When the congregation sings in Australia's oldest church there is a family resonance there that has echoed between the sandstone walls for over 210 years.
Some of those who sit in the pews at Ebenezer church by the Hawkesbury River are direct descendants of those who first cut away the stone that created this wonderful and peaceful sandstone building, completed in 1809 by architect Andrew Johnston.
The church is also linked by a courtyard to Australia's oldest extant schoolhouse and nearby are the ruins of an early bread oven.
It was a wild landscape for those early settlers, the Turnbulls, Johnstons, Cavanoughs and Gronos, but bit by bit they created a new life in a new country. The river was their highway and on the slopes of the Hawkesbury they started the early farms of the new colony, John Turnbull creating the first commercial orchard in Australia, growing peaches.
A lot of the agriculture was to do with pigs (quick to breed), corn and wheat. They came to church by boat and when there was a funeral, they'd see the coffin transported on the water, and form a boat convoy behind it until they reached the sandy bank just down from the church, and the mourners would make their way up the slope for the service and burial. The grounds of the church hold many old gravesites.
All of the pioneers, according to the Ebenezer church's secretary and former Ebenezer public school principal Ted Brill, started life on the Haweskbury in tents, cooking outside, with children running about, until they finally built houses. John Turnbull's house still stands and is occupied. Wisely, he built on a rocky outcrop above the flood line, that was only tested again earlier this year in an almighty flood.
The Hawkesbury River, though brutal at times, was the lifeblood to the early settlers moving their goods around by boat.
The grounds of Ebenezer church spill down to the riverbank and the lawns are beautifully manicured, beds of roses surround the church, and birds bathe in the birdbath by the church window, and the light pours into the stone-surfaced courtyard that leads form the church to the old schoolhouse.
After all the issues with the lockdown and pandemic the church's cafe and shop will reopen on November 3, 10am to 3pm open Wednesday to Sunday, and once again greet guests who are always amazed they are sitting under the vine covered pergola by the oldest church in Australia.
Across from the church is a large old trunk of a gum tree that was used as the first place of service for the pioneers before Ebenezer church was built.
Mr Brill says the church newsletter goes all around Australia. Before lockdowns they often had car clubs meet on the grounds for the day. "I think we had about 225 people in the Mazda MX-5 car club, that was a lot of people to cater for that day," he says.
A small congregation of about 17 attend the church service on a Sunday, now a Uniting Church, a former Presbyterian church.
He says the church raised $240,000 leading up to its bicentennial year in 2009, that helped complete a large number of renovations and new toilet facilities. Governments put in $60,000 but a fair chunk of the rest flooded in from descendants of the early pioneers. "I couldn't believe the generosity of people, they would sent a cheque for $1000 of a couple of $100, it was amazing."
The church has had to dig into its cash reserves during the pandemic with visits stopped by lockdowns and so the reopening of the cafe will mean a lot to the community next Wednesday.
Rebecca Turnbull is a direct descendant of John Turnbull and also has some Cavanough blood in her family line - a double dose of Ebenezer heritage.
She was so inspired by the heritage she decided to seek a career in museum curation, and now is curator at Hawkesbury Regional Museum in Windsor.
"The connection is great and it inspired me to become a museum curator. It's also been very lucky that there is a strong community out there and volunteers that keep the church going. There are so many still there with links to the early history. For me, preserving history is very important. I think we are all concerned that the history of the Hawkesbury is preserved as more and more housing developments edge towards the district."
Many Hawkesbury City Councillors also recently raised concerns that the Hawkesbury must preserve its historic links, and also as the birthplace of so many agricultural pursuits in Australia.
One of the early agriculturalists was John Bowman who established grain and stock operations by the Hawkesbury (before going almost broke). His large two-storey brick house still sits by the main road at Richmond and is now used for offices.
At every corner and turn in the Hawkesbury there is some link to the colonial past, (The Macquarie Arms, 1815, at Windsor, is the oldest pub in Australia) and also the agriculture of the present.
The unassuming Ebenezer church is a wonderful example of the old inspiring the new, sitting as solid as the day it was built.
- There are no ghosts known at the church, but Ted Brill says some people report a 'presence' in the old schoolhouse.
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John Ellicott
journalist and author
journalist and author
