It's mid-morning, and although the mist is yet to rise above the eastern banks of Queanbeyan River, a couple of golfers wheel their buggies up to the 12th tee of the nearby golf course.
I ask if they're aware of the grave of Anna Maria Faunce. But before I'm able to show them the newly installed plaque attached to a handrail, they look incredulously at me, one mutters something under his breath as the other demands I "move out of the way".
And I don't blame them. The far-flung back nine is the last place you'd expect to find one of the earliest pioneer graves in Queanbeyan, let alone a sketchy bloke dressed as an overgrown boy scout asking about it.
But near here is the final resting spot of poor little Anna Maria who, aged just two months, was buried near here on "Dodsworth", the family property, in January 1839.
For well over a century, a marble headstone marked her grave, but for the last 50-plus years her grave has been unmarked, forgotten and unwittingly passed over by a parade of golfers and their buggies.
Keen for her grave not to be lost in the mists of time, Bob and Margie Quodling of outbackgraves.org, a not-for-profit organisation that formalises unmarked graves across the country, recently teamed up with Tony Maple, a fellow researcher from Canberra and Region Heritage Researchers.
Unfortunately, the exact location of the grave is virtually impossible to locate due to the significant earthworks undertaken during the construction of the golf course. So much for resting in peace, hey? However, this didn't deter Tony, who through painstaking analysis of existing records, old maps and aerial photography, was able to narrow down Anna Maria's final resting place to within a 10-metre radius.
Just two weeks earlier, I joined Tony and a small group of history enthusiasts as Bob, along with Blake Alured de Laune Faunce, the second great-grandnephew of Anna Maria, unveiled a plaque in the infant's memory.
The plaque simply states, "Near here lies Anna Maria Faunce, aged 2 months, died 29/1/1839".
While we know very little about Anna Maria's short life, that's not the case for her father, Captain Alured Tasker Faunce, who was the area's first police magistrate.
Purveyors of Canberra history will know that in 1837, while Dodsworth was under construction, Faunce and his wife Elizabeth lived temporarily at Canberry Cottage in Acton, using one of the adjoining slab huts as a lock-up.
After moving to Dodsworth Estate in 1838, which eventually didn't only boast his home but also the town's first cells, a courthouse and hospital, Faunce quickly became a popular and respected figure in the growing community of the Limestone plains.
However, Faunce's life was cut short when he died while playing cricket on April 26, 1856, a game it is believed he helped introduce to the area.
On the fateful day, he was playing on the Market Reserve (now part of Queen Elizabeth II Park just downstream of Queen's Bridge), the only suitable flat piece of ground cleared of trees within cooee. Makes you wonder how many balls ended up despatched into the river as "6 and out".
But Faunce wasn't wielding the willow when he collapsed and died, rather he was bowling, and according to The Sydney Gazette "was never known to play with more heart or vigour than he did on that day".
According to Rex Cross in Bygone Queanbeyan - Revised Edition (Queanbeyan Publishing Company, 1985), "Faunce's body was transported back to his Dodsworth home on an old door by fellow cricketers." He was subsequently buried in the Anglican section of the town's Riverside Cemetery, which hadn't yet been established when his daughter Anna Maria died 17 years earlier.
While Faunce's headstone still stands proudly at the cemetery, Anna Maria's tombstone had been partly forgotten until, around 1933-34, while walking along the Queanbeyan River, 10-year-old Enid Guard and her dad stumbled upon it. Time had not been kind to the headstone, which was in many fragments, some of which had been washed down a gully.
The morbid encounter must have left an indelible imprint on her memory, for when some 39 years later Enid and her husband Roy went looking for it on the newly created "back nine" of the Queanbeyan Golf Course, even though it was partially buried, the couple found it almost immediately.
"I can remember how excited I was at our discovery but remember even more clearly how strongly moved I was by the death of the infant who had barely lived at all," she recalled in an article she penned for the Queanbeyan District Historical Museum and Society Newsletter in 1996.
Soon after its rediscovery, the recovered fragments of the gravestone were mounted on a board which has since been misplaced.
At the recent unveiling of the plaque, a proud Blake revealed that just like his great-great-great-grandfather, he is also a cricketer "but plays for Weston Creek, not Queanbeyan".
Somehow, I don't think this revelation will make Captain Faunce turn in his grave. In fact, I suspect he'd be tickled pink that Blake and the broader community have paid tribute to his long-forgotten daughter.
And who knows, once they hear this backstory, perhaps those two grumpy golfers who asked me to move on might pay their respects to Anna Maria before next teeing off on the 12th.
Reduced to 'a pile of glowing charcoal'
Ahead of its time: Dodsworth House was a remarkable building and remained in use for more than 120 years. In First Light on the Limestone Plains: historic photographs of Canberra and Queanbeyan by Errol Lea Scarlett and Tim Robinson (CDHS, Hale & Iremonger 1986) the "roomy slab and brick residence" is described as "constructed without the aid of an architect or expert builder, it was comfortable and secure on the river bank, about two miles from the town and above the reach of floods. Split-level floors created added interest in the interior." Not bad for the late 1830s.
A fiery end: After being abandoned for "several years", The Canberra Times of August 2,1967, reported on a fire which had reduced it to "a pile of glowing charcoal", describing Dodsworth as having been "built with hand-made nails, sun-baked bricks and timber cut by pitsaws".
Did You Know? Faunce Street in O'Connor is named after Captain Alured Tasker Faunce and Dodsworth Street in Queanbeyan after his family estate.
Grist to the mill: In the early 1840s, two flour mills were built in the district, one a water mill on Dodsworth Estate and the other operated by wind on George Campbell's Duntroon Estate. The Duntroon mill was destroyed by a windstorm in 1874 and the Dodsworth mill, which was replaced by a steam-powered unit several years after its construction, was destroyed by fire on March 21, 1881.
Missing headstone fragments: While the Queanbeyan Museum has two small pieces of Anna Maria Faunce's headstone safely squirrelled away in its collection, a board on which several other fragments were cemented after the grave's rediscovery in 1972 is missing. If you know where it is, please let me, or the good folk at the museum, know.
WHERE IN CANBERRA?
Rating: Medium
Clue: 1926
How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday July 13 wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.
Last week: Congratulations to Dawn Donnelly of Casey who was the first reader to correctly identify last week's photo as Tin Hut on the saddle between the Finns and Valentine River catchments in the Kosciuszko National Park. "After visiting Perisher one year, my youngest daughter saw photos of historical huts in The Snowies and subsequently presented a school project with photos, dates built and why," reports Dawn.
Dawn just beat an avalanche of other readers including Glenn Schwinghamer of Kambah, Peter Morris of Farrer and Peter Lambert of Campbell, who reports "Tin Hut is so named because its roof, walls and chimney are built of corrugated iron".
According to Matthew Higgins who submitted the photo, which he took in 1992, "as Klaus Hueneke's book Huts of the High Country describes, Tin Hut was built in 1926 for skier Dr Herbert Schlink. Schlink wanted to ski the back-country route between Kiandra and Kosciuszko and Tin Hut was to be a key shelter en-route. The first ski attempt ended in failure, but the second in 1927 was successful. The hut has seen much conservation work, including a new door on the opposite side to the original".
"My 1992 trip saw us share Tin Hut with other Canberra skiers, and make a day trip to nearby Mawsons Hut, with a threatening cold front approaching! Great place, great memories," reflects Matthew.
Special note to adventurous duo Andrew Pearce and Damian McDermott who submitted their entry from their tent near Muellers Pass, while on a weekend trip traversing the Main Range from Dead Horse Gap to Mt Townsend. A grand effort to log in while many other entrants were still curled up under their doonas (yes, you know who you are!)
- CONTACT TIM: Email: tym@iinet.net.au or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, GPO Box 606, Civic, ACT, 2601
