Cawdor Road agave

On the verge of the Cawdor Road, just south of the Camden town centre, is a clump of agave that has been growing there for decades. The plants have created much conjecture and is a local mystery. It is a bit hard to tell tall tales from true.

The stories about the agave are a type of local folklore.

Folklore develops over decades, and stories are passed down through the generations of local families. These stories add colour and movement to our local history. One source states that folklore is a

 body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as tales, myths, legends,[a]proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore

It is a bit hard to separate fact from fiction around the Cawdor Road agave.

Agave plants

Agaves are a succulent and xerophytic species that form a large rosette of strong, fleshy leaves. They are native to Mexico and the southern part of the USA and have been distributed worldwide as an ornamental.

Agaves are slow-growing and are sometimes called the century plant. They reproduce from seeds or suckers that develop at the bottom of some species. The leaves have sharp spines and are fibrous. The root system is a series of rhizomes.

One source states that agave has various uses in Central and South America, including handicrafts, food and drink preparations, ethnomedicine, and stock feed. 

The 1994 Camden Significant Trees and Vegetated  Landscape Study by Landarc Landscape Architects states that the Century Plant (Agave americana) was a common plant in early colonial gardens across the Cowpastures. Agave was used in the early gardens as a ‘dramatic accent plant at the entrance’ to colonial properties and gives the example of Cawdor Road agave. (Landarc Landscape Architects, Camden Significant Trees and Vegetated Landscape Study. Camden Municipal Council, Camden 1993)

The stories about the agave date back to early 1800s and the colonial frontier and the violence that took place across parts of the Cowpastures. The stories are intergenerational.

Murder and mayhem on the colonial frontier

Vic Boardman’s granddaughter Helen said, ‘Stories about the agave were verbally  passed down from Pa Vic to my mum to me as a child.’

 ‘From my understanding, it was the site of the murder of a shepherd early on in our local history’, said Helen.

This is confirmed by a story that appeared in the Australian Town and Country Journal in 1909.  A Camden resident, Thomas Herbert, recalled

Mr. Macarthur’s merino sheen arrived in I the colony about 1816, and were stationed at  my father’s place at Narellan, where he had the management of them before they were taken to Camden Park, where they were removed about 1818. . The shepherd and his wiife were murdered by the blacks at a  slaughter house, about 1½ mile from Camden Park, and buried there.

(Australian Town and Country Journal, 11 August 1909)

The Camden-Wollondilly Times in 1998 published a similar story. The newspaper reported that the agave was the site of a shepherd’s hut, who worked on the Macarthur’s Camden Park. The newspaper article repeated the claim that the agave marked the site of the hut at which the shepherds were killed in a conflict with local indigenous people in 1816. (Vanessa Mace, ‘Prickly Story Indeed’. Camden-Wollondilly Times, 8 July 1998)

The newspaper report went on to state that the agave marked the site of a later farm cottage where the Norris family lived on Camden Park Estate. (Vanessa Mace, ‘Prickly Story Indeed’. Camden-Wollondilly Times, 8 July 1998)

There was speculation in the article that the agave could be some of the oldest plants introduced by Europeans to the Cowpastures in their colonial gardens. (Vanessa Mace, ‘Prickly Story Indeed’. Camden-Wollondilly Times, 8 July 1998)

Helen says that in Sue Williams book  Elizabeth & Elizabeth mentions the attack of a stockkeeper and his wife occurring in August 1815.

Fenced off

Apparently, the Cawdor Road agave clump was much larger in the past than it is currently.

Helen said, ‘They used to have a fence around them to protect them, but this was removed some time ago. ‘

Currently the agave plants are not fenced and have no heritage protection.

The truth

We may never know the real truth about the Cawdor Road agave.

The 1998 newspaper story was generated by the attempted removal of the agave by a local resident who was trying to remove a large brown snake which resided in the clump. Their actions prompted a swift community response to protect the Cawdor Road agave.

Whatever the truth of the matter it makes for lively reading. The truth may never be known. The Cawdor Road agave still produces controversy and the stories are still being passed on to the next generation.