Location
Michelago is a locality in the Monaro region of New South Wales, Australia. The locality is in the Snowy Monaro Regional Council local government area, 54 kilometres south of Canberra on the Monaro Highway. It was founded in the 1820s, on the main route from Sydney to the Snowy Mountains. (wikipedia)
History
Currie and Ovens explored the Michelago region in 1823 and the first settlement proceeded soon thereafter, involving the ex-convict couple, Emmanuel and Catherine Elliot. The explorer Dr John Lhotsky claimed that his journey in 1834 south from the Limestone Plains toward Michelago represented a descent into what he considered barbarism: no church south of Sutton Forest, no window pane south of Canberra, no white woman south of Michelago. The first Monaro Superintendent of Police, the Corsican Francis Nicholas Rossi, built an ironbark slab homestead in the region called Micilago on 35,000 acres in 1837; this station was bought in 1859 by Alexander Ryrie who married Charlotte Faunce the daughter of Alured Tasker Faunce the police magistrate at Queanbeyan; one of their children being Granville Ryrie, later a General in World War I, knighted and involved with the League of Nations in Geneva. Alexander Ryrie who’d renamed his property Michalago,built St Thomas’ church in the village of Michelago and life for those in the area was very self-sufficient, with income from wool, cattle for meat, milk and butter, locally grown fruit and vegetables, with soap and tallow candles also being made by hand.
A big social event was the picnic races and over 200 people attended the Michelago Public School picnic in 1906. During the 1930-50’s eucalyptus stilling was a profitable occupation in the Tinderry Range above Michelago and a drum of eucalyptus oil (44 gallons or 200L) was worth 100 pounds on site in the 1940s. Notable families of the early years of Michelago include the Cotters, Kellys, Lawlers, McTernans and Poveys. Many of their descendants still live in the region.
Lea-Scarlett notes that in October 1840 a gang of five bushrangers broke out of the lockup at Queanbeyan and police magistrate Captain Faunce had to give chase to Michelago before he recaptured them. On 1 June 1866 a bushranging gang consisting of the Clarke brothers, Patsy Connell and two accomplices held up Michelago town (which then consisted of Thomas Kennedy’s Hibernian Hotel, a police station and lockup, Abraham Levy’s store, a Church of England schoolhouse, a Catholic church and a few houses) and drank its entire liquor supply before staggering off to their rocky hide-out called ‘Beefcask’ in the Tinderrys. (wikipedia)
Places of Interest
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