Adlum's Farm

Reference: Pendergast family research

On the 24th August 1804, Private Thynne Adlum(sic) was discharged from the New South Wales Corps. He had enlisted in Britain and arrived in the colony in 1792. On the 11th August 1804 Adlam was granted 80 acres on the Upper Half Moon Reach of the Hawkesbury River. Forty other grants were recorded in the Register for the Hawkesbury District on the same day. The grant stated that : Feen Adlam - 80 acres in the District of Mulgrave Place, bounded on the west, east and south by the river and on the north by a line west 20 degrees, south 36 chains - Quit Rent two shillings after 5 years. The grant was signed by Governor Phillip Gidley King and witnessed by John Palmer and David D. Mann. (1)

On the 12th April 1805 a series of barbarities were practised…by banditti. Three settlers, including Feen Adlam were murdered by aborigines led by the notorious “Branch Jack”. The farm house was burnt and Adlam and his servant came to an unfortunate end. It was reported …they had shared a merciless fate, a part of their Relicks being found among the ashes, and the remainder scattered piecemeal…from which circumstance it is probably conjectured, that after the ill-fated people had been inhumanely murdered, their limbs were severed and wantonly scattered. (2) Sergeant William Day administered Adlam’s estate and he sold two of Adlam’s properties in November 1805. Buncker’s Farm of 25 acres was sold to Reverend Samuel Marsden for £55, and Adlam’s Farm of 80 acres was sold to James McGlade, the amount on the original document is illegible. (3) James McGlade was reported in the newspaper in 1806 as being convicted of stealing promissory notes valued at £14 and was sentenced to death. Fortunately he was reprieved but absconded from custody five months later. Sometime between McGlade’s purchase in November 1805 and 1808, Adlam’s Farm was acquired by John Pendergast.

1. Land Grant Register, Book 3 p. 158. Land Titles Office, Sydney NSW
2. The Sydney Gazette, 21st April 1805. p. 2b
3. Old Register No. 1 /Vol. 1 no. 653 - 654. Land Titles Office, Sydney NSW