Chapter:

Dr. James Murdoch M.D. of Craigow 1785-1848
Early Pioneer of Medicine in Van Diemens Land

12.

Two years later he furnished the Editor of the "True Colonist" with a sample of his beetroot sugar.

He says, reports the Editor in his issue of the 14th October 1836, that every farmer in the Colony may grow and manufacture his own sugar and make excellent wholesome small beer from the molasses, and that the refuse affords good feed for hogs. He has planted a considerable quantity of the yellow beet this year with the view of making sugar from it.

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 in 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 banks 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.