NSW has a strong association with the Dangar family, however I was surprised to find Mt Dangar in Queensland (There is Mt Dangar near Denman NSW) One of my forbears William Dangar went into partnership with the Bode family in 1861 and I suggest the small mountain was named at this time. Please see the story below:
Frederick Robert De Bode came to Australia with his parents and three brothers in 1840 on the ship “Argyllshire”. His father, Henry George De Bode, was a member of a French Huguenot family and lived on the French- German border. He fled to Ireland and then to England where he met and married Sophie
Buxton. In England they lived at Bromby Hall, Gloucestershire.
Once in Australia Henry started a school for children in
Newcastle.
The ’De’ prefix was dropped from the name.
Fred was more interested in the land and met up with Harry and William Dangar who were pastoralists in NSW and QLD. When reports of wonderful grazing land to the North of QLD filtered through he joined an overland party led by George Elphinstone Dalrymple.(the founder of
Bowen)
With cattle, horses, intending settlers and squatters, under the protection of 12 native police and Lt. Williams, they arrived at
Port Denison in April 1861.
Fred applied for an area of land of 118 sq
miles on the upper
Don River in joint names of Bode and Dangar- called Strathdon where they stocked beef cattle and a small area known as Wilbertree, with dairy cattle.
In January 1863 he applied for undeveloped country 50
miles south of
Bowen with three runs and under the Crown Lands Act- Goorganga, Bonaventura and Neotsfield and consolidated under the name of Bromby Park.
This same year he met and married Rebecca Tompson from Windsor NSW. The Strathdon property was sold in 1883 to
John Henry Isbell.
They moved to the
homestead set on Andromache River with an out station built at Goorganga -
Home of the waters and alligators.
Fred bred good beef cattle with the bulls being brought up from NSW. He loved his horses and he and Rebecca often rode their horses to Mackay or
Bowen. The horses were named Harlequin and Columbine.
The property was quite prosperous and the Bodes were kept busy and content. At one stage the drovers moved 2000 head of bullocks to NSW.
Encounters with the indigenous was quite numerous but Bode allowed them on his property as long as his cattle were not killed. He received bitter criticism from fellow settlers. Bode was an unsuccessful signatory to a petition for a Kennedy Aboriginal Reserve in 1867.
Eight children were born to Fred and Rebecca and in time were sent to
Sydney to boarding school.
At this stage talk of sugar growing and building of a sugar mill was in its infancy.
Fred died in 1894 and was buried near his son a short distance from the railway line near Gunyarra. Rebecca decided to move the old Bromby
homestead closer to Proserpine. Rebecca died In 1911 and is buried in Proserpine
Cemetery.