DRURY’S HOTEL
The known history of Drury’s Hotel, Mt Blackwood.
Mt. Blackwood Hotel, Mt. Blackwood, Blackwood. C. 1890.
The History of Blackwood – Pioneers of Blackwood.
by Margot Hitchcock, Historian for the Blackwood & District Historical Society.
The following list of Early Pioneers of Blackwood has been noted in “Victoria and Its Metropolis – Past and Present” by A.Sutherland. Vol 2 1888.
Drury, John, Blackwood, a native of Manchester, England. He came out to Hobartown, Tasmania in 1846 as a steward on the ’Joseph Soames’. He went to the diggings of Ballarat, Forest Creek, Bendigo Mount Korong, McIvor, and Rushworth.
Drury then took a trip back to England where he stayed nine months, returning in 1854, and went to the Goldfields of Maryborough, Creswick and Slaty Creek. He then came to Mt. Blackwood where he purchased land and settled down to hotel and storekeeping, farming and dairying. John Drury owned and ran the Mount Blackwood Hotel until his death in 1905. The Hotel was delicensed in 1911 and burnt down in 1921.
Ballan Times Newspaper – Thursday 21 February 1918
Early Ballan. (By JAS. H. WALSH.) No. 46.
Greendale was surveyed by a surveyor named Nixon shortly after the discovery of gold at Blackwood, as it was considered a handy half-way place between that settlement and Ballan. The first to settle there was the late Mr. John Drury (who in later years and up to the time of his death conducted a hotel at Mt Blackwood, and he built and carried on a coffee shop at the foot of Long Gully somewhat to the north of where O’Shea’s Hotel now stands.
After the breaking out of the Blackwood diggings parties of miners were frequently calling at the Werribee Hunt, seeking directions for getting there, and the duty of piloting them fell to the lot of Mr Egan. To get over the necessity of those trips, the frequency of which made them very inconvenient, he determined to mark out a course that would be a guide to future travellers, and setting out one morning with a party which included the late “Abey” Harrington and his wife and family, with their belonging in a bullock dray, he blazed a track from what is now the corner of Mrs Rickard’s paddock, opposite Mr James Lay’s residence, to Doctor’s creek, crossing the creek slightly to the north of the present bridge. From there, there was a visible track over the hills past where Mr J. F. Egan and Mr J. T. O’Shea now live to the Greendale flat, and thereafter a well-defined one into Blackwood.
The surrounding country formed part of the Glen Pedder run, then in the occupation of the late Mr Thomas Hamilton, and the northern portion of it was sold by that gentleman to old Mr Andrew, the father of Messrs John and Joseph Andrew, and grandfather of Mr W. J. Andrew, of “Old Ingliston,” Ballan, who lived close to where the Greendale cemetery is. There was no one in what is now the village of Greendale, Drury having removed to Mt Blackwood, but settlement commenced around there shortly afterwards, the earliest comers being Brady, John Graham, G. H. Roberts, and Courtenay, amongst others. The ravine on the right hand side of the road after crossing Doctor’s creek on the way to Greendale was only a cattle track when first seen by Mr. Egan; water action has since converted it into what it now is.
The ruins of the burnt-out Mt Blackwood Hotel C. 1990 courtesy Margot Hitchcock
Photos of ruins of Mt. Blackwood Hotel by Paul Kukiel 2025.
Photos of ruins of Mt. Blackwood Hotel by Paul Kukiel 2025.
Photos of ruins of Mt. Blackwood Hotel by Paul Kukiel 2025.
Photos of ruins of Mt. Blackwood Hotel by Paul Kukiel 2025.
THE MURDER OF HENRY WARD MERRIFIELD, at Mount Blackwood – April 30th 1858
The story of how the murder of Henry Ward Merrifield happened was given to Margot Hitchcock on a cassette tape as told by the late Mr. Rolf Baldwin who had a log cabin in Simmons Reef. Rolf Baldwin used to love to listen to the yarns told to him by a pioneer of Blackwood, the late Micky Nolan. Nolan’s’ name is preserved today on maps of the area as Nolan’s Creek and Nolan’s track.
Rolf Baldwin related the story as was told to him by Micky Nolan, in the same quaint Cornish accent as that of Micky Nolan and which Baldwin said he had a ‘bookish’ way of speaking.
Henry Merrifield was a Miner who had been walking out from Blackwood late at night with a parcel of gold which he was taking down to Bacchus Marsh. Henry was waylaid by two men a little on the Mount side of Drury’s pub close by a Hawthorn hedge. These two men had been drinking in Drury’s Pub otherwise known at the Mount Blackwood Hotel.
The two men (later identified as Michael Lavelle (Levelle) or Murphy and John Kelly, killed Henry Merrifield, stole his gold and then took his body some distance down into the Korkuperrimul Creek. There they constructed a pyre and burnt his body.
All this was observed by a man called James Allen, who had drunk himself almost into a stupor at Drury’s Hotel and had then started to walk back towards the Mount, but had lain down and fallen asleep underneath the Hawthorn hedge. Some while later he woke up and heard the men talking about their intention of slaying the miner from Blackwood. Too frightened to say anything or to show his presence, he saw the miner waylaid and murdered. Then when these two men had taken the body down to the creek, Allen made off. He did not tell anyone of his black secret, but it weighed on his mind.
Some while later his employer came out and found Allen sitting at the door of his hut weeping his heart out. The employer questioned Allen and finally found out the terrible story. He asked Allen why he had not told anyone about it and Allen Replied to him, “Oh how could I front a magistrate with a tale like that, the magistrate would only say – “Oh this is just a dream or a ‘hulluxination’ of a liquor fuddled brain”.
The word ‘hulluxination’ stayed with Rolf Baldwin for many a year of the quaint way Micky Nolan spoke. Rolf seemed to think that Micky got most of his education from reading books and this was his own version of the translation of this word.
| Rolf Baldwin’s log cabin on a track above the Garden of St. Erth. 2007. |
Margot Hitchcock outside Baldwins log cabin in Simmons Reef 10th November 1999.
Rolf Baldwin outside his cabin in Simmons Reef, Blackwood
Baldwins cabin under construction in May 1932.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON BALDWINS LOG CABIN SEE THE PAGE
‘BALDWINS LOG CABIN’ ON THIS WEB PAGE..
