Johnsonville

History

The original inhabitants of the land were the Indigenous Australians, in particular the Gunai people who inhabited the region as far east as the Snowy River. The township got its name from John Johnson, a man of Scandinavian origins, who purchased the nearby Swan Reach run in 1857 which also encompassed Johnsonville and surrounding areas. Johnson was a popular public figure of his time, serving three years as the member for Gippsland in the Legislative Assembly. He had previously owned Mewburn Park located near Maffra, which is incidentally linked to the famous Tichborne case. Arthur Orton had answered Johnson's advertisement early in 1855 calling for splitters, fence riders and stock-riders on his Mewburn Park station. Johnson's agents subsequently signed Aurthur up as a stockrider after he shipped out aboard Johnson's Eclipse from Van Diemen's Land. Previous to Johnson's claim upon the land Octavius Batten Sparkes occupied 16,000 acres and drove 4,000 sheep. Early settlers in the vicinity included the Howlett's, [https://web.archive.org/web/20140125075300/http://www.dahlsens.com.au/history/history Dalhsens], Roadknight's and many others. The onslaught of selection in the 1860s seen an end to the pastoral era and the aptly named ‘Squatter Kingdoms’. Fences were erected and small land owners took control. However, following the Victorian gold rush the [https://web.archive.org/web/20131219020630/http://www.amw.org.au/citation/26 Duffy Act] in 1862 made small freehold selection possible. The selection of parts of the Swan Reach run which form the Johnsonville area took place around 1870. In 1864 another boat called the Lady Darling was constructed at McArdell's sawmills. One of the first businesses to be founded was a large Coach building, Blacksmith and…

Most recent

• M 2.8 — 2010-01-08
  39 km N of Briagolong, Australia
• M 3.2 — 2003-07-07
  28 km SSE of Lakes Entrance, Australia