18 minute read
The Cains of Rye
By Lynne Woollard, President of the Rye Historical Society - adapted from 'The Cain Story' by Phil Cain
More than 180 years ago Owen and Sarah Cain and their family, which eventually extended to seven children, put down roots in Rye. Since then various family members have made a significant contribution to that community and descendants can still be found in Rye, some of them students at Rye Primary School. However, it is the members of the first ‘wave’ who are the subject of this study.
The Emigrants
The story of the Cain family of Rye began with the arrival in Melbourne of Owen Cain and his wife Sarah (nee Bigley) from Dungannon, County Tyrone, Ireland, on 10 June 1841. Owen was born in 1798, the son of Joseph ‘Kane’, a lime burner. Owen and Sarah’s first child, Mary, was born in 1830 followed by Michael (1837), James (1838) and Joseph (1839).
About the time of Joseph’s birth, Owen heard of the opportunities to be found in South Africa, America and Australia. He was particularly interested in a place called Melbourne in the far south of the colony of New South Wales where it was reported that a ‘building boom’ was in full swing. The reports also indicated that good quality limestone was in abundance close by at a place called Point Nepean.
Left. The original property (to the right of Canterbury Jetty Road) with the extension to the property to the left of the road.
1. St Johns Wood Road
2. Canterbury Jetty Road
3. Melbourne Road
4. Whitecliffs Road
Early in 1841 Owen, Sarah and the children travelled to Belfast from where they were to embark on their long sea voyage. It was here that their friends and relatives gathered to say good-bye. We can only imagine the sad farewells to loved ones who they knew that they would never see again. As the little ship, the ‘Frankfield’, sailed away from Belfast on 7 February we can picture them lining the rails along with the other 210 passengers and waving; waving not only to those they had left behind, but also to the country that they loved so dearly.
Both Michael and James are missing from the ship’s records so they must have died as infants. However Sarah was nursing a baby (also Sarah), not yet six months old. Owen had paid 53 pounds for the family to migrate to Australia; a considerable sum of money in those days.
Owen and his family set foot on Australian soil at Williams Town (as it was known then) on 7 June 1841. From there they travelled the last few miles to Melbourne by steamer and their first sight of Melbourne town was that of a straggling, evil-smelling place with a population of about 7,000, many of whom were living in tents. There was a high death rate and streets were filthy. Even seven years later an Argus reporter was to write that he personally had that very morning found 17 dead animals lying in pools of stagnant water in Lonsdale Street.
Emerald Hill and then Rye
Owen and Sarah purchased land at Emerald Hill (South Melbourne) where the family lived in a tent while Owen travelled to Point Nepean to search for limestone. He looked around Portsea and Sorrento but most of the limestone-bearing land had already been taken up. However he found an area about five miles back towards Melbourne that was rich in the stone that he had been seeking. He knew immediately that this was the place where he hoped to spend the rest of his life. On returning to Emerald Hill he made application to the Surveyor General in Sydney to squat on about 350 acres. This was duly granted; the licence to squat being one shilling per year plus the requirement to carry out improvements such as fences, work huts and dwellings. After 14 years the land could be purchased for one pound an acre. This was the land they would claim. This was the farm that they would proudly name ‘Tyrone’.
Situated just outside the boundary of Tyrone was the feature ‘White Cliffs’ and just to its east there was a Maori camp. Maori Street in Rye was so-named to commemorate the presence of these New Zealand natives. How these people arrived, or when, has never been confirmed. They were renowned for their fishing skills. The system they used was to light a big fire on the beach to attract the fish. They would then wade into the water, forming a semi-circle while thrashing the water with large sticks or tree branches, driving the fish close to shore where they would spear or club the catch. (The Rye Historical Society has one of these clubs in its museum).
As well as the Maoris, there were also Aboriginal people in the area. They were nomadic and as long as fish and game were abundant they remained, but as soon as food became scarce they would move, more often than not towards Western Port. However, they always returned.
Owen employed Aboriginal people in ‘napping’ (shaping) the limestone and cutting wood, most of which was burnt in the lime kiln. The remainder was shipped to Melbourne and sold to various bakers. Ti-tree was a sought-after wood as it burned with an even heat. Owen paid the Aboriginal people with items such as meat, butter and chewing tobacco. Their camp was on the flat area at the rear of White Cliffs where the Rye Industrial Estate is now located. A corroboree ground was also in this area.
The Family Expands
The birth of Owen and Sarah’s son, John, on 8 October 1843 was the first of their children to be born in Australia. The Cain family was by now living in a wattle-and-daub structure measuring 45 feet by 15 feet. It had a bark and shingle roof and was divided into three rooms by calico and white-washed canvas. A stone fireplace the entire width of the building stood at one end and beside it stood two large pots: one contained water and the other was used for cooking. The building was to remain standing and in use for fifty years. The extra land they were eventually to purchase was an area enclosed by Cain Road at White Cliffs to an area between Canterbury Jetty Road and St. John’s Wood Road, Blairgowrie. It was rich in limestone, similar to that of Tyrone in Ireland. Owen’s first kiln was a small open type known as a bush kiln but a much larger one capable of producing 60 to 70 bags of burnt lime a day was completed in 1846. The main income from the farm was the sale of limestone and burnt lime (two shillings and sixpence a bag when delivered in Melbourne) and firewood (sixpence a ton when delivered).
In 1845 and 1847 Michael and then James were born; both were named after brothers who had been born in Ireland but had not survived. Then in 1850 the last of their children, Thomas, was born. The family of five boys (Joseph, John, Michael, James and Thomas) and two girls (Mary and Sarah) was now complete and they all worked long and hard. They quarried the stone, cleared and cultivated the land, grew their crops and burnt lime to become self-sufficient.
Around 1850 local builder Mr. S. Morse was engaged to erect a solid limestone building on what is now the corner of Flinders and Locke Streets. Although named ‘Tyrone’, it became the focal point of many local activities and was widely referred to as ‘The Main House’. From about 1860 to 1908 Catholic Mass was celebrated at this house as there was no Catholic church in the vicinity. The Cains’ first lime kiln was to the west of the homestead, about where Sarazen Street is now located.
Separation from New South Wales
Ruled from Sydney since it was founded, the Port Phillip District was now demanding its own representative government. Once the village of Melbourne received unwilling British recognition, the founding fathers began to clamour for the whole district of Port Phillip to be separated from the mother colony of New South Wales. They were impatient to be free and independent. In April 1851 the Victorian Electoral Districts Bill was passed in Sydney
and on 1 July Governor Fitzroy issued the writs for the election of new government. After immense agitation, bordering at times on violence, the colony had won independence from New South Wales. For the next 50 years Victorians were to celebrate Separation Day as a public holiday. During 1860 the land at ‘Tyrone’ became eligible for selection. and Owen secured seven lots for a pound an acre. In the 19 years that he had been in Australia he had paid for ‘Tyrone’ plus his two Melbourne properties (a seven room brick dwelling with coach house and stables at 141 King Street and his land at Emerald Hill). He was regarded as a ‘Gentleman and Landholder’; a man of distinction. continued next page...
Left. The Cain properties
1. Tyrone
2. Killarney
3. White Cliffs
The Next Generation
Mary was the first of Owen and Sarah’s children to marry when, on 8 August 1850, she married Thomas Ross, a sea captain from Western Port. The wedding took place at St. Francis’ church in Melbourne.
By this time ‘Tyrone’ was well established. Two teams of bullocks and 16 horses were required to run the farm and operate the kilns. Many of the old limestone homes in Portsea and Sorrento were built with stone supplied from ‘Tyrone’. Two examples are the Sorrento Hotel and the now demolished Nepean Hotel. The original St. Mary’s church in Sorrento was also built of this stone; although demolished in the 1960’s, limestone from the old building was used in the façade of the present building. The completion of the new jetty opposite Canterbury Jetty Road made it easier to ship both limestone and wood to Melbourne.
In October 1866 the eldest son, Joseph, married Annie Murray at Brighton. When they were first married Joe and Annie lived at ‘Tyrone’ with Joe’s parents. Before long a second house, similar in design to ‘Tyrone’, was erected near the jetty. The house, called ‘Killarney’ after that part of Ireland which Annie’s parents migrated from, is located on Murray Street. Joe and Annie had eight children, seven of whom were born at ‘Tyrone’; only the youngest (Thomas) was born in ‘Killarney’.
All had been progressing well for the Cains and a great deal had been achieved. However, the first real tragedy for the families was to occur on 20 July 1887. On that morning Joe, who was a regular early morning swimmer, drowned while swimming in the bay at Canterbury (now Blairgowrie). Joe’s wife Annie struggled on with her young family. She baked bread daily at ‘Killarney’ and, carrying as many as twenty loaves in a sack on her back, she tramped to ‘Tyrone’ where she sold them to the lime burners.
She died in March 1894 aged 52. Ada, then 15, and Margaret, 13, took over the housekeeping and looked after their brothers; Thomas was still only 10. John took over as head of the household but at the age of 18 he left to work in the diamond mines in South Africa. He maintained contact for twelve months but then nothing further was heard from him. Correspondence with Transvaal police led to the assumption that he had died of miners phthisis (a chest complaint caused by inhaling mine dust).
Thomas, the youngest member of the family, was next to marry. In 1872 he married Margaret Sauntry of Sorrento at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne. This branch of the family resided in South Australia where ten children were born. An additional member (Norman) was born back in Rye. One of the boys, James, died in France.
Michael married Mary Neville at Sale in 1875. He had left home in the late 1860’s in search of work as a carpenter and blacksmith and met his wife while working in the Dandenong area. They lived briefly in Moe where their eldest daughter was born in 1877 before returning to ‘Tyrone’ where they occupied the original wattle-anddaub house. Michael worked the blacksmith shop adjacent to that house. Three children were born there and in the meantime Michael started building a house for his family in the north-eastern part of his father’s property. This new dwelling, ‘White Cliffs’, witnessed the arrival of another nine children including a pair of twins in 1886.
Michael’s skills as a carpenter were well known and he was frequently called upon to make a coffin. On the day of Joe’s funeral he loaded the coffin onto his spring cart and with his father, then aged about 80, sitting astride the coffin to keep it from falling off, they proceeded to the Rye cemetery. According to folklore, they had a bottle of whiskey to help them to concentrate. On another occasion Michael was despatched to collect the remains of a prominent local who passed away in Melbourne. When they were crossing Chinaman’s Creek on the way home the cargo slid off the cart. After much difficulty the coffin was recovered and Michael continued to the Gracefield Hotel in Rye where a patient but rather inebriated group of locals was waiting. When they asked Michael if he had collected ‘The Old Bloke’, he responded: “Yes, of course. But he is staying outside for a while to dry off.”
Michael became a builder of some note and built a number of houses both on the Peninsula and in the metropolitan area. A number of them are still standing today.
John became an astute businessman and was for many years a member of the Shire Council and a Justice of the Peace. After the death of James Ford, John and Julia took over the running of the Nepean Hotel. This hotel, with its first class accommodation, excellent table and wide range of sporting facilities, played a vital role in preserving the identity and distinction of the area. John and Julia had five children and the hotel remained in the family when the parents died. John and his family never forgot the plight of the less fortunate and their hospitality was dispensed freely. The following piece of verse , written by Henry Tuck of Flinders, was published in the local paper when John passed away and is eloquent testimony to the qualities of the man.
Sarah married James Rogers and, although some of her nine children gravitated back to Rye, she lived out her life in Brunswick. Sarah was barely a year old when the family arrived in Australia but she was already showing signs of the independent spirit of the early pioneers. Not long after the family moved to ‘Tyrone’ she went missing. A wide search was organized but she was found and was none-the-worse for her experience. As she grew older her drive for independence grew stronger and by 1876 she had become a landowner in her own right which was uncommon in those times.
James was the only member of the family who did not marry. In his early years he worked as a lime burner at ‘Tyrone’ but soon found that he preferred the axe to the pick and shovel. He moved onto some land along the Old Melbourne Road not far from his father’s property, built a house, and then established himself as a woodcutter. James was known as a ‘string bark carpenter’ as most of the timber that he used for furniture was obtained from local trees and his carpentering tools were a tomahawk and a bushman’s saw.
Farewell to the Originals
The two pioneers (Owen and Sarah) came to Rye when it was nothing more than a white limestone landmark for ships on Port Phillip Bay. Their contribution to the development of the area comes not only from limestone and wood which was shipped to Melbourne, but also from their family which has increased to a significant size. Many of these descendants have made interesting contributions to the development of the Peninsula and other parts of Australia. Sarah died at ‘Tyrone’ on 26 October 1895 at the age of 96. Her death certificate attributed her demise to “old age and exhaustion.” Owen also died at ‘Tyrone’ on 25 June 1896 at the age of 98. Apparently he told a joke while having breakfast, laughed a little too heartily and passed away. Both are buried in the Rye cemetery.
‘Tyrone’ is still an attractive property and a marker records its past history. The other two landmark properties – ‘Killarney’ and ‘White Cliffs’ – can still be found although the latter has fallen into a state of disrepair.
Limeburning in Rye
At the base of the outcrop at Whitecliffs, Rye, is a reconstructed Lime Burners Kiln that was built as a tribute to one of the major industries for the early settlers in the Rye area. During the mid 1800's, natural limestone was mined in the Rye area. Kilns were located near lime deposits, including by the foreshore. Smaller kilns produced about 50 bags of lime per day, while larger ones produced 75 bags. A large amount of timber was required to fuel the kilns. She-oaks and banksias were particularly suitable for burning.
The first “bush kilns” used a simple method involving building a pyramid from a layer of logs and firing material, such as brush, placed on the ground, then alternate layers of limestone and wood built to a convenient height. The brush was then set alight and the wood allowed to ‘burn out’. Lime burnt by this method was never of very high quality as it contained impurities of ash and sand. To produce better quality, lime kilns were built. These were usually built into a cliff face or side of a hill. They varied in size between 20 to 40 feet in height, built partly of brick, shaped like an inverted cone with a flat loading area at the top and an ‘eye’ at the bottom which was usually covered.
The main income of the pioneering Cain Family was the sale of limestone, burnt lime and firewood. Owen Cain employed many of the local Aboriginals in the ”napping” of limestone (breaking the limestone into small pieces) and cutting firewood. Heavy crowbars were used to break and remove the limestone from the ground, the stone was then loaded onto drays and carted to the kiln. The stones
were burnt and allowed to cool. It was then bagged. After burning. limestone becomes soft and powdery. It was then placed into sacks and loaded onto a small cargo ship and ferried to Melbourne where it was used in bakers’ ovens. Limestone from the Mornington Peninsula was also used in the building of many of the prominent buildings in Melbourne.
A variety of small sailing craft were used to transport the lime to Melbourne. In reasonable weather it took about two weeks to load, sail to Melbourne, unload, reload and return. Lime was brought from the kilns by horse drawn drays or bullock wagons, along sand tracks and down to the shore then it was either loaded into small flat -bottomed boats and rowed out to the channel where the lime boats waited at anchor, or at low tide it was transferred directly from the wagons. The channel became known as the Limeburners Channel. Many current well-established roads began as lime loading roads.
At least 20 kilns were located in the Rye area in 1857. By 1891, there were just six. Limeburning on the peninsula petered out just after World War One. The remains of Sullivan's kiln, built in 1875, can still be seen in Browns Road, Rye. The last load of lime was burnt there in 1917.
Tapestry
There was a “triptych” tapestry created to mark the 150th year of Rye becoming a town. It was designed and woven by Rebecca Moulton (assisted by Joy Smith) and was two years in the making.
It is made up of three panels, each marking 50 years of the town’s settlement. Included are many names of pioneers and it is broken into streets and landmarks one of which is the Tyrone homestead in the first (1861) panel.
The tapestry was commissioned and donated to the Rye community by the Powell family and it now hangs in the Pauline Powell Museum at the Old Rye Schoolhouse.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. This article is an adaptation of ‘The Cain Story – A Pioneer Family of Rye’ which was written by Phil Cain in 1981 with a revised edition printed in 2004. Phil was a descendant of Joseph and Annie Cain.
