#OnePlaceStudies

Cemeteries in the district

Miss W. 1821-1850, 1851-1880, 1881-1910, 1911-1940, 1941-1970, 1971-2000, Early families, General information, Religion, Towns , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Tasmanian Family History Society Inc. has transcribed and photographed headstones of 800+ cemeteries in Tasmania and much of this information can be found in TAMIOT. Here is a list of the CDROMs available for purchase – I use mine on my desktop using Windows 10 without any problems.

Hobart Branch put together the series of three CDROMs of all the cemeteries in the Sorell District in 2004. The information on the CDROMs is not necessarily found on the internet. For each cemetery, they include a description, plan of the graves as well as names on the graves. Most also have images of the gravestones with a transcription and plot number. Many of these cemeteries have had further burials since 2004 when the CDROMs were created.

The One-Place Studies group often do statistical posts so I thought I might do one today about the local cemeteries with information gained from the CDROMs.

Name of Cemetery No. of graves Earliest grave Most common surnames
Carlton River Congregational 20 1838 Henry Morriss Dodge, Steele, Thorne
Copping General 359 1884 Sarah Copping Allanby, Alomes, Brown, Burdon, Copping, Dransfield, Franklin, Gillie, Jacobson, Kingston, Richardson, Swan, White, Woolley
Dunalley General 264

1870 John Clark

1870 Emma Lester

 Bird, Button, Fazackerley, Hildyard, Hyatt, Murphy, Rattenbury, Spaulding, Wiggins
Forcett – Lewisham 199 1876 Charlotte Jones Alomes, Clark, Dodge, Gangell, Long, Reardon, Rollings, Young
Marion Bay at Bream Creek 55 1852 Ann Dunbabin  1852 Louisa Ann Kingston Dunbabin, Kingston
Henry Street, Sorell 446 ** 1828 Charlotte McGinniss Allanby, Bellette, Duncombe, Featherstone, Gatehouse, Hayton, Newitt
Scots Uniting, Sorell 89 ** 1847 Hugh Taylor Denholm Denholm, Hean
St Thomas, Sorell 124 ** 1865 Thomas Wright Bresnehan, Butterworth, French, Montgomery, Wells
St Georges, Sorell 718**  ## 1829 Elizabeth and Susannah Walker – sisters Bellette, Bidgood, Braithwaite, Davis, Featherstone, Jones, Kean, Newitt, Peacock, Phillips, Reardon, Schofield, Walker, Wiggins

** Some women mentioned twice with both maiden and married name.

## Also includes memorials

Many of the cemeteries also had plots with unknown names and dates due to deterioration of headstones.

Readers: Do you know of a relative buried in one of these cemeteries earlier than that mentioned on the CDROMs?

Shell lime needed

Miss W. 1821 and prior, Early families, Services , , , ,

What is shell lime and why would the government be needing this in December 1820?  Was this shell lime to be used in building the new school house? How much is 400 bushels in modern terms?

Oyster shells were very good to create lime. The area around Pittwater was very suited to this as many aboriginal middens were located there and the bay was very shallow near the shore so convict workers could be sent out in the water to collect other shells suitable for lime making. But this could be dangerous as noted in this newspaper article of 1842.  According to Peter MacFie’s research, in the late 1830s, Henry Cooper had lime kilns on his property and it is supposed to be near Pitt Water. Could these be at the end of Shark Point Road? Or could they be the lime kilns mentioned in this advertisement of 1829 by Robert Garrett, a surgeon at Sorell.

Lime kiln on Norfolk Island. Built in 1845.

The steps to create usable lime:

  1. Collect shells and put in lime kiln
  2. Heat and burn the shells
  3. Slake the lime with water

Many of the kilns were inverted bell types shown in photo from Norfolk Island. This is the same as the one at Port Arthur. But the very earliest ways to make lime was to build up a pile of wood, put shells on top and burn quickly to collect the lime.

I put a question to the Sorell Historical Society Facebook page asking about buildings in the district with shell lime in the mortar and where might the earliest lime kilns in the district be. I then visited a few of these places to take some photos.

Horsecroft farm

Shell lime used as a whitewash on the old barn built in 1826 with convict labour. Originally owned by Captain William Henry Glover, an officer in the 31st Regiment of Foot, who had been appointed Police Magistrate of the Sorell District. Talking to the present day owners, there is also a lime kiln on the property at the top of the hill.

 

Lime was used in mortars and plaster in early colonial buildings. When mixed with sand, it produced a type of cement. In brick buildings, walls were often covered with a lime plaster and outside fences and walls were whitewashed with a lime solution. But for agricultural purposes, it could be mixed with clayey soil to improve the texture for crops.

Readers: Do you have any shell lime used as mortar or whitewash on your property? If you live locally, you might be able to send me a photo to include in this post. My email is on the sidebar of this blog.

Tenders called

Miss W. 1821 and prior, Buildings, Services , , ,

As this blog is now part of the world wide One Place Studies, I thought I would join in their #oneplaceWednesday activity.  Every Wednesday I will write a post relating to something found in the newspapers on Trove. I will try to make it close to the date 200 years ago.

2 December 1820 and posted on 9 Dec 1820 in the Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter

The area now known as Sorell was once called the District of Pitt Water.

When teaching at Sorell School, we told the students the school was opened in 1821. According to this article in the newspaper, tenders were being called for erecting a school house or perhaps a place of confinement or maybe both. Looks like they had very little time to contact Major Bell, the acting engineer, to say they would be interested in getting the tender. I wonder how much red tape they had 200 years ago compared to today?