Chapter:

A PICTURESQUE CENTENARY
The Murdochs of Craigow
PIONEERING AND PUBLIC SERVICE RECORD
EARLY TASMANIAN DAYS

5

Inquisitive blackfellows frequently looked into Craigow, more especially on their way to their annual East Coast shell feasts, and, unmolested and unmolesting, wandered on their way. Bushrangers in turn tested the disposition of the establishment, and, received with a cheery "Come in, gents," and fortified with a drop of Scotch, were shown the nearest short cut by young John after their reasonable material wants had been satisfied. Not always, however, did they depend upon the big-hearted kindliness of the master of Craigow, for in 1837 he had to record that the house was broken into and that his great coat, a new black coat, a black hat, and half a dozen striped shirts, were taken away.

Of the servants co-operating in the building up and development of the estate, not one left the genial master, whom they honoured and loved, and living and dying on the place, their children and children's children remained there or in the locality. Of different kidney was an outsider, one Jack the Grubber, who, commencing work on a garden that the doctor determined to make, ran away after three weeks of it. Despite his defection, the work was accomplished, and apples, plums, and a variety of fruits were produced in abundance, among them cherries of a particularly luscious sort. Turning his garden's fertility to remunerative account, the farmer medico made it a practice to dispose of the cherries at early Hobart regattas, a specially large supply finding a ready sale along the bank of the Derwent in 1840.

Throughout this time his medical activity was in full swing. His "round" took him over long stretches of country, as he rode not only through Clarence Plains, Coal River, Sorell, Pittwater, Salt Pan Plains, and Risdon Creek, but up to Jerusalem and Bagdad. Resourceful and versatile, he was looked for and welcomed wherever he went. On one occasion, finding a man in a serious condition, and having run short of opium, he demanded lettuces from the garden, and producing pestle and mortar, pounded the vegetables until he got what he wanted and cured his patient. Even a sadly-named Mr. Garlick, appropriately living at Hollow Tree, bore him no grudge for being told that what he required was a quart of stomach solution, and being charged six shillings for the same.

Other children enlarged the family circle at Craigow during happy years, William #10, Tom #11, and Peter #9 joining their elder brothers John, James #6, and Scottish Robert Bruce. The latter would seem to have given indications of an excessive proclivity for card playing. In a business day book is to be found in his mother's handwriting the maternal observation, "August 4, 1840. This day Robert Bruce brought the cards to his mother, although he is fond of playing them." An entry on the Doctor's part more likely to be connected with a member of a working team than with a similarly named member of the family, noted for the dignity of her deportment, is that dated two years earlier, when we are told that "Ploughing commenced March 12, 1838. Same day Antonia bolted. Reward, £5."

Dr. Murdoch was a Scotchman and a human. At such times as he had occasion to put up at John Ryan's hostelry he appreciated his Cape wine, port, and sherry, as much as his company. With recklessness contradicting his national caution and prescience, he was £3 to the bad as a result of the Richmond race meeting of 1840. At the same time, he paid up his £1 chapel subscription like a man. Richmond was a place to reckon with in those times; in it was situated one of the several country mills to which was carted the harvest of Craigow and the surrounding farms situated in the district, then renowned as "the granary of Tasmania." There, too, was a private school deemed suitable for the reception for educational purposes of the Craigow youth.

Considerations of space alone curtail narration of the enterprises and qualities of an outstanding man. Farming his estate, rescuing his wandering pigs and cows from the pound, travelling with his men across the ferry plying between Kangaroo Point and Hobart, arranging for the transportation of his grain and salt by other ferries then existing between Bridgewater and Hobart, in which region facilities have not greatly increased in a hundred years, attending on the medical needs of the Governor, and in visiting needy women without fee or reward, anticipating a century ago the modern beneficent Child Welfare endeavour, the many-sided doctor was in the truest sense a maker and builder of the State. Predeceased by his wife, who died at Cambridge in 1841, he expired suddenly in Macquarie-street seven years later. He lived in Bathurst-street at the time of his death. In the words of the Hobart "Courier," he "was engaged in conversation, and, being taken suddenly ill, got off his horse. His lips were observed to quiver, and he fell to the ground. He was picked up, but all attempts to restore him were unavailing. He was dead."

The esteem and daring with which the Scottish pioneer inspired those about him is well illustrated by the fact that a farm helper to whom he granted the use of a hut and four acres of ground, at an annual rental of £2 10s., took advantage of his security to rear a family of twenty-four children, the descendants of some of whom are still at work upon the estate. Typical of the spirit and requirement of the man is his written declaration, placed amidst a column of well ordered book entries, "What I esteemed most pitiful next to lying was to live upon trust or by borrowing. Such a kind of life seemed to me idle, ignominious, servile, and the more despicable as it tends to make people liars."