Occasional Tales from the Mountain No. 05

Occasional Tales from the Mountain No.5 Tram tracks into the forest (and other shattered dreams) In the boom years of the 1880s, nothing seemed impossible … not even an electric tramline up the side of the Dandenongs. Land speculators descended upon Fern Tree Gully ahead of the extension of the railway line from Ringwood in 1889. Farm selections had defined the area by the late 1860s, while the 19,000-acre Dandenong State Forest reserve beyond what would become Forest Road was seen as a key asset of the district. Tourism to the tree fern filled gully leading up to One Tree Hill had already been popular for years and the railway line was about to make it much more so. One group of speculators comprised promoters of the Ferntree Gully Estate Company Limited, an assortment of knights of the realm, MPs, lawyers, councillors, brokers, businessmen and the odd local who had secured 430 acres along the train line primed for subdivision. Calling for shareholders in 1888, the group spruiked the “picturesqueness and uniqueness” of the nearby hill country and its place as “the health-giving, bracing, recuperating and invigorating sanatorium of the colony”. Its reserved land “will no doubt eventually be proclaimed the National-park of Victoria”. (Instead, most of the reserved land was wantonly alienated to settlement in 1893.) There were other individuals willing to take a chance. Among them was John Martin (1827-1899), a Melbourne insurance executive. At a time when there was a growing market in the colonies for insurance, Martin worked for the Imperial Fire Insurance Company in the 1860s and 1870s, as manager of the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company in the 1880s and then as general manager of Phoenix Insurance from January 1891. During the land boom of the 1880s, Martin apparently diversified into property speculation. Described as a “manager” in council rate documents, he purchased relatively large parcels of land in Ferntree Gully and at One Tree Hill. These included Lot 27, covering some 23 acres to the west of what would become the Lower Ferntree Gully railway station. He also purchased the adjoining Lot 28 (34 acres), part of Lot 78 (originally surveyed at 212 acres) and four smaller lots each of less than 10 acres along what is now Quarry Road. Some of this land would remain undeveloped for many years. Part of Lot 28 was subdivided but after World War 1 all of Lot 27 and eventually about half of Lot 28 were incorporated into the Fern Tree Gully National Park. Around 1885, Martin also acquired other more useful parcels of land, including part of the 50-acre Lot 53E and the whole of a large adjoining block of 77 acres (Lot 53H) previously owned by George Brown. This block covered part of the commercial area around the Ferntree Gully railway station, heading south to Burwood Highway. It was from this land in 1888 that Martin would donate the site of the Shire of Fern Tree Gully obices and hall in exchange for the council taking responsibility for maintaining Station Street. The red brick hall, much renovated over the years, still stands on the corner of Burwood Highway and Selman Avenue. (Pictured left, 2025 © John Schauble) In total, Martin is listed in the 1893 Shire of Fern Tree Gully Rate book as owning more than 325 acres of land. He subdivided and sold land during the late 1880s and early 1890s. He also built a substantial weatherboard house in The Avenue and a cottage nearby. In 1888, Martin purchased property atop One Tree Hill originally selected by Richard Murphy a decade earlier. Richard, whose brother William farmed the adjoining property, died suddenly in 1887 at the age of 42. John Martin set about subdividing blocks along One Tree Hill Road as “Martin’s Alpine Terraces”. He also acquired a sawmill, and advertised in the Lilydale Express in January 1889: WANTED to Hire immediately a Team of Bullocks with Driver, with or without jinker. Permanent work at Sawmill on private property, Fern Tree Gully. Apply immediately, stating terms per day or per week to John Martin, Fern Tree Gully Hotel, Fern Tree Gully. But it was his proposal for Martin’s Alpine Tramway to the head of the fern gully in what is now the national park that piqued some interest in 1888. This he proposed would run along the edge of his property to the east of the forthcoming railway station. A somewhat breathless account of Martin’s endeavours in the 1888 publication The Visitors’ Guide to the Upper Yarra and Fern Tree Gully Districts smacks a little of a sponsored advertisement. Published by A.H. Massina & Co, and available for one shilling, it was “written for the proprietors”. [T]he railway from Ringwood will run … through a charmingly pretty valley on the left side of the township until it reaches the extension station [Upper Ferntree Gully] at the foot of the old Gully, the main station being a little further back to the north-west, nestled cosily between two lines of hills. It has been suggested to call this station Martindale … such a title sounds far more appropriate than the more general one of one of Scoresby, which would apply to the district, no doubt, but not to individual concomitants. One can only imagine that it was John Martin who suggested the name “Martindale” as it was he who owned the land upon which the station would be built. In the end it was The Age 4.8.1888 called Lower Ferntree Gully, renamed Ferntree Gully in 1962 (again as Fern Tree Gully in 1972 before reverting to Ferntree Gully in1977). Martin’s planned tramway – one of at least three proposed to run into the hills towards Sassafras – was a relatively modest abair but, like the others, would never be built. Approaching One Tree Hill from a saddle to the east of the railways station, the Massina Guide pubed: It is from this point that the tourist commences to appreciate what such men as Mr Martin can do for a district like that of Fern Tree Gully. He has lived in the hilly districts of the Old World, and, like others of his type, he can understand and appreciate what can be done in the New. It is easy enough to ride a good horse up a gradual ascent till you reach a level of some 950 feet above the starting point, or 1200 above sea level — that is, if you know the bends and turns, and if you are not in that condition known to unfortunate dwellers in the “cities of the plain” as “soft.” But it is not so easy to those who will, in all probability, select these rises and hills as the sites for their country residences. Therefore Mr Martin has struck the idea of the age when he has determined to make access as easy as possible from the main station – only twenty miles from Melbourne to the upper rises, by constructing a tramway, to run from near the main station to within a quarter of a mile of the “Alpine Terraces.” The tramway will be but five-eighths of a mile in length, with two intermediate stations, and the terminus is to be at what may be called the commencement of the luxury of the scenery. That it is luxurious, even as it is now, no one can dispute. The term luxurious is used advisedly. There is nothing surpassingly grand or terrifically imposing about it. It is simply restful and consoling, full moreover, of a species of dream of old memories. This map from Massina’s guide shows Martin’s proposed Alpine Tramway and Alpine Terraces at One Tree Hill. The tramway route bisects Martin’s properties. The track indicated from the [Upper] “F.Gully station” roughly follows what is now Bellview Terrace. It also indicates the then border of the park By ascending a further 250 feet in elevation, the tourist would reach the summit of One Tree Hill, thus spared the exertion of climbing the full distance from what is now the start of the 1000 Steps in the picnic ground at the foot of the gully. No doubt the men who have the enterprise to construct tramways and timber slides have motives of private enterprise in doing so, but it is the public who eventually reap the benefit of their endeavours to improve any district. With only the present means of communication available such sites as those on the Alpine Terraces, more than 1700 feet above sea level, are, doubtless, out of the reach of many. But when the railway and tramway are completed they will be accessible both as regards distance and money to men of moderate means, few of whom are aware at present of the many beauties nature has lavished on a spot which, by express trains, may be brought within forty minutes’ journey from the metropolis. The collapse of the Victorian economy brought on by malpractice in an unregulated banking and finance sector and wanton land speculation, coupled with the ensuing depression of the early 1890s, knocked the wind from Martin’s enthusiasm for local abairs and presumably the funding for his ambitious real estate developments. By 1891 he had become general manager of the Phoenix Insurance company in Melbourne. The sudden death of his wife at Fern Tree Gully in 1894 at the age of 66 no doubt contributed to Martin’s withdrawal from the local area. The house was transferred to his daughter Christina in 1897 and had become a hospice within a few years. Martin lived his final years in Hawthorn and Kew. He remained working in the city until his death on 22 May 1899, aged 72. John and Mary Ann Martin are buried at Boroondara Cemetery in Kew. Whatever money Martin made from his speculation around Ferntree Gully seems to have either been dissipated or was distributed to his family by the time of his death. Probate documents finalised 15 years later refer to a single, unimproved block of land (Lot 27) as his sole real estate asset, valued at no more than £50 in 1899. The grandiosely named Martin’s Alpine Terraces, along with the tramway, disappeared from memory. The land at One Tree Hill was acquired within a few years by George Sweet, a wealthy Brunswick pottery manufacturer and property investor. It would eventually be subdivided by his daughter, Dr Georgina Sweet as part of the Mystic Lake Estate. Other tramway ventures Writing in the Argus in late 1888, under the headline `Picturesque Victoria: The People’s Park’ and the pseudonym Telemachus, one correspondent opined: The people who acquired the land by selection and some of them by purchase at high price, have determined to run a railway or a tramway for horse, steam or electric power from a station on the Ringwood-Ferntree Gully line right to the mountain head, and if it is permitted, to the heart of the state forest on the edge of the most renowned Sassafras Gully. One ambitious proposal was for an electric tramway between Bayswater (then known as Macauley) railway station and Olinda. Another favoured a route between Upper Fern Tree Gully (also known as Terminus) and One Tree Hill. There was some confusion in the press (due to similar company names) with the most substantial tramway proposal in the district, which was to run from Oakleigh to Fern Tree Gully. The former proposals were wholly geared towards tourist visitors and on much more speculative ground. The idea appeared to have been, via either route, to get visitors as close as possible to the already famous Sassafras Gully. The more serious Oakleigh to Fern Tree Gully tramway proposal sought to connect the district with railheads and primary producers to markets. In 1888, the Oakleigh and Fern Tree Gully Steam Tramway Company was formed, with an obice in Collins Street, Melbourne. The tramline was to follow existing roads, notably Fern Tree Gully Road at the hills end, and connect with the Ringwood-Fern Tree Gully railway branch line opened in 1889. A prospectus was launched in September 1889 seeking to raise £40,000 in £1 shares. A tender for its construction at the cost of £22,000 was accepted in March 1889 from a Sydney-based firm. It was designed to carry both goods and passengers. The project was supported by the burghers of Fern Tree Gully. It may well have got ob the ground but for the economic collapse and depression that ensued in Victoria. The proposal was derailed along with so many other dreams; the Oakleigh and Fern Tree Gully Steam Tramway Company went into liquidation in December 1891. While hugely ambitious at a time when there wasn’t even a decent road into the higher reaches of the hills, the idea of an electric tramway to the northern end of the range was at least subject to some research. The highly regarded The Box Hill- engineers engaged to examine its viability were Thomas Muntz Doncaster electric tramway, opening day 1889. Thomas Draper is in the (1835-1908) and Thomas Draper (1840-1921), the foreground on the running board (Image from: Robert Green, The latter a specialist in electrical First Electric Road, 1989). installations who in 1879 had illuminated early football matches at the MCG. Muntz and Draper came to the view that an electric tram along the spur from near the Upper Fern Tree Gully state school (close to where the CFA station now stands) via One Tree Hill was feasible, despite reaching a 1 in 10 gradient in places. Electric tramways were at the cutting edge of public transport propulsion. Muntz and Draper (the latter in particular) were involved in the very first electric tramway in the southern hemisphere, born at the height of the land boom at a time when even cable trams were in their infancy. That line ran 2 ½ miles from Box Hill to Doncaster between 1889 and 1896 (commemorated today by Tram Road) before failing for want of patronage. It would be the 1940s before electric trams finally predominated on Melbourne’s tram network. An electric tramway in the hills proved fanciful if only for the same reasons as the stalled Oakleigh-Fern Tree Gully proposal: no financial backing amid a severe depression. Instead, the early 1890s were marked by a carving up of swathes of the Dandenong State Forest in an equally doomed ebort to alleviate the subering of the poor through the village settlement program. John Schauble : The Visitors’ Guide to the Upper Yarra and Fern Tree Gully Districts and the picturesque holiday resorts of the region eastward of Melbourne, A.H. Massina & Co, Melbourne, 1888; Victoria’s Forests & Bushfire Heritage; (various); , .3, Belgrave, 1983; , 1985; Michael Cannon, , 1966; Helen Coulson, , , 1958; Robert Green, : , 1989; , , (various).