Early pioneers in Upper River and their descendants
Descendants of early pioneers in Kangaroo Valley sometimes visit the area after they have read or been told stories of their families’ lives here.
They are well informed and curious to see the properties where forebears began the Australian chapter of their histories.
Two ladies, Helen Henderson, from the Keevers and Meredith Peach, from the Cooper families respectively, were pleased to relate what they knew of the past and their stories have now become part of this collection of ‘Kangaroo Tales.’
They had both been inspired by reading the well researched history of the families by Elizabeth Webb and for the accuracy of the historical data given to me by Helen and Meredith; we are indebted to this fine historian.
These two families intermarried in the C19th and also later with sons and daughters of other Valley pioneers, so tracing their activities is an intricate and colourful exercise.
Descendants of both families may learn something of their industrious forebears and enjoy finding their own place in history.
The Keevers family of Jamberoo and Upper River Kangaroo Valley are fortunate
to be able to trace their heritage
from the mid C17th long before
Captain Cook ‘discovered Australia’.
In 1823, William Keevers and his brother came to Australia with the Third Regiment, aboard the convict transport ship, ‘Princess Royal’.
His wife, Sarah travelled with him and gave birth to their first son, James, the day after they landed.
The ongoing Australian connexion, relates to this family.
William Keevers was born in 1792 at Margate, Kent.
He had served with Wellington and his Waterloo medal and pay book are in the War Memorial Museum at Canberra.
In 1834, he and Sarah acquired land at Dapto, which they called ‘Hussar Farm’.
Three of their children were born on this property before William sold in 1841 and bought at Jamberoo.
William and Sarah had eleven children and they are both buried in Jamberoo Cemetery.
Their third son William, born in 1827, married Ann Scott, an immigrant from Co Mayo, Ireland.
The officiating chaplain was James Barnier, brother of Eliza who was the first Post mistress in Kangaroo Valley.
The couple had three boys and when William was killed in a riding accident, Ann moved to Kangaroo Valley where the Anglican Minister gave financial help to the young widow.
She later made her home at Coff’s Harbour.
The eighth child of William and Sarah was Thomas Keevers.
He was born 1837 and stayed farming at Jamberoo.
He married Jane Hunt and they had a family of twelve children.
It is interesting to discover
that three of the Keevers men,
Thomas, Richard and Edward married
three of the Hunt family ladies,
Jane, Sarah and Hannah.
The parents of these women had come to Australia courtesy of the harsh penal system that existed in England in the C18th-C19th and served terms for very petty crimes.
They eventually received their freedom, married and proved industrious farmers.
As the generations progressed the Keevers spread to different areas of NSW,
uniting with other pioneering families
and improving their fortunes
as farmers and cattle breeders.
We shall follow the story of Thomas Keevers and Jane Hunt, the only members of this first generation of Keevers to remain in Jamberoo.
Their great grandchild, Elizabeth, married Les Webb and she is the wonderful historian of the family.
Elizabeth tells me her mother, also Elizabeth, married Charles Simpson and their daughter, Sarah was the bride of Thomas Holder.
They were her parents. Elizabeth and Les loved their time in the Valley with visits to Oscar and Madge Keevers and exploring the wilderness of Upper River being very special.
Her family farm was at the base of Beaumont.
Thomas and Jane Keevers had a son, John, born 1872, who came to Kangaroo Valley after his marriage, in 1891 to Mary Jane Cooper.
Mary was born in 1863 and was his first cousin from the Cooper family who taken up selection in Gerringong Creek area, Upper River in the 1860s.
John and Mary Keevers with the help of their six children were successful dairy farmers.
The family were very involved with the community and Mary Jane was a competent homemaker and fine needlewoman.
Some of her work can be seen at the Pioneer Park Museum, Kangaroo Valley.
They are both buried in the Valley Cemetery. John died in 1941 and Mary Jane in 1930.
The youngest son of Mary and John, Oscar, born 1900, farmed at Upper River.
He had married Madge Graham, from the Upper River pioneering family, in 1929 and their descendants are Ross and Joyce Keevers. Oscar died in 1960 and is buried in Kangaroo Valley Cemetery.
Helen Henderson has several other notable family connexions to Kangaroo Valley and Jamberoo.
Her grandparents were James Keevers, born 1879 [the youngest son of Thomas and Jane of Jamberoo] and Susannah Carpenter, also from that district.
Susannah‘s grandparents were very early pioneers in Jamberoo, in the days when the cedar was being harvested.
Her grandmother came from Germany, in 1844 and married her grandfather, John Fleet in 1860.
They farmed at Jamberoo and are buried in the cemetery there.
Helen’s mother is the great-grand-daughter of James Sharman, born 1833 and Maria Jackson, born 1834.
They migrated as free settlers from Huntingdonshire in 1854.
Returning to the Keevers and Cooper families.
The connection by marriage goes back to the first generation of the Australian branch of both and records an earlier period in the history of Upper River settlement.
Mary Keevers, sister to Thomas and ninth child of the head of the family, Sarah and William was born at the family home, ‘Hussar Farm’ Dapto in 1840.
In 1859, she married Stephen Cooper, born 1834.
Some of their children were born in Jamberoo, but the family did not stay in that area.
They took advantage of the opportunity to ‘select land before survey’,
following the Robertson Land Act of 1861 and moved to
Upper River, Kangaroo Valley,
where they were to raise eleven children.
The property was east of the Kangaroo River and up Gerringong Creek, and their neighbours were the Schreiber and the Walsh families.
Some of their younger children went to the first Kangaroo River School, which had opened in 1877, after intensive agitating by the community.
This school was built north from where the old road crossed the river.
Then the main road to Upper River was on the eastern side of the stream.
Today it is on the western side and the old way now called Kelly’s Road.
It was a busy place between the crossing and Gerringong Creek ford, for here was the Butter Factory, a school and a post office.
In 1909, the latter was in Richard Morgan’s solid pit sawn weather board home, opposite the Butter Factory.
The early history of Dick Morgan’s House is very sad.
In 1898, soon after moving into their new home, four of Mary and Dick’s children died of diphtheria and in 1901, Mary also died.
Dick abandoned the house and later moved from the district with his remaining children.
Interestingly, the cottage which is still there has been tenanted over the years by both the Cooper and the Keevers families.
As the district became more populated there was a need for a new school.
The first school was over six kilometres from Gerringong Creek and the Fountaindale Primary at Robertson, was well over twelve kilometres away on a very rough track.
Stephen Cooper was on the School Board to petition the Department of Education for the establishment of a school where Gerringong Creek meets the Kangaroo River.
This was opened in 1888 and the old Kangaroo River School closed in 1916.
The Post Office was then moved to the other side of the River, near the Hillcrest Anglican Church.
The O’Sullivan family operated it until the property was bought by the Love family who maintained the facility until after WW11.
Mrs Love was the post mistress and her daughter, Peggy helped with the Telephone Exchange.
From the knowledge she gained, Peggy Cox [nee Love] was able to qualify for employment with the Nowra Telephone Exchange and enjoyed a successful career there.
The old slab house was dismantled in 1970 and the timbers used
in the office of the Pioneer Park
Stephen and Mary Cooper continued to farm in the Upper River area until they died in 1892 and 1904, respectively.
A daughter, Mary Jane Cooper, born 1865, married her first cousin, John Keevers in 1891. This has been previously documented in the Keevers History.
Another daughter, Sarah Ann born 1862, married William Henry from Co Fermanagh, Ireland, in 1885.
William’s father had been killed on the voyage to Australia and his mother brought the young family to settle with her family, Emery, in Jamberoo.
Another daughter, Elizabeth Cooper, born 1868, married Francis Dowse in 1892, at the Anglican Church in the Valley.
They farmed at Barrengarry and their seven children attended school there.
None have remained in the district.
Meredith is descended from the Coopers via the Henry family line and Helen, from the Keevers via the Thomas Keevers and Jane Hunt line. Elizabeth Webb traces her lineage from Thomas Keevers and Jane Hunt.
They are all related to the patriarch and matriarch, William and Sarah Keevers.
Rather than put too fine a point on the relationship, the conclusion is they are distant cousins.
Thank you to all contributors to this interesting history of early pioneering days in Upper River and especially Elizabeth Webb for the accurate family lineage information.