In the years after John Batman’s arrival, Nillumbik was referred to as the ‘Great Stringy Bark Forest’. Little is known of the Wurundjeri people in the area however, axes, grinding stones and anvil stones have been found in the gullies around Research and canoe trees and artifacts in the Kangaroo Ground hills. Nillumbik was only visited by a few adventurous Europeans looking for land that would provide them with a living.
One was an Irishman named Thomas Sweeney, who came sailing up the Yarra River in 1838, in a rowboat on which he’d rigged a sail. Originally sentenced to hang for arson, he was later commuted to transportation to Port Jackson (Sydney). His first wife Mary sadly drowned in Sydney Harbour and after he married again, he was permitted to purchase 110 acres in the parish of Nillumbik in 1842.
During this time, he was assisted in building a stone cottage with help from the local Wurundjeri clan. Sweeney and his wife Magaret obviously had a cordial relationship with the traditional custodians on whose land they had built their new home. They called it ‘Culla Hill’ after the district in Tipperary from where he was transported.
Considering the fate of his first wife, Sweeney wanted his children to learn to swim. As the story goes, they were instructed by the children of the Wurundjeri people in the nearby Yarra.
Today ‘Sweeney’s Lane’, ‘Sweeney’s Flats’ and ‘Culla Hill Road’ in Eltham all pay testament to a pioneer who engaged and lived, one can assume, in a somewhat harmonious fashion with his Wurundjeri neighbours.
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References: The Diamond Valley Story by Dianne H. Edwards. 1979, Kangaroo Ground the Highland Taken by Mike Woiwod 1994, Pioneers and Painters by Alan Marshall 1971
Photos: Sweeney’s Culla Hill cottage
