I was looking through the South Bourke and Mornington Journal, on Trove http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper and came across this reference to my great Grandfather, Horatio Weatherhead. Horatio had worked with James Lyon in the Wombat State Forest, at Lyonville and then in 1908 Horatio took up the lease, for saw milling purposes, of 2,000 acres at Tynong North. In December 1909 he built a mill at Wild Dog Creek, the east branch of Cannibal Creek.The mill was powered a Buffalo-Pitts traction engine. Until 1913, the timber was hauled away by bullock teams every second day - either dispatched to Melbourne from the Tynong Railway station or off-loaded into the Weatherhead timber yard in Tynong.* No doubt this constant traffic was causing the road's 'terrible condition'. I am not sure what Horatio's response would have been, I believe he was a 'strong personality' and would have no trouble getting his viewpoint across.
South Bourke and Mornington Journal, February 16, 1911 page 3
Horatio was very inventive and applied for at least two patents. You can access Patent information in the Victorian State Government Gazettte http://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/ They have been digitised from 1836 to 1997.
Victorian Government Gazette May 8, 1891
Victorian Government Gazette August 13, 1890
This is Horatio William Weatherhead, the son of Henry Fortescue Weatherhead and Ellen Ramsdale. He was born June 28, 1853 at Portland and died October 24, 1925 and is buried at the Bunyip Cemetery. Horatio was said to be 6 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed 19 stone.On January 5, 1880 Horatio married Eleanor Hunt, the daughter of Walter Davidson Hunt and Mary Ann Osborne. Eleanor was born at Dennington on February 17, 1856 and died on May 15, 1927. Eleanor is also buried at Bunyip. This is Eleanor, below. I know this photograph really well as Grandma (Eva Rouse) had it above her bed in the house at Cora Lynn.
*The information about the Weatherhead sawmill comes from Settlers and Sawmillers: a history of West Gippsland Tramways and the industries they served by Mike McCarthy. Published by Light Railway Research Society of Australia, 1993.
Hello Heather. I just read the above - interesting history and great work. My great-grandfather was Eleanor's second brother, Charles Cooke Hunt, born 1863. I treated the whole Hunt family of Swans Lane, Cudgee, in my 2008 self-published "Florrie from the Kings' Table: Her Ancestry" and copies are in most State libraries incl La Trobe. Google it too.
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