Herds and Orchards

McMahon, Liardet and Carr were among the principal early European landholders and graziers in Frankston. Of the original squatting runs the Long Island run lay along the waterfront (with the station somewhere near the Riviera Hotel).1 Others were on higher ground to the south and west.

Best-remembered amongst the first wave of European pastoralists were men like James Davey who arrived in Frankston in 1840 and after holding a grazing and orchard property along the bay from 1840 to 1853 also held other runs, including the lease for the Gardiner's Creek run in 1840. At the time of the Argus visitor's trip to Frankston, Frederick Liardet is believed to have begun building his Ballam Park home between Frankston and Cranbourne. Liardet had arrived in Victoria in 1839, settled first at Port Melbourne (Sandridge) and then moved around the bay to Brighton where W.F. Liardet was the licensee of the Brighton Pier Hotel. After running coaches during the gold rush, Frederick E Liardet built Ballam Park from where he managed a grazing run of eight thousand acres.2 Today the Ballam Park homestead faces Cranbourne Road. Over the years it has acquired additional outbuildings and later extensions and alterations. It is still even with these additions a reminder of the lifestyle of the first pastoralists in the district.

10 Rural allotments in Frankston after the 1854 land sales [from Jones, p.37 cites Frankston Standard plan]

Now owned by the Frankston City Council the central homestead building is the oldest house in the municipality. It is important to the history of Frankston but as well it has few direct parallels within the metropolitan area of Melbourne. There are too, additional elements in its historic character. It was here that Justice H.B. Higgins is thought to have drafted his Harvester Judgment, establishing the existing structure of industrial arbitration and making a "basic" living wage central to social policy in Australia up to the mid-1970s.3

The homestead has another added interest since as well as the building the grounds include much vegetation, planted soon after Liardet arrived in Frankston. Amongst these are a row of olives, thought to have been planted as a windbreak and several fruit trees surviving from the orchard. We can still look at the homestead and see a building which once stood in isolation and in whose top window a lantern was often kept alight as a beacon to shipping in the bay.

In Mt. Eliza the first European pastoralist was James Davey who acquired a pre-emptive right to 640 acres at Mt. Eliza in 1845.4 James Davey purchased the freehold to his pre-emptive right in the following decade and built a cottage on this land [this was near to the present Marathon house]. The site near Marathon, while less immediately distinctive as the site of a squatting homestead than Ballam Park; still serves as a reminder of the municipality's first Europeans and Marathon and Ballam Park are the two major reminders of the squatting era in Frankston.5 Another property with some pastoral connections is Yamala in Mt Eliza. The owner James Madden had a greater interest in Melbourne's business and professional life than in farming. Nevertheless, during Madden's time at Yamala, the property was used for raising cattle, however Madden still had many interests in Melbourne and spent much of his life there.

During the 1830s, squatters, often overlanders from New South Wales, established extensive pastoral runs for their flocks of sheep and cattle on land within the Cranbourne district. The earliest of these runs was known as Tomaque. Here in 1836 the five Ruffy brothers settled after their arrival from Van Diemen's land. The Ruffys are reputed to have also owned the Cranbourne Inn. The Ruffy's run was taken up in 1850 by Hugh Glass, often called "Australia's wealthiest man". The lease then passed to Andrew Linton and, in 1852, to James Butchart, a young Scottish overseer, and his partner, John Ralph Blois, who managed the station.6

Another large district run located five minutes south of Frankston, was the Carrup Carrup, or Baxter's Cattle Station, which covered 15,360 acres. Captain Benjamin Baxter (1805-92) of County Cork in Ireland, owned this run from 1838 to 1860.7 Baxter (1805-92), of County Cork in Ireland, owned this run from 1838 to 1860.1 Baxter was Commissioner of Crown Lands in 1851. 8

The Lang Waring, or Langwarrin run, south of Cranbourne, was originally part of the Carrup Carrup run until 1843 when William Willoby, who bought Jamieson's Cape Shanck run in 1839, obtained Lang Waring.9 This run covered 6400 acres. From 1861 to 1868 the Langwarrin run was owned by Michael Callanan, who was later colonial Surveyor-General.10 Towkeet, a run which adjoined Cranbourne on the east, covered 12,800 acres, and was associated with Sam Webster in 1844. By 1848, Hugh Glass, of County Down, who became one of the wealthiest colonial landholders, took up Towkeet. He later took up Tomaque.11 Most of these runs were cattle stations but the Websters ran sheep at Towkeet, as did Butchart and Blois at Tongola, the later name of Tomaque.12

Today, there is little physical evidence of this important phase in the district's history, apart from elements in the division of farm lands and tree planting. The influence in the landscape of the first waves of settlement are still observable. Moreover some places have pastoral associations. When H.B. Foot surveyed the Cranbourne and Lyndhurst district in 1852, the Township of Cranbourne was reserved out of the pastoral runs of Towbeet, Mayone and Barker's Heifer Station.13 The present Baxter township and the Mullberry Hill property at Golf Links Road, Baxter, are located within the old Carrup Carrup run. Baxter's homestead has been demolished but his paymaster's cottage is said to remain on the Hastings Road.14