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St Clair (Mount Olive), Caroona and the Aborigines Inland Mission

At the turn of the nineteenth century there were few outward signs that aspects of traditional Aboriginal society had survived in the Hunter Valley. Small groups of survivors lived at places such as Reddonberry and Glennies Creek, while others had become integrated into mainstream society and lived in the towns. But for the majority of Aboriginal people in the Upper Hunter Valley life revolved around missions and reserves under the paternal umbrella of the Aborigines Protection Board.

In the Upper Hunter two areas were set aside as reserves for Aboriginal people in the late nineteenth century. One was located on the outskirts of Quirindi called Caroona and the other between Muswellbrook and Singleton at Carrowbrook called St. Clair, (later Mount Olive Station). In 1890 land set aside at St. Clair amounted to about 60 acres where Aboriginal people quickly adapted and combined European farming with traditional means of subsistence. They successfully grew and harvested a variety of vegetables, including corn, potatoes and cabbages. A number of Aboriginal people at Singleton and Muswellbrook remember their parents and grandparents living at these places during the twentieth century. From the archival records it is apparent that St Clair was the centre of Aboriginal life in the first half of the century and Caroona succeeded this position in the second half of the century. In 1905 St Clair came under the control of the Aborigines Inland Mission (A.I.M.). A Baptist missionary Retta Dixon founded the Aborigines Inland Mission in 1905, after a split with the Australian Aborigines Mission (A.A.M.) A year later Dixon was instrumental in establishing a female orphanage for Aboriginal girls and these premises were located in George Street Singleton and a second mission at Redonberry on the banks of the Hunter River. The mission at St.Clair became a place for missionaries to recruit. These missionaries came from a variety of religious denominations, including Baptists, Uniting Church, Anglican and Brethren. The A.I.M.’s evangelical role with Aboriginal peoples in New South Wales extended to many communities.

The St Clair Mission operated under the control of the Aborigines Inland Mission until 1916 when control was taken over by the Aborigines Protection Board and a station manager was appointed to operate the reserve which became known as Mount Olive. The Aboriginal people at Mount Olive were subjected to the absolute control of the manager and a significant number were expelled for failing to adhere to the strict regulations. As a result the number of Aboriginal people living at Mount Olive declined during those years. It was completely swallowed up by the Board and closed off to Aboriginal people altogether in 1923. One Aboriginal woman from the Singleton district recalls that her mother and grandparents relocated to the other side of Carrowbrook following the closure of Mount Olive:

When my mother, and my grandmother left the mission, my grandfather got a piece of land across the creek from the mission. They had their own vegetable garden farm down on the creek flat, then it was sold off. When I go back there I always feel welcome. It’s a feeling I can’t explain to people.

Tom Phillips was a prominent and highly politicised individual who had settled and farmed St Clair reserve outside Singleton during its heyday. James Miller identifies that:

Tom Phillips, an uncle of Jack Miller, chose not to accept the white man’s religion. During the 1900s Tom Phillip’s name was a very significant one in the Singleton and St Clair areas. His name appeared in several editions of the Singleton Argus in the 1900s while nothing was said of him in the Inland Mission’s journal Our Aim. Had Tom Phillips been a Christian, the latter publication would have most certainly written about him’.

The savage experiences of this second “dispossession”, including the loss of St Clair and the impact of that event on Tom Phillips was one of the significant catalysts that would trigger Aboriginal political mobilisation and revolt in the mid 1920’s.

pp57-60

Source:
Wannin Thanbarran
A History of Aboriginal and European Contact in Muswellbrook and the Upper Hunter Valley
Greg Blyton, Deirdre Heitmeyer and John Maynard
Umulliko Centre for Indigenous Higher Education
The University of Newcaste
A project of the Muswellbrook Shire Council Aboriginal Reconciliation Committee