Saturday, December 5, 2009

Michael Coonan's estate.

Because Michael Coonan died intestate, his widow Mary Coonan had to apply for the letters of administration to his estate. This created a number of documents which are available to view at the online site of the Victorian Public record Office. They provided a number of interesting snippets of information, particularly the land owned or leased by Michael Coonan.
I have been having a huge amount of difficulty in understanding just exactly where it was that the Coonan family resided....Michael Francis Coonan and his father before him have had their address described as:
Wattle-park, Epping
Darebin Creek
Wollert
Yea
Flowerdale
Whittlesea
Woodlands
Broadford

My question is...are they all references to the one property, as these locations are roughly within the same district, or are they a number of different properties which were owned and resided upon by the Coonans at different times?
Also added into the mix is the property Dairy Creek,Yea, which was owned by the Coonans, but I think that this property came into the family from Mary Meehan Coonan's father, Patrick Meehan, who bequeathed the farm to his grandson Michael Patrick Coonan in preference over his only son, Michael Meehan.

An inventory taken by Michael Coonan's widow after his death stated that his real estate consisted of the following holdings:

149 acres at Flowerdale consisting of Crown Allotments 24A and 24B.

44 acres at Flowerdale consisting of Allotment 39A, including improvements of chock and log fences and two-roomed paling house)

149 acres at Flowerdale consisting of Allotments 39 and 38A

52 acres at Flowerdale consisting of Allotments 39B and 39E

208 acres in parish of Windham(Allotment 56A) and Yea(Allotment 125A)Improvements: only partly fenced with log(about one mile)The greater part of the fence formerly standing on this land was destroyed by fire and has not been re-erected.

199 acres in Flowerdale being Allotment 3 section A. Improvements- log fence- about half a mile wire.In very bad condition.

624 acres being leasehold estate for 14 years from July 1 1880 for Crown Allotments 16 and 17 and from October 1 1880 re. Allotment 18, Billian parish.Improvements- log fence-part post and wire.

319 acres being Crown Allotment 107B in Windham parish and Crown Allotmets 18, 19A, 19A one and 19A two in the parish of Flowerdale. Improvements-very little fencing-log.


232 acres being Allotments 36B, 40C and 41A in parish of Flowerdale. This land is vacant and partly fenced with post and wire and deadwood.

This amounted to almost two thousand acres of farming land..1,976 to be exact, with a little extra where I didn't take into account roods and perches.

Michael Coonan's wife Mary was granted the letters of administration to the estate, but at the time of her own death seven years later, had still failed to fully complete the administration of said estate.

1 comment:

Jules said...

Hi I live in Flowerdale even now was brought up in Kinglake West I remember reading in Flowerdale History somewhere the name Coonan.
I can tell you someone who would know more about the history of flowerdale would be Ross Roycroft he grew up here & so did his mum & dad. My grandfather worked for them at one time doing logging.
Worth a try maybe he would also know about property at Yea considering its only 20 mins up the road.
Just thought it maybe of some use for you.