“The History Working Group record, store and maintain recollections and personal observations of memories, places and events in the history of the Shire of Mt Marshall, before it is lost forever”.

The History Working Group aim to achieve the policy though setting boundaries to limit the collection, stick to outlined themes and setting objectives.  The following outlines the Group’s limits, themes and objectives.

Limit the Collection:

• Interpreting History of Human inhabitation of the region.

• Focus will be on Gazettal of Road Board establishment in 1923 to the present day.
• Boundaries are defined as the Shire Boundaries on the 29^th April 2005 at the Mt Marshall History Working Group Meeting.

Themes:

1. Original Gazettal of townsites-the services, buildings and the development of the Shire
2. Economic and technology developments
3. Families-education, businesses and captured memories
4. Governance-Rules of life regulating community laws, elections and governance
5. Industries and innovation-Sandalwood, Wheat, Buildings, and the Bencubbin variety of wheat that at one stage was named the best wheat in Australia.

Objectives:

1. Get involved in the maintenance and the relocation of the Shire of Mt Marshall Museum to have the new building with displays for the public by June 2006.
2. Preservation of Physical material and capture memories of the area
3. Collect, store, maintain and document the history of the shire
4. Interpret the communities life celebrating the past and creating a future
5. Work towards the publication of a history book that carries on from the existing book in the long term.

For any further information on the Mt Marshall History Working Group, please contact Council's Community Development Officer, Miss Rebecca Watson.

Brief History of the Shire

In September and November 1836 the Surveyor General Captain John Septimus Rowe led a forty-day expedition out to the unknown east of the settled districts of the Avon Valley. Mt Marshall and Lake McDermott were named after Captain Marshall McDermont, an early settler to the Swan River Colony. Captain Rowe was loath to give any native names as he considered them unpronounceable and impossible to spell.

In 1889 Surveyor HS King fixed Trigg Station at Mt Marshall. When the Wyalkatchem - Mt Marshall Railway Line was built the siding was not named, as there was already a Mt Marshall in Tasmania.

Sandalwooders and Graziers were the early settlers in the Mt Marshall area. The first grazing lease was taken up in 1868. Sandalwood was removed from this area from the 1880’s through to the 1920’s. Permanent settlement and the development and clearing of the land for farms commenced around 1910. The Mt Marshall Roads Board was formed in 1923.

The name ‘Bencubbin’ comes from the Aboriginal word for Mt Marshall, which is ‘Gnylbncubbin’ (‘Gnyl’ meaning ‘Mt’ and ’bncubbin’ meaning ‘Marshall’). There was some dispute as to which was the proper word to use, as conflicting courses quoted differently spelt words with the same meaning, but it was settled that Gnylbncubbin was the proper and historically correct name for Mt Marshall / Bencubbin.

The Sandalwood Story-by Norm Bates

The sandalwooders were true pioneers of the Mt Marshall district and the sandalwood dray made the tracks that enabled the settlers to find their blocks.

During the early settlement of the Mt Marshall district, sandalwooding proved to be a very lucrative business.  As early as 1870, pastoralists pulled sandalwood to supplement their income.  It is not known when the true sandalwooder arrived, but by 1917 when the rail came to Bencubbin, hundreds of tons of sandalwood was stacked waiting for the trail to come.  It was seven years before the rail was extended and in that time over fifty sandalwood drays were working out of Bencubbin.  One man could handle six drays.  Once faced down the track, a command from the driver, “get up”, the horse just plodded off.  The other horse and drays would follow.  The driver could stop them by calling out “whooha”.  If the lead horse came to an obstacle on the track it would stop and wait till the driver fixed the problem.  At a fork in the track the driver headed the horse in the right direction.  Once the horses got to the railway station, they would have a drink at the trough and go off by themselves to where the drays were unloaded.  Till they became accustomed to the routine any new horse was driven with reins.  The contractor also used the wagon to cart sandalwood to the rail head.  Donkeys and Camels were preferred in wagons because they were never hand fed but grazed in the bush at night time.

As the stumps and roots of the sandalwood were valuable, the trees were pulled rather than cut.  There was a chain on one dray which was backed up to the sandalwood tree and the horse pulled it out.  The sandalwooder then chopped the tree into suitable lengths and it was loaded onto the dray.  The bark had to be chipped off so the men usually worked in pairs with the man at the base camp doing the debarking.

The Sandalwood Story Written By Mr Norm Bates-June 2007

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