Abraham and Maria are my 3x great-grandparents. This is a brief outline of their lives in Australia.

Alex Rogers - 15/5/1999

Abraham and Maria are the ancestors of a large number of present day Australians. They came seperately to the colony in the mid 19th century.

Abraham sailed from Deptford on the river Thames in the vessel "Kate", on 14th June 1849. He was 20 years old, and a farm labourer from Chignall Smeally, a small Essex village near Chelmsford. He was a free settler & assisted migrant, and a member of the Church of England, son of William Carr and Sarah Harris of Great Waltham.

Maria Burdett sailed from Plymouth on the "Wilson Kennedy" and arrived at Port Jackson (now Sydney) on 27th December 1852. She was a dressmaker, also a Church of England adherent, and was literate, being able to read and write. Her parents were Foulger Burdett and Mary Howard, and she was born in Horsham, Norfolk. She had sailed unaccompanied and had no relatives in the colony. The day after she arrived in Sydney, she gave birth to a son John, the son of Charles Acort of London.

Nothing is known of their early times in the colony, but Abraham was probably working at a large property "Clifden" in the Hunter Valley, and Maria was probably a domestic servant in the region when they met. They were married in Morpeth at the St James C of E church on 12 July 1853. John was brought up as John Carr (always simply known as "Carr") and apparently believed all his life that he was Abraham's son. [Accordingly, I have chosen to accept Abraham as "our" family, and included his line in our ancestry - Alex Rogers]

This marriage was the foundation of the Carr's of the Lower Clarence River in Northern NSW. Their early married life was spent in the Clifden, Butterwick area, and William, Mary, Abraham jnr and James were all born there. Probably because of severe flooding in the Hunter Valley, and also because of brighter prospects with the developement of the Clarence River settlements, the young family packed up and moved north. It has been said by family members that they settled for a short time at "the top of the river" and then moved on to Ulmarra, where Foulger and Maria were born. It is assumed that the family moved to the Clarence River in late 1859 or early 1860, as James was born on 21 March 1859, while at the Hunter River, and Foulger on 13 June 1860 at Ulmarra. It is not known for sure if they travelled by land or by sea, but older relatives thought that it was by bullock wagon, as furniture still in existence was brought with them.

After the introduction of the Robertson Land Act 1861-2, Abraham apparently selected a farming property on Palmers Island, portion 44 in the Parish of Taloumbi. He probably did not own this as it was registered to a Mr John Ross - perhaps Abraham was a proxy applicant for the land. They lived there and worked this property for several years. In October 1870, Abraham selected portion 54, of 82.75 acres, at Lower Palmers Island, by Conditional Purchase, and so became a land owner. He called it "Whitechapel" after his home in Essex.

Palmers Island's first permanent settlers arrived around the late 1850s and early 1960s, and it is clear from the reading of history books that they were hard working pioneers, as they set to and cleared the land of thick forest and brush to ready the ground for their crops, and to erect a dwelling of some kind.

Several more children were added to the growing family - Robert, Sarah, Edmund, Kerr, another Kerr (Also known as Tim, born after the first Kerr died), Ruth, and Ruth Jane. The first Kerr was born in 1868 and drowned the next year in the river - his sister Ruth (born 1870) also drowned when she was 18 months old in the river. Their names were passed on to the next children to be born, a common practise of the time.

Abraham worked "Whitechapel" for several years with the help of his older sons. In the early 1870s he leased this property and took over another farm on the Lower Palmers Island, lot 165, where by his own inventiveness and enterprise, built and operated a steam-driven cane crusher, capable of crushing 25 tons a day. It is thought to be one of the first to be built on Palmers Island, around 1873-4. Two square tanks about 18" high and 2" thick used in the old sugar mill were transported to the farm of his youngest son, Tim, on Woodford Island in 1902, and were used to raise ducklings, and later to store potatoes. They were still there a few years ago [written in 1989 - Alex Rogers] even though rusted through in places.

A bad disease later almost wiped out the sugar industry, and caused a lot of hardship. A yarn handed down through the families is that "old Abe" was quite fond of his home made "whiskey" produced from the sugar cane...

Abe and Maria also reared a grandson, Ben, as one of their children. He was born at Palmers Island in 1877 to their daughter Maria, but went to his grave believing that he was the youngest son of Abraham and Maria.

Their children married and spread out, populating a large area of the Clarence River area and Northern NSW - for their stories, see their individual notes on the Genealogy.

Maria passed away at her home on Palmers Island in 1885, aged 56. She died of cancer, a fairly young woman, and did not live to see all her children marry, or see any grandchildren reach adulthood. A legend handed down by word of mouth has it that Maria was of aristocratic French lineage - however old parish records in Norfolk show a long line of Burdetts living there from early in the 17th century, and it is much more likely that she is descended from them.

Abraham sold up in 1897, and was to live with his family on the Lower River, where many of his children had moved after marrying. However he spent most of his time at Watsons at Sportsmans Creek where he died in 1902 aged 74.

Abraham and Maria are buried in the Methodist Cemetary in Maclean, old section. While they were both C of E when they came to England, it appears that both converted to Methodism in their time in Australia. They have numerous descendants living today on the Clarence River, especially the Lower River area. They are also well scattered throughout Australia and the world.

Yvonne Johnson,
Maclean,
1989

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