John Henry Ellen - The True Story of the Maryvale Murders: And the Langley Family Ghost

John Henry Ellen

The True Story of the Maryvale Murders

Copyright 2013 John Henry Ellen. All rights reserved.

John Henry Ellen has asserted his right under the Copyright Act 1968 to be identified as the author of this work.

Cover designed by Paul Crooks http://www.paulcrooksadvertising.com.au/

ISBN 978-1-925171-01-3 (eBook)

EPUB Edition

Published by Vivid Publishing in 2013

P.O. Box 948, Fremantle Western Australia 6959

www.vividpublishing.com.au

eBook conversion and distribution by Fontaine Publishing Group, Australia

www.fontaine.com.au

To Sonny Johns for introducing me to Neil Langley and

To Don Laskey for being a good friend

Burnt Sugar Dreaming

The Rainbow in my Heart (non-fiction)

Shadows of a Winter Sun

The Life and Times of Owen Doyle

Geoff Langsworth Edenhope Historical Society

The Langley Family Archives

Bendigo Historical Society

Mount Gambier Historical Society

Wikipedia

South Australian Register

Great Massingham Council

Julie Hackney Smith

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Local Histories Org.

Freepages

MyPlace. Com

Victoria Police Gazette

Kowree Advertiser

West Australian

Melbourne Argus

Good Health

Australian Government Web Site

Hansard Victorian Parliament

Roslyn Ryan

Ralph Sanderson

I am delighted and honoured to have been asked to write this book.

When my friend, Sonny Johns, told me that he knew someone who wanted their life story told, I explained to Sonny that I did not normally undertake such assignments because invariably the story is only of interest to the subject.

However, when Neil Langley visited me, and related the story of how two of his ancestors were brutally murdered, I knew immediately that this was a story that needed to be told. The addition of there being a family ghost added spice to what was already a palatable tale.

I must say that the task was made easier by the prodigious amount of research and documentation that Neil and his wife, Bev, had already accumulated, and Neil, in his Foreword, quite rightly acknowledges the wonderful assistance afforded to them by Geoff Langsworth of the Edenhope Historical Society and many others.

Over the many months that I wrote this book, I came to know Neil and Bev very well. They always gave their time freely, and allowed me access into any family archives that I required. By the time the book was written, I felt as though I was an extended member of the family.

I learned so much whilst writing this book. On occasion I have had to make assumptions, but in doing so such assumptions were made on detailed analysis and common sense.

My research took me into the attitudes and unbelievable hardship that our early settlers experienced, and the incredible fortitude of one man in particular, Charles Langley, who emerged through all this with commendable determination. He had experienced adversity and tragedy, fathered seventeen children, became a Dunmunkle Shire Councillor, and lived to a ripe old age.

I cannot thank Sonny Johns highly enough for introducing me to Neil Langley, so that I was able to share this truly incredible story.

John Henry Ellen

Rupanyup

September 2013

The Maryvale Murder Mysteries, or as we Langleys know it, The Langley Family Ghost Story, commenced for my generation of the family in 1925.

Our father, Nelson Langley, born in 1883 was the youngest of seventeen children in the family of Charles Langley.

Charles arrived in Adelaide in 1851 with his wife and baby daughter, named Mary Ann Thetis, who was born on the ship Thetis during the voyage, Whilst living in Mount Barker in South Australia, a son, Charles Junior, was born in 1853, followed by the birth of a daughter, Maria, about whom this story is written.

After a time at Mount Barker where seven children were born, the family moved to Mount Gambier where a further seven children were added to the family.

When Maria was aged nineteen years of age, and farmers were flocking to Victoria to select land in the Horsham district, my grandfather and his son-in-law, Thomas Slaughter, who had married the eldest daughter Mary, walked from Mount Gambier to Rupanyup near Horsham and each selected land at Ashens. This land is still in the family.

Charless sons selected at Lubeck near Horsham after which they returned to where they farmed in South Australia at Greenfields Mount Gambier. The year was 1874.

All the family made arrangements to move to the Horsham district. Before this move took place, however, Maria married Robert Cook who had come into some money and was also going to Horsham to select land. Sadly, this book will tell how Maria and the baby daughter, Louisa, never completed the journey.

Five more of the Charles Langleys children were born in the Ashens District of Rupanyup South, and my father, Nelson Langley, being the youngest was born there on June 17 th , 1883.

After he served in Gallipoli and in the Middle East in World War One, he was invalided home. In 1916 he married my mother, Mabel Sleep, at Rainbow, and later moved to his own farm at Millers Tank East of Manangatang in the Victorian Mallee.

In 1925, my eldest sister, Isabel, and her siblings were put to bed early as an Uncle and Auntie were visiting. Isabels bed, being against the hessian wall adjoining the sitting room, she was able to listen to the adults conversation. They were reading newspaper cuttings regarding our fathers sister, Maria, who at the age of 19 had been murdered along with her 18 month old daughter, Louisa, near Edenhope in 1874.

In 1884, Maria appeared as a ghost to timber cutters from the Maryvale Station who demanded a search of the area be conducted next day for a woman that they had heard scream, but of whom they could find no trace. The searchers found the remains of a woman and a baby in the fork of a very large fallen tree. The bodies were covered by fallen logs and timber, which seemed to have been carefully placed and set alight.

My sister never forgot this story of our family ghost. Aunt Marias mysterious death has often been in our thoughts. In my family there were nine children. My sister Olive (Mrs Scott) and myself are the only niece and nephew of our Aunt Maria and first cousin, Louisa, still alive today.

We feel a deep attachment and empathy for Aunt Maria and little Louisa.

WE BELIEVE THAT THIS STORY SHOULD BE TOLD.

Maria and Louisa were not buried until 1918, forty-three years after they were murdered, and even then it was in an unmarked grave at Edenhope Cemetery.

For information we have collected over the years we have had an enormous input from people outside of our family, to whom we are deeply indebted.

I must mention some of the major contributors. Shirley Durden, historian, of Swan Hill. Bev McDonald for emails, etc. People in the immediate Maryvale, Edenhope and Haddon area for genuine interest and hospitality, especially Geoff Langsworth, the Edenhope historian who put six years of research into this story, and shared it with all of us.

To John Ellen, a very fine man, who so willingly used his talents as an accomplished author to write this book for Maria, Louisa, and us.

Finally my wife, Beverley, who along with me has put many years into ensuring that Marias story, is told.

May Maria and Louisa now finally find the peace they deserve.