Agnes Buntine was a bullock driver, trail blazer, matriarch and pioneer. She was a highly respectred, enterprising and strong woman, described by Richard Mackay as "a representative of the best of the old business pioneers1
"Mother Buntine", as she was often known, was one of Australia's few women bullock drivers. She had her own team and drove it from Port Albert to Seaton carrying supplies for the goldfields at Walhalla. From Seaton the loading west by packhorse to Walhalla. The track to the diggings was newly open and Mrs Buntine was the first to use it.
It appears from all accounts that Mrs Buntine coped admirably with the hardship and violence encountered during this enterprise. Richard Mackay describes how once, at Seaton in the 1860's, he saw Agnes Buntine ship a drunken man who had "dared to grossly insult an unoffending girl"2. According to another eyewitness she "laid into the drunk without mercy and thrashed him nearly sober" 3
In Gippsland Agnes Buntine was a legend. She could muster stock, kill and dress a bullock, use a pick and shovel and split posts and rails. She ploughed, harrowed and sowed her land. In short she could carry out any task as capably as an able bodied man
Agnes Buntine had two husbands and lived to old age herself. Her first husband, Hugh Buntine, left Ayrshire, Scotland in 1838 aboard the ship "William Roger". There was much sickness during the voyage, and the first Mrs Buntine, and a baby born during the trip, both died in Quarantine in October 1838 after the ship reached Sydney.
Owing to drought and a scarcity of water, Hugh Buntine and his five surviving children left Sydney for Melbourne in 1840. Her, on 30 October 1840 he married Agnes Davidsonand the family moved to the Merri Creek and began dairying.
Agnes Davidson had been born in Glasgow in1822 and had emigrated to Australia with her parents, John and Sarah and five brothers and sisters. She was engaged as a dairymaid by a farmer named King for 12 pound ten shillings per six months, with rations.
Hearing of good farming land in Gippsland Hugh left Agnes and his eldest son in Melbourne and sailed with the other children to Port Albert, where he arrived in July 1841.
He built a slab hut about a mile from Port Albert and he and the other children were joined there by Agnes and John on 1 September 1841.
On the 17 September Agnes gave birth to a son, Albert Alexander, and he is believed to be the first white child born in Gippsland. Agnes subsequently had five other children:
William born in 1843
Agnes born in 1845
Sarah born in 1848
Kathleen born in 1852
And
Isabella born in 1856
When Albert was only one week old, the family had a visit from some self-styled bushrangers who had come over by boat from Tasmania. They took only food and guns and later left the guns where they could be recovered.
In
1 Mackay, R Recollections of Early Gippsland Goldfields P 38.
2 Ibid Page 37
3 Handwritten from Mrs Buntine's step grandson
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GRAVE OF AGNES BUNTINE, ROSEDALE CEMETERY [Plan 2 - Grave 15]
ReplyDeleteI have been working on a project to locate Agnes Buntine's grave with Geoff Hallett from Canada, a relative of Agnes Buntine's second husband, Michael Dawe Hallett.
On a field trip to Rosedale cemetery on 29 September 2014, I believe I have located the Buntine graves as follows:
HUGH BUNTINE [Snr] Hugh Buntine died in 1867 at age 63 years of age and is buried on his own in an unmarked grave in the corner plot in the South West corner of the cemetery [PLAN 1 - Grave 90].
Refer photo: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/112342047
Although most of the wooden grave markers in PLAN 1 have been burnt out in grassfires over the past century and the area is mostly open space with only a few stone memorials remaining, the grave of Agnes' first husband, Hugh Buntine, was not hard to find as it is the corner plot right on the fenceline with the stone headstone of Henry Bunston [Plan 1- Grave 92] to its right. The grave of John Bunston [PLAN 1 - Grave 91], the infant son of Henry, is buried on the fenceline directly behind the headstone of his father Henry Bunston [Plan 1- Grave 92]. Hugh Buntine [Plan 1 - Grave 90] is buried to the left of John Bunston. .
AGNES BUNTINE/HALLETT
Refer photo:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/112342359 &
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/96493433
Agnes Hallett (Previously Buntine), died in 1896 at age 76 years is buried on her own in the grave with a wooden marker which erroneously says that it is the grave of her first husband Hugh Buntine who died in 1867[Plan 2 - Grave 16] .
I have taken measurements from behind the grave of Henrietta Dawson [PLAN 2 - Grave 11] North from the fenceline towards the monuments for Hallett & Buntine graves [Plan 2 - Graves 15 & 16].
To complicate matters, the grave numbers run North to South from graves 1 to 10, then change from South to north from the Dawson grave [Plan 2 - Grave 11] to Grave 30 then back the other way again. There are no grave markers between Dawson and the Agnes Hallett grave but the ground depressions reveal the location of the irregularly spaced graves. Another complication is that the original grave diggers didn't put the graves in straight lines in the older sections in Plans 1 & 2. .
After measuring out the intervals between Graves 11 & 30 in Plan 2, I am satisfied that the headstones for the Agnes Hallett (Buntine) & Hugh S Buntine graves are correctly positioned for Graves 15 & 16.
Pat Davis [healthycells@hotmail.com]