I first came across mention of Lindsay Paterson (John Lindsay Paterson 1813-1889) over twenty years ago. He turned up in a series of interviews conducted in the mid-1850s by the South Australian Crown Lands Commissioner in relation to several disputes about the legality and boundaries of some pastoral claims in the Flinders Ranges. The documents are preserved in the holdings of State Records South Australia.
Lindsay had been involved in droving cattle from Adelaide up north to the newly claimed pastoral runs around Parachilna Creek (cattle or sheep stations in later terminology). Later research showed that he was a partner on one of these runs, Bunuroo (or Bunyeroo, in later times Edeowie Station). Lindsay and his wife Rhoda (nee Rhoda Lock) lived at the Bunyeroo Homestead on Bunyeroo Creek, while the other partners, Alexander Fotheringham and Charles Burnet, seem to have lived on another of their leases much further south – the Mount Brown Run.
Other than that, Lindsay remained a bit of a mystery to me. I could find no origins here or overseas, and no records beyond about 1860 when Bunyeroo was sold to William Lavington Marchant. Marchant built a new and more substantial homestead on Edeowie Creek, a few kilometres to the south. From about that time the lease became known as Edeowie.
Then one day, some twenty years down the track, I came across an obituary in an 1889 newspaper. It was for a John Lindsay Paterson, a pastoralist near Bowen in Queensland. Further research proved that this was clearly the same person, so the article added quite a bit to my knowledge about Lindsay’s life in Australia.
But the really jaw-dropping part of this obituary was a tale from Lindsay’s childhood. It claimed that Lindsay’s parents decided to emigrate from Scotland to America. When halfway across the Atlantic the ship caught fire. Realising that all was lost, they placed Lindsay in a basket and set him adrift at ‘the mercy of the waves’. The ship sank and all lives were lost, but Lindsay and his basket were picked up some hours later by a passing vessel. He was returned to Scotland and, in answer to an advertisement for relatives, was claimed by an uncle.
For the researcher, this is one of those ‘tall tales or true?’ moments, with the balance of probabilities weighing rather heavily against Lindsay’s childhood memory. But I have found that the tall tales handed down in family lore are often based on at least some amount of factual information, regardless of how much the story may have become embellished over the years. Sometimes the reality can be just as amazing as the supposed myth!
With little more than Lindsay’s name to go on, a bit of internet searching came up with the true story. Bearing in mind that this event occurred some two centuries ago, the amount of detail available about the events turned out to be quite astounding.
Glasgow in 1820 was facing difficult economic times. A plan was developed for a consortium to apply for a land grant at the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Colony on the southern tip of Africa), and for families from Glasgow and surrounding villages to be invited to apply for the opportunity to begin new lives as settlers in that colony. The successful families sailed on the vessel Abeona (Abeona, Transport, No 36, Lieutenant Mudge), leaving Greenock on 7th October 1820. They were headed for Algoa Bay, now the site of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Among the passengers were John Paterson, his wife Peddie (nee Peddie Fergus), and their children Elizabeth, John Lindsay, Adam and Helen Wright Paterson.
On 25th November 1820, in the mid-Atlantic, just north of the Equator, the ship caught fire. The crew were able to launch three lifeboats, and a number of passengers and crew got to them. Other passengers, including the Patersons, decided that going down with the ship was a better option than drifting in the mid-Atlantic, with little or no food or water, taking days to die of thirst and exposure.
One fellow passenger, James Wright, who had come to know the Patersons quite well during the voyage, tried to convince them to jump overboard and swim for the lifeboats, but they refused. In a last-ditch effort to change their minds as the fire closed in on them, he pushed young seven-year-old Lindsay overboard and jumped in with him. The rest of the family refused to follow.
Wright and Lindsay managed to reach one of the lifeboats. Just before dawn on the following day, a Portuguese merchant ship, the Condeca da Ponte, sailed directly to the position of the lifeboats. This was completely by chance – the Portuguese had not seen the fire, or any wreckage, or any lifeboats. They just happened to turn up at that same tiny spot in the middle of the Atlantic. Interestingly, one of the young boys who survived with Lindsay was a James McLucky.
One hundred and twelve people died in the loss of the Abeona. Forty nine survived. Six ended up in Cape Colony; others – including Lindsay – returned to Scotland.
Lindsay lived with an uncle until 1828, then with the family of William Barnet at Kinross, Kinross-shire. In 1838 he joined James Fotheringham and others in coming to the new colony of South Australia. Lindsay Paterson, the Fotheringham family and the Barnet family were all to become influential people in the early township of Gawler, north of Adelaide.
The Paterson couple lived at Bunyeroo from about 1855 til 1860. They had two children, a son and a daughter. Lindsay’s wife, Rhoda, died at Bunyeroo on 15th January 1860. Lindsay later moved to Queensland, taking up a pastoral lease at Caley Valley near Bowen.
Lindsay and Rhoda’s son, Alexander Gillies Paterson, did not marry. Their daughter, Agnes, married Thomas Earl, and the family moved to New Zealand in about 1903.
links to some of the sources:
John Lindsay Paterson obituary, May 1889
newspaper report of the sinking of the Abeona
Lieutenant Mudge’s report of the sinking of the Abeona – go to page 340
Abeona survivors’ book: Narrative of the Loss of the Abeona – see page 23