The Tumut and Adelong Times 15 Jan 1929
EMINISCENSES (By Alex Davis, late of Gilmore). The death of Thomas Green, late of Tumut, removes one of our oldest residents and calls up memories of the past history of Tumut. The late Thomas Green and I attended the Denominational School in Tumut in the year 1861, when the school was held in an old slab and bark stable in the grounds where now stands the late residence of Mr. Chas. Murrow. The writing desks were fixed up against the slabs of the back wall, so thet the pupil sat with his back to the east and in his own shadow, and no windows in front of him. The old building was erected and used by the late Captain Vyner as a stable, his dwelling house being nearby. It was still used as a school years after I left, and was occupied as such in 1865. There are a few of the old scholars of that time left in Tumut who will remember the conditions. There was but one room with an earthen floor. And one had to step over the ground plate in the front en trance which was over a foot above the ground floor. The teacher's desk was a packing case. As a youth, the late Thomas Green became a noted sprinter. Many a tough encounter I have had with him. There never was in those far-off days an athletic gathering, in any part of the district, that he did not attend and he was to be reckoned with. Leaving home for Sydney on 1st December, I was re quested by Green's intimate friends to call and see him, which I did as soon as I could procure his address. I arrived at the hospital at 3 p.m., and, in speaking to the attendant on entering, the patient said he recognised my voice, and when I stood beside his bed his eyes filled with tears. He said he never was so glad to see anyone. I could see at once he was in a very bad way, although his sight and hearing were good, and he had no pain, only a sinking feeling. His food consisted of milk and brandy. Every care and attention was bestowed upon him. I stayed with him for two hours. He told me that one of his family came daily to visit him. He enquired all about his old friends in Tumut. Ten days after my visit he died, and I attended his funeral on 3rd January, in Liver pool Cemetery. I met all his family at the graveside with one or two exceptions. My earliest recollections of the Green family was in the year 1856. When I was a child we went in a bullock dray to Green's farm on Bombowlee for a load of pumpkins. We crossed an old wooden bridge which spanned the Tumut River, and was situated just above the Tumut Racecourse, erected, I understand, by private contract by Messrs Foord and Anderson and was at that time the only bridge span ning the Tumut River. |