Reverend Dr Mark Short, Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn and Rev’d Don Jamieson.
Over Saturday and Sunday, Harden-Murrumburrah celebrated the town’s heritage with the 150th Anniversary of St Paul’s Anglican Church. The Saturday opened with games for the kids from 10:00 am, as well as a tour and talk with Rev Don Jamieson. That was followed by a BBQ lunch before a performance by the Hilltops Choir. On Sunday, there was a 10:00 am service with the Bishop and a 12:00 pm lunch. Rev Jamieson told the Twin Town Times about the day.
“Saturday, we had a tree planting by the great-grandchildren of John Miller, who was the founder of St. Paul’s. We had that direct link with the founder, which was great. I did a couple of talks on the history. We had lunch, we had the Hilltops Choir singing, and it was a very good day. We had a lot of people who’d come from a long way away who had connections to St. Paul’s over the years, or their family did,” he said.
“On the Sunday, we had the special service with the Bishop, Reverend Dr Mark Short, who came from Canberra for the occasion. He launched the book called Living Stones, which I’d written about St. Paul’s and its history, and then we all had lunch together.
“We probably had 150 people on the Saturday, and somewhere around that on the Sunday as well. It was a really good occasion.
“Saturday was a more informal day. We had a big display up in the church that had been prepared by Helen Buckler and her daughter Kerry. People were very interested in that; they wandered around and talked to others about their experiences. It was a less formal day, and there were children’s games that day too.
“The Sunday marked the more formal aspect of it with a service of celebration and thanksgiving led by the bishop. “The bishop planted a tree on the Sunday to mark the 150th anniversary, where the great-grandchildren of John Miller had planted one on Saturday to mark his contribution in the very beginning.
“John Miller and his family came from Goulburn in 1874. Bishop Mesac Thomas asked them to come down this way and see if they could start at church both here and at Cootamundra, so they travelled in a cart with four horses and nine children. It was a pretty rough, bumpy track, and each time they got bogged, they had to take all their household gear and the children off the cart and then get it out of the bog and load it all back up again and continue with it. John Miller and his wife, Rebecca, arrived here. They had their tenth child, so it was quite a big family, and they settled in a bark hut on the Jindalee flats going into Cootamundra because they were here to develop a church in Murrumburrah and one in Cootamundra. Miller made a great contribution to the development of the church in this area.”
Rev Jamieson went on to discuss the importance of celebrating these milestones.”It’s important because it gives us a sense of history, a sense of how things have developed over a long period of time. When you think about it, and you sit in a church like St. Paul’s that’s been there for 150 years, you can feel the prayers of thousands and thousands of people over that period of time, and the churches of each of the denominations in the community make a pretty important contribution to the lives of the people in a community like this.
“You’ve got St. Mary’s Church, which is older again. It had its 150th several years back, and then you’ve got the Ross Memorial Church, which is over 100 years old, and then St. Anthony’s up on top of the hill, which was in the 1930s, so they’re coming up to their Centenary. Each church contributes because it gives people the opportunity to share faith in difficult times and in good times, and support each other and be supported in prayer during difficult periods. These days, churches are also there to help people who have great difficulties. We, for instance, run an op shop, as does the Catholic Church through Vinnies, and these facilities are there to provide a place for people to come and to get assistance when times are difficult for them.
“I would like to say a big thank you to all the people who helped. The special committee worked very hard for months and months to get ready for this occasion. All the people who helped by getting the lunches ready, making the grounds beautiful and tidying everything up. There were a lot of people involved who worked very hard to make this an important occasion. All that hard work has paid off in that so many people came, who had longtime connections to St. Paul’s, but had moved away, and it was lovely for them to come back to see St. Paul’s and to be part of it.
“We had three of our previous Rectors there. They all came back with their families, and of course, we had the Bishop with us. A big thank you to all the committee members and parish council members who worked so very hard to make sure that this occasion went off very well.”
– Matthew Stadtmiller
founder of St. Paul’s.
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