We caught up with David Houston, his wife Coleen and daughter Lani during our recent Open Day. David is the grandson of James Houston, whose story begins at Toganmain in 1884.
In 1884, Sarah Bradshaw was teaching at Toganmain, the first school teacher on the station. Her background was as varied as the country she'd come to: her father had been a gold miner on the Victorian fields at Beechworth before settling on a wheat farm at Coolamon in New South Wales. Sarah was accomplished, independent-minded, and, as events would prove, entirely clear about what she wanted from life.
That same year, a young Irishman named James Houston took the train to Hay to visit his cousin, Willie Kyle, who was working at Toganmain. James had arrived in Australia two years earlier, sailing from County Derry on one of the first powered sail ships, the Sabroan. He was one of six brothers who had scattered across the world - two to the cities of Australia, others to Canada, America, and New Zealand. The new railway line out to Hay would have made the journey from the coast feel, for the first time, almost manageable.
At Toganmain, James met Sarah. Not long after, Sarah noted in her writing that they were off to a dance at Carrathool, and that the 'New Chum', Irishman James Houston, would be there - 'which would be fun.'
James, it seems, thought so too. He proposed. Sarah said no.
Not yet, at any rate. She had things she wanted to do first - and she intended to do them. She moved to Sydney, where she taught at Burwood Superior School (a posting she had specifically researched for its curriculum), sang with the Sydney Philharmonic Choir, and joined the Ladies T.S. Bicycling Club. She lived fully, on her own terms, for thirteen years. Her sister Leticia Bradshaw, equally accomplished, became a noted painter exhibiting alongside artists of the McCubbin circle. Accomplished women ran in the family.
While Sarah was making her life in Sydney, James was building something out on the plains. He selected sixty acres near the Benduck homestead in 1884, then in 1888 a full square mile on the edge of the One Tree Plain, which he called Budgewah. He gradually bought out the other selectors who shared the country around him, though the Federation Drought of 1895 to 1902 - compounded by rabbit devastation and bank collapses - tested every landholder in the district to their limits.
In 1897, Sarah came back. Thirteen years after they had first met at Toganmain, she and James were married. She was ready. Together they made their life on Budgewah, travelling to Hay through twenty-four gates in a horse-drawn buggy. They raised five children, four of them born after Sarah turned forty - remarkable by any measure, but perhaps not surprising for a woman who had always done things on her own terms.
One of those children, a boy named Hillis, fell from the buggy one day and had the wheel pass over his head. They made the long journey into Hay with him bleeding badly. Hillis survived, and in 1929 he qualified as a doctor - a detail David tells with the particular satisfaction of a family legend that earned its ending.
James Houston
The Houston name has remained part of the Hay district for well over a century. David, Coleen and Lani, who joined us at Open Day, are among the living links to that story - and to the moment, 140 years ago, when a young teacher at Toganmain met a New Chum Irishman who had come to visit his cousin.
It would be fun, she thought. She had no idea.
David, Coleen and Lani Houston
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