The Crowleys Of The Upper Yarra Valley and Enniskeane

A Brief History of The Crowleys Of The Upper Yarra Valley

By Shane Crowley, grandson of Con, great grandson of James

Research data was provided by Rosemary Crowley

Compiled August, 2020

“It seems preposterous that I shared the first 20 years of my life with a man born in 1882”.

In the beginning,

Our story starts in the Bandon region of Cork, circa 1830. James Crowley (my great grandfather) was born in Enniskeane about, 1836. He was baptised in Enniskeane on April 5, 1836. He died in the Upper Yarra district, Victoria, Australia in1921, aged 85. Representatives of the Tobin and Deasey families were present at his christening. Mahoney’s were also connected to the family. He was the son of James Crowley and Johanna Tobin, married in Bandon February 19, 1833. My great grandfather’s siblings were Cornelius, Thomas, Daniel, Julia, Johanna, Barbara and Eleanor. At age 17 James departed Cork for the USA aboard the “Samuel Lawrence”. Also on the passenger list was a Cornelius Crowley, who is likely to have been his older brother. James was joining his relative John Crowley (son of Cornelius O’Crowley and Catherine Ahern) who had already established himself there. No records have been found to show how these families are related. John and James may even have been related through a shared maternal link via the Ahern’s. While the pair carved out a living in America John heard about the gold rush at Sandhurst (later to be renamed Bendigo) in the State of Victoria, Australia. He departed for Australia and upon arriving at the new Gold Fields, struck gold. He realised that this was the opportunity of a life time. He returned to America, wound up his affairs and made the permanent move to Bendigo. Meanwhile James continued on in America. At age 31, in the year 1867, he applied for American citizenship. In the same year he married Catherine Wilson in Boston. Catherine was a native-born American from Wheeling West Virginia. On October 7, 1867, James and Catherine set sail for Melbourne to reunite with John. James had lived in America for 14 years.

Meanwhile, back in Bendigo, John unleashed his considerable entrepreneurial gifts. He teamed up with William Heffernan and briefly took up sheep grazing. They then purchased the famous Shamrock hotel (now, a tourist attraction) in the centre of Bendigo. The pub was the centre of information and gossip, providing opportunity for any man willing to listen. The pub became the launching pad for an astonishing series of business triumphs. John purchased prime real estate in View Street on which he built offices for professionals, a luxury hotel called the Albion and the grand, ornate, Princess theatre. All this real estate, he owned in his own right. He also invested in gold mines. John had seen Bendigo go from tents and shacks to bricks and stone, and he had been a main player. During this time, he became a close personal friend of Henry Backhaus, the Catholic goldfields priest. The canny priest opened his own personal bank account and funnelled the flood of goldfields donations into it. On his death, his will moved the money into a trust. I have no doubt that John helped him plot this strategy. At this time Bendigo was the richest city in the southern hemisphere. The establishment of a personal bank account and then, a trust, stopped the Archbishop of Melbourne confiscating the money and using it in Melbourne. The Archbishop was

enraged but powerless. This trust is still working today, providing money for the building of Catholic infrastructure in Bendigo. By far the greatest product of the friendship was the Bendigo Cathedral. The two men formed the plan to build it and chose the site. The Cathedral was finally finished in 1977 and has become world famous. The interior of the Cathedral is white and all the side windows are gold glass. In the bright Bendigo sun, the interior glows an unearthly gold! Backhaus lived in John’s home in his later years and died in1882. All this while, John assisted family and friends from Ireland, to immigrate to Australia. At some point before his death John had a monument erected in the St. Bartholomew’s Kinneigh Church yard, Cork (the one with the monk’s tower in the top corner). It lists his parents and brothers. The monument is located near the middle of the bottom row, close to the front road. John died at age 72. He outlived two wives. His second wife bore 3 sons. One became a solicitor and other two became doctors.

The trajectory of James’ life in Australia could not have been more different from John’s. On arriving from America, James and Catherine found they were too late to catch the gold boom. To make things worse Bendigo’s water supply had become unsafe to drink. The population suffered from typhoid fever and other water-borne diseases. Many died. Children were most at risk. James and Catherine produced all of their eight children while living in Bendigo, starting in 1868.Their children, in order, were Mary, Hannah, Barbara, Margaret, John, Annie, Daniel and Cornelius. Of the eight children, Hannah, Barbara, Margaret and John died in early infancy. The last born, Cornelius, is my grandfather. James and Catherine moved to the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in 1884. James then decided to try his hand at farming. He purchased a block on the rich Upper Yarra river flats, about half way between the towns of Wesburn and Yarra Junction. Luck was not on their side. The block that he purchased had been affected by a flood of sour silt from a hydraulic mine in the nearby mountains. I imagine that they would have had to drain the property to make it usable. They had great difficulty establishing an income. And James was no longer a young man. Adding to their woes Australia was moving into one of its worst economic recessions. It is at this point I will pick up the amazing life of Cornelius Crowley. Some accounts come directly from my grandfather and some come from family members. Some stories come from eye-witnesses. He was 69 years old when I was born and I was 20 years old when he died, aged 88. His robust good health was undermined by an accident. I was fortunate to spend a lot of my childhood in his company.

Read the Complete Story here.