windsor district until he retired.

Dr Mileham rose to the rank of first assistant surgeon but declined an appointment to Van Diemen's Land. In 1821 he sought leave to retire on full pay because of his long service and poor health and Macquarie granted his request. Mileham was a trustee of the Windsor Charitable Institution, treasurer of the Hawkesbury Benevolent Society and vice-president of the Windsor Bible Society. A street in Windsor was named after him.

Milehain died in an impecunious position, in spite of his long service in the colony, and was buried in the old Sandhills Cemetery where Sydney's Central Station now stands. His grave was moved to La Perouse. He had suffered financially when various officers at Norfolk Island and other agents had failed to fill in appropriate forms for his pay, thus placing him in debt. He was therefore forced twice to sell his land grants, first that which he had received at Dundas in 1799 and, second, a grant of 500 acres and another of 200 acres for his daughter at Upper Nelson in 1809. No doubt he was pleased when his only daughter married the relatively well off Samuel Hassall.

After Samuel's death at Macquarie Grove on 25 July 1830 - said to be the result of being caught in bad weather - Lucy continued to run rural pursuits and had a large team of bullocks which were of immense size, with very large horns and humps on their necks. These bullocks regularly took goods to the Bathurst district and it is said that Lucy was the

first white woman to have ridden over the Blue Mountains.

Samuel's tombstone was the first erected at his brother Thomas's church, St Paul's in Cobbitty, which must have been very sad for Thomas. The vault can still be seen in front of the historic Heber Chapel there. It was originally four feet (1.2 metres) high but has since subsided to maybe a quarter of that level.

The inscription, now indecipherable, read:

Sacred to the Memory
of Samuel Otoo Hassall
of Macquarie Grove
July 28th, 1830. aged 34

Also at his late residence
Macquarie Grove on 18th November 1856
Thomas Hancox second son of the above
Deceased aged 30.

Also
In sacred memory of Lucy
the beloved wife of Samuel Otoo Hassall
and widow of John James Howell
died May 1882

Three years after Samuel's death, Lucy Hassall married John James Howell, who came to Australia from Wales in 1825 and was one of the first people to settle in the Boorowa-Rye Park area. The wedding was conducted by Rev Thomas Hassall at Cobbitty.

Howell had been a witness to Samuel's will and was a close friend of the Hassall family. It is believed that Thomas came to know the Howell family when he trained for the ministry in Wales. Then, when John James Howell arrived in NSW he went directly to Bathurst to manage Bolong, the 1280-acre property of James Hassall, Thomas's brother. One of Lucy's daughters also married a Howell.

Howell held a huge property, Arkstone Forest, now known as Springfield, and died on 7 June

1847, 14 years after his marriage, as the result of breaking his leg in a ploughing accident nine days earlier, there being no doctor to attend. "His suffering was great," wrote Lucy, "but he expired free from all pain and a smile on dying features."

They had five children; Lydia (who left a fortune to the Church of England), John, Lucy Ann, Margarette and Theopilis.

Lucy was helped in running Arkstone Forest for six years by her son James Mileham Hassall until he was married, then returned to Macquarie Grove to live in the old April Cottage, which became Lucyville. It was later re-named Hassall Cottage. This fine old building still stands and is in very good condition, being maintained by the Macarthur Onslow family (descendants of John Macarthur) who bought Macquarie Grove from James Mileham Hassall when things went very bad for him in the 1870s.

The noted author Donald Horne, a descendant on the Howell line, wrote of Lucy (Mileham) Hassall-Howell:

"As often as not we spoke of her not as Granny Howell but by her maiden name, Lucy Mileham, or even as "Old Lucy", giving her an identity of her own and stripping her of husbands so that we could get nearer to her She had married twice, flrst to Samuel Otoo Hassall, then to John Howell ... Neither of these husbands seemed to matter to us. They took their turn in giving her children (nine altogether), then they died. It was as if, like a female mantis, she had eaten her mates after they had performed their limited function."

Lucy died in May 1882 in Camden and was buried in the tomb of her first husband, Samuel Otoo Hassall, and their son, Thomas Hancox Hassall.

Samuel and Lucy Hassall had the following children: Rowland James born in 1820, Elizabeth Ann born in 1821, Mary Susannah born in 1823, Thomas Hancox born in 1825, James Mileham born in 1826 and Samuel Otoo born in 1830.

 

Children Of Samuel And Lucy Hassall

ABA - Rowland James Hassall (1820-1820)

Rowland James Hassall was twelve days old when he died of catarrhal fever and was buried in the same vault in St John's Cemetery, Parramatta as his grandfather, Rowland Hassall, who had predeceased him by six days.

At the same time, his father, Samuel Otoo, lay sick in bed of the same complaint and there were fears for his life also. Samuel's brother Jonathan was also bed-ridden with the same influenza virus. The Hassall house was like a hospital, with two births, three deaths and two serious illnesses within a matter of days.

ABB - Elizabeth Ann Hassall (1821-1860)

Elizabeth Ann Hassall was born on 5 August 1821 and married William P. Howell, a nephew of J.J. Howell who married her widowed mother, Lucy.

William arrived in Sydney in 1837 at the age of 18 and went to live with his uncle, where he obviously fell in love with his stepdaughter.

William was an ambitious young man and soon took over the squatting rights of the Hassalls and Howells in the Rye Park area near Boorowa. He had previously purchased 85,000 acres in the Murrumbidgee area and sold it at a handsome profit.

Elizabeth and William lived at Yabba in the Riverina before building Llangrove,later called Everton, at Rye Park in 1843 with the profits of his big sale. Llangrove, which still stands, was of 1200 acres and the freehold was obtained in 1851.

They retired there, having done very well for themselves. Elizabeth died at Yass on 21 April 1860. William also died at Yass later the same year.

They had eight children: William Bennett (1841-1913, who married Annie Fletcher), Mary Anne (b1843, who married Robert Edward Wild on 15 May 1862), Lucy Mileham (1844-1941, who married Frederick Wilkinson Wild and had seven children), John James (b 1846, who married Adeline Wild and whose eldest daughter married into the Halliday family), Lydia (1848-1928, who married W.G. Hayes), Sarah Jane (who married W. Brigstocke and died in 1948), Alice (who married John Body) and Florence Jessie (1855-1956, who married Charles Arthur Brigstocke).

 

ABC - Mary Susanna Hassall (1823-1877)

Mary Susanna Hassall was born on 27 May 1823 and died on 5 May 1877. On 25 June 1846 she married Charles Cobb Wildash, who in 1870 helped his brother-in-law James Mileham Hassall trek across country with two bullock wagons and all their furniture and belongings to Wambrook, Cooma. He was said to be an excellent bush-man and they lived for some time at Wambrook. Their daughter Lucy Elizabeth married her cousin Alexander Campbell, who was the son of Ann Hassall and Robert Mackay Campbell.

To make things more complex, Lucy and Alexander's son Clarence Campbell then married his cousin Florence Gerard Wildash (the daughter of Lucy's brother Charles).

Mary and Charles Wildash had the following children: Lucy Elizabeth (1847-1916, married Alexander Mackay Campbell); Charles John (b 1849, married Elizabeth Gerard); Isabella Mary (1851-1916); Anne Howell (b1853, married G. Mackay); Lydia Elizabeth (b1855, married F. Middleton); William Henry (b1857, married Florence Moor)., Jessie Mileham (1859-1893); Emily Cobb (1 863-1912) and Frederick Alexander (b 1865, married Maiy Gill).

ABD - Thomas Hancox Hassall (1825-1855)

Thomas Hancox Hassall was born on 3 May 1825 and when his father died in 1830, Thomas inherited the 400-acre Macquarie Grove as a 5 year-old boy. He later spent many years on his father's property in the Boorowa district.

He married Elizabeth Moore Hume, the eldest daughter of Francis Rawdon and Emma (nee Mitchell) Hume, then living at Frankfield near Gunning, in 1852. Francis Rawdon Hume was the brother of Hamilton Hume, the great explorer, who had no children of his own. Elizabeth's grandfather was Gabriel Louis Huon de Kerrileau, a French Huguenot who sought refuge in England and met Capt. John Macarthur, who brought him to Australia as tutor to his children at Elizabeth Farm.

Elizabeth ('Lizzy') was the second-eldest of 14 children and married when she was 18 years old. She died a year after her marriage giving birth to her daughter, Elizabeth Emma Lucy, who also died six months later.

Thomas was clearly affected badly by this double tragedy as he died 18 months later after a drinking binge of four or five days with his uncle Charlie Hassall in Victoria (see Chapter 4).

Thomas's death caused something of a family dispute over his property, Milord near Bathurst, which Thomas had inherited from his father. The will said that if Thomas died with no issue it would then go to his brother, James Mileham, who duly took over. But one of his Hume brothers-in-law challenged the will in court and it was decided that, although Thomas had no children when he died, there had been issue, so James was forced to leave and the property was sold.

 

ABE - James Mileham Hassall (1826-1896)

James Mileham Hassall was born at Macquarie Grove on 5 November 1826 and was only three years old when his father died. He was educated in Goulburn. At the age of 20 he went to Arkstone Forest, Boorowa to assist his mother on the death of her second husband. He remained there until 1853 when he married 18 year-old Anne Isabella Hume, his brother Thomas's sister-in-law, at her home Castlesteads.

James was known as "Gentleman Jim" and the couple lived first at Milford, the Bathurst property he took over after the death of his brother Thomas. However, the Humes successfully contested Samuel Otoo's will, forcing Jim and Anne - a Hume herself, to quit the property. (See previous section for details.)

The young couple then took over Macquarie Grove, the family property at Camden which James inherited on older brother Thomas's death. In the late 1850s they built a new home on the property which is still standing) and James' mother, Lucy Howell, took over the original cottage (still standing and known as Hassall Cottage since 1934) as her dower and called it Lucyville.

James and his family lived at Macquarie Grove until 1861 when it was leased out to W. Gordon as a school for £150 a year for seven years. That year, James told his friend James Macarthur in the UK that he was very depressed, having lost 200 acres of crops in the floods. He said he was letting the property out to Mr Gordon while he took the family to "the interior".

James leased Llangrove near Boorowa from his brother-in-law William Howell for two years and then rented Collingwood near Gunning (where he ran 5000 sheep) for seven years after the murder of his wife's uncle, John Kennedy Hume, the brother of Hamilton Hume, the explorer. He was murdered at Collingwood by members of the Whitton gang of bushrangers in 1840.

James had mortgaged Macquarie Grove for £3800 in 1867 from "Honest Tom" Laidlaw of Yass and when Laidlaw died in 1876, James was unable to repay the debt and so had to sell the old family property to his friend, Henry Dangar MLC.

 

With the money from Macquarie Grove, James bought a huge run called Wambrook at Cooma and he and the family finally settled there in 1870, having set off from Collingwood when the lease had expired.

Moving was a huge operation, as described by one of the children, Albert Edward (Bert):

"We left Collingwood with all our sheep, horses and cattle, about December 1868, with mother father and ten children, one bullock waggon, one horse waggon with all our furniture and equipment, one bullock driver with his wife and famity of two, Uncle Charlie Wildash, one governess, and one lady help, 25 all told.

"We could only travel about 10 miles or less a day, and had to milk two cows ... kill our own mutton and bake our own bread..."

The family toiled tirelessly for years turning the tough land into pastures suitable for wheat and grazing. James also installed a threshing machine and built a flour mill and saw mill on the property. The leased property was 20,000 acres, heavily timbered and had no fencing when the family arrived. They gradually fenced the entire property into paddocks.

Wambrook was described in 1888 as "one of the finest in the district", but was soon lost through a combination of circumstance, stubborness, a refusal to listen to advice and a desire to do the right thing.

James was a Justice of the Peace, which might have explained his determination to act within the spirit of the law when everyone else was doing otherwise. He was described by his grandson Hector Hassall as "a fine, honourable man, but stupidly obstinate over this, as in many things".

New land acts allowed free settlers to take up 40-60 acre blocks on the big runs and, while most of the graziers consolidated their properties by having the choice parts of their land taken out in the names of their wives and children, James refused. This allowed 'selectors' to move in and take all the best parts.

James could have secured most of it through his numerous children. Instead, Wambrook was white-anted. Eventually they tried to secure it by having the six boys each select 640 acres on condition that they were fenced and had buildings erected. James was forced to borrow £12,000 from the bank to fund the improvements and when he died on 25 August 1896 (of an enlarged liver), just as the improvements were completed, the bank called in the loan. Wambrook was sold and the family was given four months leave.

Anne and James (who are both buried in the Boloco churchyard) had 14 children, all born without the aid of a doctor or nurse, and all lived to adulthood, but she did not live to see it.

On 4 June 1879, less than four years after the last child was born, she died aged 43, leaving the eldest daughter, Lucy Mileham, to look after the family from the age of 25.

James and Anne's children were: Lucy Mileham (born Milford Vale 1854, married Henry

Wallace late in life, lived at Glen Wallace, Cooma and had no children, died 1934); Grace

Garland Kennedy (born Boorowa 1855, married Thomas Heriot, died 1944); Emma Mary (born Bathurst 1856, married Edmund Proctor); Macquarie Hume (born Macquarie Grove 1858, did not marry and was killed aged 27 in a deep well by a falling piece of timber); Laura Australia (born Macquarie Grove 1859, married Edwin Litchfield, died 1890); Frank Stuart (born Castlesteads 1861, married Ada Philcox, died 1944); James Samuel King (born Llangrove 1863, married Ada Geary, died 1944); Albert Edward (born Collingwood 1864, married Marian Saunders); Anne Nina Cordelia (born Collingwood 1866, married her bother-in-law George Litchfield, died 1900); Frederick de Kerrileau (born Collingwood 1868, married Anne Reynolds); Fanny Florence Jessic (born Wambrook 1870, married first John Pring and second Arthur Fraser and had no children, died 1944); Clara Eugenie (born Wambrook 1872, married James H. Hall); Percy Herbert (born Wambrook 1874, married Olive Minerva Hart, died 1952); and Beatrice Isabel (born Wambrook 1875, did not marry and joined the Church Missionary Society staff in Palestine, died 1955).

 

ABF - Samuel Otoo Hassall (1830-1881)

Samuel Otoo Hassall was born on 4 August 1830, six weeks after his father's death. On 11 June 1858 he was granted an auctioneer's licence. Very little else is known about his life other than he remained a bachelor.

 

References:

• James S. Hassall, In Old Australia (1902)
• Colonial Secretary's Correspondence
• Hassall Correspondence, Mitchell Library, Sydney
• Vivienne Parsons, Australian Dictionary of Biography
• Stuart Hamilton Hume, Beyond the Borders (1991)
• Donald Horne, The Education of Young Donald
• Lin Litchfield, The Halliday Family in Australia, unpublished (1973)
• Hector Hassall, Biography of Frank Stuart Hassall, unpublished
• The Crookwell Gazette
• Annette Macarthur-Onslow, Hassall Cottage, Camden