Send an e-mail to: Amanda TaylorSend an e-mail to: Amanda TaylorA Story of an Early Pioneer Family, Researched and written by present-day members of the Family, themselves.
The following article was written and researched by Grace Douglass & Laurel Legge and published in their book 'Along the Windsor Richmond Road' 1985 (ISBN 0 9589831 0 0 and ISBN 0 9589831 3 5) and is subject to copyright. Written permission is held from the late author Grace Douglass for the writer to publish contents via the Internet. However, although this book is in the public domain, it still remains copyrighted material and may not be copied for any reason without permission. I do not have the right to give permission to others to reprint the book. I was only given permission to put it on line. All copyrights stay with Grace Douglass & Laurel Legge and whoever they appointed, for control of the book. Under no circumstances may it be reprinted for profit.
Extractions of parts of the information for personal use with references to the book as the source is encouraged.
This photo of Henry Ezzey is on Page 248 in Book 2 of 'Along the Windsor Richmond Road
It is somewhat of an embarrasment to have to admit that even though you have stated that you are the Compiler and Co-researcher of The Ezzy Family History, have traced the History of the Family for a period of at least 125-years, and have followed the lives of four or five generations down nineteen lines, that you do not know where your Great-grandfather, Founder Member of your own particular Line, was for the best part of the first thirty years of his Life! Or indeed, for the most part, for the first forty!
Henry Ezzey was born in Mulgrave Place on the 4th April, 1826, duly baptised at St. Matthew's Church, Windsor, and listed in his alloted place in the 1828 Census; however, from that date there is not a single record that we have been able to find that confirms 'where' Henry was living, or 'what' was occupying his time, until the year 1854, when he was present as a witness at two Weddings. In January of that year, his sister, Jane, married James Townsend, and in the following October, his cousin William John Ezzey, married Catherine Roberts. Also, after the two weddings in 1854, there appears to be no further mention of Henry, for another ten years, until he is a witness at his youngest brother Joseph's wedding in 1864.
[Note : In the 1863 Electoral Roll his brother Joseph EZZY was residing in Balonne Queensland Australia.....Amanda]
He did not, so far as we can see, buy, lease, sell or otherwise enter into any land deals; nor did he apply for a brand, hold a Publican's Licence, commit a crime (of which he was charged and convicted), enter into litigation of any kind, or in any other way, appear to leave his 'mark' on the Colony.
Of course it is reasonable to assume, and rightly so, that someone had to be helping John Ezzey work those increasing acreages in the Kurrajong, and similarly the leases on the Bulga Road would need overseeing. It would also have been possible, and indeed highly probable that he could have been engaged in droving cattle from Balonne or 'Molly for members of his Family. Whatever he did, wherever he went, he left not a single 'clue' that we have been able to find. Henry, himself, apparently never mentioned it, nor did his children, and my Mother [Queenie Florence BUDDLE nee TAYLOR] and her generation of his Family, evidently neglected to 'ask'.
Henry Ezzey was almost 39 years of age when he married Mary Anne Witney at St. Peter's Richmond 6/3/1865, and Mary Anne was 24. the witnesses at the wedding were John Long and Elizabeth ---. Unfortunately the surname of the second witness is smudged and unreadable, and she could be one of a number of people. Henry was the last member of the Family of John and Rebecca to marry.
Mary Anne had been born in Chinnor, Oxfordshire on 29/6/1840 and had come to the Colony on the 'United Kingdom' in 1844, with her parents, Edmund Witney and his wife Elizabeth Ratley, farm workers and assisted immigrants. Mary Anne had spent her childhood years on the 'Hobartville' Estate at North Richmond, where her Father and her Uncle, John Witney, had been employed by William Cox Jnr. The Family had later lived at Agnes Banks. Mary Anne often spoke to my Mother and her other Grand-children of how she had come from England in a great sailing ship, however, as the Family sailed from England on Xmas Day 1843, when the young child was only 3 & 1/2 years of age, I feel she was recounting tales that she had been told, rather than what she, herself remembered. Although I must admit that her journey to the Colony would have been imprinted on her memory as it had been far from pleasant and has been recorded in detail in the last section of this Family History, relating to our Spouse Families.
I feel Henry must have been one of those quite Ezzys', which perhaps explains the lack of information about his early years. Very few stories have filtered down through the years to give any clue as to what type of man he was. Certainly his photograph, which has survived, does not make him appear to be a 'stubborn Ezzy'. Unfortunately because he married so late in Life, very few of his Grandchildren knew him, the majority of them being born long after his death, although they all recall their Grannie, Mary Anne, well, as she outlived him by more than another twenty years, before she followed him to the Churchyard.
The couple started their married life on the Comleroy Road, although exactly 'where' has not been established, other than the property ran back onto Little Wheeny Creek. Henry, so far as we know, did not own this first farm, he was either leasing or share-farming. The couple remained in this area for about six or seven years and six children were born to them there, four of whom survived. Although their Family was a large one, they buried a third of them as infants. The children born in Comleroy Road were - Mark Stanley 4/3/1866, Louisa Anne, March 1867 (survived 7 months), Naomi Grace (Grace) EZZEY and Medora Florence (Dora) 21/7/1871.
There is some confusion over the exact name given to their fourth child - Saban or Laban, or even Lebanon. The handwriting in the Parish Register at the time of his burial has been transcribed by several people as 'Saban' including a typescript copy held at Windsor Library. Other people think the Register reads 'Laban'. The Registrar General has recorded the birth and death as 'Lebanon'. Mary Anne Ezzey like many of her generation, held a very strong belief that the Bible should be ready daily. I have, in fact, in my possession at the present time the Witney Family Bible with the book-mark still in place where she was reading at the time of her death - The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Chapters 24 and 25. The ageing book-mark is of soft red leather, and is inscribed on both sides. Firstly 'A Prosperous 1912', and on the other 'Better wait on cook than a doctor'. Further back in the same Bible in the Book of Job, is another old blue-silk book-mark issued at the time of St. Stephen's Kurrajong's Jubilee in April, 1919. Printed in gold it lists all the early Rectors from 1869-1919, the (then) present Wardens of the Church and the Church Motto which was 'Forward'. Tucked away back in The Book of Exodus is an ancient piece of silverfoil from a Cadbury's Chocolate. It has rested there so long that the 19th and 20th Chapters of Exodus are now sprinkled with silver flakes. Also between the pages of this well-worn volume are sprinkled many of the names that Mary Anne chose for her children - Mark, Ruth, Naomi, Grace, John, Ephraim, Ham, - and unfortunately both Laban and Sabean! So the 'first' name of this small infant who went so swiftly to the Churchyard, will never be clarified. His second name 'Henery' was for his Uncle, Henery Witney, and not for his Father and Great-grandfather, hence the variation in the spelling.
We have not established where these elder children of Henry Ezzey were baptised, however Louisa and her brother were buried at St. Peter's Richmond.
After the birth of their sixth child, Dora, in 1871, Henry moved his growing Family to the township of Richmond to live in one of the cottages left to him there in March Street, under the terms of his Father's Will. As previously stated in the chapter relating to the Will of John Ezzey, one of these cottages, No. 34, is still standing, however, it is not known whether the second one was built on the site now occupied by No. 32 or 36, nor which cottage it was that Henry and Mary Anne lived in for the next few years. My Mother has positively identified No. 34 as being one of the original pair as she clearly recalls going there with her Aunt (Minna) to collect the rents, when she was a young girl living with her Grandmother at Grose Vale.
It was here in their home in Richmond that their next son, John Albion was born in November 1872, but he too was buried in the Churchyard 11 weeks later. The following year the couple registered the birth of another son, Robert Charles, and they also registered his subsequent death. As we have found no record of his burial, we can only assume he died at birth or soon afterwards, and was buried as an 'infant'.
It is not known exactly when Henry and Mary Anne moved their young Family to South Kurrajong to live (Carters Road and Grose Vale, were names still in the future). My Grandmother told her Family she was about six years of age (1876), and that she clearly remembered her Father loading up their furniture and possessions onto his horse and cart and taking them out to their new home. She also recalled that he had to make several trips to move everything. She said his brothers had helped him build the little farm-house. (This would have to be Richard and Joseph as the others had all left the Kurrajong by 1876).
It was only a humble farm-cottage, Henry Ezzey never did aspire to riches during his Life-time. Nevertheless, he cared well for his Family whilst he was here, left the World owing no Man, and provided for his Widow and minor children, after his death.
The house never appears to have had an actual name. The relatives and neighbours alike, no doubt referred to it is 'Henry's Farm'; my Mother, who of course never knew Henry, always called it 'Grannie's Farm' or 'Grannie's Little Cottage'. By the time I holidayed there in Carters Road, as a young child, it had gone --tumbled down with age. All I can remember is a big old tree, and a hugh square 'lolly tank' that the Family had used to store rain-water. These tanks were the first 'containers' that came to the Colony. They came mostly as deck cargo, although some were stored in the hold, and contained dry-goods, store-goods and personal possessions for the early settlers and when sealed-up, arrived in the Port, looking much the same as we see the modern container vessels arriving to-day. Afterwards these large strong containers were much sort after for use as water-tanks.
The photograph below of Grannie's farmhouse [on Page 251 of 'Along the Windsor Richmond Road' Book 2] was taken by my Mother's elder sister, Elsie Grace Taylor, with a small box camera, many years after Henry Ezzey had gone to rest, the cottage, however, had not changed. The photo is taken from the front of the house; at one side looking onto the dusty track --(the road remember came much later)--was a large summerhouse where the Family escaped the hot summer sun when they had a little time for relaxation. The house was constructed of heavy hewn timber which had originally grown on the property. Only the area immediately in front of the main door which was protected by an awning to provide a verandah, was painted with lime-wash, the remainder was always left as bare wood. The lime-washed section received a fresh 'coat' annually. The roof was originally bark shingles bu these had been roofed over with corrugated iron before the snap was taken. The ceilings in the main house were also of bark. The main door opened into the dining room which had windows that opened onto the front and the back of the house, as it ran the full depth of the building, as all but one of the rooms did, as there was no hall, just inter-connecting doors that allowed access from one room to the next. The cottage was very sparsely furnished, and all items were basic. The dining-room, which also doubled as the Parlour, was furnished with a dining table and six chairs, two lounge beds which had provided extra sleeping accomodation, no doubt when all of the Family had lived at home, Auntie Min's 'treasured' sewing machine; Grannie's Rocking Chair (described in 'Treasures from the Past'), and another fire-side chair which belonged to the youngest daughter, Minna. Auntie Min claimed to have purchased this chair with money she earned by selling eggs, and therefore expected to find it vacant at the end of the day when the chores were completed and she wished to sit before the fire. This room contained the only fire-place in the main house. The house had been built with three bedrooms. Two were smaller single rooms and the third and larger one, was referred to as the 'boys' room when my Mother lived there (although the boys had long since gone). As previously mentioned, one of the bedrooms had windows only at the back of the house, the reason for this being that at the front, it opened into a small store-room. This small utility-room also opened onto the verandah so that stores could be readily collected and taken to the separate kitchen building. When Mary Anne had her Father, Edmund Witney living with her this had been his bedroom, so perhaps it had been added at that time by shortening the second bedroom. The store-room was where the bulk supplies of sugar, flour and other dry-goods were stored. Where was the cedar hall-table you ask that I described, also in 'Treasures from the Past', if the cottage had no hall? In Grannie's bedroom --she used it as her dressing table! Each of the bedrooms had only a minimum of furniture --a double bed, a dressing table and a large chest-of-drawers. This latter piece of furniture was the main storage space in the room, as the dressing table, was just that, a 'table' and the only wardrobe space provided was a corner one which was basically only a curtain on a rod. In Grannie's room was also a large cedar cupboard with deeply spaced shelves and this provided the storage for the household linen. Any other left-over item of wearing apparel was hung on large hooks behind the bedroom door, with a sheet or dust-cover over the Sunday-best.
The separate kitchen was similarly made of undressed hewn logs and was divided into two rooms. The building had no ceiling, just the bare rafters to which the corrugated iron and possibly the earlier bark shingles had been attached. The smaller of the two rooms was used for the storage of fruit, vegetables and meat, and the Family took their baths their in the warmer months in a large tin tub. The larger room where the cooking was done will be described in greater detail a little further on in this Chapter. It was also where the Family bathed in the colder months in the same large tin tub, placed in front of the open fire. The floors of both the main house and kitchen buildings where made of wood worn smooth and dark, as if polished, by the constant tread of feet over the years. In the main house the boards were partly covered by scattered mats. There was no laundry in these early homesteads. The clothes in Grannie's house were boiled up in large boilers or cauldrons in the open air over a big fire. When the tanks were too low to spare the water, the washing was done in cold water, down in Bell Bird Creek.
As to why Henry Ezzey sold his land that he inherited under the terms of his Father's Will in Cabbage Tree Road, only Henry, himself, would have been able to answer. Henry's little cottage was built on 30 acres of land originally granted to Patrick Boyland, which he stated in his Will he had purchased from a Mr. Poole. He later purchased another 60 acres known as the Thompson Grant from James Skuthorp. (This would be a nephew of Richard and Elizabeth Skuthorp and not their son). This was the way Henry's farm was made up at the time he made his Will, however, the information is somewhat misleading as the Will was made not long after Henry moved to South Kurrajong and the 'holdings' did not remain that way. The Will was dated December 1877, and as he puts it --'I Henry Ezzey of the Colony of N.S.W., Farmer, do this day of December one thousand eight hundred and seventy seven, being of sound mind and in full possession of my faculties and fully aware of the uncertainty of life, etc., etc....' He went on to quote the same Title references I have already given, however, in 1888 Henry re-sold the 60 acres he had purchased from James Skuthorp, and appears to have purchased a farm containing 50 acres that had been an original grant to Thomas Miller. By referring to the map on page 133, it can be seen that this new purchase made his holding more compat. It also had a common boundary with two of his Father's original portions in Cabbade Tree Road, and another portion at that time owned by his brother-in-law William Sullivan. (later owned by the Bush Family and worked for them by his son William Manton Ezzey).
It was the Miller grant that Henry owned at the time of his death (as well as the Boyland grant), and not the Thompson grant. By this time Henry may have realised that a road would eventually bisect his farm the way it was originally laid out, where-as to-day the Boyland and Miller grants are on one side of Carters Road and the Thompson grant is on the other. Obviously Henry Ezzey and his Family were still allowed access to the creek-water on the Thompson grant, in times of need, for it was on the opposite side of the present-day road that Mary Anne took her washing to clean in the Bell Bird Creek.
The farm, although small consisted of good land and so it was successful. The two main crops were seville oranges which were sold to the Jam Factories and the crop of 'Kurrajong Wool' which was sent to the local tanneries. Windsor by this time had six tanneries, containing over 200 pits between them and they were capable of processing a total of over 500 hides per week, all told, so the demand for the 'wool' was constant.
After the Family moved to their new home the remaining eight children were born of whom six survived - George Ephraim (Eph) 8/11/1874, Hamilton Langley (Ham) 21/12/1875, Caleb Edmund (Cale) 19/1/1877, Claudia Elizabeth 9/4/1878 (survived 13 days), William Manton (Mant) 19/3/1879, Minna Ethel (Minnie/Min) 16/4/1880, Lambert Hedley 17/3/1884 (survived 10 months) and Ralph Kenneth 20/3/1888.
These eight children were all baptised at St.Stephen's Church of England Church at South Kurrajong, and Claudia and Lambert were buried with their older sister and brothers in St.Peter's at Richmond.
Like other members of his Family, Henry now took his wife and children to worship at St.Stephen's Church of England Church at South Kurrajong, and Henry was for many years a lay preacher there. However, although they took their children there to be baptised, they still returned to the older church to be buried, even though St.Stephen's had a burial ground. The reason for this of course, was possibly that they had aleady purchased the Family Plots at St.Peter's for earlier burials prior to the founding of St.Peter's Church in 1869.
According to a 'snippet' I found in an early copy of the Windsor and Richmond Gazette, Henry was asthmatic. The issue dated 12/9/1896 advised its readers that 'Mr.Henry Ezzy (sic) had been very ill lately having had an attack of his old complaint, asthma'.
Illness was often something that our 'grandparents' had of necessity to find their own cures for. Mr grandmother Grace Ezzey, on two occassions during her Lifetime, suffered from what was then a most dreaded and more often than not, fatal disease, diptheria. On the first occasion, she was only a child, and although my Mother never did determine the 'age' at which the illness was suffered, we know that it has to coincide with the flooding of the river (as I shall explain in a moment), which would therefore, put the 'time' as possibly in either the years 1877, 1878 or 1879, as these were the three years during the childhood of Grace Ezzey in which the Bridge was closed due to the flooding waters lapping over it, after the Family moved to South Kurrajong. The disease attacked the Family when the river was in high flood and so they were cut off from the administration of a doctor. Mary Anne, had of necessity to 'invent' her own cure. As to whether she acted by instinct or had prior knowledge of how best to cope, is not known, but she dosed them thoroughly with castor oil and blew sulphur down their throats, possibly with a paper funnel. My Grandmother testified later that although each one of the children was affected by the disease, not one of them died. Apparently those of the children that survived their first year, were made of good 'pioneer stock'. Mary Anne had her own 'pet' cure for other ailments too. In the latter years of her Life she was greatly troubled by indigestion. My Mother often recalls that when she holidayed with her Grandmother first at the age of 8-years, and later lived with her for a time, her Grandmother had the drawer of her bedside table filled with empty junket tablet bottles. On her first visit my Mother had been allowed to amuse herself by playing with the tiny bottles. Mary Anne used to chew the tablets to ward off her attacks! Junket tablets, of course, contain rennet, which is an ingredient used in some indigestion cures. I had often heard this 'tale' over the years, of Mary Anne and her empty junket tablet bottles, so I smiled even more when I heard the Rev.Frank Ezzy refer in the accounting of his own Life Story (further on), to the fact that his Aunt Mary Anne had given him some junket to eat that had failed to set. Perhaps she had eaten too many of the little tablets and left herself with insufficient to set the milk!
Even when the presence of a doctor was possible in these early times, diagnosis, treatment and cure were often based to a great degree on trial and error. According to Henry's Death Certificate his death had been due to 'influenza from which he had been suffering for two weeks, and gastro enteritis which he had for ten days', however Henry had been suffering indifferent health for several years and the local doctor had been treating him for a suspected tape-worm. Despite the treatment the patient's health did not improve and his final short illness took him to his grave at the age of 72 years. After Henry passed away, acting with the Family's permission the doctor performed an autopsy in the local Hospital. A Specialist from Sydney, even made the journey out to Richmond to be in attendance, as he was most interested to 'inspect' the tape-worm. The autopsy, however, revealed that there was no tape-worm, and that what Henry had been suffering from all these years was a very badly diseased and much-shrunken liver---not much bigger than a walnut the doctor had told the Family later. I would mention, however (before any person had some bad thoughts about 'Grandfather') that Henry was a VERY strict tee-totaller!
Henry Ezzey passed away 15/12/1898, and was buried at St. Peter's Churchyard two days later. Caleb, was the informant on his Father's Death Certificate and unfortunately confused his Maternal Grandmother Elizabeth Witney with his Father's Mother, Rebecca, for he has quoted in error -- 'Mother - Elizabeth Lamb'. This is, unfortunately how these errors creep into Family Records, and get passed down in Family History.
Mary Anne, of course was many years her husband's junior and she outlived him by almost another
twenty-one years, and it is during this period of her Life that she is remembered by her surviving
Grandchildren. When she lost her husband, the youngest son, had yet to complete his education,
and the management of the farm fell upon the shoulders of her next youngest son, Mant who was
still single and living at home. Also under her care at this time was her aging Father, Edmund
Witney, who died only a few months after his son-in-law, in February 1899.
[Note : According to
Edmund Witney's Death Certificate he died on 31 Jan 1899 and was buried on 1 Feb 1899].
Mary Anne died 26/7/1919, one of the many victims of the dreaded flue epidemic that hit the country at that time. Soldiers returning from World War I were blamed for bringing the disease into the country, for it first struck the Troop Ships returning home with the servicemen on board and it swept through the entire country like a bushfire out of control. It reached Plague proportions and is generally referred to as the Pneumonic Flue or Pneumonic Plague, and affected all countries, Worldwide at that time. It was of course, long before the days of the 'wonder' drugs, most of them were developed at the time of the Second World War, and in the years following after that event. As was usual with this type of outbreak, the young, and the elderly, were the worst affected, and although it would be wrong to say that Mary Anne actually 'died from the flu' she most certainly was one of it's elderly victims and much weakend from the attack, died shortly afterwards, never having properly regained her strength.
She was buried alongside her husband in St. Peter's Burial Ground, and although the couple do not have a headstone, we have determined the exact place --Row 5, plot 86. The location can quite easily be established and identified by the large adjoining vault belonging to the members of the Rouse Family.
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