6 March 2000

The first time I came across her name was some years ago in the Herald Sun during middle of 1997 it was under a heading similar to this "Pioneering Women of Australia". As I read in amazement as to what "These" women had done I decided that considering she had been exceptional that we (Alan and I) should travel to Walhalla and check out any further information about her there. This we duly did. It was a beautiful day when we left and on the journey down there I could not help but look at the mountains on either side, the Strezlecki's to the right and the great divide to our left. I imagined what it must have been like trying to travel through these vast mountains with a team of bullocks and a wagon of supplies.

When we arrived at Walhalla we went to the museum. As I walked around on the wooden floorboards of the museum searching for any information about her it soon became clear that in fact there was nothing about AGNES. Initially my disappointment turned to anger and when I left I told Alan that it was about time I rattled some cages and obtained information about her.

The following Monday I contacted the Rare Books Librarian and asked for any information he may have on Agnes. He had very little there by very generously checked the other libraries and found a couple of books on bullockies in Clayton and a few more pages in the Gippsland Library. With the information I was given I then contacted the Professors concerned and asked for any help they may have. By return mail I received a number of short documents but nothing terribly substantial.

Within the documentation I was given it stated that she was buried in the Rosedale Cemetery so I decided to go there and place some flower on her grave. But alas I could find nothing there. I could find the grave of Hugh Buntine her first husband and also graves of other family members but nothing of Agnes, why? I started to ask myself, surely there has to be something here. On the return to Melbourne my file lay idle until one day I spoke to Sue Gore (a friend) and told her the story of Agnes and she encouraged me to go and collect as much data as I could . Put it all together and that she would assist me in approaching the ABC and seek advice on producing a documentary on Agnes.

It was about this time that I spoke to a girl at work Kate Roberts and she also has given me a lot of encouragement and has assisted me in my endeavours to find more information. But so far all I have become is madder and madder.


A month or so ago Alan and I travelled back to Rosedale looking of the grave of Agnes, we didn't find it. We found everyone else but her, so I suppose the bottom line is if in fact she is buried there she is in an unmarked grave - what could this woman have done to be treated like this. Or is it because when Hugh died she married a Michael Hallett some 20+ years her junior - good on ya Agnes is all I've got to say. I am presuming this many made her happy because she stayed with him until her death.

This is what I have found out about Agnes so far she married a man call Hugh Buntine shortly after assisting him with his children. I have serious doubts as to whether this man actually loved her. I have had my suspicions for a while particularly when it is always said he was "ill" for some time, I am inclined to think he hit the bottle and the raising of the children and keeping the home together landed in her lap. Although I have at this stage been unable to find out what was actually wrong with him. I know I'm fairly mad at the Buntine family and from now on I shall call her either Agnes, Agnes Davidson or Agnes Hallett. This mainly comes from the fact that when I visited the SLV last Thursday 2.3.2000 I found a small booklet produced by the Buntine family, although I may have missed something (but I'm sure I didn't) H Buntine's marriage to Agnes nor the children she had by him are mentioned in the book!

For me the bottom line is "it was she (Agnes) who took the bullock wagon into Walhalla not any of the other members of the family" I have also found a note of a conversation that she had with a JJ O'Connor at Toongabbie where she said "they laugh at me now" this was after they had been in discussion for sometime one night at the Toongabbie Inn (no doubt Hugh was tucked away in bed - not for him saddling up 8 bullocks day and night and trying to traverse across a rough and uninviting landscape. No way.



20 Mar. 00

Last Friday 17.3.00 a girl at work suggested that I check the firstfamily2001.com.au site on the www. I did a quick check on the Buntine Family and up popped Hugh (surprise surprise). On the documentation a Marilyn De Vere Wicking supplied that was there I found out the information, and even here Agnes was not mentioned. I wrote to this lady requesting any information she may have on Agnes and received a reply today, I also said in my message that I thought Hugh had remarried after Mary had died. In her reply she stated that yes in fact Hugh had remarried a woman named Agnes Buntine and that she had left her out of the item "My husband is descended from the first wife whose children were all born before they arrived in Australia. I kept to just these on the FirstFamily database as they were the one s who actually arrived here, and it kept things simpler than adding the "second family” who were born here.

First of all this may sound Ok but then on the other hand why kept it "simpler" when you have someone in the family that has completed a task that no other has succeeded in doing!

Reading between the lines there must be a hidden reason why the "Buntine" family only acknowledge Agnes as a last resort. Perhaps she was a real "Bitch" then again maybe she suffered more that you or I can possibly imagine. She apparently did this trip when she was in her late twenties and this was after she had 4 or 5 children plus caring for "Hugh's" first family of 4.

There is one thing for certain in my mind I can visualise her walking very heavily into the inn at Toongabbie. No doubt she would have been wet as it was winter and to make that final 400 yards she had to cross yet another creek. Lets face it she was tired and hungry, there would have been little help at the inn as far as organising her bullocks or horses.