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Rowdy - The old Church at Mt Stirling? (W.A.) With the grave of Eliza Doig.

Cheers, Ron.

Crikey Ron, that was quick.

Mount Stirling

Mt Stirling lies 12 miles north of Yoting on the Yoting-Kellerberrin Road

The place is of considerable historic significance as the first recognised landmark within the existing Shire of Quairading area, as early as one year after the Colony was founded. The association with Ensign Dale and pioneers is also significant.

This impressive granite outcrop was not named after Governor James Stirling as may be first thought but rather after his cousin William.

During Ensign Dale’s October 1830 ‘exploration of the country eastward of Darling’s Range’ he recorded that it “was called Mount Stirling after my fellow traveller Mr W Stirling.”
Eliza Doig known as Lizze, died 2/12/1907 aged 44 years and was buried on the south side of Mt Stirling.
She sailed from Scotland with her husband, David Doig, a cousin of Sir James Barrie the author of Peter Pan. Within two years she lay at rest and her husband sold his holding near Mt Stirling and left Australia.
Around 1927, a small group of worshippers began Divine service beside the lonely grave, at first in the open air, then under a bag awning, and at length under the thatched roof of a little bush church.

The neglected grave was tendered by the young people from the congregation.

Then in October 1934 somebody desecrated the grave. The handful of people having gathered in their customary place stood aghast viewing the havoc. Suddenly a stranger was in their midst; it was David Doig, returned after twenty-three years to visit his wife’s grave. His intention was to exhume and remove the body to a cemetery. When he found close to her resting place the church and heard the grand old Psalms he restored the grave and left the remains of the woman he loved lying amid the beauty which had first appealed to him.

Ref More Lonely Graves of Western Australia

EDIT by Modsquad to fix the Mount Stirling Place link

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