The Hoschke Family in Australia: 1890–1899
From pioneering settlement to an established Upper Orara community
The 1890s opened with the Hoschke family firmly established at Upper Orara.
Amandus and Mary Ann had arrived with their ten children in 1886. Their eleventh child, Mary Gertrude Isabel, had been born at Upper Orara in 1889. Over the next few years, two more children would complete the family: Hulda Minnie in 1892 and Arthur Henry Charles in 1893.
The decade would also see the first of Amandus and Mary Ann’s children leave home and establish a family of her own.
At the same time, the wider Upper Orara district was changing rapidly. Roads were improving, the Coffs Harbour jetty was providing an outlet to markets, a school was established, gold mining was attracting people to the district, and by the end of the decade dairying was beginning to transform the local economy.
For the Hoschkes, the 1890s were the decade when the pioneering family became part of an emerging community.
1890 — Building a community
At the beginning of 1890, Amandus and Mary Ann had eleven children.
Their eldest, George William, was nineteen; their youngest, Mary Gertrude Isabel, was only one.
The family was still living with the consequences of the difficult first years in Upper Orara. The family timeline describes approximately 1886–1896 as particularly difficult years for settlers, largely because of poor transport and the difficulty of getting produce to market.
The Progress Associations that Amandus had helped establish in the previous decade had continued lobbying for improvements.
Among their most important achievements was securing government support for a school.
In 1890 it was agreed that a school should be established at Upper Orara. It would open the following year.
This was a major step for the young community.
Until then, families with children had faced the considerable difficulties of educating them in a remote district. The establishment of a school was evidence that Upper Orara was becoming more than a collection of isolated farms.
It was becoming a community.
1891 — Dunvegan School opens
1891 was an important year for the Hoschke children.
The new Dunvegan School opened at Upper Orara.
The school had been built on land associated with early settler John McLeod, and its name came from the name of his property, Dunvegan. Although the school was in Upper Orara, the name caused some confusion because Dunvegan was also used for the local postal and electoral arrangements.
The first teacher was Sarah Edwards.
The school’s opening was a significant achievement for the settlers who had campaigned for it.
Several Hoschke children were of school age during this period. The youngest children would have had the opportunity to receive their education much closer to home than previous generations.
Later recollections give us a wonderful picture of the early school.
A 1950 reminiscence published in the Coffs Harbour Advocate recalled that the school was constructed by local residents from split hardwood slabs and shingles, and that early teachers boarded with the Hoschke family.
This is particularly significant for the family story.
The Hoschke home was not simply a private farmhouse. It became part of the infrastructure of the young community.
1892 — Hulda Minnie is born
On 14 March 1892, Amandus and Mary Ann’s twelfth child was born.
Hulda Minnie Hoschke was born at Upper Orara.
She was the second-last of their thirteen children.
By this stage, the family’s move north was firmly established as a permanent one. Unlike her older brothers and sisters, Minnie was born into the Orara Valley and would spend her childhood there.
Her birth also marked another stage in Mary Ann’s remarkable life.
She was now the mother of twelve children.
The youngest, Minnie, was born when Mary Ann was about 44 years old.
The road to Coffs Harbour
The year 1892 was also important for the wider district.
The track connecting Upper Orara with Coffs Harbour was gradually being transformed into a more usable road, while the Coffs Harbour jetty was built. The Hoschke timeline identifies 1892 as the year of the jetty’s construction and notes the gradual development of the road to Coffs Harbour.
This development would eventually change the economic prospects of the Upper Orara settlers.
For the first six years after their arrival, transport had been one of their greatest difficulties.
Now there was a practical route towards Coffs Harbour and a jetty through which goods could be shipped.
The significance of this development cannot be overstated.
A road and a jetty meant markets.
1893 — Arthur Henry Charles completes the family
On 10 November 1893, the final child of Amandus and Mary Ann was born.
Arthur Henry Charles Hoschke was born at Upper Orara.
He was their thirteenth and youngest child.
Amandus was 49 and Mary Ann 46.
Arthur was born into a very different family environment from his eldest brother George.
George was already 22 years old.
Frank was 21.
Frederick was 19.
Jessie was 17.
Annie was 16.
Arthur therefore grew up with a remarkable age spread between himself and his older siblings.
He was also the first generation of the family to be born into a fully established Upper Orara household.
His birth brought the family to its final number:
Amandus and Mary Ann had thirteen children.
This would be the family group whose descendants would eventually spread across New South Wales, Queensland and beyond.
1894 — A growing family in a growing district
There is no major individual family event currently recorded for 1894.
But this was an important period of transition.
The family was now complete.
The older children were becoming young adults and increasingly contributing to the family’s work.
The younger children were growing up in Upper Orara, attending the local school and becoming part of a community that was changing around them.
Amandus’s approach to farming was also developing.
The family history describes him as a man who was prepared to experiment and look for opportunities to improve the farm. His early years involved working with rainforest country, clearing land and trying different forms of farming before the district’s later move towards dairying.
The family was beginning to move beyond simple survival.
1895 — Gold changes the district
The mid-1890s brought another major development to the wider Orara district: gold mining.
Gold had been discovered in the Coramba area, and the development of the Coramba King and other mines helped establish Coramba as a township and brought new economic activity into the district.
The Hoschke family’s historical account explains that the discovery of the Coramba King gold mine was responsible for the township of Coramba developing where it did and contributed significantly to the prosperity of the district.
The goldfields also affected the lives of families living around Upper Orara.
Jessie Caroline Hoschke would soon marry and become connected with the Davis family, whose early married life included work in the Coramba and Bucca Creek areas during the gold-mining period.
The wider district was becoming busier.
There were miners, storekeepers, farmers, timber workers and other settlers moving through the area.
Upper Orara was no longer as isolated as it had been in 1886.
1896 — Jessie Caroline marries
1896 was a milestone year for the Hoschke family.
On 21 September 1896, Amandus and Mary Ann’s eldest daughter, Jessie Caroline Hoschke, married George Davis at Upper Orara.
Jessie was twenty years old.
George was 27.
At the time of their marriage, Jessie was living at Ferndale, Upper Orara, and was recorded as undertaking domestic duties. George was working as a storekeeper for his brother-in-law James Marles at Coramba.
Their marriage was the first recorded marriage of one of Amandus and Mary Ann’s children.
It was also the beginning of the Davis branch of the Hoschke descendants.
A local marriage
The marriage demonstrates how closely connected families were within the developing Upper Orara community.
George Davis was from another early local family.
His sister Catherine had married James Marles, who operated stores at Coramba and later Bucca Creek.
Jessie and George’s marriage therefore connected the Hoschke family with the Davis, Marles and other pioneer families of the district.
They would eventually have eight children.
Their descendants became an important part of the extended Hoschke family story.
1897 — The first Hoschke grandchild
The following year brought another major milestone.
In 1897, Jessie and George Davis welcomed their first child:
James Clarence Davis, born at Upper Bucca Creek.
The arrival of the first grandchild meant that Amandus and Mary Ann were now grandparents.
For Mary Ann in particular, this would have marked a new stage of family life.
She had spent more than two decades raising her own thirteen children.
Now the next generation had begun.
The Davis family was living in the Bucca Creek area, where George was involved with the Marles store during the gold-mining period. The family history includes a photograph of Jessie and George with baby James at the Marles store in Bucca Creek.
1898 — Joy and tragedy
1898 brought both sadness and happiness to the family.
Jessie and George’s first child, James Clarence Davis, died as a baby.
But later in the same year another child was born:
Allan Frank Davis, born on 17 October 1898 at Upper Orara.
The family record says that Allan was delivered by his grandmothers, Mary Ann Hoschke and Rachael Davis.
This is a particularly poignant detail.
In the absence of a hospital nearby, the two grandmothers were present to help deliver the new baby.
It gives us a vivid picture of family life in Upper Orara in the late nineteenth century.
Births were family and community events.
Medical care was distant.
Women relied on their own experience and on the assistance of older women in the family.
Allan would go on to live a long and productive life, becoming a farmer and an active member of his community. His later obituary remembered him as someone who loved the soil and farm animals and was deeply involved in community organisations.
1898 — A new agricultural future
The year 1898 was important beyond the Hoschke family itself.
A major change was taking place in Upper Orara agriculture.
Paspalum grass was being introduced into the district.
The Hoschke Family Reunion’s farming history describes the introduction of paspalum as one of the factors that finally made dairy farming viable in Upper Orara.
Previously, the early settlers had experimented with maize and other forms of farming, but the combination of better roads, the Coffs Harbour jetty and suitable pasture created a new opportunity.
Dairying.
The family history describes the late 1890s as the point at which several factors came together:
- the road to Coffs Harbour had improved;
- the jetty was operating;
- paspalum provided better pasture for cattle;
- dairy farming was becoming successful elsewhere in the region.
These developments would eventually make dairy farming one of the defining industries of Upper Orara for much of the twentieth century.
1899 — Amandus and the beginning of dairying
1899 was one of the most significant years of the decade for Amandus himself.
By now he had been farming at Upper Orara for thirteen years.
The family had survived the difficult pioneering period.
The district had better roads and access to Coffs Harbour.
And Amandus was ready to take advantage of the new dairy industry.
A contemporary report in the Raleigh Sun, dated 10 March 1899, described conditions at Upper Orara:
“The crops look remarkably well and promise to be the best ever grown in this locality.”
The same report stated that the grass paddocks looked excellent and stock were in splendid condition.
Most importantly, it reported:
“Dairying has a good footing here.”
The newspaper said that farmers were either already supplying milk or preparing to supply it to Mr Hoschke, who had a separator.
The report specifically praised Mr Hoschke for the money and energy he had invested in starting the industry.
This is a wonderful contemporary description of Amandus at work.
He was no longer simply trying to make a living from difficult rainforest land.
He was helping to establish a new agricultural industry in the district.
The Hoschke separator
The dairy separator was an important piece of technology.
Rather than individual farmers having to process their own milk entirely on their farms, milk could be brought to Amandus’s separator, where the cream could be separated and then sent on for further processing.
The January 1899 report in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner noted that Amandus was operating a small separator and taking milk from surrounding farmers. It also reported that a plant was being established at nearby Karangi, with plans to send cream to Sydney through Coffs Harbour.
This shows that the Hoschke enterprise was already connected to a much larger commercial network.
Milk produced on Upper Orara farms could now become a product for distant markets.
The Karangi butter factory
In May 1899, the Karangi butter factory opened.
The Raleigh Sun described the opening as a “red letter day” for Karangi.
The factory represented a major step forward for local dairy farmers because it allowed dairy produce to be processed into butter rather than simply being sold as cream.
The Hoschke family history records that this development was part of the transformation that eventually made dairying a prosperous and long-lasting industry in the Orara Valley.
For Amandus, who had already invested in his own separator, the timing was significant.
He had recognised the potential of dairying early.
1899 — Frank acquires his own land
Another important event took place in 1899.
Amandus’s second son, August Frank Hoschke, acquired 93 acres at Upper Orara on 2 March 1899.
The land was Portion 15, Special Area No. 3285.
Frank farmed this property until 1906.
This was an important step in the development of the next generation.
The children who had arrived at Upper Orara with Amandus and Mary Ann in 1886 were now becoming independent adults and establishing their own properties.
The family was spreading out across the district while remaining closely connected.
Frank would eventually move away from Upper Orara, but his selection formed part of the growing network of Hoschke farms in the district.
1899 — Roads and community life
The contemporary newspaper reports also provide a wonderful glimpse of everyday Upper Orara.
The March 1899 Raleigh Sun reported that road work was continuing, with a local contractor improving the road between properties.
It noted that once the work was complete, the whole length of the Orara roads would be carried through and that future contracts would likely involve gravelling.
The same article mentioned a local gospel mission hall and noted that George Hoschke had made alterations to the building.
This gives us another glimpse of the family beyond farming.
The Hoschkes were involved in the practical and social development of their community.
The Hoschke family at the end of the 1890s
By the end of 1899, Amandus and Mary Ann’s family had changed considerably from the one that had arrived in Upper Orara thirteen years earlier.
Their thirteen children were now:
- George — 28
- Frank — 27
- Frederick — 25
- Jessie — 24
- Annie — 22
- Albert — 20
- Edward — 18
- Harold — 16
- Amandus junior — 15
- Ernest — 13
- Mary — 10
- Hulda — 7
- Arthur — 6
The family had entered a new generation.
Jessie was married and had already lost one baby and welcomed another.
Frank had acquired his own land.
The younger children were attending school.
And Amandus was becoming involved in dairying.
The transformation of Upper Orara
The story of the Hoschke family during the 1890s cannot really be separated from the story of Upper Orara.
At the beginning of the decade, the settlement was still struggling with the legacy of its isolation.
By the end:
There was a school.
There were improved roads.
There was a working jetty at Coffs Harbour.
There was gold mining in the surrounding district.
There was commercial dairying.
There were stores, churches, halls and community organisations.
And the Hoschke family was involved in many aspects of that transformation.
The family history records that the first ten years after settlement were particularly difficult. The changes of the late 1890s finally gave farmers a viable economic future.
A new generation begins
Perhaps the greatest significance of the 1890s was that the Hoschke family was no longer simply a family of pioneers.
It was becoming a family of descendants.
The birth of James Clarence Davis in 1897 created Amandus and Mary Ann’s first grandchildren.
Although James died as a baby, his brother Allan was born the following year.
By the end of 1899, another grandson, Herbert Bruce Davis, was only months away from being born.
The family tree was beginning to branch.
The children of Amandus and Mary Ann would establish their own families, and those families would eventually produce the many descendants who are connected with the Hoschke story today.
1890–1899: A decade of transformation
The 1890s began with the Hoschkes still living in a relatively isolated pioneering settlement.
It ended with Amandus operating a cream separator, his son Frank holding his own farm, Jessie married and raising the first grandchildren, and the family living in a district with roads, a school, a jetty and growing commercial opportunities.
The transformation was remarkable.
The family had arrived in Upper Orara in 1886 with little infrastructure and no certainty that farming would succeed.
By 1899, Amandus was being publicly praised in the local newspaper for the money and energy he had invested in dairying.
That is perhaps the best measure of how far the family had come.
Closing the decade
The 1890s were the decade when the Hoschke family’s pioneering struggle began to turn into prosperity.
Amandus and Mary Ann’s last two children were born.
Their thirteen-child family was complete.
Their eldest daughter Jessie married and began the Davis branch of the family.
Their first grandchildren arrived.
Frank acquired his own land.
The younger children attended the new Upper Orara school.
And Amandus helped establish dairying as an important new industry.
The road to Coffs Harbour and the jetty had opened the district to the outside world.
The arrival of paspalum had made cattle farming more practical.
The separator and the Karangi butter factory created new commercial possibilities.
After thirteen years of hard work, the Hoschke family was no longer simply surviving in Upper Orara.
They were helping to shape its future.
And as the century drew to a close, a new generation was growing up in the valley — a generation that had been born not in Bathurst or Orange, but in Upper Orara itself.
The pioneering years were beginning to pass into family history.
The twentieth century was about to begin.
Sources and research notes
For your eventual publication, I suggest these sources for the chapter:
Hoschke Family Reunion — Family Timeline
Provides the principal chronology of births, marriages and major Upper Orara developments.
Hoschke Family Reunion — Upper Orara Public School
Contains the history of the school’s establishment in 1890–91 and the later recollection of the early school.
Hoschke Family Reunion — Success at Last: Dairy Farming, Part 1
Provides the history of the transition from early settlement to dairying, including roads, the jetty and paspalum.
Hoschke Family Reunion — Success at Last: Dairy Farming, Part 2
Particularly valuable because it reproduces the 1899 Raleigh Sun reports about Amandus’s separator and the development of dairying at Upper Orara, as well as the Karangi butter factory.
Trove — Raleigh Sun, 10 March 1899, p.2, “Upper Orara News”
Contemporary evidence for Amandus’s separator, dairying, road works and George Hoschke’s work on the mission hall.
Trove — Clarence and Richmond Examiner, 14 January 1899, p.2
Contemporary evidence that Amandus was already operating a separator and collecting milk from surrounding farmers.
Jessie Caroline Hoschke family history
Provides the 1896 marriage of Jessie and George Davis and the births and early lives of their children.
Allen Frank Davis family history
Provides the details of Allan’s birth in 1898 and the involvement of Mary Ann and Rachael Davis in his birth.
Frank Hoschke — On This Day
Provides the specific land-selection information showing that Frank acquired 93 acres at Upper Orara on 2 March 1899.
