LINK WITH EARLY DAYS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 52, 12 February 1934, Page 8

LINK WITH EARLY DAYS

Famous Australian Estate

REGION’S ROMANTIC PAST

Few landed estates have had such romantic and historic pasts as Table Top station in New South Wales, the sale of which by the executors of the late Mr. James Mitchell to Mr. F. E. Cobbald was lately announced. Table Top is 13 miles north-east of Albury, and at one time consisted of 50,000 acres of freehold. A portion was sold in 1909, and part was divided between Mr. Mitchell’s two sons, so at the time of sale there were 18,400 acres. The estate is watered by the Table Top and Bowna Creek, on which a large homestead is situated, and they junction on the property and flow into the Murray, There are also a number of springs and dams.

The country is gently undulating, and with a never-failing supply of water and abundance of feed in the pastures Table Top is ideally suitable for stock-breeding and raising. It has proved that in the lust 80 years. The late Janies Mitchell was the fourth son of Captain Mitchell, a retired naval officer, and Mrs. Mitchell was a Miss Iluon, a relative of her husband on his mother’s side. She could trace back her ancestry to Gabriel Louis Huon de Kerrileau, a member of tlie French aristocracy, in whose veins flowed the flood of the Bourbons. De Kerrileau escaped from France in the course of the French Revolution, and on coming to Australia enlisted as a private under Captain John Macarthur, who was a lieutenant in the New South Wales corps. On his discharge De Kerrileau received a grant of land in the Shoalhaven district whera he was engaged in raising sheep. William Huon, a grandson, took up land on the Wodonga side of the Murray river, and he was the first pastoralist to follow in the track of Hume and HovelL Mr. Mitchell was related by marriage to Hamilton Hume, as Mr. Rawdon Hume, a brother of the explorer, married his sister, and Mrs. Mitchell’* brother, Mr. William Huon, married a granddaughter of Rawdon Hume. In 1855 or 1850 Mr. Mitchell's mother purchased for him Table Top from Mr. J. V. Smith. Extensions of the area enabled him to stock 3000 head of cattle and between 50,000 and 60,000 sheep. The herd of peiligrie Devon cattle was the largest in Australia, probably in the world. The Merino sheep are still consistent prize-winners at shows in the Rivcrina, and the wool dips have often topped the sales. At one time Mr. Mitehell bred horses, the most famous of which, Cremorne, won the Caulfield of 1890, and lhe Doncaster Handicap of 1893. Mr. Mitchell died in 1914 and his wife in 1932.