Mary DUNCOMBE

Mary was born in Hobart Town in 1813, the second of three daughters of John DUNCOMBE and Elizabeth HAMBLY. Around 1815 the family moved to a farm at Pittwater. Her father was sent to Sydney due to mental illness in 1819 and her mother formed a new relationship. Mary and her sisters were left, presumably with her grandfather William HAMBLY, when her mother moved to northern Tasmania in 1825.
Mary married Charles RICHARDSON, at Pittwater, in 1827. I wonder if the facts that they married in the schoolhouse and all her children learned to read and write, are connected? Both Mary and her sister were able to sign their names.
Mary and Charles lived on the HAMBLY farm and raised eleven children. Her grandfather died in 1835 and left half his farm at Sorell Rivulet to her. In her will she left it to her husband for life, then her youngest son. She died in 1874 aged 61.

Charles RICHARDSON

Charles RICHARDSON's arrival in Van Diemen's land has not been established but Trish Wood, who researched and wrote The Convict and the Carpenter, concluded that he was probably Charles MOORE who was convicted at Aylesbury in 1816 and transported to Port Jackson on Almorah then VDL by Pilot in 1817. He was an illiterate labourer and received a ticket of leave in 1823.
He married Mary DUNCOMBE at Pittwater in 1827. He was a bout 29 and she was 13.
They lived on the property at Sorell which had belonged to her uncle William HAMBLY Jnr. and had six daughters and five sons. When her grandfather William HAMBLY died in 1835, he left her half his farm at Sorell Rivulet, and they built a small house on it. All the children learnt to read and write.
Charles died at Sorell in 1875, a year after his wife, who left the farm to him for life, then to her youngest son.

Emily RICHARDSON

Born in 1843 at Sorell, Tasmania, Emily was the seventh child and fourth daughter of Charles RICHARDSON and Mary DUNCOMBE. She married George PATTERSON at Sorell in 1860. They had six children, of whom three sons survived infancy.

The family moved across the Derwent to Southport about 1876 and later took up land at Snake Plains. Her husband died in 1890 and she remarried in 1894, a widower and friend of the family, William SKINNER who was 21 years younger than her. Bill was born a couple of months after Emily's first [deceased] child. They continued to live at Snake Plains near her family. Emily was a midwife and kept in touch with her family with frequent letters. She also had a lovely garden. She died in 1925, age 82.

George PATTERSON

Born in 1836 in Hobart Town, he was the son of a convict George PATTERSON and a free immigrant Mary HINGERTY. He had an infant sister when his father was killed in an accident in 1839. Their mother remarried in 1841 to George LUCAS, but she died in Hobart in 1850. George had probably gone out to work by then. He was working as a sawyer in the Sorell area , where he married Emily RICHARDSON in 1860 at Sorell. They were living at Cherry Tree Opening on land belonging to William HODGSON when their first children were born. Their first child, who died in infancy, was named after his sister who had moved to Victoria. They had six children but three died.
They later moved to Midway Point where he was employed in the construction of the Sorell causeway, then they moved across the Derwent to Southport in about 1876. Much of the timber for the causeway came from here. He later bought about 208 acres of land at Snake Plains and his three surviving sons worked as sawmillers.
He died in 1890 and was buried near his house.

Walter Charles PATTERSON

Born in 1862 at Sorell in Tasmania, Walter was the oldest surviving child of George PATTERSON and Emily RICHARDSON. The family moved across the Derwent to Southport around 1876 and Walter probably followed his father into sawmilling. His father took up land at Snake Plains and Walter built a house on his own land across the road from his parents. In those days it was the main road to Dover [Sledge Hill Road].

He married Louisa DENHOLM at Bothwell in 1889. They had eleven children.
 He worked as a saw doctor at the Stanmore mill and Garden Island and gradually planted an apple orchard.

c1915

He died in 1942 and is buried at Surges Bay.