Stations
of Wynyard County Stations
of Wynyard County
Yabtree
The text is from a paper read to the Wagga Wagga & District Historical Society on October 16th, 1972,
by Wallace Horsley, and is used with the kind permission of his family [1].
(It appears here in abridged form).
The name Yabtree was said by Dr.
Bennett to be the native name
for the area. He visited the
Gundagai district in 1832 and spelt
it Jabtre. Unfortunately I have never
been able to find out its meaning. In 1830 or 1831 members of
the Hillas family squatted on Yabtree,
having launched out from their
property, Hillas Mount, on the
Wollondilly River at Taralga. They
established their head-station at the
present site, three quarters of a
mile from the river, on the west
side of what is now known as
Hillas Creek. They also established at
least two out-stations as far as
fourteen miles up the creek, calling
them Murri and Bobacumbola. Although the elder brother John
seemed to be the owner of the
stock, it was his younger brother
James who stayed on at Yabtree - where
he was shot dead in his hut
in March 1835, aged 27 years.
(It is of interest to note
that this grave, its
location being long forgotten, was
rediscovered when the grave for
Wallace Horsley was itself excavated, August
1991).
In 1847 John Hillas snr. died, with
the station then being run for
his estate till it was sold in
1856 to Moorehead & Young. They were
the nominee leaseholders for Yabtree
in Australia for The Scottish Australian Co.,
which was then but a finance
company; it was later that it
became a direct investor in pastoral
holdings. There is evidence to suggest
that Walter Buchanan Young did occupy
Yabtree in that he sold Horned
cattle under his own brand - WY - in
1859; Horned cattle are classified
thus only on attaining at least
two years of age.
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On the 18th July, 1862, the station was transferred to R.F. Horsley & R. Whittacker - the actual sale had taken place in 1859, however it was only on the final payment being made that the sale was effected. The next and last transfer was made from Horsley & Whittacker to Horsley in 1866, although Whittacker appears to have withdrawn from the partnership and acquired Jellingroo in 1862 (Jellingroo lies immediately to the east of Yabtree, on the Murrumbidgee River). The next big change came with the implementation of the Robertson Land Act of 1861, which allowed for the selection, previous to surveying (A measure which sought to speed up the process of closer settlement. Up till then, this could only occur once the surveyors had completed their work, a slow, laborious task), on Crown Land. The fourteen year lease of Yabtree didn't expire till the end of 1865 due to the original granting of it in 1848 being delayed till 1852 as a result of disagreements with the neighbours over the placment of the boundary. By 1882, there were 68 individual names on blocks on Yabtree. Of these selectors there is only one family left, the Derricks. |
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R.F. Horsley died in 1891, and he was succeeded by his son R.F.L. Horsley, who carried out major renovations to the homestead, adding the side wings with bays, the nursery wing, as well as several of the buildings that comprise the home-farm. When R.F.L. Horsley died in 1925, the station was divided between his three sons, with F.L. receiving the homestead portion, I (Wallace) the portion called Gundillawah, and R.N. Yaven. Post Script. At the time of the devastating flood of 1852, R.F. Horsley was conducting a store in Gundagai. When the flood waters came down he took shelter in a tree, from which he was rescued 36 hours later by Yarri, a member of the local Wiradjuri nation, who braved the waters in his canoe searching for survivors. |
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The homestead has been elegantly renovated, and run as a B&B, hosting celebrities such as Barbra Streisand, attracted, no doubt, by the charms of luxury in such a bucolic ideal. The care of the property has passed to the next generation of the family within recent times.
[1]. This lecture was originally printed in the Journal of the Wagga Wagga & District Historical Society, People, Properties and Possessions. 5. 1982. |
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