This information about the Sutherland family came to me via Rex Sutherland. The notes were written by Leslie Archibald Sutherland (1911-97). I have edited them slightly to put them in my own family’s context.
My great-great grandfather Daniel Sutherland migrated to Australia from Scotland in 1854.
Together with his wife Mary (nee Ferguson) and their four children Daniel, Robert, Harry and Archibald they boarded at the Isle of Bute and arrived in Melbourne, Victoria.
They loaded a hand wheelbarrow with supplies and began walking to the Chewton goldfields about 60 miles from Melbourne. A tent became the family home and Daniel Snr began working the goldfields. Archibald (my great-grandfather) was about seven years of age.
It is believed Harry Sutherland joined the Leichhardt Expedition in Queensland in 1870. It is assumed Aborigines murdered him and the rest of the party.
Robert Sutherland, coming home with his weekly earnings of alluvial gold from Chewton, was ambushed and later found killed by a pick. There is no known record or information about Daniel Sutherland Jnr.
Archibald Sutherland (Born Isle of Bute, Scotland 1848, died 1912) remained in the regional goldfields as a miner. In 1875 he married Louisa Burgdorf, of Barkers Creek, Castlemaine.
They settled on a small property at Moonlight Flat, Castlemaine. Their children were George William (1876), Mary Louisa (1877), Archibald Herman (1880), Daniel, Annie, Eleanor (1888), May and Evelyn (died at 14 years).
Archibald Sutherland died at 62 years from “miner’s complaint” and Louisa died a number of years later after the birth of Eleanor (my grandmother). Their daughter Mary Louisa, being about 17 years old at the time, raised the children.
My comment: This information is terrific, but poses a number of questions that I hope to answer over the next few years. So far, I have not been able to find any shipping record for the arrival in Australia of Daniel Sutherland and Mary Ferguson. That will be my starting point.
If anyone has information about the Sutherland or Burgdorf families in Australia I’d be pleased to hear from you.
The Burgdorf family at The Hermitage, Castlemaine.
