The account William wrote of his life describes the hard work and misfortune mingled with his pride and independence at being an early settler on the river.
William Charles Bradley was born in Dungog in 1848. Of all our Nambucca European pioneers he may have the most Australian pedigree, as he and his father before him were both born in the colony.
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Subsequent generations of Bradleys have claimed descent from Lieutenant William Bradley of the First Fleet, however, our William's grandfather, James Bradley, was a protestant schoolmaster from Ulster who was tried in Edinburgh for forgery and sentenced to 14 years transportation.
He left a wife, Margaret and a child in Ireland who could not be persuaded to come to the colony and it is presumed she passed away because it is said he later married a convict, Dorothea Fenn, in 1832.
Bradley's father, also William, was born before this marriage because he appears in the 1828 census. Bradley's family moved from Dungog to the Macleay and by his own account, he blames the 1864 floods on the Macleay for his departure from this area.
At the tender age of 16 he set out for the Nambucca looking for work as he was told of better wages there. This was in spite of his parents warning him "the blacks were bad and cedar cutting is dangerous work."
He later wrote accounts of life on the Nambucca that were jovial in intention but reading between the lines were telling of the harshness of life.
On his journey to the Nambucca he describes the hard and lonely journey with his horse, carrying a change of clothing, a billycan, bread, beef, tea and sugar rolled up in a blue blanket.
The tide was high when he reached Warrell Creek and he had to wait until it fell.
He then came to Gumma Creek which he found very boggy and he used some harsh encouragement of his horse to follow someone else's tracks to cross.
He camped at Macksville where he says the Catholic church now stands.
Arriving at Congarinni, Paddy Byrnes told him he had another 20 miles to the work camp and he regretfully leaves his horse behind, feeling at this point sorry to have left home.
The journey to Taylors Arms was memorable for his fatigue and the accompaniment of pademelons which he feared would attract the attention of indigenous hunters.
Once he arrived things looked up.
He tells of the camaraderie of the cedar cutters, one in particular who told yarns and danced for them.
He tells of encounters with the indigenous population and what sounds like some inflated tales of their hostility.
He then relates the difficulties of cedar cutting, of making roads to get the logs out or rolling them into the streams to get them out that way.
It appears that emigrant cedar cutters could generally not swim.
Our Australian-born William was asked by the cedar cutters on arrival if he could crosscut, use an axe and swim. He answered yes to the first two questions and "like a duck" to the third.
The account William wrote of his life describes the hard work and misfortune mingled with his pride and independence at being an early settler on the river. William married Catherine Dornan in 1873.
He died in 1928 at the age of 79, and Catherine in 1938 at the age of 90.
They are buried in the Macksville Cemetery with a handsome headstone.This article was written from the book, Valley of the Crooked River by Norma Townsend and the records of the Nambucca Headland Museum.
More from Rachel Burns: Life on a long voyage: Sailing to the Nambucca
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