Longmire Wagon

This wagon is a tabletop farm wagon that was manufactured in Peterborough South Australia c1896 and transported by sea to Albany by the Longmire family where it was used firstly on their family farm in Katanning and later in Busselton.

In 1894 Mr Longmire Senior (grandfather of Robert Longmire) came to Western Australia from South Australia in search of newly opened farming land. He selected some land at Carrolup near Katanning and then returned to his family in South Australia. In 1896 he returned by ship with his family and possessions, which included farm implements, this wagon and two teams of horses. Unfortunately, some of the horses were lost at sea in a storm which forced him to break in extra horses on his arrival at Albany. Once the horses were ready the family used this wagon to transport their possessions to their new blocks of land at Katanning where they developed a farm. This wagon was used on the property and when tractors replaced horses the wagon was converted to be tractor drawn. When Robert Longmire moved to Acton Park in 1950, to develop a dairy farm, he used this wagon to transport his equipment.