Squatters

The first European settlers to the Torquay district were squatters who took up land after the town of Geelong was established. The first licences were issued from July 1838 by Captain Foster Fyans the Police magistrate and Crown Lands Commissioner for the Portland Bay area. During the 1840s Gundry and Tait families held pastures licences around Jan Juc. Early squatters of the region include:

NAME	NAME OF RUN	NAME OF AREA	LOCATION
John Stokes	Sport Hall	Puebla	Connewarre
Elias & Silas Harding	South Beach	Salt Water Creak	Connewarre
Elias Harding	Mount Pleasant	Grant	Jan Juc
William Neil	South Beach	Point Addis	Point Addis
Henry Tait	Spring Station or Tooyoung-a-warre	Spring Creek	Jan Juc
Joseph Gundry	Iron Bark Ranges or Forest Station or, Bark Station		Jan Juc
Robert Zeally	South Beach or Burt-buc-quar-yup		Torquay

These men set out with a horse and some stock to find suitable land near fresh water where they cleared the land and built fences to contain the stock. They arrived with their wives and children or with other family members to help establish the properties and work the land. It was an isolated and lonely existence; many prospered, others did not.

The district was proclaimed the County of Grant in 1853 with an area of 1,834 square miles. Names used prior to this date varied. When Crown Land was made available for sale squatters purchased land under pre-emptive right.

The map of Elias Harding’s Mt Pleasant 640 acres pre-emptive right property shows a hut and a woolshed on the west side with a garden area beside the Jan Juc Creek and a large dam across it nearer the entrance. The map indicates the sand hummocks along the coastline. A report which accompanied Harding’s claim described his buildings and improvements as a three-roomed cottage and wool shed and a dam across the creek. Two paddocks of ten acres had post and rail fences and a further paddock was enclosed with a brushwood fence.