Early Jottings of the Upper Page and Isis River Districts
Thomas Haydon was a Roman Catholic, and a very religous man, though not bigoted. In the early days he battled hard to get the clergymen from Maitland to come regularly to Haydonton for services.
He was rather shocked on his arrival in New South Wales to find that his brother Peter had not been observing his religious duties. When Thomas went to the Page River district he never missed an opportunity to attend services when he was passing through any of the towns where services were held and succeeded in getting Rev. F. R. Lynch to hold services regularly from Maitland and later on when Lynch became Deacon, Rev. F. Rigney took his place, about 1841.
A weatherboard church was erected on land in Haydonton given by Thomas, part of his Commodore block, as well Thomas gave the land for the Roman Catholic Cemetery. St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Murrurundi.
A Mrs Ellis, a protestant, died and being only one cemetery, the Roman Catholic one, she was buried there. The Roman Catholics went to see Thomas at Bloomfield and demanded she be rooted out.
Thomas was horrified and so that such a shameful thing would not happen again he gave land for all the other denominations, as well as this he gave the land for the convent as well as for the Presbyterian church.
The number of services in the Roman Catholic Church by 1847 were 10 a year. By 1848 the original St. Josephs had become dilapidated, a move was made to replace it in stone, the original church needed repairing, which Thomas had done at his own expense.
The stone church was begun before Thomas died on November 2, 1855 but it was not nearly finished. The sandstone for the church came from the Haydon quarry near Paradise Park.
St. Josephs is a very fine church for a small community to have built. The Convent has not been used for a long time. It was renovated under the R. E. D. Scheme, during the Whitlam Government and used mainly by groups of school children on various projects. It is a beautiful building.
St. Josephs also has a most unusual bell tower which I hope will be looked after in future years. The first wedding and first religious ceremony of any kind was performed by I. H. .Garven, a Presbyterian Minister brought by Peter Brodie to Harben Vale for his wedding to Matilda Haydon.
Presbyterian services had been held by Rev. George Anderson who conducted church and school prior to 1843, this faded and by 1851 Alexander Black came to try and revive things.
The number of presbyterians dwindled and for a lot of years it has not been operating. The Methodists still going, with a visiting clergyman coming from Quirindi. Neither are going today in 2016.
Thomas gave land for the Presbyterian Church as well as a substantial donation to the Anglicans, he was practicing ecumenical ideas so long ago. Peter Haydon was the first person to be buried in the new Catholic Cemetery, when he died on March 4, 1842. His brother, Thomas, was buried beside him on November 2, 1855.
As early as 1839 the Anglicans had a quarterly service, conducted by the Rev. W. Stack from Maitland. The first resident clergyman was Rev. I. J. Nash from the late 60s. The Haydon sons had been baptised in the Roman Catholic faith, the two daughters, Presbyterian like their mother, Thomas had hoped to convert her to his religion and she must have been a very strong willed person to resist.
Rectors of St. Paul's over the years were: Reverend I. I. Nash, W. D. R. Lewis, J. Ross, W. Marshall, F. D. Grigson, H. A. Woodd, Charles Bice, E. la Barte, E. F. Waddy, H. S. D. Porter, Arnold Connolly, F. Rushford, K. S. Single, C. W. Nicholls, H. H. Hobart, William Hurne, M. M. Redman, W. H. G. Cochrane, M. C. Brown, W. Holmes, 1. Smith, R. M. Hazlewood, P.L. Mumford, I. Freeman. I have described this church in another part of this book. The cemetery was still in the Haydons name till 1958, when it was transferred to the Murrurundi Shire. Prior to that date the Haydons had maintained the grounds.
The Court of Petty Sessions at Murrunundi had been established in 1845 and had been administered by Justices of the Peace, W. H. Warland, John Gill and David Thompson. The court was usually held every fortnight but additional meetings could be held if necessary.
The Justice of the Peace dealt with minor criminal cases and from 1847 they were empowered to try civil claims where the amount in question did not exceed £10.00. They also tried cases of disputes about wages between master and servant. A lot of the cases brought before the magistrates today seem trivial beyond belief. In 1845 David Thompson decided to return to Scotland and Thomas was appointed in his place and he rarely missed a meeting. He appeared to be a just if somewhat lenient magistrate. W. H. Warland was anxious to reduce the time he spent as a magistrate and John Maunder Gill was about to leave the district, two more magistrates were appointed, Peter Brodie of Glenalvon and P. W. Wright of Bickham. About a year later Andrew Loder of Colly Creek was added to the bench.
The Loders had been early settlers around Wisemans Ferry. They pushed north to the Maitland-Singleton area and moved again to the Liverpool Plains when settlement commenced to open up there. They had two cracking properties, Colly Creek and Quirindi Station.
Part of their duties was to supervise and oversee construction of roads and road repairs. This seems an awful lot to expect private people to do. 1849 was a busy year as it was at this time that a road was built over the Liverpool Range. Surely a blessing to all the teamsters who often had to wait in Tankers paddock for a favourable time to cross.
This road would also mean that the Coaches could now cover a wider area. In 1851 Thomas spent some time in Maitland. During this time he was a member of the Maitland District Council, a forerunner of Local Government and Shire Councils.
Thomas' illness in December did not interrupt his work as a magistrate for long. The Warrah Shire Council was elected in 1906. It seems strange that the Murrurundi Shire district should be so named, but the part over the Range is the biggest part of the Shire and it contains the richest lands commanding higher rates.
The first Shire president was R. P. Abbott who had just bought Barsham. Mr Suckling went bankrupt and the bank had a manager looking after it until sold. R. P. Abbott had been at Cooga and then Abbotsford on the Liverpool Plains before buying Barsham. He was not president for very long.
Following him, the following men served the Shire very well. William Greer, executive of Shires Association for 15 years, F. J. Holloway, I. F. Heyman, Martin Norvil, Ken Arnott, Reg White, John Kelso, Hector Barwick and John Musgrave.
There was a nice little shire office, and Mr Simpson was the Shire Clerk, assisted by a junior office boy. Later during Ken Arnott's term, a new or rather an extension was made to the building. It is quite an imposing place with a big board room. Following Mr Simpson's retirement Charlie Eley became clerk with one office boy. Today with computers and modern office technology they have quite a big staff by comparison.