Johns River

The Birth of the Three Brothers

A Geologic History

By  Dr. Mary E. White

The Three Brothers are mainly composed of microgranite dated at 205my (million years ago), in the Late Triassic Period. (Microgranite is a relatively fine-grained granite that had crystallised from extra-hot granitic magma at about 1000ºC.) The volcanic activity for their production occurred in the centre of the Lorne Basin,  whose sedimentary rocks, the Camden Haven Group, are of Early Triassic Age. (Mount Bago and Mount Juhle are part of the same volcanic episode as the Brothers, as is the small volcanic outcrop on Diamond Head, according to latest geological maps.)

The Triassic Lorne Basin

The Lorne Basin contains large areas of other volcanic rocks of Triassic age, largely unnamed and not forming such dramatic features arising out of flat landscapes like the brothers. The Basin and its Triassic volcanism are all part of the New England Fold belt geological activity that formed part our continent’s rising eastern sector as we know it now.

Also occurring within the mapped boundary of the Lorne Basin are much younger volcanic plugs, including Big Nellie (only 16my old) that are part of the Comboyne volcanic activity of Tertiary age. Their geological history is completely different, associated with the northwards drift of the Australian continent over a “hot spot” in the Earth’s crust, like the Glasshouse Mountains etc.

The “Big Brother” Volcano

So, what was it like in the Three Brothers Region about 200my ago, when the district was at 85'S, near the South Pole and Australia was part of the Super-continent Gondwana?

The accepted idea is of vast Mount Fuji-style volcanoes on the edge of the continent – and the Brothers and their tribe today are all that is left after 200my of erosion!

And the climate then in those high latitudes was mild was mild, no polar ice, and landscapes were  well vegetated with seed ferns, ferns, cycads, lycopods, early conifers etc. (no Flowering Plants yet) and with reptiles and amphibians and insects and other invertebrates comprising the land fauna (no mammals yet).

Present day remnants of the 205 my volcanoes – the Three Brothers and their changing surrounding landscapes (and the vast Continent of which they  are part) have been rafted  northwards in the last 45 million years since Australia became an island continent. The distance travelled has been more than 3000 km. They, and us, are still travelling northwards at over 7cm a year.

For the lucky residents of the Camden Haven region the Three Brothers are at very heart of our Sense of Place and Belonging.

Below: Over 200 million years ago, the vents of the Laurieton supervolcano, (the “Big Brother” to our Three Brothers and Diamond Head today), was over a kilometer high, looking much like Mt. Fuji in Japan today.

25 August 1827

Behind the Name: John the Son, and the Stolen Horses!

The Three Johns and the Three Brothers 

In January 1820, the three Johns, agriculturist and sugar expert John Gyles, and CommissionerJohn Thomas Bigge accompanied John Oxley on an expedition to the newly discovered Port Macquarie district, passing by Johns River on their way north.  It is unknown if the Three Johns passing by the Three Brothers called it Johns River at that time or not.

However, seven years later, in 1827, surveyor John Armstrong named the watercourse (now known as the Camden Haven River), as Johns River.

In the journal of the Assistant Surveyor for the Australian Agricultural Company, John Armstrong’s October 8th 1827 entry mentions that:

“Mr. Guilding and I again took the Lime Burner’s boat and rowed up into the Watson Taylor’s Lake, and took the country, the distance from the Huts to the Lake, about 2 miles, observed that there was a large river falling into the lake from between the North and Middle Brothers, which we named Johns River and that a river came down apparently from between the South and Middle Brothers called Stewarts River, and were informed that a river connects this Lake with Harrington’s Inlet; but this we shall particularly ascertain here after…. Walked from the N end of Watson Taylor’s Lake to the sea about 1 ½ miles and ascended a headland called here Diamond Head …”.

In Dr. Bill Birrells 1996 transcription of Oxley’s Journal he notes that “although named by Armstrong as ‘Johns River’, it was later changed to ‘Camden Haven River’, and also that the ‘Stewarts River’ was apparently already known and named before Armstrong’s visit.”

In the ‘Early History of the Camden Haven’ and the family history written by Brian Fletcher, he states that “it appears that the people of the area of the confluence of the two streams and Watson Taylor’s Lake retained the name ‘Johns River’ as a locality name. The confusion in these names is evidenced even as late as 1910 when the railway plan was prepared showing ‘Stewarts or Johns River’.

“When the convict settlement was established at Port Macquarie the northern shore of the then un-named river to the south was declared the limit to settlement by the Commissioner at Port Macquarie. This may have been because it was seen as a haven for escaping convicts. Some of the settlers already on this shore crossed the river and lake and established on the already named ‘Stewarts River’.

“It was after this declaration was made that the then-nameless river was named ‘Johns River’ by John Oxley after the Port Macquarie Commissioner's son John.  This son John, was later to become a Commissioner on the Hunter and evidently was discredited over some government horses.

“Subsequently Johns River was renamed the Camden Haven, as it flowed to the Camden Heads. Stewarts River was already so-named …. And the people coming from the north were called Johns River people and thus the naming of the district followed.   Harry Gibson told me this and his ancestors were among the new settlers.”

As regards to the naming of the Stewarts River and by whom there are still more questions than answers!

12-18 October 1818

Extracts from John Oxley's journal

October 12 - We quitted Port MacQuarie at an early hour on our course homewards with all those feelings that word even in the wilds of Australia can inspire. After travelling near fifteen miles we stopped at the extremity of a sandy beach on a point of good land with an excellent spring of water rising on it, about four miles north of the northernmost of the Three Brothers.

Two of our remaining three dogs had been for the last two days deprived of the use of their limbs: one dies this morning … We conjecture that something they had eaten in the woods must have caused so universal a paralysis.

October 13 - Crossing the point of land on which we had been encamped we came to a sandy beach on which we travelled three miles and a half. At the end of it was an opening safe for boats into an extensive lake. The lake formed a large basin with a deep channel which, as it approached the base of the northern Brother narrowed into a river-like form, and in the course of a mile it again expanded from the north-north-west to the south-west.

To the southward and south-west the lake extended along apparently the same description of country, nearly to the western base of the Second Brother.· On the lake were a great number of black swans, ducks· etc.

12 May 1770

From the Log of Captain Cook