by M. L. Troughton and L. N. Thompson
The two brothers James and William were yeoman farmers from Essex, England. They emigrated to Australia in 1836.
James purchased 79 acres of land adjoining Chandler’s grant. One boundary of it was later to become Bay Street, Rockdale. The land ran back in a triangle almost to Botany Bay, meeting Patrick Moore’s land to the south.
In 1840, James married Mary Burnett, a Scotch lass. They had 6 children – Isaac, Margaret, Robert, Gideon, Elizabeth, and James. When James was 2 years old and Isaac 12 years, their mother died and the father married again, to Maria Hamilton. Of this marriage there were 5 children – William, Samuel, Arthur, George, and Mary.
William, brother of James, set up as a grocer in Newtown and also bought land adjoining his brother’s land at Rockdale. He married Elizabeth Hamilton. When he retired from his grocery business, he built a two-storied house between what is now Spring & Tabrett Streets. In 1886, he had 4 surviving children: William Alexander, Samuel Alfred, Hanna, and Albert.
The need for a settled and suitable place of worship was apparent to all and a choice of locality became possible when each of the Beehag brothers offered an acre of their respective lands on which to erect a permanent church. The portion offered by James Beehag, being closer to the temporary church then in operation, was accepted on 18th August, 1858. Within 4 months, a stone chapel, 30ft long and 20ft wide, was completed at the cost of £220. It was dedicated on Boxing Day by the Rev. Richard Amos, a missionary from Tonga. By 1871 the church became too small and a new building was erected at a cost of £600. The Primitive Methodist chapel was set aside as a school. This graceful church with its subsequent extensive additions and parsonage still stands in Bay Street, Rockdale.
In its early years, the church was included in the Newtown circuit under the Superintendence of the Rev W.A. Quick. The school conducted at the church during the week was in the capable hands of Mr John Andrews, a Methodist lay-preacher, who moved to Rockdale in 1862. The school fee was sixpence per pupil, per week. This school flourished for years, until a school was opened at Kogarah and later at Arncliffe.
About 1862, a “new line of Rocky Point Road” was built. To assist the upkeep of the newly constructed roads, Trustees were appointed and were permitted under the Parish Roads Act, to charge a rate not exceeding sixpence per acre on all lands within three miles of the road. The Rocky Point Trust, comprising John B Carroll (Chairman), Patrick Moore, J. Moore, James Beehag, and William Beehag, was granted permission to establish the first toll bar south of Cook’s River, at a point 150 yards from the bathing house at Tempe.
In 1871, James Beehag was elected an Alderman on the first Rockdale Municipal Council. He was Mayor of Rockdale twice, in 1872 and 1875.
This article was first published in the November 1981 edition of our magazine.
Images courtesy of Bayside Library Service Local History Collection.
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