The Upper Mersey at Lees Paddocks takes it shape from a series of massive glaciers that gouged their way down the valley, bulldozing everything in their path. Around 12,000 years ago the last river of ice slowed, eventually ground to a halt and then began to slowly retreat. As it melted, sediment-rich water gushed from its snout. Between Cathedral Mountain and Mount Pillinger there was little fall and, as the water slowed, sediment dropped in thick deposits. The river that followed in the wake of the glacier responded to the gentle topography of the valley by carving a meandering path through these deep beds of silt. The valley was colonized by low shrubby vegetation for thousands of years. It was not until just a few thousand years ago when the climate warmed that forests began to invade the valley: rainforest trees along the riverbanks, eucalypt forest on the drier banks and grasslands formed in part by cold air drainage off the surrounding peaks.

Aboriginals entered this environment at least 10,000 years ago at a time when the climate was much colder and low alpine vegetation clothed the hillsides and plains. They came up the valley from Howells Plains (now Lake Rowallan) during the summer hunting wallaby and camped in rock overhangs. Bands of Aboriginals continued to visit the valley almost every year. Their visits increased in frequency from about 3000 years ago when the climate became warmer and vegetation, as we know it today, began to clothe the valley. Aborigines used fire to shape this emerging landscape to keep transport routes open and to extend and maintain the grasslands to attract wallabies.

The identity of the first European to see The Paddocks is unknown but it may well have been Henry Stanley (1820-1898), a convict stockman, who was left to manage Humphrey Howells’ sheep run at Howells Plains around 1845. If he did wander upstream for a look he would have encountered little grassy plains enclosed within each bend of the river. These grassy plains looked a little like paddocks and became the name for which the area was then known. The Fields, that buccaneering grazing family that seized control of Howells Plains in the late 1850s, might also have been interested in what lay up stream. But given that they inherited Stanley from Howells, they may well have been content to take his word. In any event, and despite others that might have visited it (Stanley led packhorses there in 1888), The Paddocks was seen as unsuitable for grazing and ignored.

If that was Field policy, it was discarded in the 1880s when a change in the guard among the Fields saw ambitious young Richard Field (1866-1961) outmaneuver his older brothers and take control of Howells. Field knew it was only a matter of time before farmers from Mole Creek came up into the Upper Mersey to select land for summer grazing runs.  Indeed, some already had.  He also knew that Howells Plains provided the only access up to The Paddocks and while there some reserved roads, he didn’t want to have to fence those roads to prevent his and someone else’s cattle from mixing. The inconvenience of that event and even theft was the risk, he realized, if someone disreputable selected land there. The solution, he recognized, was to get someone he trusted to take up land at The Paddocks. The person he thought of was young George Lee (1862-1932) of Mole Creek. Lee was only a relatively young man but had demonstrated significant business ability and moral standing. Field approached Lee about The Paddocks emphasing its potential as a cattle run. He even provided a sweetener designed to ensure co-operation. He proposed that Lee stockman travelling to and from The Paddocks could enjoy his facilities at Howells Plains if his stockmen could be afforded a similar courtesy at Mole Creek.

George Lee (1862-1932)

Lee was intrigued at the offer and in 1888 travelled up to The Paddocks. Stories suggest he couldn’t get his horse the whole way and had to tie it up and go ahead on foot. Nonetheless, Lee had a good look at The Paddocks that day and part of the next. A man of some vision, he could clearly see the potential of The Paddocks and when he came home applied to purchase a block of land there. The next year, in 1889, he applied for a second block.  Lee put cattle on The Paddocks but, with little experience of the mountain seasons, left them there too late. When he went to muster them he could only find a few, presuming the others had drowned. Embittered by the loss, Lee decided to abandon his holding.

As it happened, Lee and partner Billy Marchant (1858-1943) won a contract in 1890 to supply food and materials to a survey gang marking out a proposed railway line from Mole Creek to Zeehan. From 1890 to 1891 the chief surveyor, Allan Stewart, took the line up the Mersey Valley, around Mount Pillinger and across Pelion Plains to Mount Pelion West. As the survey progressed he and his men used a series of camps in the Mersey Valley, firstly at Liena, then Arm River, Howells Plains, and then The Paddocks.  As they moved their equipment from camp to camp they also significantly improved the track between these points. So it was that when Lee came back to The Paddocks with a string of packhorses in 1891, he found not only a clearly defined track he could follow, but that the survey crew had built a good hut there. Crucially, the crew reported the existence of  ‘wild cattle’ at The Paddocks, the cattle Lee had presumed lost.  Given the new and improved infrastructure and the obvious capacity of The Paddocks to support cattle, Lee reapplied for his abandoned blocks. He had them surveyed in 1892. One enclosed the very top little plain, a location strategically chosen to deter those who might select below him. The other was nearly five kilometres north claiming the open plain south of the Wurragarra near the survey hut.

The Paddocks' blocks in order of selection

Lee had little money at this stage in his life. He had a wife, a growing family (13 children by 1911) and a farm to manage.  It was not until 1901 that he committed to buy more land at The Paddocks.  Then, block-by-block over the next twenty-five years, he added to his holdings often buying in the name of his children and wife to sidestep limitations on the amount of land he was entitled to purchase. By 1926 his property at The Paddocks was 620 acres (250 hectares) in area on fifteen titles.

Economic conditions improved markedly in the early days of the new century prompting Lee to pour some significant resources into improving his land, especially prior to World War One. Around 1907, his two oldest sons, Oliver and Basil, contracted to scrub the 80-acre block that straddled the Wurragarra. They fell many great gums and myrtle, ringbarked others and scrubbed the undergrowth. A few years later George, young son Oxley and Bill Clarke burnt the huge logs that littered the ground and sowed grass seed in the ashes. For a number of years gangs of men from Mole Creek were employed each summer to ditch and drain the wetter parts of the land, and scrub and sow up the hillsides where the soil was fertile. A major drain was dug across the top plain with sharp hay knives around 1914. Some time from 1892 to 1909, hunters accidentally burnt the survey hut and a new one was built fifty metres south. Lewis Lee, George’s youngest son, later to be the owner of much of The Paddocks, recalled busy times when cattle were slaughtered to feed the gangs of men – one before Christmas and one after.

Cattle in the snow at The Paddocks undated, photographer unknown.

George Lee also invested in improved access. Around 1900 he and Field combined financial resources to create a more direct, all weather crossing of the Arm River. This allowed a specially modified bullock dray to make it up as far as the top end of Howells Plains for the first time. Having previously supplied his operation by packhorse from Mole Creek, this was a major innovation for Lee. Provisions and equipment could be freighted into Howells Plains on the dray and then packed the remaining seven kilometres to The Paddocks.

When was Old Pelion Hut named Emhlangana?

Last year I wrote of the mystery surrounding the name ‘Emhlangana’ carved on a board and fixed above the door of Old Pelion Hut (see my blog of 18 March 2014).

We tracked the likely origin of the name, a Zulu word, to the Wooton family who emigrated from South Africa to Sheffield in the late 1800s.  I offered a theory that Andrew and Dan Wyllie, Wooton descendants and Pelion stockmen in the 1930s, might have named the hut. But when was it done? It was there in 1944 when it was noted in the hut’s visitor’s book. Interestingly, it was not there in 1933 when this photograph by Ken Field was taken.  Thus the date for when the name plate was erected is narrowed to a period between 1933 and 1944. For history tragics, these things are important!