to finalise his estate and applied for letters of administration, itemising all land and personal property she and William had owned. She acknowledged the £800 loan plus interest she believed she owed Thomas Tuhan. After notice was made in the Argus of the intention to apply for probate, Thomas Tuhan came forward to claim that William had sold the land and all property to him.⁹⁷
In March 1889, Rebecca was in court again defending herself against Thomas Tuhan who now declared the Aedy land was his. Without access to court transcripts, it is impossible to know what lawyers for each side argued in court. Perhaps the court found Thomas had taken advantage of a mentally unstable man. Or the judge sought to protect an innocent widow. Either way, the case was thrown out, and Rebecca retained the land in her name.⁹⁸
It was not the end of Rebecca’s woes. In March 1898, her youngest child Margaret died of tuberculosis. She was just fifteen. Five weeks later, Rebecca too died of the same disease. She was 53. Mother and daughter are buried together in the Oakleigh Cemetery.⁹⁹ ¹⁰⁰
Bernerd Moylan, 1896, Black Flat/Glen Waverley
Thomas Moylan was born in 1855 in Caulfield, Victoria, to Irish migrant parents: Thomas, a farmer, and Mary. He married Australian born Catherine Riley in 1882 at St Finbar’s Catholic Church in Brighton. Both were then 27 years old. She was the daughter of a landowner and farmer, Brian/Bernard/Bryan Riley. Bryan’s name was recorded differently on various certificates. Thomas had been living in Malvern. He was working as a gardener and her as a domestic, cleaning and keeping house for another family.¹⁰¹
At that time, Malvern would have been more populated than Black Flat, and the distance the couple travelled to start their married life together must have felt like moving to another country. The journey most likely would have taken many hours on horseback, or in a dray being pulled by a horse. The area then known as Black Flat is now known as Glen Waverley. Catherine’s father was granted land in Black Flat, in 1881, the year before Catherine and Thomas married. The land was on the site where the Mountain View Hotel stands today; the young couple eventually moved to the area. The Mountain View Hotel, while it still stands on the corner of Springvale Road and High Street Road, has been rebuilt and refurbished many times.
1892 Mulgrave Shire Map adapted by Clive Haddock¹⁰²
Thomas was the licensee of the Mountain View Hotel from 1882 until 1888, and again briefly in 1895.¹⁰³ In the intervening years, Thomas worked as a farmer on land where The Glen shopping centre now stands. He grew apples, pears and plums. There were at least two homes on the property.¹⁰⁴ Black Flat in 1896 was primitive. Dirt roads were regularly flooded by heavy rains which then cut off the roads, making travel into Melbourne difficult. Gold was found in Black Flat in 1896, drawing hopeful miners into the area. One of the larger mines in the area was opposite the Mountain View Hotel on what is now a McDonalds restaurant and the Glen Waverley Primary School.¹⁰⁵
Children started arriving soon after Thomas and Catherine’s marriage. Daughter Catherine was born in 1885, son Patrick in 1886, Marguerite in 1888 and Bernerd in 1891.¹⁰⁶
The photo below is thought to be of Thomas and Catherine Moylan and two of their children, standing outside the Mountain View Hotel at Black Flat. As the children appear to be of a close age, it is possible they could be Catherine and Patrick, if indeed the photo is of the Moylans.
Moylan’s Mountain View Hotel. Source¹⁰⁷
Life was not easy for the Moylan family: Catherine had been seen several times under the influence of alcohol although, according to a police report, her husband Thomas had reported he had never seen her intoxicated, nor had he seen any signs of delirium tremens.¹⁰⁸ Delirium tremens is the most severe symptom of alcohol withdrawal and can result in death which typically occurs around five days after a person ceases drinking. A person would have had to consume a high level of alcohol intake for many months. The symptoms include hallucinations, confusion, irritability, insomnia and excitability¹⁰⁹
Catherine’s sister Mary Kennedy later reported to police that Catherine had ‘taken a sobriety oath some weeks ago.’¹¹⁰ Catherine was an anxious woman and had told her husband that she was fearful for her health and of hurting her children whom she loved very much. Catherine’s father, Bryan had died in 1885 and before his death had spent time in a lunatic asylum. Her grief may well have added to Catherine’s despair for her own health.
Thomas had reported to police that Catherine frequently warned him that she was frightened she might hurt her children.¹¹¹ On Thursday, January 16, 1896, Catherine’s sister Mary, her husband John Kennedy, their daughter, and Catherine’s brother Patrick were all staying at the Mountain View Hotel. Mary’s 30-year-old daughter, who was also named Catherine had been working in the Black Flat area. However, she had contracted typhoid fever, and although her parents Mary and John had been living in Gippsland, they had come to stay to nurse their daughter while she was unwell.¹¹² Catherine Moylan feared her husband Thomas might also have symptoms of the disease.¹¹³
At around 5pm Thomas heard his two youngest children Bernerd, four, and seven-year-old Marguerite screaming. Minutes earlier they had followed their mother outside to the shed.¹¹⁴ When he went out to investigate, he found Catherine with a hammer in her hand and the two children lying still on the ground, their heads covered in blood. Catherine then turned and ran off into the bush. Was Catherine’s violent behaviour due to her withdrawal from a high alcohol intake?
Police and doctors were called to the hotel. Doctors attended the children and ordered that a horse and cart take them to the nearest hospital. The Alfred Hospital was 27 kilometres away. No ambulances were available to the little village of Black Flat, a trip that would have taken several hours. In the early hours of the next morning, after intricate surgery Bernerd succumbed to his injuries, dying of multiple fractures to the skull and a lacerated brain that was protruding through the pieces of broken skull bone.¹¹⁵
Illustration; Erica Gage
Catherine’s brother Patrick set out to find her, and found her apron weighed down by bricks by a waterhole on land just over a mile away on the property owned by the O’Deas. For a moment Patrick wondered if Catherine had drowned herself.¹¹⁶
Margaret and Thomas O’Dea, a bootmaker,¹¹⁷ owned a farm in Black Flat which fronted onto Waverley Road. Thomas O’Dea told police that Catherine had arrived at their home late that night, her clothing torn and dripping wet, her face was wild and her hair matted. She was all but naked in front of him.¹¹⁸ Margaret had given Catherine a night-dress and put her to bed. The O’Dea couple were ignorant of the events at the Mountain View Hotel.¹¹⁹
Google Maps showing area of O’Dea farm
Nevertheless, Thomas O’Dea was so alarmed at Catherine’s appearance that he set out on horseback to the hotel to find out what had happened, and to reassure Thomas that his wife, Catherine was safe. The police, when seeing the apron under the rock assumed Catherine had tried to kill herself.
An inquest into Bernerd’s death was held the next day at the Alfred
