Hugh Buntine

  General Notes:

Hugh Buntine was born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire Scotland on the 13th April 1804 and married Mary Symington at Fenwick on the 4th Nov 1825. With their five children, Jane, John, Robert, Mary Anne and Hugh, they left the Glasgow Port of Greenock on 13th May, 1838 in the 497 ton barque "William Rodger". Sydney shipping records describe Hugh as "brick and tile maker, also understands farming thoroughly".
Typhus fever broke out later in the voyage and Mary, the mother, died shortly after the ships arrival in Sydney on 26th Sept 1838. A son Alexander, had been born on the voyage and died afterwards from malnutrition. Both are buried in the North Head (Spring Cove) Quarantine Station with other victims of the Epidemic and a series of four stone memorials in the be Museum there records the tragedy.
Through the next year Sydney was to suffer a severe drought and, because of this, Hugh and his family set out for Melbourne. They arrived there on 3rd March, 1840 in the 186 ton barque "Bright Planet" after a record trip of three and a half days.
Living first on "Richmond Flat", Hugh was remarried on 30th Oct 1840 to Agnes Davidson. She was born in Glasgow about 1822 and had come from there to Melbourne with her family in the barque "Glenhuntly". She is described in shipping records as a Dairymaid, and daughter of John and Sarah Davidson. On her arrival in Melbourne on 17th April 1840 she was engaged for six months for £12/10s./0d. to Mrs King of County Bourke.
By 3rd March 1841, when the census was taken, Hugh and his family had moved from Richmond to raise cattle and establish a dairy by the Merri Creek, on or near the present site of Pentridge Goal. However, becoming aware of McMillian's discoveries of suitable land in Gippsland, Hugh decided to move again. Late in July 1841 he embarked with Jane and the three younger children for Port Albert in the 450 ton S.S. "Corsair". On their arrival on the 30th July his first steps were to build a slab house about a mile from Port Albert. The rest of the family joined them on 1st September and sixteen days later Agnes was delivered of Albert Alexander Buntine, the first white child born in Gippsland.
The family next settled out on Running Creek, now Morris Creek, about 18 miles from Tarriville on the then track to Flooding Creek (Sale). Here on the "Water Holes" Hugh raised cattle on an open run of about 12 square miles, and, in June 1844, made application for the first Publican's Licence. By May 1845, when their second son William was born, Hugh had again shifted operations; this time to somewhat more attractive grazing land on the Bruthen Creek a few miles upstream of the present township of Woodside. Here he established the "Bruthen Creek" station with a pastoral lease over 8,000 acres. He also set up a slab and bark public house, the "Bush Inn" which stood on the North West corner of where the old track crossed the Bruthen Creek. The Inn site has become farmland but the built-up wagon approaches to the creek and some of the bridge timbers are still evident.
The cattle run was transferred in early 1857 to Vaughan and Wild and Hugh's 320 acre farm, obtained at that time under pre-emptive right at £1. /00s./00d. per acre, was sold to Charles Lucas in March 1858. Michael Monaghan took over the hotel in 1860 and Hugh Buntine's last rating by the Shire of Alberton was in October 1864 for house and land. Hugh and Agnes were living at Flinn's Creek near Rosedale when he died on 7th June 18 67. He was buried at the Rosedale Cemetery and his grave is clearly marked by a redgum memorial.
It seems that during Hugh's later years at Bruthen Creek he had become incapacitated by illness and that his financial difficulties were deepened by the 1856 decision to put the new Tarraville-Sale road through Wood side. In order to maintain the family Agnes had managed the house and the station, and had established her own bullock motivated carrying business. Some reports of the 1850's describe her as carrying to Melbourne and to the Forest Creek diggings. In 1862 her pack horses forged a track over the mountains from Gippsland to Walhalla to relieve Stringerand his party. Agnes is described as a "woman of great self reliance and splendid physique", and many stories of her survive in the lore of Old Gippsland.

Hugh married Mary Symington. (Mary Symington was born in 1798 in Fenwick, Ayrshire Scotland and died in Oct 1838 in Sydney, NSW Australia.)