Send 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.
It should be noted that since the book was published over twenty years ago, that a lot of the material in the books have been superseeded by later research, some of which can ben seen at my complete Rootsweb database at Amanda Taylor's Genealogy.
At the time Jane first came to reside in Sydney it was beginning to undergo a great change, thanks to the efforts of Governor Macquarie. The Governor had been apalled at the sights that met his eyes when he first reached the Settlement late in 1809. A Scott, by birth, he had a passion for order, and the complete disorder that surrounded him was quite foreign to his tastes.
The population of the Colony had reached 11,000 by the time of his arrival, and life at the best was still not easy. Even the rich suffered from a lack of essentials from time to time, in fact visitors to Government House had at times been asked to bring their own bread, so short were supplies. To drown their sorrows and escape from the reality of their plight, the settlers turned to drink, and would sell their very souls to obtain it.
Compared to London, food was scarce and expensive and also lacked variety, and other than the wealthy merchants, the people were very poorly clad.
The town, of course, was very different to the City we know to-day. The busy area of Circular Quay is man-made on reclaimed land. The original Government House had been sited by Governor Phillip and Bridge Streets. It stood in it's own garden of about four acres looking out over the harbour and the incoming tide brought the waters of that same harbour in almost to what is now Bridge Street. The streets were winding haphazzard affairs that meandered from one point to another, they certainly had not been properly made and the few carriages there were had to detour around tree stumps and pot-holes.
The Tank-stream, the main source of household water for the Town, and the reason for Governor Phillip choosing this particular spot for the settlement, had been allowed to deteriorate to a shocking extent. It had certainly been fenced to keep animals out, but the population not only washed their bodies in it, but their clothes as well!
On taking up his Office, Governor Macquarie set about making changes in the Town, and although the general appearance did not change overnight, slowly the new order did improve the lives of the inhabitants of the harbour-side settlement. New, wide, orderly streets were laid down and given the names by which we know them to-day. The residents were encouraged to tidy-up their homes and give them fresh coats of white-wash, taverns were severely limited in number and had to be licenced, and also had to remain closed during church hours. People were ordered not to open their businesses on the Sabbath, but to make it a day of rest, and above all to attend Church regularly. Persons cohabiting together as man and wife without the proper blessings of the Church, were encouraged to take their marriage vows. A decree was made to the effect that if they failed to do so, defacto wives could not expect recognition in the event of their menfolk dying intestate. Free schools were established to try and improve the lot of the many children aimlessly wandering the streets, the private schools which already existed being far too expensive for the poorer inhabitants, which, after all, were the majority.
So the Town of Sydney began to flourish and grow under the new Governor's guiding hand, trade improved and the port itself expanded and this was the Town into which Jane Ezzy settled about 1812 when Boulton and Co. opened at 40 George-street.
George Street is Sydney's oldest thoroughfare. It was first named Sergeant Major's Row and then High Street, but Macquarie renamed it in honour of King George the Third. Once it reached Brickfield Hill, however, on the outskirts of the Town, it became Parramatta-street, being the road by which the settlement at Parramatta Town was reached. Parramatta at the time was developing faster and had a larger population. The early Governors preferred to live there and only visited Sydney when a ship arrived from London.
The early streets were neither paved nor sealed so consequently they crumbled to dust beneath the pounding of horses hooves, and became a sea of mud after rain. The shops, as they became established, were mainly in Pitt and George Streets, and quide different to what we know to-day. Some of the smaller ones were even on wheels so that they could be pulled from spot to spot as trade declined. The proprietors of most of the larger ones, lived on their premises, so they were built as two-storeyed affairs, the shop premises on the ground floor and the lving quarters for the families above. Nor were the shops side-by-side, but indeed were spaced apart with white-washed cottages in between, complete with gardens of typical English flowers, trying to establish themselves in our unaccustome summer heat. Every property, however, had a gate complete with a latch that could be operated only by a human. This was essential because goats were almost in plague proportions in some parts of Sydney. They lived in the streets by day and were driven home at night by their owners for milking. Woe betide the gardens if a gate was left open for a moment!
Shop-windows as we know them to-day were unknown. Glass was imported and most costly, consequently many shops displayed their goods outside their doors to attract the customers inside. Here, of course, they were exposted to dust, flies and wandering animals, so it was usual for the more prosperous shop-keepers to employ junior assistants. These assistants were children, and they used to arm themselves with sticks to chase the wandering stock away, and so they became known as 'dog-wallopers'. It was also the duty of these same young assistants to bring the stock back indoors again if rain or dust-storms developed.
No. 49 George-street was sited on the very edge of the Town to cater for the needs of the traveller and trader, bringing his goods to the markets of the day to sell. The first markets in Sydney were in George Street, near present-day Market Street on a site now covered by the Queen Victoria Building. Market Street was so named partly because it was the street running down to the Market Wharf at Darling Harbour. During the time Jane Ezzy resided in Sydney, a new markets would be built further out near Brickfield Hill, and she would also see the development of this area to supply the early bricks for the Colony, hence it's name.
Jane would have seen many changes in the face of the Town during her years of residence. Permanent public buildings began to be erected, a few of which still remain today, chiefly, St. James' Church, The Rum Hospital (now referred to as Old Mint Building), Hyde Park Barracks, the Northern Wing of the Rum Hospital (now part of N.S.W. State Parliament House) The Government House Stables (now Conservatorium of Music) and Cadman's Cottage in the Rocks area.
The Rocks area where Jane is believed to have spent the last few years of her life had little to recommend it, as it attracted the least desirable products of the Community. The area was a tangle of hilly streets and narrow alleys and housed a population composed mainly of seafarers and those who ministered to their every need. It declined with the years, rather than improving and it's compliment of vermin, filth and disease made it no better than the streets of London that Jane had left behind.
Early Sydney had been called a "festering disease-ridden sewer. Not that the average citizen did much to improve it. He had no qualms about throwing his rubbish out of his front door -- why not, everybody else did it? By 1826, shortly after Jane Ezzy passed away he had so fouled his life-source, the Tank Stream, that it was not then fit for drinking and water had to be carted from present-day Centennial Park. It was sold to the inhabitants for three-pence a pail, which to-day seems a pittance, but when you take into consideration that a full day's work may only have brought in a shilling or two, and further consider how 'many pails' would be required to take a bath or a wash one's clothes, then there was very little to encourage the majority of the population to live a cleaner more hygenic life. Homes were lit by candles, cooking was done by open fires, and there was, of course, no sanitation of any kind. Cesspits, used widely for collection of excretment among the lower classes, were allowed to flow into the Tank Stream, one of the reasons by way of which it had became unuseable. In the more affluent areas water closets were used, but the sewage was washed into drains, which flowed into the same Tank Stream, so the end result was the same. Nightsoil was not collected until about 1849, but even then the carts collecting it merely dumped it untreated. Garbage, of course, was also not collected, and any items the household had no further use for -- whether dead or alive -- was simply tossed out onto the street.
In the last few years of her life we have very little knowledge of what Jane Ezzy did, or where she went, in fact there are but two references to her after her outburst in the Sydney Gazette late in 1816 claiming she was taking the matter relating to the ownership of Boulton and Ezzys Farm to the next sitting of the Supreme Court, the first was in 1819 and the second in 1821. Both references relate to Jane receiving a Publican's Licence, both times in Sydney Town.
The fact that the first of these two references was in 1819 adds further credibility to our theory that John Boulton did leave the Colony in 1819 as advertised, and that Jane, left alone in Sydney, was conducting an Inn in her own right. There are, however, several possibilities of where and how Jane may have spent those few final years. Firstly, although there is no evidence to suggest that she DID return to the Hawkesbury, after the altercations in 1816, there is certainly no evidence to the effect that she DID NOT. I, myself, am reasonably sure that she did not, because of the wording of her last advertisement in the Press. She refers to herself as a 'feme sole' and the legal interpretation of this is -- ' an unmarried woman, a spinster, widow or divorcee'. Of course, in 1816 divorce was unknown, it was something that came much later, but I feel Jane's use of the term implied that she considered herself a single woman quite apart from her husband and family and trading in her own right with her own business contacts. The second possibility is that with John Boulton in Parramatta Gaol from late 1816 until late 1817, possibly Jane was 'Mine Host' at the "Swan and Two Necks", and for all we know may have continued there, trading in her own right, until the time of her death a few years later. There is nothing to say John Boulton ever returned to the Rocks area after his release from prison; the notice claiming rights to the Estate of the late James William Ezzy, give no place of residence, nor does the one for the sale of the home in Charlotte Square, even supposing this was a residence of our same John Boulton. The supplier of meat to the Government Stores from Parramatta, may or may not have been our man, however, the person leaving the Colony in 1819 gave his address as Parramatta, so these two would appear, at least, to relate to each other and are possibly one and the same person.
There is no way of knowing the exact house number of the "Swan and Two Necks" in Cambridge Street, and it is quite possible that it was a business conducted in one of the two houses situated at numbers 8 and 9 Cambridge Street, Sydney that are known to have been in the possession of Jane's two youngest daughters, Elizabeth and Sophia, after her death. In 1823 when the girls sold these two houses they would have been only 16 and 18 years of age, far too young to have purchased the properties in their own right, and although there is no evidence of Jane Ezzy leaving a Will, I feel it is likely that she did do so and this is how the girls came to own the properties. So numbers 8 and 9 may been the "Swan and Two Necks", or else a later business that Jane conducted in her own right after she and John Boulton had parted and she was trading on her own.
Jane Ezzy had two grandchildren before her death, but it is unlikely she ever saw them. William James was born in 1818 and Elizabeth in 1819, both children belonging to her eldest surviving son, John Ezzey. Her two eldest surviving children were married prior to her death, but here again it is unlikely that she atttended either ceremony.
As to the grant of land Jane Ezzy received in Mulgrave Place, containing 30 acres, it would seem that Jane triumphed in the end and took the ownership of this most valuable possession with her to the grave. We have seen the copy of the Title Deeds to this old original grant kept at the Registrar General's Department in Sydney and we know for sure that the land was never sold or subdivided during her lifetime. No member of her family inherited, or benefited from it in any way after her death either. Dating from a period that coincides with the death of Jane Ezzy, the quite rent was not paid, so the Crown repossessed the grant and the Deeds were not reissued to a new owner for almost 100 years. Land was a valuable possession, and it seems most unlikely that if William Ezzy, or one of his children had these Deeds in their possession they would have let the Title lapse. They would either have paid the annual quit rent or else sold the grant. It seems far more likely that Jane Ezzy took these Deeds with her also in 1816 when she took the Deeds to Boulton and Ezzys Farm. We have not followed through on what Jane did with her half of this latter property, after the Provost Marshall had ordered that John Boulton's share be sold by auction.
Jane Ezzy passed away on 11th August 1821, and according to her headstone she was 51 years of age. She was buried at Devonshire Street Cemetery (also known as Sandhills Cemetery). Burials commenced at this burial ground in 1819, so it was still relatively new when Jane was buried there. The Church of England Section, which was the oldest section, faced onto Elizabeth Street. This burial ground had replaced the earlier one where Louisa was buried, when plans were being prepared for the erection of St.Andrew's Church, it having been in use from 1792 until 1819. Previous to that time there were two very small burial grounds nearer to the Cove, itself.
In 1901 when Central Railway Station was being erected, all those remains buried in marked graves, were removed to Botany Cemetery, or Bunnerong Cemetery as it was first known, or selse to another Cemetery of the relative's choice. As Jane Ezzy had a headstone she was removed to Botany and the headstone re-erected. My own parents saw the headstone there about 1950, but it was then very badly worn and starting to crumble, and has long since vanished.
In 1976 the Botany Cemetery Trust, removed the remaining salvagable headstones, and flattened and grassed the area into a Pioneer Memorial Park. The surviving headstones were then arranged in silent rows, as a semi-permanent memorial to our first settlers. I say 'semi-permanent', as time, wind and sand are slowly crumbling the old headstones and many are becoming unreadable. As a memorial to the likes of Jane Ezzy, who no longer has her headstone, the Cemetery Trust has erected a stone cairn at the entrance to the park with the following inscription :-
PIONEER MEMORIAL PARK.
Created by
BOTANY CEMETERY TRUST.
1976
Gravestones transferred from Sandhills Cemetery
Devonshire Street, Sydney
To
Old Bunnerong Cemetery
in 1901.
One question often puzzled over, is 'who' erected the headstone on Jane Ezzy's grave? Did the Family relent and forgive with her passing? I think not, but of course I may be in error in feeling this way. The inscription does not say 'wife' or 'mother', it is purely and simply a marker and reads:-
SACRED
To the Memory of
JANE EAZZY
Who Departed this Life
August the 11th 1821
aged 51 years.
If we are wrong in our assumptions, and John Boulton was still resident in the Colony, then he could have paid for it's erection. However, knowing the independent nature of Jane Ezzy, it would surprise me not at all, if she paid for it's erection herself! It is not an uncommon thing to read in a Will, instructions for the deceased's burial and later finishing of the grave and erection of a headstone. As it is highly possible that Jane had a Will, then it is also possible that she covered this item in it.
Although Jane's headstone is no longer in evidence, a visit to this early Pioneer Cemetery is well worth while, and one I would recommend to all members of this Family, or for that matter to any person with an interest in our early Pioneers. I would suggest, however, that the visit be made on a clear sunny day, late in the afternoon, when the sinking sun lights the remaining headstones with a golden light, thus enhancing their value as Memorials to the departed.
For further information on Jane's spouse, refer to my page regarding William Ezzy
My complete Rootsweb database can be seen at Amanda Taylor's Genealogy
Surname List of my Direct Ancestors Individual Name Index
Prepared by:
Amanda Taylor
P.O. Box 5042
Wheeler Heights NSW 2097 Australia
Send an e-mail to: Amanda Taylor