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Richard was aged 36, Jane 33, Richard Jnr 13,
Benjamin 12, Henry 11, Wearne 8, Mary 7, Anne 3
and Elizabeth 1.
On arrival in Adelaide, they found a
well-planned town with already established
public offices, churches, breweries, newspapers,
mills and tanneries and a very bust port. The
population was around 56 000.
The family set off for Burra, which had been
established four years earlier, with most people
walking along the ‘Great North Road’ and their
few belongings being transported by dray.
There was a desperate shortage of housing and
about 750 people lived in ‘cave hut’ dwellings
along the creek.
The mines at Burra were better than Cornwall
with good quality ore, better working conditions
and a higher monetary return for the miners.
Richard and his four sons found employment and
this gave the family a little financial
security.
Daughter, Elizabeth died in March 1849 aged 2
and in September 1849 a son William was born.
By 1850 the population of Burra was 4 000 and
Burra was the largest inland town in SA.
In early 1850 there was bad flooding especially
along the creek and many of the ‘cave dwellings’
were destroyed.
Once more tragedy struck the Dunstan family when
Richard Dunstan developed silicosis and died in
May 1850 and Ann, aged 5, died from burns, in
October 1850, not long after her father’s death.
Again in 1851 many of the homes along the creek
were flooded leaving the folk in deplorable
conditions and the cemetery was also flooded
washing away many of the graves.
News reached Burra in 1851 of gold discoveries
in Victoria and NSW, and Jane, with her family,
decided to travel across to Mt
Alexander/Castlemaine.
Sewing her money into her undergarments, the
family joined the throng of people travelling.
It took the family six weeks and they travelled
500 miles. Many pubs provided provisions and
station owners sold sheep to passing travellers.
The drays were secured at night with the men
sleeping under the dray and the woman on top,
covered by tarpaulins. A goat supplied milk and
wild game and fish were eaten.
When the family arrived at the diggings, the
countryside resembled a honeycomb with thousands
of claims and mud and clay everywhere. The
population was around 25 000 with few single or
unattached women.
Two years after their arrival, Jane married
Thomas Rodda (formerly from Penzance) and three
more children were born - Ann, Thomas and
Charles. Thomas was a butcher and the family
lived at Vaughan.
Jane and Thomas had been married for 39 years
when she died in 1886 and Thomas died in 1895.
Jane had 59 grandchildren and her descendants
numbered 1045 in 1974 with many, many more
today.
Jane’s legacy is the DNA she gave to her
descendants and as Max reminded us we are all
the sum of the people who came before us.
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