Rediscovering Ginninderra:
Ebenezer Brown

Soon after marriage, father, mother, Uncle Charlie (Mother's brother), and Aunt Annie (Father's sister) became partners in a general store at Wisemans Creek... a goldmining township a few miles from Oberon in the Bathurst district. Alf Southwell, a brother of Uncle Charlie's was responsible in a way for this partnership at Wiseman's Creek. Uncle Alf was a teacher stationed not far from Oberon at the time Uncle Charlie was married, and recommended that the general business at Wisemans Creek would be a profitable one and it was up for sale. At that time gold was being found in the district ....which at that time had a large population for such a small area. The business didn't turn out to be the bonanza pictured by Uncle Alf. Mother and father lived in some of the rooms of an old hotel, while Uncle Charlie and Aunt Annie had a house farther away near the Post Office. Father did most of the carting of goods either from Bathurst or Oberon. This meant that a lot of time was devoted to travelling by cart and horse along poor roads.

I was born at Wiseman's creek on 18th. October, 1898; my sister Dorothea was born there on 17th December, 1900. Ross was born at Hall in 1903.

Father and Uncle Charlie with the help of mother and Aunt Annie conducted the business, the only store at Wiseman's Creek, sometimes using gold as a medium of exchange. Father often had to use a magnet when accepting the gold as iron filings could be mixed with the gold to increase the weight.

As often happened in gold mining towns, the metal becomes scarce and the population gradually dwindles. This happened at Wiseman's Creek and as a result it was unprofitable to trade. Hence our folk began to look around for a new business. Fortunately the store at Hall A.C.T. under the name of A.W. Flower was for sale and Grandfather [Samuel] Southwell anxious to get his folk nearer home, offered to help in the purchase of the business. Soon the partnership of Southwell and Brown decided to accept the offer of grandfather's and made preparations for returning to the home country as it were. Soon father, mother, Uncle Charlie, Aunt Annie, together with Dorothea, a baby, and myself left Wiseman's Creek and travelled by train to Yass to be met by grandfather in his buggy. Mother and Aunt Annie didn't see Wiseman's Creek again....Father, Dorothea and her husband, Harold Smith, visited the little township about 1928. They drove the new Buick car, the first long trip it had ever undertaken.

The store at Hall consisted of a single room like a hall, with a hip roof extending to a skillion at the rear. The walls were lined with shelves and counters were placed on three sides. The skillion contained the bags of bran, pollard etc. and boxes of unopened goods. At the rear of the main building were stables made of slabs and sheds for vehicles, which included a cart, a sulky and a buggy. A waggonette was used for carting goods from Queanbeyan.

I understand that for a while, both families lived together in a building not far away from the store. Later a new pisé building of four rooms on a block of land to the east of the store and not far distant was built. The soil for the building was carted from where the Hall park is to-day. The construction of a pisé building was reasonably cheap. This building of four rooms consisted of a front bedroom where father and mother slept, adjoining this room was what mother called the front room, where any visitors were entertained. It contained a sofa, a few chairs, a centre cane table with a crocheted cover, and photos on the wall. Later we had an Estey organ, on which Dorothea and Ross learned at one time. The two back rooms acted as a kitchen and a spare room......

I can still see my mother getting breakfast for us using an open fire for cooking and often in the light of a kerosene lamp, waiting for father who was at the stable feeding the horses in preparation for a 17 mile trip to Queanbeyan for goods. During the winter father bought rabbits and took them to Queanbeyan where buyers from the freezing works bought them. This trip sometimes done daily and at early and late hours was a most trying one, for mother as well as father, as it meant at times a four o'clock rising, on bitterly cold mornings. No refrigeration meant the work was done in winter.

During holidays or at special times we sometimes went to Queanbeyan with father in the waggonette. This waggonette was built by George Kinlyside, a very clever blacksmith who carried on his business just over the road from our place. At one time he made and patented a poison cart, which were much in demand throughout the state. Our waggonette was well built and with three horses in harness it looked very impressive, especially when father wore his cork helmet as he sat on the high driver's seat.

Mother was a good business-woman.....She attended to the sale and purchase of drapery and looked after the Post Office which was attached to the shop. Uncle Charlie was the official postmaster. Uncle Charlie also looked after all accounts and sent out the accounts. Sometimes mother went to Queanbeyan in order to meet the commercial traveller from Petersen and Boesen's, a firm in the City, and at that time situated in Barrack Street. Sometimes each one of us children was allowed to accompany mother to the city....Generally these trips were for the purchase of goods for the store.

The post office attached to the store took quite a deal of time, as there were a few outlying centres whose people had mail addressed to Hall. The telephone also required a deal of attention, as there were a few subscribers, some on party lines who had to be plugged in when calls were made. Letters were postmarked, tied, sealed and bagged for transport by coach to either Queanbeyan or Yass.