Port Stephens Most Haunted House?
by Murray Byfield
Tanilba house was built by Lt William Caswell in 1831 after he received a grant of fifty acres for his services in the British Admiralty. The house was built by convict labour using local stone and some Sydney sandstone transported as ballast in visiting ships. The blocks of stone were cemented together with mortar made from lime obtained by burning oyster shells.
The house has half-metre thick walls, and decorative quoins that define the building edge and outline the door and window openings, high ceilings, archways and large rooms.
The Caswell’s, William and his wife Susan plus their nine children lived in the home for 14 years. Over the last 160 or so years the house has had several owners and is now protected by a permanent preservation order. Other features of the property are a small gaol, stone gazebo and one hundred- and seventy-year-old olive tree.
Some of the Caswell’s difficulties were revealed in the Diaries of Sir Edward Parry who visited them in November 1832 at Tanilba.
Saturday 17th – In the afternoon I went over with Captain Moffatt and Mr. Stacy to Mr. Caswell’s, and I certainly never saw so much misery in a family of the same class – one child dead, another dangerously ill, an infant very poorly, and the mother like a walking skeleton – I fear not long for this world. Mr. Stacy is rather apprehensive that the complaint of the children is of a typhoid character.
Since the 1900’s the ghost of a young lady with long brown hair and a floor length dress has been seen in the house. It is believed that this apparition is the ghost of Elizabeth Gray, a governess who had lived in the house in the 1830’s. She has been seen looking through the French windows gazing across the bay toward Tahlee where there was the Australian Agricultural Co’s settlement of over 300 people, it is believed that Elizabeth longed to be at Tahlee as life at Tanilba was very lonely. Her ghost has also been witnessed at the doorway to the front parlor and sitting on the end of a bed.
The ghost of Elizabeth Gray has been witnessed staring across the bay towards the AA Co’s settlement at Tahlee.
It is believed Elizabeth died at the house of Typhoid in 1838, two of the Caswell’s children also died there they are all buried within the grounds. George vine Caswell in 1832 two years and a baby boy only 10 days old in 1833.
Tanilba: is an Aboriginal word that means ‘place of white flowers’ it is said that once upon a time white flannel flowers were to be seen everywhere in the Tanilba bay area.
