Guest post by Tom Woolman
In 1858, “ a mining party from White Hills” (early Maryborough), James McVicar, his brother in law, William McNab, and “Reither”, were searching in the Pyrenees.
McNab was an ex-convict, described by the court as “imperfectly educated.” Convicted in 1840, for house breaking in East London, he had been transported to Tasmania for a decade. We don’t know how McVicar, a book binder, and his wife, Caroline Janet McNab, a book folder, starting her 13 known pregnancies, found Caroline’s brother William when they arrived in Sydney in 1853.
The party found the continuation of the Malakoff Lead, near Landsborough, and named it the Glasgow Lead. McVicar, when approached by the roving collector for a new building for Maryborough Hospital, (who was competing with collectors for other new hospitals like Amherst, Ararat, and perhaps Dunolly), then gave a surprising donation of 10 shillings, a lot for a poor family.
In 1859, in a narrow valley north of Amphitheatre, a rush began,creating a very dangerous field, named “Mountain Hut.” McNab and the McVicars settled in, as well as mining creating a Glasgow Store (as they had done at Creswick, Lamplough and perhaps White Hills).
In 1861, their dray, laden with earth, overturned in the narrow valley, killing McNab.There was no inquest probably because it was obvious what had happened. The McVicars then paid for an expensive plot in NOT the Mountain Hut or Amphitheatre Cemeteries, but Avoca’s. (see William McNab’s entry in FindAGrave)
In 1896, McVicar, after dying in the Amherst Hospital, joined him, but Caroline Janet, who had left him years before for the bright lights of Avoca, and who died in the Muckleford School residence in 1916, is buried in a modest grave on the other side of the Cemetery Creek. ( Some of the Gollops of Avoca are descended from Child 2, I am from Child 7, and our USA cousins from Child 4.)
The place where William Mcnab died is so steep and now so shady, it is difficult to photograph.
The surface of the track these days is drained through the outlet gutters on either side of it
Here are, on tin, McVicar at the back, Reith on the left, and McNab, probably part of the celebrating at finding “their” Glasgow Lead.
See also:
- Tom Woolman’s website: Stories, records and thoughts about James McVicar & Caroline Janet McNab who married at St. Sepulchre Parish Church, Holborn, London 13 February 1853
Wikitree:
- William Crawford McNab (1820-1861)
- James Nicholas McVicar (abt.1827-1896)
