Pine - The First Inhabitants – By Leith Barter

Prior to European settlement, the Pine Rivers area was home to a number of Aboriginal clans belonging to the Turrbal, Kabi (Kabi Kabi or Gubbi Gubbi) and Waka (Wakka Wakka) language groups. These groups enjoyed a considerable amount of social interaction, especially at the time of the bunya feasts in the Blackall Range and the Bunya Mountains.
There were ceremonial bora rings at Samford, Samsonvale, Dayboro, Mount Pleasant, Laceys Creek, Petrie, Keperra and Kippa-Ring where neighbouring groups combined to carry out rituals.
During the mid 19th century, Dalaipi was a distinguished elder of the North Pine clan of the Turrbal people. It was Dalaipi, then nearly sixty years of age, who encouraged one of the district's best-known pioneers, Tom Petrie, to establish a cattle run in the North Pine area during the late 1850s.
Archaeological evidence, as well as the oral traditions of Queensland Aboriginal people, indicate that these first inhabitants occupied the land for many tens of thousands of years. Ultimately, however, the local Aboriginal population rapidly declined in numbers due to the effects of introduced diseases, alcoholism and dispersal.
Although James Cook and Matthew Flinders sailed past Moreton Bay during the late eighteenth century giving names to some features which are still in use today, land exploration did not commence until the early 1820s when a search was underway for a suitable site for a convict settlement.
It was at this time, on 1 December 1823, that a party under the leadership of John Oxley first navigated the North Pine River, landed at Oxleys Inlet and climbed a hill in the area now commemorated by the John Oxley Reserve in Murrumba Downs.
During a second visit a year later, Oxley collected samples of the Hoop Pines which were growing prolifically in the area. It is believed that these pine logs were the first items exported from the northern area of New South Wales that was later to become Queensland.
Although there is no record of Oxley naming the Pine River anything other than the Deception River, the former name was in popular usage by the early 1840s.
Settlement of the Pine Rivers region had to await the closure of the Moreton Bay convict settlement in 1842, although some preliminary surveying of the region had already been carried out in preparation for free settlement.
In the middle of 1843, Francis Griffin, by establishing the Whiteside run on the north bank of the North Pine River, became the first free settler to occupy Pine Rivers land. He was joined shortly by other members of the Griffin family.
In 1844, James Sibley and Joseph King established the Samsonvale run on the south side of the River. This run was purchased by William Joyner and William Mason during the following year.
Nearly the whole of the area now occupied by the Pine Rivers Shire was divided into these two runs; the Samford run in the upper reaches of the South Pine River was not taken up until the mid 1850s.
In 1859, as the era of closer settlement approached, Tom Petrie purchased ten sections of land from the Griffins to form the Murrumba run.

A great heritage museum is located at North Pine Country Park, Kurwongbah.

Contact leith.barter@pinerivers.qld.gov.au for details of special attractions.

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