The lone grave of Katherine Patterson and Mary Lumsden Patterson sits beneath a tree in a grassy field alongside Lake Eppalock, just down the road from the beautiful
The Victorian Heritage Database provides the following information on this fascinating solitary grave
The following history is an extract from 'Where They lie: Early Burials on the Bendigo Goldfields 1852.1870' by
Annette O'Donohue and Bev Hanson, 1993
Lone Grave near Lake Eppalock
This solitary grave is situated next door to the Moorabbee Lodge Caravan Park, Knowsley. One has to climb
through a wire fence to view this very neat grave site on a high piece of ground on what used to be known as
Moorabbee Station.
Katharine Patterson (nee Hunter) was born at Callander House Edinburgh in 1774, the
daughter of John Hunter and Jacobina Yorston.
She married Myles Patterson some time before 1802 in
Scotland, and late in 1821, Katharine, Myles and the 6 youngest of their 7 children, born at Cabongate
Edinburgh, embarked on the Castle Forbes and migrates to Van Diemen's Land arriving on the 1st March 1852.
Catharine's widowed sister Jacobina Burn and her son David who has previously arrived in Hobart Town on 5th
May 1821 aboard the Westmorland with Katharine & Myles eldest son William, were there to meet them.
Both
families settled in the New Norfolk district and immediately went into farming, eventually owning thousands of
acres which Myles names Hunterstoun but eventually it became known as Hunterston and is still known as
that today.
Myles Patterson died at the early age of 57 years at New Norfolk Tasmania in 1828 and is buried in the Old
graveyard at New Norfolk.
Sometime in 1843 Katharine's son John Hunter Patterson purchased Tooborac
Station in Victoria (although still known as NSW at the time) where he and his wide Martha and their children lived
for several years.
In 1851 John Hunter Patterson bought the large and well improved Campaspe Plains Station
which lay along his northern boundary at Tooborac for 12,000. He renamed it Moorabbee Station and made a
fortune supplying the fold diggings with meat.
In March 1852 his mother Katharine came from Tasmania to
visit her sons in Victoria, She went to stay with John at Moorabbee Station but was prevented from
returning due to the heavy winter rains and flooded creeks.
She became ill ... Katharine was buried beside
her granddaughter Mary Lumsden Patterson who had died on 18.6.1852 at the tender age of only 7 months.
The burial site was adjacent to the Homestead, 'the big stone house', which is now in ruins.
Some time in
the 1870s Katharine's granddaughter Jane Ettershank John and Martha's daughter) arranged to have the white
marble headstone erected at Moorabbee Station over her grandmother and sister.
It has survived the ravishes of
time for the past 120 years and with its white picket fence is a fine memorial of one of Victoria's early Pastoral
families.
BBQ
Knowsley
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