JOSEPH DOUGLASS & MARY ORR BURGESS

Sacred
To the
Memory

MARY ORR BURGESS
Wife of Joseph Douglass
Who Departed This Life
DECEMBER 21 1857
AGED 75 YEARS

ALSO
JOSEPH DOUGLASS
WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE
September 21 1865
AGED 82 YEARS

This gravestone is the oldest in St David's cemetery, but the burials remain in the original cemetery further up the hill and on the other side of the road. When the road was widened, only this gravestones of Douglas and Burgess and that of Mary Green and her grandson were moved to the cemetery.

JOSEPH DOUGLAS arrived in the colony of New South Wales on the Baring on 7 September 1815. He had been given a sentence of transportation for seven years at Dumfries Court of Justiciary prior to his departure from Scotland in April 1815.
He was assigned by Governor LACHLAN MACQUARIE to Sir JOHN JAMISON, owner of a large estate, Regentville, near Penrith.
JOSEPH worked out his entire sentence there as a labourer and then became a tenant farmer on the estate until he obtained his Ticket of Leave.

His wife and children arrived free on the Woodman on 25 June 1823, almost eight years after he set foot on the sand of Sydney Cove.
The following year, on 10 September 1824, he was granted 50 acres of land at the Kurrajong Brush and early the following year, his son, ORR DOUGLASS, was granted 80 acres nearby.
JOSEPH DOUGLASS had originally wanted land south of Sydney Town at Cow Pastures near Liverpool, but was given Kurrajong instead.
MARY ORR BURGESS died on 21 December 1857 aged 75 years.
JOSEPH DOUGLASS died on 21 September 1865 aged 82 years.

JOSEPH DOUGLASS gave part of his land to the Presbyterian Church Trust for the purpose of building a church. St David's, originally a Presbyterian church and now Uniting Church of Australia, stands on part of his original land grant.