Western District (Victoria) - History

History

See also: Gunditjmara People

The Western District was well-populated by Victorian Aborigines at the time colonisation began. For example, the ancestors of the Gunditjmara people lived in villages of weather-proof houses with stone walls a metre high, located near eel traps and aquaculture ponds at Lake Condah and elsewhere - on just one hectare of Allambie Farm, archaeologists have discovered the remains of 160 house sites.

n his diary entry for December 3, 1834, Henty wrote

Arrived at 6p.m., made the boat fast in the middle of the river, and started three days' walk in the bush accompanied by H Camfield, Wm Dutton, five men, one black woman and 14 dogs, each man with a gun and sufficient quantity of damper to last for the voyage.

In the December 5 entry Henty wrote

On descending the hill we saw a native. He immediately ran on seeing us. He was busily employed pulling the gums from the wattle trees.

Both the Henty brothers and Captain Griffiths (who settled at Port Fairy in 1836), combined whaling and farming. The district was explored by Thomas Mitchell in 1836 who identified the area's potential for grazing. Charles Tyers was the first to survey the area in 1839. Sheep were first brought to the district in 1836 by Thomas Manifold at Port Henry, near Geelong, and rapidly occupied the whole district. By 1840 squatters occupied almost all the district.