Curious features of the Bain brothers is that they were all lifelong bachelors, and all died at the age of 72.
I could find few references to them in local history books. Their estate (four blocks of land – about five million dollars was left to the Dumbleyung shire and the Dumbleyung Mens Shed. I guess there are plaques around Dumbleyung installed by grateful recipients.
 
For a visual exploration of the houses and shearing shed see this   Google Photo album
Click individual images for information

Greetings fellow Foxies,
 
I was recently shown ruins of the Hansen dairy that is close to Clayton road near Narrogin. I was told that this was the second Narrogin dairy. The original was Grantleigh Dairy operated by Edward Wiese on Quarry Road.
​I was lucky enough to talk Hans Hansen’s last surviving daughter Edith, who related a tale of a remarkable and well-loved man. There is a great book to be written on this family, but here are a few snippets.

Hans originally migrated out from Denmark to rescue his sister who was married to an abusive Norwegian drunkard, and took up a farming block near Jilakin rock with 3 other Danes. He was a member of the Narrogin 10th Light Horse, and with two of his colleagues volunteered for military service at the outbreak of the World War 1. They were rejected because “Danes like Germans too much” (untrue), but were called up after the Gallipoli disaster. (Amazing the change mass casualties can make). Hans met his future wife Isabell at the Blackboy Hill training camp at Northam.
Edith has his wartime diary, and here is his military record . He fought on the Western Front.
After the war he and now-wife Isabell, briefly farmed the Pustkuchen ‘Sylvania’ farm before buying the 400 ha ‘Lawndale’ farm from early settler John Edward Clayton. The onset of the Great Depression and the rabbit plague (Edith remembers skinning and gutting wild rabbits), forced Hans to find more income. Initially he worked on the Dryandra mallet plantations and started a dairy that became his main occupation.
Hans and Edith had 6 daughters and a son, but only the central core of their house, consisting of two fine brick built rooms remain. Other structures included parents’ bedroom, dining room, kitchen, front and back verandahs, and 2 adjoining buildings, of which one was used for cooling and separating the milk.
Isabell died of a stroke when Edith was 11, and the two eldest daughters had to stay home from school for a while to look after the rest of the children.
 ​Cows were originally milked in a  long gone shed near a line of ancient Cape Lilac trees by the creek before the existing dairy was built. You can still see remains of the feeding trough in the second building’s milking room. Cream was separated from the milk, and placed into containers in water to cool overnight before delivery. No pasteurisation in those days, but as Hans and children lived to their nineties, it was clearly good stuff.
His day started at 3am for house to house delivery in Narrogin by 6am. He was frequently found asleep while doing the accounts in the afternoon.
He eventually retired to Narrogin and died at the age of 93.  Hans and Isabell’s gravestones are in the Narrogin cemetary.
For a visual exploration of the house and dairy see this   Google Photo album
Click individual images for information

​I found this house on a property adjoining Quinns Pool near Tarwonga.
The pool was named after Michael Quinn, one of the pioneering pastoralists in the district. Michael took up several grazing leases in the Williams east district that may have been up to 40,000 hectares. His sheep were looked after by Noongar shepherds who moved around with the sheep, and largely lived off the land. By purchasing small homestead leases at vital waterholes, pastoralists delayed the release of land for farmers to establish farms.

​Michael Quinn was an important Williams identity, but transferred his grazing further south as farming increased in the district. He lost a well-documented dispute with George Dyson who obtained a tillage lease at Kunderning Pool that denied Quinn’s sheep access to the pool.
Quinn moved south to an 8,000 hectare grazing lease between Wolwolling and Ballagin Pools. Quinn’s pool further west would have been an important staging point for moving his sheep and horses to market.
Over time the land was surveyed into farming blocks by the state government and sold for farming.

This house is later than the original on this World War 1 soldier settlement property that was allocated to Douglas Broadley. A search of the AIF Project website revealed that he was a reinforcement in the 15th Light Horse Field Regiment who was overseas from 30/6/1917 to 26/7/1919. His brother George was a private in the 12th Field Artillery Brigade who died of wounds on 23/3/1918.
Like most soldier settlement blocks, this property would have been too small to be viable. Douglas most likely sold out to a neighbour and disappeared from local history.
The asbestos house is a health hazard today today, but was a comfortable home at the time in a nice location.
On the eastern side of the property is the wonderfully diverse and wildflower-rich Quinns Block reserve that will be described in a Foxypress.
 
For a visual exploration of the place see this Google Photo album

​Greetings fellow Foxies,
                                    
This fascinating glimpse into the past near Wedin siding was part of a 600 or 700 acre new land property belonging to Jens Peter Jensen who was born into a farming/fishing family in Vaby by Steze on the island of Moen, Denmark. Unfortunately he suffered from seasickness and immigrated to Western Australia for a new life in 1905.
In 1908, he took up a farm in Dorakin, married Dorothy Roberts in 1914 and they brought up six children.
After Dorothy’s death, Peter married Elsie May Richardson in 1947. They lived in the Toolibin school house and bought new land and they bought new land at Tincurrin and Wedin. They were real workers and Peter was ‘honest to a fault’.
According to my friend Don Thomson, they sold the block in about 1970 to Dick Fox. With his wife and two children Dick lived in the shack with adjoining caravan. I was lucky to get a shot of the caravan in 2011 as it has now gone. Dick was a very thrifty person and Don related a tale of how he had to lift and cart bags of superphosphate for old Dick from the siding each year (did Don good!).
The place became vacant when Dick sold out in the 1990’s.
 
The shearing shed is a fascinating mixture with railway sleeper sides, bush timber, and galvanised iron.
There is a great machinery graveyard of plant that would give Worksafe nightmares, including an engine head that has become embedded in the trunk of an ancient York gum.
 
Reference: Page 147 Harrismith Tincurrin by Bob and Mary Taylor (2000) ISBN 0646385305
 
For a visual exploration of the place see this Google Photo album

The dam was constructed around 1910 as a water supply for steam trains travelling on the first railway line from Narrogin to Wickepin. Water from the dam was piped to a huge tank, which could hold about 25,000 gallons of water, which was erected on 40ft jarrah poles. Originally erected to serve the needs of the rail transport and steam locomotives, the water provided water to the town’s residents when long hot summers depleted domestic supplies. The arrival of the Comprehensive Water Scheme and the Wickepin
Scheme water tank in 1964  ended Wickepin's chronic water shortage.
The 1908 tank near the centre of town, which had become a local landmark was demolished in 1974.

To get to the dam, drive about 4km south of Wickepin, turn right on to Brooks Road then right at the gravel pit that has been converted to a roaded catchment (see old dam sign). Go down an unformed track at the right (east) of the catchment that leads down to the dam.
​
This spot is mainly of historical interest and as a picnic site. There are no facilities. Several tracks lead further into the reserve from the dam but they don’t lead to any road and may be impassable.

Greetings fellow Foxies
​I was recently given permission to photograph this lovely old house just west of Williams. Situated on fertile soil by the Williams River, it is on one of the earliest farms that was initially allocated to J. McDermott in 1866.
Judging by the interior and brickwork, I think that this house was built in the 1920’s as a 2 room place with an extra brick room added later. No doubt as the family enlarged or became more prosperous, an asbestos addition containing bathroom, toilet, and extra bedroom was added. Unfortunately after it became vacant, thieves stripped a lot of the interior, but enough remains to give an insight of life in those times. Like many vacant dwellings, it is surrounded by fascinating vehicles and pieces of machinery from the early days. Worksafe would have had a coronary if it was in existence then.
It is on private land and is not available to the public.
If you see someone wandering around the house, it is probably me searching for car keys that I lost in knee deep pasture in October.
 
See the images on this Google Photo album
​photos.app.goo.gl/g5P9dRfEocMjNtYR7

​Greetings fellow Foxies,
                                    
‘Minabbie’ was the name of the farm occupied by William Lefevre Graham and his descendants. William was a noted local farmer whose farming fortunes waxed and waned. His original block adjacent to Geeralying reserve contained the Geeralying School. According to his grandson Stuart, the Narrogin-Collie railway line was built through the orchard next to the house prompting William to rebuild further south.
The image below shows William’s permanent Noongar farm worker Ben and his diminutive wife (about 4 ft 6 inches tall) at the first Minabbie with William and Stanyford Cowcher in the background. At this time and earlier, Noongar workers were highly valued by settlers.

 Extensive public activities took a toll on Williams’s farm income and he shifted homes three more times in the Geeralying area (including Rocky Crossing). His extensive farm holdings were so heavily mortgaged that they were sold after his death. His son Leo purchased a part of the farm that is the present ‘Minabbie’.
This edition shows two ruined Graham houses on the Narrogin property.
A standing clapboard and iron house built in 1927 was closer to the road, before being shifted to its present location and refurbished for Noongar shearers before becoming vacant. The first shearers were Ugles, then Eric Krakouer.
The interior is a living history of graffiti that I hope is preserved. No doubt some locals would recognise their work.
In 1945 Leo Graham had a house transported from Bullfinch and reassembled on its present site. Bullfinch is a deserted spot North West of Southern Cross that was once a thriving town associated with a gold mine. When the mine closed, Bullfinch houses were relocated to many areas in the agricultural area.
I also found the cow shed. Apparently, Leo was putting the cow in the shed when he was nearly struck by lightning. He eventually found his way back home dazed and glowing, and took several days to recover.
 
The Google Photo album shows the remains of both houses.
See the images on
https://photos.app.goo.gl/pcfeBTGKJLHiMt9F9
​

Greetings fellow Foxies,
 I was amazed to learn that from 1850 until World War I, German settlers and their descendants comprised the largest non-British or Irish group of Europeans in Australia. Locally this is evident in family names like Blythe, Braunholz, Fisher, Gath, Modra, Muller, Pustkuchen, and Wiese. Many arrived from South Australia and Victoria in the early twentieth century.
 Why Germans, and why here? A Google search revealed the following (over) simplified sequence of events that attracted these people to our district.

• Most German families came from the nation-state of Prussia with groups migrating to South Australia and Victoria beginning in 1838. Reasons include economic dislocation following the Napoleonic War, religious persecution, pressure to enlist in the Prussian army, and a British cash bounty to attract vineyard workers to Australia.
• A world depression in 1894, and a series of dry seasons called the Millennium Drought caused local financial hardship in eastern Australia.
• Paddy Hannan discovered gold at Kalgoorlie in 1894, and 15 years later the WA government created an agricultural bank to provide loans in order to attract colonists that would clear and farm large tracts of land that were opened up by railway lines.

 
Many of these people thrived and became good and popular citizens until The First World War.
Did you know that the Narrogin district had the highest army enlistment rate in the entire British Empire? (“Memorial 1 Narrogin and world War 1” by Maurie White. Editorial comment: this should be required reading, hopefully to avoid politicians repeatedly sending our youth to fight other countries’ wars!). The resulting lack of manpower to work the land, marry local girls, and the suffering of the survivors and there families set this district back for a generation. 
during the war, men were hounded to enlist. Virulent anti-German sentiment was fostered by war fever, terrible Australian casualties and propaganda.
Thankfully this declined after the war.

The history of the Braunholtz family is recorded in “Other Fortunate Lives” Editors Hazel Green and Elizabeth Heffernan 2008. Page 39.
I was shown the ruins of the homestead, adjacent to Wickepin Springs. The Braunholz family farmed in conjunction with the Irgens family (Norwegian). Malcolm Gath remembers Carl Braunholz as being very handy with machinery, which is evident in the wide array of machine parts present.
The Google Photo album shows the remains of both houses (I think) and associated sheds and bits and pieces.
See the images on
photos.app.goo.gl/egQaRiTH8kyk395v5

​Trecarne Farm was initiated by Charles Henry Hoffman who was born in Bonn Germany in1863. In 1904 he purchased a 500 acre bush block from the family of his wife (Anne May Oliver) at 2/6 an acre. As Charles had been a greengrocer in Germany, the family started to grow vegetables while the land was being cleared. The market garden remained their chief livelihood, and son, Bill was well known in Narrogin for his fine quality fresh vegetables. The farm remained in the Hoffman family until the 1990’s.
The house is built in 1906 from mud bricks with bush timber poles in the roof. Many later additions and repairs followed and it was intact when listed in the Municipal Heritage Inventory in 1995.
Further information can be found in ‘Wolwolling’ Reflections by Gwen Warren and ‘The Way Through’ by Ossie Pustkuchen.
 
For a photo tour of this site see Google Photo images on https://photos.app.goo.gl/KgNsZZP5NAnUhc8k9
Click first image to open and then go forward/backward