A Haunting at Melrose - St George’s Folly

 

 The original owner, and builder, of the North Star Hotel at Melrose, was William St. George. The North Star Hotel was originally licenced in 1854, operating from a simple log hut.[1] Such were the profits from his hotel, which allowed St George to build his mansion. The house featured cedar fittings throughout and was believed to be the first in South Australia to have a corrugated iron roof. Unfortunately, St. George never got to enjoy his home, as he was killed in an accident at Roseworthy.

St. George was carting furniture from Adelaide to George’s Knob, ten kilometres south of Melrose in the Flinders’ Ranges when his horses fell into an unseen railway ballast pit, toppling his cart and killing him. William St George was buried at Gawler Cemetery, which is now Pioneer Park in 1863.[2]

His house became derelict and was frequented by squatters. A 1904 newspaper article in the Evening Journal detailed graffiti on the internal walls of the house, one stated ‘I can’t sleep here tonight; this great windy house seems to haunt a fellow.”[3]
It became rumoured that the house was haunted. The Evening Journal claimed that “a party of superstitious people recently slept on the premises with loaded guns, but the ghost did not come that night.”[4]

Eventually, the property was purchased by J. H. Angus and became a part of the Willowie Pastoral Company. It was renovated and lived in by a pastoral overseer for the company John Ross and his wife Lyn. The house then became known as Rosslyn Estate.[5]

From the 1^st of November 1920, the house was occupied by Ernest Benjamin Pitman.[6]Pitman received the property from the Soldier Settlement Branch. Soldiers who were honourably discharged from Australia’s Imperial Forces and served overseas were entitled to assistance from the South Australian Government purchased land and assisted in erecting buildings, purchasing seeds and general improvements of the property.
In his book, Ghosts and Haunting of South Australia, author Gordon de L. Marshall interviewed Keith Pitman, son of Ernest. Keith stated that in the 1920s his father first witnessed a ghost. During daylight, the ghost came out from the cellar, it was a skeleton dressed in a shroud. According to Keith, his father was sitting near a window when he witnessed the ghost walk alongside the house, through a 3000-gallon water tank, and out to a paddock, some 400 meters from the house. There it stopped.
Ernest went and investigated the location and found the remnants of an old grave, but no headstone.[7]

The family believed that another ghost haunted the old home, that of William St George. They believed St. George would open doors in the house. The family never felt uncomfortable around this ghost. Keith Pitman sold Rosslyn in 2002.[8]

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2023

[1] North Star Hotel, Melrose Community Development Association, (2022), https://www.melrose-mtremarkable.org.au/historic-buildings/
[2] 'MOUNT REMARKABLE', South Australian Register, (29 October 1863), p. 3.
[3] 'WHEN MELROSE WAS YOUNG.', Evening Journal, (29 September 1904), p. 2.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] ‘PITMAN Ernest Benjamin Hundred of Wongyarra, Sections 381/3 1 Nov 1920.’, GRG35/320 Record of land held by soldier settlers - Soldier Settlement Branch 1917-1931, State Archives of South Australia, vol 2, (2019), p. 83, https://archives.sa.gov.au/sites/default/files/public/documents/GRG35_320_1917-1931_Record_of_land_held_by_soldier_settlers.pdf.
[7] Gordon de L. Marshall, Ghosts and Haunting of South Australia, (2012), p. 214-15.
[8] Melrose land sale sets new record, The Flinders News, (2017), https://www.theflindersnews.com.au/story/5124039/melrose-land-sale-sets-new-record/.