Owen (the second) (Seaman) Cavanough

  General Notes:

source: edward to dylan 1. ged

  Noted events in his life were:

• source. Petri Krohn & http://www.easystreetretreat.com.au/australianroyalty where it is noted:
Owen joined the 'Sirius' as an able seaman aged 25 from Gosport, Hants, on 23 Mar 1787 after being discharged from the Portsmouth guardship 'Ganges'. He sailed aboard the 'Sirius' with the First Fleet. He accompanied Phillip on the first expedition to Port Jackson from Botany Bay. In March 1790 he was stranded at Norfolk Island when the Sirius was wrecked. He was discharged to become a settler on Norfolk Island. On 16 May 1791 he was located on 60 acres (Lot No. 42) at Cascade Stream, Phillipsburg. 50 of his 60 acres were ploughable, of which he had cultivated 15 by October 1793.
By 1794 Owen Cavanough and Margaret Dowling/Darnell were living together with her son Charles Green Jr. In 1796 Margaret and Owen left Norfolk Island for Port Jackson aboard the ship 'Francis' with two children.
In July 1796, after Owen had sold his land, the family left Norfolk Island. Back in Port Jackson, Owen purchased a boat by which he carried grain to Sydney from his rented land by the Hawkesbury River in the Mulgrave Place district.
In January 1798, seven absconders captured him and his boat in Broken Bay, together with a smaller boat, both of which were taken out to sea. Cavanough, along with the owner of the second boat and one of the absconders who gave up the idea of escaping, were placed in the smaller boat and later reached safety. The absconders were eventually forced to give themselves up in March (two were hanged) and Owen's boat was returned to him.
The absconders were eventually forced to give themselves up in March (two were hanged) and Cavanough's boat was returned to him. By 1807 Owen and Margaret had five more children.
By mid 1800 Owen owned three hogs and had two acres sown in wheat and eight ready for planting maize. The land was recorded as rented from Mr Boston. He was on stores, as were his wife and four children. Two years later he had 15 of 30 acres at Mulgrave Place sown in wheat, barley and maize, with 14 bushels of maize on hand. He, his wife, five children and a free servant were off stores, but he owed the government 14 bushels of maize and 12 of wheat.
In April 1803 a grant of 100 acres at Mulgrave Place was recorded, and by 1806 he had 24 of his acres sown in grain and nearlt three in vegetables and garden. He owned 21 hogs and supported himself, his wife and six children (including four sons), and employed a convict. In the Bligh trouble, he signed an address with eight others registering gratitude to George Johnston for taking charge of the colony.
In 1811 he advertised his farm at Portland Head for sale. 'Ninety acres of land, 25 of which are cleared and fit for cultivation, well stocked with fruit trees, and a good shingled dwelling house thereon, together with a barn, stockyards, etc., and every other necessary convenience'.
In 1820 he held land at Portland Head. In 1825 he was listed as a landholder in the Wilberforce district, recorded as formerly a seaman of the 'Ceres' [Sirius]. In 1828 he was farming 60 acres at Lower Portland Head, aged 66, with his wife Margaret aged 61, still with him.
Owen was not re-interred at Ebenezer [as stated by Mollie Gillen in 'The Founders of Australia: a biographical dictionary of the First Fleet. North Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989] - he was buried in 1840 at Sackville Reach & his headstone was removed in 1969 to Ebenezer, a new headstone placed at Sackville Reach in 1988, by Owen Cavanough Fellowship, and last year a new plinth was erected at Ebenezer by Owen Cavanough Family Historical Society - a re-group of Fellowship & New members. Most of Mollie Gillen's information would have come from Fellowship journals that we put out 4 times a year.

• Cause of Death. accidental drowning

Owen married Margaret (convict) Dowling / Darnell, daughter of Peter Darnell and Margaret Dowlin, in 1794 in Norfolk Island Penal Settlement, NSW Australia. (Margaret (convict) Dowling / Darnell was born in 1766 in Ireland UK, christened in 1766 in Dublin Santry, Eire Ireland, died on 24 Sep 1834 in Sackville Reach, Windsor, NSW Australia and was buried in St Thomas, Sackville Reach, NSW Australia.)