Used on the owners Croom Estate from c.1841.Provenance and SignifcanceThis branding iron belonged to Ebenezer Russell.
Ebenezer and Jane Russell sailed from Scotland to Australia on the Portland in 1840. Ebenezer came to work on the Terry’s Meadows Estate (Albion Park).
When Isabella Croker’s Croom Estate was advertised for sale in August 1840, Ebenezer purchased the 1280 acres for 5 shillings an acre. He cleared the land for wheat and potato growing, later converting the land into dairy farms. Isabella Croker (nee Reddall) was the granddaughter of original Peterborough Estate owner, D’Arcy Wentworth.
Ebenezer and Jane’s farm at Stoney Creek, Croom, included a dairy, stables, and basalt flourmill, and was the focal point for the Stoney Creek farming community. The buildings still exist today and are some of the oldest in Shellharbour.
Ebenezer and Jane’s son John Russell, was 26 when he bought farms at Terry’s Meadows and Johnston’s Meadows on the northern bank of the Macquarie Rivulet at Albion Park. He inherited his father’s Croom Estate and became the most prosperous man in the district, owning six other farms as well as town lots in Albion Park. John bought Marshall Mount House for his sister Elizabeth, who married George McDonald in 1871.
Ebenezer and Jane’s descendants, the Hamilton, McGill, Russell, Mathie and McDonald families, have carried on farming for generations in the district.
