When boats were our lives

Updated March 3 2015 - 1:22pm, first published 1:18pm
Australian Farm where the ketch was washed ashore in the 1867 flood. This is looking across to the south bank of the river to Leets Vale township with the church on left and former post office on right. The large shed is where the second school was built. The children were rowed across to it. The foreground is the site of the Chaselings orchard.
Australian Farm where the ketch was washed ashore in the 1867 flood. This is looking across to the south bank of the river to Leets Vale township with the church on left and former post office on right. The large shed is where the second school was built. The children were rowed across to it. The foreground is the site of the Chaselings orchard.

During the 1850s John Mitchell senior and George Manning were trading in partnership carrying produce from the Hawkesbury to the Sydney markets with a small ketch of 13 tonnes called Valentine Ward.