Historical Society - Charters and Capel family links
History Notes
The last week of daylight saving – there will be more time next week!!
This week we had a successful street stall in spite of the stormy weather and sold most of the large collection of cooking. Congratulations to Jan Freestone who won the fruit and vegetables.
Apart from the stall it has been rather a quiet week with few historical queries. Just a couple of members braved the rain on Friday and no one called in to ask a question!
This week I have been looking into the Charters family history which meant a look into some Cobbadah history written by Trevor Warne some 45 years ago. Trevor’s mother, Alice Wearne, was just a girl living with her parents and siblings at “Piedmont Woolshed” when the Charters family camped for lunch at the big dam near the Capel home probably about 1890. There were seven children in the party and although Trevor noted they came from the New England it is most likely that they came originally from southern NSW as several of the children were born in Queanbeyan.
Mrs Capel, mother of ten children, sent two of her teenage daughters over to the camp with milk, cakes and eggs for the children – a gift gratefully received as the family had been travelling for quite some time looking for land to select. As we now know the search was almost over, Daniel selected land a few miles on and named it Hilltop.
The Charters family still own Hilltop and there are branches of the family in places such as Coonamble, Gloucester, Moree, as well as in the Bingara area. There was at least a dozen in the family and most married so there would be a number of descendants of this large, hardworking family, scattered around the state.
Returning to last week’s notes, the search is still on for the 1967 Barraba Chronicle with an article/notice of the death of Gwen Bell. The cemetery records state that she died on 13th June, 1967 at the young age of 39 years. A close friend of hers would like a copy of the article if we can find it for her.
The April Markets are not very far away. We are expecting some visitors from Tamworth so do come along and have a chat with them about our town and how it could be improved. Hopefully there will be a number of stalls to impress our visitors and lots of people to put forward and listen to ideas – plenty of places to sit at the back of the museum.