1831-1960
Father
Phillip J Doherty
Mother
Elizabeth
Siblings
Hugh
Married
Children
William, Hugh James, Ellen Belle
Eliza’s Life
Eliza Doherty was born in Rathcormack, Ireland in 1831. Little is known about her childhood or her family.
Eliza embarked on a journey to America sometime in the 1850’s, there is ship’s manifest that lists an Eliza Doherty travelling between Londonderry and New York on the ‘Fanny’ in 1851, aged 20 and her calling stated as servant.
Eliza, having become disappointed in America decided to return home to Ireland. When she had arrived she found he intended husband living with the Indians.
Eliza met William Waterford on the ship when she was returning to Ireland and discovering that he had once been married to her cousin invited him to meet her family. William had left New South Wales to travel to Ireland after the death of his previous wife Elizabeth Hunt and had gone by way to America.
The earliest mention of William and Eliza in Ireland was a court of Petty Sessions 24 March 1857 and the record of marriage banns in 1857 and their subsequent marriage on 10 February 1858.
Their marriage was performed at Rathcommon by the Bishop and the required dispensation (as William was not a Catholic) came from the Pope himself. At the wedding breakfast, William tossed a substantial wad of notes to the head of Eliza’s family, as a reverse dowry, which her family would have to have paid him.
On arrival back in New South Wales, William and Eliza managed a property for Hugh Bowman, who William had previously been indentured to and then took up land of their own – Moreton Bay, Dunedoo.
They had two more children, Hugh James (1861) and Ellen Belle (1862)
William died when he fell from his horse on a hunt. He was 76 at the time.
William, who had been boarding at St Stanislaus College in Bathurst was called home to assist his mother on the farm. Eliza signed the property over to him when he turned 21. William married Catherine Carney in 1886 and they lived at Moreton Bay until drought, low wool prices and depression forced them to sell the farm to Leslie Bowman in the mid 1890’s.
Catherine and Eliza did not always agree so Eliza moved to Braeburn, the property of Hugh James. Hugh had wanted to marry Delia Lyons, a friend of Catherine Carney but felt he could not leave his mother and would not marry while she lived. He was 45 when his mother died in 1906 and by that time Delia, who was till unmarried, was afraid to take the step. Eliza died on 14 October 1906 at Gulgong, she is buried in the Gulgong cemetery as is her son Hugh who died in 1912
Authored by Paula O’Connor