Elijah Quartermaine

The man in the photograph is Elijah Quartermaine. Elijah Quartermaine arrived in the colony on the ship the "Britomart" with his wife Elizabeth in 1838, indentured as servants to the Viveash family. Elijah is considered to be the first European settler in the district to lease and later purchase a property, which was then part of the Kojonup District. While working for the Viveash family he was known to regularly move sheep to better pastures and water and knew what good pastures looked like. It is said that an aboriginal farmhand who knew of the need for good pasture and was indigenous to the Katanning area showed Elijah some grass from the area. Elijah may then have been more inclined to see the area for himself and the Quartermaine holdings and family interest grew. In 1851 he was grazing 1900 sheep and finding abundant water and feed for his sheep in the area, Quartermaine permanently settle and was the first to secure land (1852). He built ‘Yowangup’ homestead in 1860-1862 which was the first homestead established in the Katanning region and represented the arrival of European settlement in the area. He died in 1888 and was buried on his property. Elijah and Elizabeth had 13 children, three of who died young. The remaining eight sons became farmers, and the two daughters married farmers in the Wagin and Katanning districts.

The supplementary link to the website https://theviewfrommountclarence.com/quartermaine-country/ has more extensive information on Elijah Quartermaine and family.