LIFE STORY of JANET JESSIE MURRAY CORFIELD
Born 4 July 1824 on "Georgefield" Langholm, Dumfries, Scotland
Married 18 June 1852 on "Wulooga", Wide Bay District, New South Wales
Died 29 May 1853 on "Teebar", Wide Bay District, New South Wales
Buried 29 May 1853 on "Teebar", Wide Bay District, New South Wales

Jessie was 18 years old when she migrated with her parents and siblings from 
southwest Scotland aboard the "Templar" out of Liverpool to Sydney, New South 
Wales. Others on the Templar included Mr and Mrs Sandy Galbraith and Miss 
Galbraith who remained friends with the Murrays, for years after they all had settled 
in New South Wales. 
Her father, James Murray acquired "Warrawang" west of Wallerawang, NSW, and 
there developed a sheep farm, providing for the family relying heavily on their garden 
and grain. The family had with them their piano, music, books, oil portraits and many 
other possessions of a cultured and educated family. Jessie like her parents had a 
developed Christian faith and the occasional references to this in her letters and her 
father's diary, indicate that she was devoted to God.
 When she left first left home she went to serve at the Walkers in Wallerawang. As 
she wasn't far from home, members of her family often visited her, especially her 
father and brother John. She also had opportunity to visit at "Warrawang". She was a 
very competent cook and she enjoyed sewing. She like her sisters was well educated 
and she wrote well. Her caring nature is revealed in her correspondence.
  It was a fine day when Jessie, age 25, left her parents home at "Warrawang" for the 
last time. She caught the coach to Sydney. She had in her charge, her young brother 
James, aged 13, and was escorted by Mr Sandy Galbraith who was returning to 
Sydney after a visit to the Murray family at "Warrawang". Her father and her 
brothers, Matthew, George, Boby and Fred were there to see them leave on the coach 
for Sydney. It was Monday 18th March 1850.  The night before, she had been asked 
to do a most significant thing before she left home.  She read to her parents and 
siblings a chapter from the Bible and a sermon, instead of her Papa.
 John, their 23 year old brother had gone to Sydney a few days ahead of them. Their 
plans to leave Sydney together for Wide Bay on Saturday 23rd March were delayed 
for at least a week because Jessie's hands and face were sore, presumably badly 
sunburnt by the long journey in the coach. The three of them took a passage on a 
sailing vessel bound for Wide Bay. (John had previously visited Moreton Bay. He 
was there for a year earlier, from March 1849 to February 1850. His father recorded 
in his diary, receiving a letter from John at Moreton Bay dated 16th March 1849.) 
Once in the north, they travelled 50 miles to "Wulooga" (Woolooga, Queensland 
today), where they stayed for some time. John had selected this land for squatting the 
year earlier, having established contact with James Sheridan in Maryborough and 
John Mactaggart who was nearby on "Kilkivan" Station. Henry Corfield and his 
partner William Richardson had taken up "Gigoomgan" to the north of Mactaggart. 
John Murray never officially obtained the lease on "Wulooga" (or "Gulooga" as it 
was called in one of Jessie's letters) before he surrended the run, defeated by 
aboriginal resistance and their destructive use of fire. Sheep and pasture do not 
survive a deliberate summer fire!
Jessie's first letter home from the northern pastoral frontier arrived at Warrawang on 
5th June 1850. On 21 December that year, John Murray wrote that they were in daily 
danger from the surrounding aborigines. He wrote that 2 of his shepherds had been 
killed and 600 sheep stolen. Later the aborigines had herded another 1000 sheep and 
destroyed them. In "History of Kilkivan Shire", Dulcie Logan writes, " This finally 
convinced him to give up and surrender the run. Another piece of evidence was found 
on the fly-leaf of a book belonging to John Daniel Mactaggart of Kilkivan Station 
after his death. The note read: 'Dear Mactaggart, make all haste. Frank is murdered 
and a lot of sheep taken, J Murray.' It seems probable that Mactaggart answered the 
call for help, as he himself had stood his ground many times against hostile 
aborigines." (Logan, D. 1988. Where The Rivers Run. A History of Kilkivan Shire, 
Kilkivan, Kilkivan Shire Council, p54)
John and Jessie were at "Wulooga" till January 1852 when Jessie, in another letter 
home, says that she was preparing John's clothes ready for his departure to take 
charge of his troopers of the Native Police. As John Murray left, the young James was 
brought across from a nearby station to "Wulooga" to be with Jessie.  While at 
"Wulooga", Jessie was courted by Mr Henry Cox Corfield.
 H. C. Corfield was a squatter. He had lease of "Gigoomgan" and then leased adjacent 
"Teebar" Station, 35 miles north of Woolooga.  He was keen to develop it and occupy 
it permanently.
 On 18th June 1852, Henry Corfield married Jessie (Rev John Hausmann celebrated 
their marriage according to the rites of the Presbyterian Church). The day of her 
marriage she wrote at least two letters home, one to her parents and the other to her 
little brother Boby. Once the bullock team returned to Woolooga with "a load of 
things for Teebar", they went to live on "Teebar". It was quite a daring adventure for 
Jessie, as she had never seen "Teebar" before.
 Life was tough.
 On "Teebar" the young couple (Henry 29 and Jessie 28) lived in a rude hut, sited at 
the top of the bank just above the creek flats. Jessie had an aboriginal woman 
companion, Bessy. Letters that Jessie wrote home to her young brother, Boby at 
Warrawang, indicate that she found the environment oppressive and that she missed 
the basics of home. However, Jessie was pregnant now. She was to live on "Teebar" 
for only 10 months, before she died on 29 May 1853 in childbirth. Mr Corfield buried 
her down on the creek flat, about 50metres from their hut. On a sandstone flag, he 
sadly inscribed her name "Jessie", and placed it as a headstone on her lonely grave. 
(Her grave and stone can be seen [in 1997] on Teebar, on the flat immediately below 
the original homestead site. Today, when standing at the lone grave of Jessie and her 
foetal child, one can see the prominent headstones of the Eaton family, the subsequent 
owners of "Teebar", some distance away on top of the bank.  Another headstone was 
erected as a memorial to Jessie, in the Barton Park Cemetery at Wallerawang, NSW 
by her parents.)
 Mr Corfield was depressed by the death of his wife. Add to that the severity of the 
drought and then the loss of another 800 sheep in a bushfire, in March 1854, and 
Henry Corfield quit "Teebar". He sold to John Eaton in 1854, and headed to the Gulf 
Country in the far north, seeking pastoral land to possess, but returned to take up 
"Stanton Harcourt Station" 30 miles from Teebar, towards the Isis.