Blue Mountains Historical Society member Max Hill was keen to give a proper tribute to the grave of pioneering Kedumba Valley bushman William James Maxwell.
In December last year, with a party of concerned individuals, Mr Hill ensured the last remaining white man’s grave in the valley - “the last token of the Burragorang area that’s above water” - was marked with a ring of rough split palings.
The humble tribute to the cattle grazier was made possible with the palings from the property of Luke Carlon of the Megalong Valley, the support of National Parks ranger Chris Banffy, and under the direction of another Megalong Valley man, Jack Tolhurst.
“It’s a fitting tribute to this colonial pioneer who selected this part of the Kedumba Valley in the 1860s,” Mr Hill said. “In the mid to late 1800s the Katoomba people called this Maxwell’s Selection.”
The grave of the 84-year-old stockman, who died in 1914, sits in the mountain's shadow, near Waterfall Creek Ford and the National Parks and Wildlife Service Kedumba camping area. Dying at the start of World War 1, Maxwell’s grave was marked with a simple wooden cross which later burnt to ash in a fire. It was replaced with an iron memorial by another pioneering family, the Clearys. Cattle grazier, A.L Bennett, another landowner, wrote a poem in tribute to Maxwell which National Parks mounted on a stone plinth in 2014, 100 years after his death.
With wife Mary Ann, Maxwell had 11 children. They travelled for miles by horseback or on foot for supplies and the closest school was 16 kms away at Emu Flat and not built until 1886 (so likely only their youngest child went). It is a nine kilometre walk in to the grave site. Families left the Kedumba after the area flooded when Warragamba Dam was constructed in 1948. The last resident was William Maxwell’s grandson, Les.
“The Kedumba Valley has been home to many people at different times over the years,” Mr Hill said, “from the Gundungurra traditional owners, Kill, Fitzpatrick, Woollam, Dawson, Bennett, Maxwell, Smith and Cleary each working and building a dwelling on their land.”
“People have worked the cattle, agisted horses, trapped rabbits, built fences, grown crops, harvested timber, cut fire trails and fought fires in the valley. WaterNSW and National Parks rangers and field officers are working to maintain the valley.”
The area is still popular with bushwalkers and trailrunners.
“The pioneers are those that went before us and prepared the way that we enjoy today,” Mr Hill said
Mr Hill said he hoped to hear from anyone who might know more about the family’s pioneering history. Email maxofkedumba@gmail.com.
