JOHN CROSS FIRST FLEETER

 

 

John was born in Wiltshire, England in 1757.   He was 29 years old when arrested for stealing a sheep worth 20 shillings.   He was tried at New Sarum, found guilty and received a death sentence which was commuted to 7 years transportation.   He was kept on a hulk for 2 years before sailing with the First Fleet to Port Jackson in 1788.   He sailed aboard the Alexander, one of 88 male convicts on that ship.

 

After arriving in Sydney he worked on the farm of James Furzer and is mentioned several times in the early records for the offence of exchanging rations for clothes and selling stock (maybe not his own!) to John Palmer.

 

John Cross met Mary Davidson (or Davison), a convict who arrived on the Lady Juliana in 1790.   Their first child Elizabeth was baptized on 29th June, 1794.   They had a large family of 9 children during their lives together.

 

John worked on several farms in Sydney, Parramatta and the Hawkesbury, where he had received a grant of 100 acres on 4th June, 1804.   There they survived floods and hostile natives.   He asked for Government help to over come flood damage.   The peak of his achievement as a farmer was in 1806 when he was recorded with crops, an orchard and vegetable garden and some livestock.

He got into difficulties soon after that and gradually sold off his assets to repay his debts.   He was a poor man when he died.   His death occurred on 25th December, 1824, aged 68.   He was buried at St. Matthews, Windsor on 27th December, 1824.

 

Mary died on 13th December, 1827, aged 59.

 

John & Marys son, David, built the Victoria Inn which still stands at Cross Park at Wisemans Ferry, and for a time he operated the ferry.   Johns children married into such well known families as the Cobcrofts, Cavanoughs, Herps, Douglas, Stallards and Doughertys.

 

John Cross & Mary Ann Davidson had the following children:-

Elizabeth                 Baptised       29/06/1794

James Thomas        Born             14/01/1796

William                    Born             02/10/1797            Died 18/01/1814

David                       Born             1799

John                         Born             03/10/1801

Alexander               Born             26/09/1803

Mary Ann               Born             05/02/1806

Ann                          Born             16/08/1805

Sarah                       Born             08/01/1812            Died 12/12/1829

 

 

Information from Where First Fleeters Lie by Joyce Cowell & Roderick Best