It is probable that Jeffries Road was originally a cattle track used by Field’s stockmen to move his cattle from the lush growth at Duck Marsh on the Dasher River to the open plains along the Don River at Kentishbury (West Kentish). It was here on the north side of Jeffries Rd where Surveyor Dooley’s blocks for sale ended. On the south side of this rim road, high above the Dasher valley, was the beginning of Foster’s Estate, which took up most of Paradise and parts of Claude Rd.
Last month’s article concluded with young Reuben & Margaret Austin settling on the corner block of Old Paradise Rd & Jeffries Rd in April 1862, and in 1865 Reuben standing on a log on the foothills of Mt Roland, declaring the district to be Paradise. The first two settlers along Jeffries Rd were Henry Overton, who arrived about 1862, and Joseph Harman in 1865, hence the road’s original name ‘Harman’s and Overton’s Rd’.
189 & 227 Jeffries Rd Springfield 45acres Henry Overton
Following a shipboard romance aboard the Whirlwind that arrived in Launceston in Jan 1855, Henry Overton (22) married Sophia Manning (21) in Oct 1856 and were amongst the very first settlers to come to Kentish. Henry was probably employed clearing scrub on another pioneer’s property until he and Sophia could afford to purchase their own property, Springfield, along Jefferies Rd, close to Reuben Austin’s property. It was Henry Overton’s house from which the exploring party crossed the Dasher River and climbed the steep slopes into the foothills of Mt Roland when Reuben Austin proclaimed it to be ‘Paradise’. As Henry Overton’s property joined Edmund Lord’s property, it was not surprising to find Henry Overton’s house used for the first meetings of the Christian Brethren evangelists in late 1874. On the third night, Henry gave his life to Jesus and became a committed Christian. Nearly all the surrounding pioneers with their large families were impacted by the same preaching. When the Kentishbury Gospel Hall was placed in the hands of seven trustees, the first two names were Henry Overton and Reuben Austin. Out of 10 Overton children, only five survived infancy, and all followed in their parents’ new faith. They were William, Ellenor (Mrs Walter Parker), Mary (Mrs James Turnbull), Rosena (Mrs James Kirkcaldy) and Charlie Overton. In 1909, Henry Overton underwent a long surgical incision without pain relief in Dr Ratten’s hospital to remove a cancer along his lip. He died 14 months later, in April 1911, aged 78. Henry’s youngest son, Charlie Overton, had taken his father’s farm and, in Oct 1901, married Lillian Ridge from Launceston, who had come down for the annual conference of the Kentishbury Gospel Hall. They had four children: Stan, Harry, Lilly Dean & Ella Frost.
167 Jeffries Rd Glen Dhu 50acres Joseph Harman
Joseph Harman purchased the property next to Henry Overton in 1865. Shortly after his arrival from England in August 1857, Joseph Harman married Eliza Connelly from Cork, Ireland. He was Baptist, and she was Roman Catholic. They had five children: Henry, James, Kathleen (Mrs Edwin Young), Mary and Maggie (Mrs Walter Crack). As the children grew, Eliza fretted over her children not being raised Catholic. Once she gathered them up and took them to Sheffield where a visiting priest planned to baptise them, but Joseph gave chase and brought them back home before the deed could be accomplished. In the late 1890s Joseph & Eliza retired to Devonport, and son Henry Harman took over the farm. In June 1898 Henry married Ada Ridge, the sister of Lillian Ridge who married their neighbour Charlie Overton. Being a carpenter, Henry built a two-storey house facing the Dasher Valley and the mountain. Ada ran their homestead like clockwork. She got herself a ram’s horn, and from her front veranda, every day at noon except Sunday, she blew the horn to alert the district it was time for lunch. Even the working animals got to recognise her call. When the Baptist Church was organised about 1893, Henry and Ada became foundation members, with Ada becoming the organist. When the Harmans sold their property about 1930, Harry & Blanche Overton purchased it.
Extent of Foster’s Estate
The massive section of the upper Dasher Valley granted to Foster’s Estate took up almost the whole of Paradise and the eastern part of Claude Road. Its northern boundary ran along Jeffries Rd, its eastern boundary along Harland Rise Rd and its western boundary along Lockwood Rd. Its southern boundary commenced on the corner of Harland Rise Rd, Paradise and ran in a straight line westward until it joined Lockwood Rd, Claude Road. In the mid-1870s, when Surveyor Dooley went up onto the Paradise plateau searching for more blocks to sell to settlers, he surveyed two 50-acre blocks on the mountain side of Foster’s Estate in Lower Paradise and several good blocks on the mountain side of Harland Rise Rd.
Paradise’s First Settlers: Wm & Pamela Whiley
So, in August 1877 these first two new 50-acre blocks were purchased by William & Pamela Whiley and son Thomas (22), who became the first settlers in Paradise. They called their property Hilltop, a name retained by Arn Morse when, years later, he owned the same property. Sadly, Pamela Whiley died of cancer on Boxing Day 1881, and two years later, William Whiley sold out to George & Amelia Morse, who called the property Norwood. Other Whiley family members bought most of the land between Paradise and Claude Rd and farmed it for well over 100 years.
1887 Foster’s first big auction
Prior to Foster’s auction of the lower end of Paradise and the Dasher River flats on 21 April 1887, it was necessary to survey access roads to subdivide this area into 16 saleable blocks. These roads are now named Short Cut Rd and Pages Rd. Paradise Rd, which had previously ended at Jeffries Rd, was also extended down to the Dasher River ford and, on its southside, rise straight up a very steep hill until it reached George Morse’s property on top of the plateau. Prior to this, Whiley and Morse’s access to their holdings was over a rough, muddy cart track up through the bush on Foster’s Estate.
At the April 1887 auction, Joseph Harman bought all the steep land between Jeffries Rd and the Dasher River, and his two sons, Henry and James, purchased much of the river flats on the south side of the Dasher. Pioneer settler Henry Day of West Kentish purchased two long blocks, one on either side of the Dasher River. His first block of 78 acres, began near Jeffries Rd and descended down Austin’s hill to the Dasher River. His second block of 131 acres, commenced on the south side of the river and climbed straight up the very steep hill to the property his brother-in-law George Morse had recently purchased. The newly surveyed road to Paradise ran straight through the centre of both Day’s blocks.
Over 20 years earlier, Henry & Mary (Morse) Day had settled on a property at the end of Cables Rd, West Kentish, where they raised their four boys and two girls. Henry Day probably bought these Paradise blocks for his oldest sons, but in the 1880s, they had caught ‘gold fever’ and were busy prospecting and purchasing bush blocks in the back country.
In 1894 Henry reached a deal with his third son, Harry Day, who had just married Annie Young of Barrington, to take over his land on the eastern side of the extended Paradise Rd and his brother-in-law George Morse to buy the 48 acres on the western side of the extended Paradise Rd from his Norwood property on top of the hill down to the Dasher River.
Early settlers at the Dasher River
Harry & Annie Day built their house on the southside of the Dasher River at a junction of a cart track that opened in the late 1870s as the shortest way to reach the gold diggings at the Minnow River. This track went eastward straight up over the hill and down the other side to the Minnow River at Lower Beulah. Apart from Harry Day’s house, at what is now 15 Watts Rd, James Green had an early house there and Edwin Young had a farm further up the hillside. In 1903 Ben & Margaret Sharman purchased Harry Day’s property and brought Ben’s aged immigrant parents, Ted & Christiana Sharman, to live with them. Ben had two children, Ted Jr b1904 loved to play the harmonica and Vera b1906 sing. The next owners were Percy & Susan Hampton (12 children), followed by Stan & Dot Bramich. When the Bramichs retired to Albert St, Sheffield, Dot became a tireless worker for the Roland Boys’ Home. About 1971, Kevin Treloar was next to purchase this property. Clarrie & Faye Milne moved into the old house, which they pulled down and replaced with a Hydro house from Gowrie Park. Clarrie, who worked most of his life with the PMG Dept, was a well-known coastal axeman.
After Ben Sharman sold to Percy Hampton, he built a new house further up the bush track at 32 Watts Rd. This was eventually taken over by their daughter, Vera, who married Cecil Watts, hence the present name of the road. After Gordon & Stella Sharman married in 1952, they lived across the road from Cecil & Vera Watts at 34 Watts Rd. Gordon became an experienced bushman. Over the wintertime, he would trap and snare kangaroos, wallabies and possums in the backcountry and in summertime he would fish the Forth and Mersey Rivers. Gordon enjoyed woodchopping competitions and won some trophies. Stella was a keen horsewoman and broke in horses. Later in life, Stella was involved in a wide range of community activities: Sheffield School, Kentish Hockey Club’s Women’s Committee, Badminton, the Claude Road Hall Committee, the Hub and Kentish Museum. She was awarded Kentish Citizen of the Year in 1985.
209 Paradise Rd Rolana: George & Amelia Morse’s 2nd home
Having outgrown their first primitive home, Norwood, on top of the hill, in 1900 George had Sheffield carpenter John L Dyer build a new house halfway down Morse’s steep hill where there was year-round access to spring water. They called it Rolana but after 1914 called it Berridale to avoid confusion with the new railway terminus named Roland.
Beside their new house was a notoriously steep hill, soon called ‘Morse’s hill’. Because water from a couple of springs usually trickled down the centre of the road, it was also treacherously slippery and constantly tested man, animal and machine to the very limit. There were many accidents. On Christmas Day 1908, Alice Manning & children were badly injured when thrown from their cart onto the metal road after their horse bolted out of control downhill. Four years later, on Christmas Eve 1912, Sam Richardson was riding his bicycle down the hill when the front wheel collapsed. He lay unconscious on the road for two hours until discovered. In both cases and many others, the injured were conveyed to the Morses’ homestead, and the doctor called. Once, Shorey’s traction engine and drum, straining up Morse’s hill, broke a shaft and blocked the road for over a week.
George & Amelia’s surviving children were Roy, Lilian (Mrs Stan Forward), Ella (Mrs Chas Dazeley), Ivy (Mrs Phil Moss), Ira, Clive, Ruby (Mrs Eric Lord), Arnold and Cyril Baden-Powell Morse – the only one born at Rolana and on the same day news was received that the Boers’ seven-month siege of Mafeking was broken. The whole family became active members of the Christian Brethren assemblies, and regular Sunday evening services were held in their home for years and then in their corrugated iron granary until 1916 when a Gospel Hall was moved from North Beulah onto George’s farm. Amelia died July 1919 and George passed away in July 1923 in his 84th year.
After George’s death, his two youngest sons, Arnold (23) and Cyril (20), continued to work the family farm in partnership – Arnold living up on Hilltop and Cyril at Berriedale. Two years after Cyril Morse died in 1964, Ken and Dulcie French purchased Berriedale and raised their four children there: Margaret, Phyllis, Rose-Marie and Robert. They sold to Tony & Iwin Woodruff from Darwin; he was a retired detective and she a policewoman. Tony had worked on the Azaria Chamberlain case and had to return to Darwin for the baby’s inquest. Then came Wally & Jan Canniford, curator of museums, and others.
Paradise Gospel Hall
In August 1916, the small split-shingle Gospel Hall previously erected on John & Albert Austin’s property at the top end of Beulah was dismantled, hauled across the Dasher River at Duck Marsh and re-erected in the top corner of George Morse’s farm in Paradise. It lasted six years. On a wild, stormy night in the spring of 1922, it collapsed like a pack of cards at the very hour their prayer meeting was usually held. Fortunately, because of bad weather, it had been called off. The following year, a replacement hall made of weatherboards with a galvanised iron roof was erected. Sunday school and services were held there for 35 years. The lower end of Paradise was Gospel Hall territory, and the top end of Paradise was Baptist territory, yet Christian goodwill prevailed. Sunday night services alternated between these two churches much of the time. In the early 1960s Girdlestone Transport picked up the Paradise Gospel Hall in one piece and set it down behind the present Bible chapel at 45 High St, Sheffield.