Megalong Horse Riding & Australian Heritage Centre Family History

George Pearce lived on the Coxs River in the Burragorang Valley around 1836. The Valley then was a haven for cattle thieves, escaped convicts, bushrangers and Aborigines. He was born in County Somerset, England, in 1796, to William Pearce (snr.) and Elizabeth (nee Rylands). Hard times existed in England when he was growing up and the family was a large one, so what should have been his school days were either spent assisting on the farm or on the streets with an eye to earning a few pence to help the survive family. Like most youths of the time in his position, he did not always come by his gains lawfully. George survived through boyhood and teens without getting into trouble with the law, but eventually his luck ran out. Research reveals that George was a stonemason and cutter by trade, and he and his brother William (jnr.) who was a bricklayer travelled to Broadwindsor, Dorset, seeking work. Perhaps this was hard to find. They tried their hand at making a few shillings outside their respective trades and the long arm of the law caught up with them.. Legal documents for Commitments to the Ilchester Gaol, Somerset, from 12 to 25 January 1817 list George Pearce aged 23 years, late residence Broadwindsor, County Dorset, for house breaking and stealing kerseymere cloth. Also listed is his brother William Pearce the Younger, aged 30 years, committed for life imprisonment on the same charge of having broken and entered the shop of the said Richard Hancock and stolen three clocks and various articles, of gold and jewellery, his property; also a candlestick. They were further charged with having stolen a quantity of cloth and kerseymere. Sentenced to Death. Reprieved. Transported for Life. Delivered aboard the Lamel Hulk in Portsmouth Harbour 9th September 1817. George Pearce No. 2302. Tried at Taunton Assizes on 3 April 1817. Sentenced to 7 years' Transportation. Delivered on board the Lamel Hulk in Portsmouth Harbour 5th May 1817. A description of him at this time is: Native of Somerset; Religion, Protestant; Height, 5' 7'/4"; Complexion, ruddy and pock pitt; Hair, brown; Eyes, hazel. So George got to the hulks in May and was joined there in September 1817 by his brother in both blood and crime, William the Younger, who was no doubt feeling lucky to have missed the hempen necktie. George was detained in the Lamel Hulk for over seven months until finally he, his brother William and other convicts were loaded aboard the Lady Castlereagh, which sailed from Southampton for Australia on 22 December 1817. The Ship Lady Castlereagh sailed from England on Wednesday, 22 October 1817 and arrived in Sydney, NSW on 30 April 1818 under the Master George Weltden. Gov Macquarie notes; At 8,O'Clock this Evening, the two Male Convict Ships Lady Castlereagh Commanded by Capt. George Weltden with 300 Male Convicts from England, and the Minerva Commanded by Capt. John Bell with 160 Male Convicts from Ireland, anchored in Port Jackson; the former Ship having sailed from England on the 22d. of Decr. and the latter from Cork on the 1st. of Jany. last; neither of the Ships having touched any where during the Voyage nor lost a Single Man. — Mr. Jas. Cragie is Surgeon Supdt. of the Lady Castlereagh, and Lieut. Brotheridge of the 48th. Regt. commands the Guard; Mr. — [name omitted] Hunter is Surgeon Supdt. of the Minerva, and Capt. Allman of the 48th. Regt. commands the Guard on board that Ship. — George Pearce had worked as a stonemason in Somerset and Dorset before his conviction and so on his arrival in Australia, after a short period of reshuffling and checking his credentials, he was assigned to the Stone Gang in Sydney as a stonemason and cutter. At this time in and around Macquarie's Sydney there were a large number of buildings and bridges being erected from the local sandstone and anyone with even the slightest knowledge of stonework was very much in demand. So although George was fortunate in his transport to Australia, his luck ran out with his work allocation. Quite a number of 7 year convicts were assigned to large landholders to serve their time and in the main had a relatively easy time of it. Not so the Stone Gang; their work was heavy and hard, repetitious and boring and naturally they were under closer and stricter surveillance than their comrades who served their sentences on farms or as servants. Very little is heard of George (1) during the period from his arrival to the 1828 Census; we know only, from reports in the periodical Convict Musters, that his term of punishment was spent in the Stone Gang. George completed his seven year sentence in 1824 and granted his freedom in that year. After his release he continued to. work for the Government as a stonemason. He was granted a few acres of land in Sydney near Brickfield Hill, payment of which was deducted from his wages. The 1828 Census shows that George Pearce, aged 31 years, free by servitude, was working as a stonemason and Cutter and lived with his wife (?) Ellen and son George in Francis Lane, Sydney. His religion is shown as Protestant. His wife Ellen was aged 17 and was born in the colony, and their son George was one year old. On 9 March 1829 George Pearce was arrested in the company of William Robinson for stealing five pounds. He was tried and found not guilty. Following the death of their son, George and Ellen apparently had a violent altercation and in the ensuing melee the deeds for the land in Sydney were destroyed. George rolled his swag and walked out of Ellen's life forever. (in a notation by the then Governor o f N.S.W. Ralph Darling in a despatch) A lot of what follows was passed on by George (1) to his son George (2), my Grandfather, and Grandfather told it to me when I was a child. Working for the Macarthurs Apparently after bailing out from Ellen George went to work for the Macarthurs on their estate at the Cowpastures, (now Camden) It was while he was employed here that word went around of the activities, legal and otherwise, that were taking place in the Burragorang Valley, about 20 miles west of the Cowpastures. There was talk of wild cattle and horses; tribes of Aborigines neutral and hostile; cattle duffers and bushrangers hiding, out; abundance of game for food and rich loamy flats that would grow almost anything without any cultivation of the soil. These stories stirred the imagination of the more adventurous of the Macarthur workmen and George Pearce and two others decided to have a look for themselves. With as many provisions as they could carry they set off on foot in the general direction of The Valley. A few miles out of Camden one of this party had second thoughts and returned to the Macarthur Estate. The second member of the party dropped out at The Oaks (then known as Oaks), leaving George to continue his journey alone. I would very much like to know the name of this person who decided to remain at The Oaks, for it is a definite possibility that his descendants still live in that area. George continued his lonely journey through rugged bush with no knowledge of navigation and nought to guide him but hope and the sun. He finally found himself in a deep gully which appeared to be heading in the right direction for where he was aiming and so he descended to its bed and followed it down towards Burragorang. As he advanced the banks of either side of this gully increased in height and sheerness until they became cliffs to form a narrow chasm containing obstacles to be overcome. These were eventually conquered and George made contact with the Wollondilly River in the Burragorang Valley at a point where Brimstone Gully meets this river. It was via Brimstone Gully that George Pearce had succesfully entered The Valley. He now decided to follow the Wollondilly downstream. In doing so he would have made contact with the small settlement on Lacey's Creek where, since 1828, a dairy had been operated by John Lacey. It was on this dairy that Phillip Keefe worked as a stockman after he had served his time as a 7 year convict and obtained his Certificate of Freedom. In the future Phillip Keefe would become George's father-in-law. After following the Wollondilly a few miles George reached the point where the Wollondilly and the Cox's join to form the Warragamba. Here another decision had to be made: which branch of The Valley to follow? The large herd or disposing of some of their surplus stock in an area well away from where they were originally duffed (stolen). The duffing occupation was quite a lucrative one in The Valley at that time. A mob of cattle would be stolen from the Bathurst / Oberon district and driven into The Valley; here they would be grazed on the rough but abundant foliage that grew along the river flats, while the hue and cry died down. During this time the men would be busy branding cleanskins, changing brands and resting up. When it was considered safe to do so the herd would be driven up the Wollondilly and sold in the Goulburn district, a hundred miles or so as the crow flies from where they were stolen. On the return journey the duffers would not be empty handed; they would bring with them more stolen stock from the district and repeat their underhand operation in reverse. The duffers had a lot of advantages in carrying out these operations. Firstly, The Valley was only accessible to those who knew the route and it required very good horsemanship to move the herds in and out. Except for George the gang were excellent horsemen and knew The Valley and the few ways in and out of it like the back of their hands. Also the inaccessibility of this haven kept away any nosey person who might interfere with the smooth workings of their enterprise, such as stock owners and agents of the law. Furthermore, the fact that they could sell their stock in a different district to where they were stolen went a long way towards hiding their illegal activities. Today the Bathurst and Goulburn districts with modern transport and com�munications are not far apart, but in the 1830 - 1840 era they were worlds apart, with hardly any roads (or tracks) existing between them, the best transport being horseback, and mails between the two places slow and unsure. This gang began with just two men but as their operations became more succesful and lucrative more good bush horsemen were accepted into this brotherhood of adventurous thieves, until eventually they numbered a dozen or more. They had their camp at what was known as Bushrangers' Caves, situated on the opposite side of the Cox's River and a short distance upstream from the mouth of Butcher's Creek. This area was to be purchased by my Great Great Grandfather Phillip Keefe and eventually included in the McMahon's extensive Strathmore property. Although this area was known as Bushrangers' Caves there was not one cave of any size there in my time. Apparently, prior to when George (1) joined the gang, there existed an enormous cave where tons of stores and several riders could be sheltered, but this was just above high water mark and some time early in the piece a super flood in the Cox's filled the cave(s) with silt and debris and caved in the entrance to it. Bushrangers' Caves then became nothing but the name of a location on the river bank. Except at branding or mustering time or when yards had to be built or temporary fences erected, George's duties did not occupy the whole of his time. During these slack periods he broke in four stolen bullocks to the yoke and, after choosing a rich piece of land where a mountain stream flowed into the Cox's, he set to with his small team and what tools he had available to clear and cultivate it. This mountain stream was later to be known as Pearce's Creek, and the precipitous mountain from where this creek flowed, Pearce's Mountain. George worked hard^-to clear and fence a four acre piece of ground. He then harnessed his bullocks to a home-made wooden plough and proceeded to break up the soil ready for planting. Where he obtained the seed to plant this crop I do not know, but plant it he did with wheat. After planting the seed by hand, he hitched his team to a small tree which he had felled for he purpose and dragged it over the seeded ground; the branches of the tree served the same purpose as the tines of a harrow and covered the seed. There has been a lot of controversy about George (1) and the four acres that he planted on Pearce's Creek. Some of the Pearces claim that he was the first man to settle in The Valley; this is far from correct. Others claim that this crop was the first grown in The Valley; wrong again. But it would be safe to say that this four acre patch of wheat in question was the first to be grown on the Lower Cox's River. The problem is that I cannot pinpoint the year that it was grown. I cannot go by the date that he selected this land, for there was no connection between the date of purchase and the time that he worked the soil. Some land he cleared, fenced and produced from for years before he applied to select it. In later years this practice was to cost him dearly. After sifting through a lot of evidence (official, oral, dependable and dubious) I estimate that George grew this crop in 1836, give or take a year. George began farming on Pearce's Creek with little more than he stood up in - or at least, what was rightfully his. As further money became available from the furtive activities of duffing he continued to clear, fence and select (in that order) adjoining blocks of land until he was in possession of quite a large area of fertile land. That the land was virgin to begin with did nothing to daunt his progress; nor did the fact that his neighbours consisted almost entirely of cattle thieves, escaped convicts, bushrangers and Aborigines in their wild state. The land that he selected and worked (or rather, worked and selected) was among the richest to be had in that area, simply because for many years he had very little competition and therefore had the first choice. George was not only an ex convict and a member of a gang of cattle duffers, he was also a man of violent temper. This cannot be denied, but nothing can be taken from him for the hardships that he had to endure and the heavy work that he carried out in pioneering farming in that part of The Valley. That he had a very independent nature and carried out the greater part of the initial work on his own must also be credited to him. He and his two sons, George (2) and William, were later to pioneer a track out of The Valley via Pearce's Mountain, across the Kings Tablelands to the Great Western Highway near Wentworth Falls. It was along this route that the early settlers -on the Lower Cox's were to transport their produce by pack-horse to a ready market in the Blue Mountains. Extract from Rabbit Hot, Rabbit Cold - Own Pearce
George Pearce with his horse Possum around 1925 Right. Elizabeth Pearce (Born at sea in 1849 died in 1932)

Megalong Australian Heritage Centre, Megalong Rd, Megalong Valley
Blue Mountains NSW 2785, Phone (02) 4787 8188, Fax (02) 4787 9116