Death Notice for Peter Mccracken S Son William 1852 Gladstone Park Area Vic Aust

I searched for William's death notice again last night but couldn't find it on trove and there didn't seem to be a death record on Victorian BDM. I eventually found the death notice in one of my journals whose title fittingly started with Eureka because the journal was prompted by finding the family notice after months of searching.

DIED,
Drowned at Broadmeadows, on the 18th instant,William, aged 3 years and 3 months, third son of Peter M'Cracken, of Stewarton. (P.4, Argus, 20-10-1852.)

My search for the death notice last night resulted from a query in a private message.
Subject: McCracken
To: itellya
From: pvrd
Date: 2017-03-21 10:38:53
Hi ---. Can you tell me where McCracken's property (near the Moonee Ponds Creek in 1847) actually was? Also, which McCracken was it?

MY REPLY.
It was "Stewarton", section 5 of the parish of Tullamarine. Peter McCracken leased this from 1846-1855 from Neil Black and then lived on a dairy farm leased from John Robert Murphy at Kensington until about 1857 when he moved into his newly built "Ardmillan" mansion at Moonee Ponds. A major shareholder in the (failed) Essendon private railway, he was forced to sell Ardmillan circa 1872 and moved to a mansion (now heritage listed*) in East Melbourne.
*East Melbourne, Gipps Street 104 | East Melbourne Historical Society
emhs.org.au/history/buildings/east_melbourne_gipps_street_104
East Melbourne, Gipps Street 104 ... Peter McCracken, farmer and brewer, was the next owner of the house. He and his brother, ... --- ----, email 27/09/13.

Section 5 Tullamarine fronted the east side of Broadmeadows Rd (Mickleham Rd today) from Forman St, where it adjoined Broadmeadows Township, to the Lackenheath Drive corner and extended east to the Moonee Ponds Creek.

One of Peter's young sons drowned in the Moonee Ponds Creek in 1852 after he accompanied his older siblings part of the way to school at Broadmeadows Township. http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4787825

I've just spent an hour trying to find the death notice but there was no way I was going to find it on trove. It had taken months to find it for the second time and I did copy it that time, thus the use of Eureka in the journal's title.

DIED,
Drowned at Broadmeadows, on the 18th instant,William, aged 3 years and 3 months, third son of Peter M'Cracken, of Stewarton. (P.4, Argus, 20-10-1852.)

"Stewarton" was renamed "Gladstone" circa 1892 and is now the northern 777 acres of today's Gladstone Park and the Gladstone Gardens Estate separated by the freeway.

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I accidentally submitted my message. The journal prompted by my discovery of the death notice for young William was:
EUREKA! PIONEERS OF BROADMEADOWS, VIC., AUSTRALIA AND PETER MCCRACKEN'S TRAGEDY.
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The lucky break that led to finding the death notice must have been using M'Cracken (instead of McCracken) and Broadmeadows as search terms.

I became a local historian in 1988 because of the farm that Peter McCracken had occupied. My brother Ken, a family historian, had asked me to research the Broadmeadows rate books in regard to our great grandfather, John Cock, farming on the area of Gladstone Park. Having done so, I became aware that most pioneers of the Broadmeadows road district/ shire did not rate a mention in Andrew Lemon's BROADMEADOWS: A FORGOTTEN HISTORY and transcribed the rate records in the parishes of Will Will Rook and Yuroke. I also transcribed occupants of Section 5 Tullamarine from 1863 to the last available rate record in the 1950's which proved helpful over a decade later. From my EARLY LANDOWNERS:PARISH OF TULLAMARINE.

SECTION 5.
This was granted to Neil Black before auction. George Russell, a fellow Western district squatter, purchased it on his behalf, which explains Russell's name being on the parish map. It extended north from the present Lackenheath Dr corner to the creek and consisted of 785 acres but was later described as 777 acres. Black probably wanted it for a holding paddock but from 1846 till 1855 leased it to Peter McCracken.
McCracken's sons, Robert and Colin, attended the school in Broadmeadows township and the youngest child, William, often walked with them, probably to the foot of Pascoe St where a bridge stood for many years. One day in 1852, after seeing the older children to the township, young William drowned in a waterhole in the Moonee Ponds Creek. (McCracken Letters.)
One of those who worked on Stewarton for Peter McCracken was John Johnson who arrived in 1852. Johnson soon after purchased the 40 acres between Swain St and Providence Lane at Greenvale and possibly Greenhill at the north west corner of Mickleham and Craigieburn Rds. (No proof that Greenhill's owner was the same John Johnson.) After many years near Kyneton, his son, William, bought Spring Park in Keilor Rd and William's offspring occupied Glendewar and Cumberland for most of the first half of the 20th century. (Keith Brown, Canberra.)
The farm was called Stewarton after Stewart, a member of Black's syndicate. The Lessee recorded in Broadmeadows' 1863 rate book was James Maconochie. With Hugh Brown of Camp Hill and John Bethel of Broadmeadows Township, Macocochie resigned from the Broadmeadows Road Board in 1864; according to Andrew Lemon who suggests that the sacking of the Board's secretary was the reason for their action.
It was later leased for many years by John Kerr sen. After Black's death its ownership passed, in 1882, to the family of T.S. Gladstone, a cousin of the famous politician and another syndicate member. After John Cock commenced his lease in 1892-3, the farm was renamed Gladstone. John Cock bred Clydesdales and grew hay. His huge haystacks were renowned in the district. He introduced the latest technology on Gladstone and the nearby Chandos.
Lessees after Cock's death at the end of 1911 were Helen Melville, A.E.Hoadley, L.Roxburgh (from 1920) and James Barrow (from 1930) who had the first tractor in the district and turned the farm to wheat growing. In 1948-9, Gladstone was bought from the Gladstones by F.N.Levin, who sold it to Stanley Korman in 1952. Korman's plans were well advanced, as shown by the plan in the pamphlet published by (Major) Walter V.Murphy in 1959, but the M.M.B.W.'s inability to supply water, and probably the prospect of aircraft noise, thwarted the development.
Shareholders in the Stanhill company lost their life savings but Korman sold it to Costains in July 1964 for L 645 000, not a bad profit on the L77 735 he'd paid Levin.

North Circular Rd was probably the original entry to the farm, with a bridge at the foot of Pascoe St linking it to the township. The peppercorn tree at the south corner of Nth Circular Rd would have been part of the garden of the original homestead, a four roomed 10 square house near Claredale Ave. Not shown on the ordnance map is the second Gladstone Park homestead, a nine roomed brick house with a cellar on the corner of Lyndhurst and Peel. The stables were about halfway up the Nth Circular Rd hill on the south side. (rate books re rooms, Ian Farrugia re locations, Lloyd Bros. re entry.)
After the bridge from Pascoe St had been washed away by a flood, entry was via Forman St and following pine trees on the ridge.

THE GLADSTONE PARK STABLES. SILOS IN BACKGROUND.

INSIDE THE STABLES WITH ONE OF JOHN COCK'S NOTED CLYDESDALES.