Monday morning, August 19, 1895, Ellen White had won at Cooranbong, living in a tent with her granddaughter Ella. She was exuberant as she took her pen to write to Edson. "Oh, I am so glad, so glad that my warfare is now over!" Paragraph after paragraph bubbled with good news:
Yesterday, August 18, 1895, the first [fruit] trees were planted on the Avondale tract. Today, August 19, the first trees are to be set out on Mrs. White's farm--an important occasion for us all. This means a great deal to me.
The reason for her exuberance was that planting had begun:
There was so much doubt and perplexity as to the quality of the land, but the Lord had opened up the matter so clearly to me that when they discouragingly turned from the land, I said, "No? You will not take it? Then I will take it". And with this understanding the land was purchased.
Brethren Rousseau [the man sent to serve as principal] and Daniells [president of the Australian Conference] backed as clear out of the matter as possible, but I knew the Spirit of God had wrought upon human minds. After the decision was made unanimously by several men to buy the land, then to back down and hinder its purchase was a great trial to me--not that I had the land on my hands, but because they were not moving in the light God had been pleased to give me. And I knew their unbelief and unsanctified caution were putting us back one year.--Letter 126, 1895.
Ellen White then told of the turnaround in Professor Rousseau's thinking. He acknowledged that "he was now perfectly satisfied for himself in his own mind this was the place God designed the school should be established." A favorable attitude on the part of the school leaders was highly important. They must put their whole hearts into it. Rousseau pointed out to Ellen White:
There are advantages here that they could not have in any other location they had visited, and the land they had thought so bad was found, on working it, not to be the best land, but average. Good portions are adapted for fruit, especially peaches, apricots, nectarines, and other fruit, while other portions of land were favorable for vegetables.
The twenty-five acres pronounced worthless because [it was] swampland would, they thought, prove the most valuable land.--Ibid.
There was an acquiescence also in Elder Daniells' attitude, expressed to Ellen White there at Cooranbong. He still entertained some misgivings as to the quality of the soil. He confided in a July 17 letter to the president of the General Conference that he would be glad if the soil proved "a hundred times more valuable than it appears to me" (DF 170, "The Avondale School, 1895-1907"). Ellen White wrote to Edson of his visit:
Elder Daniells came on the land en route from Queensland to Melbourne. He called at Cooranbong and visited the land and expressed great pleasure at every part of the work that has been done in clearing and ditching the swamp that is usually several feet under water.--Letter 126, 1895.
"Now, Edson," she triumphantly declared, "you can judge what relief this gives me, after tugging and toiling in every way for one year to help them to discern the mind and will of God, and then after abundant research finding nothing on the whole as good as this, they accept it. Oh, I am so glad, so glad!"--Ibid.
How the Beginnings Were Made
After spending the month of June at her Granville home, assisting in the work with the new companies of believers being raised up, planning for the evangelistic thrust in Sydney, and writing energetically, Ellen White felt much worn and was eager for a change that could come by being at Cooranbong. So Monday morning, July 1, with W. C. White and his family, she took the train for Cooranbong, and stayed for three weeks, at first in the home of Herbert Lacey, newly come from America. They found twenty-six boys and young men living in the rented hotel building, and some sleeping in tents. They were clearing the land and building roads and bridges, making a beginning for the school. On February 25, Professor Rousseau had sent a letter to the churches announcing plans and inviting young men to come to the school and engage in a program of work and study. Each student would work six hours a day, which would pay for board, lodging, and tuition in two classes.
On March 5 the manual training department opened, but it was without much support at first. In his efforts to get things moving at the school, W. C. White had been talking of such a plan for several months, and he wrote:
You would be surprised to learn of the criticism, the opposition, and the apathy against which the proposition had to be pressed. The board said it would not pay, the teachers feared that it would be for them much labor with small results, and in many cases, the friends of those for whom the department was planned criticized severely, saying that young men would not feel like study after six hours of hard work.--8 WCW, p. 32.
The Manual Training Department Succeeds
But after watching the program in operation for six weeks, Ellen White could report:
About twenty-six hands--students--have worked a portion of the time felling trees in clearing the land, and they have their studies. They say they can learn as much in the six hours of study as in giving their whole time to their books. More than this, the manual labor department is a success for the students healthwise. For this we thank the Lord with heart and soul and voice. The students are rugged, and the feeble ones are becoming strong. Such wild young lads as _____ _____, under the discipline of labor, are becoming men. He is becoming a Christian, transformed in character. Oh, how thankful are his parents that he is blessed with this opportunity!--Letter 126, 1895.
A week later she wrote enthusiastically to Dr. Kellogg:
These students are doing their best to follow the light God has given to combine with mental training the proper use of brain and muscle. Thus far, the results have exceeded our expectations. At the close of the first term, which was regarded as an experiment, opportunity was given for the students to have their vacation and engage in whatever work they chose to do. But everyone begged that the school might be continued as before, with manual labor each day, combined with certain hours of study....
The students work hard and faithfully. They are gaining in strength of nerve and in solidity as well as activity of muscles. This is the proper education, which will bring forth from our schools young men who are not weak and inefficient, who have not a one-sided education, but an all-round physical, mental, and moral training.
The builders of character must not forget to lay the foundation which will make education of the greatest value. This will require self-sacrifice, but it must be done.... Under this training, students will come forth from our schools educated for practical life, able to put their intellectual capabilities to the best use.--Letter 47a, 1895.
Metcalfe Hare Joins the Staff
Carrying heavy responsibilities was Metcalfe Hare, of Kaeo, New Zealand. Hare had attended the New Zealand camp meeting held in February at Epsom. There W. C. White pushed the school matter hard. He found Hare deeply interested. Of Hare's eagerness to be a part of the program, White wrote to his mother:
I am very much pleased at the interest that Brother Metcalfe Hare takes in the school work. He is ready, if we think best, to close up his business in Kaeo, and move to Avondale. He will move on his own responsibility, and hold himself ready to act a part in our work of preparing for the school, erecting the buildings, or anything that may be needed. But if we do not wish to employ him, he will engage in work on his own account till school opens, and then he will enter as a student....
It seems to me that he is the right sort of man to stand by the side of Rousseau as a worker and counselor.... His whole heart seems to go out to the school, and I believe that the Lord has been fitting him up to help us in this time when we need a man that can do many things at once.--7 WCW, p. 160.
Reporting to the Foreign Mission Board, White wrote in rosy terms of Hare's qualifications:
He has had lots of experience clearing land, and also in handling timber. He has had full experience in running a sawmill. He can build a house or a boat, and has had much experience as salesman, and can keep books. He is a close, conservative man, and may lack breadth in his plans. But he has a high regard for Brother Rousseau, and this would help him some. It appears to me that Rousseau and Hare would make a good team to work together in clearing, making roads, putting up the workshop, and getting material for the girls' hall ready for the builder.--Ibid., 188.
At the New Zealand camp meeting White also found a number of young men eager to enter the industrial department. One was a brickmaker, another a tentmaker, still another, a stonecutter.
When Ellen White and W. C. and his family came onto the school grounds in early July, Metcalfe Hare was there managing a team of a dozen or more young men, Rousseau was managing a similar group in their work on the land, and good progress was being made.
On July 6, 1895, the church service was held in the long, narrow dining room of the hotel. Ellen White spoke, and then they organized a church of twenty-five members and chose two elders and two deacons (Letter 88a, 1895; Manuscript 61, 1895).
Ellen White Buys Acreage from the School
From the very first, as the plans began to develop for the use of the 1,450 acres of the Brettville estate, it was calculated that some of the land would be sold to Adventist families. By July, 1895, there was talk of some 120 acres being thus disposed of. On Sunday morning, July 7, Ellen White negotiated for the first of such land to be cut off from the estate, forty acres on the north side of the tract. For this she paid $1,350. "The reason I purchase now," she wrote, "is that I may furnish money which they [those connected with the school] need so much just now."--Manuscript 61, 1895.
She planned to leave some of the land as woodland, use some for grazing, and some for orchard and garden. Of course, a select spot would go for the homesite (Letter 88, 1895).
For some time she had felt that she should have her home in a location more conductive to her writing than the large rented house at Granville. There it seemed inevitable that she must run what seemed to be a "free hotel," with people coming and going almost every day. Now she determined to build a little cottage where such demands could not be made upon her; she also determined to develop a portion of her land in such a way as to provide an object lesson of what could be done in agricultural lines in that area. It was mid-July, and on inquiry she learned that whatever was to be done in planting an orchard must be accomplished in the next few weeks.
As the forty acres came into her possession, the first step in developing her little farm was the clearing of the land for the orchard. Soon there were three good-sized tents on her land. She and her granddaughter Ella lived in one, and also much of the time one of her woman helpers. Another of the tents was used for cooking and dining, and the third was occupied by some of the men working on her land (8 WCW, p. 31).
Mr. Caldwell, somewhat of an all-round man who assisted at her Granville home, was instructed to come, bringing her team and the platform wagon. It was a seventy-five-mile trip, but it was convenient to have the transportation she needed at Cooranbong (Letter 88, 1895).
On a quick trip to Granville late in July, with Hare, Rousseau, and W. C. White, she spent a day driving around seeking information on securing fruit trees and orchard planting. The tour included stops at the Radley place, where there was a fine, well-kept orchard, and the Whitman home. It turned out to be a missionary visit as well, for Whitman was losing his grip on the message, and Radley had only partially received the truth. Tuesday, July 30, she went into Sydney. Here is her description of the day's activities as found in her diary:
I went into Sydney to see if I could find anything for the poor families, cheap. Money is so scarce we hardly know what to do and which way to turn to supply the demands in a variety of lines. The calamity of failure of banks has been and still will be keenly felt. We watch our chances where goods are offered for half price and purchase most excellent material to give to those who cannot buy that which they need. We are oft distressed at the sight of our eyes. I never have seen anything like it.--Manuscript 61, 1895.
On Wednesday, the last day of July, they were shopping again:
All day, W. C. White, Emily, and I spent in Sydney purchasing the things essential for our use in camp life. We thought it wisdom to select an outfit of granite ware [enameled cooking utensils] that will bear transporting and handling.--Ibid.
Royalty income and some borrowing made it possible for Ellen White to do what others could not do in missionary lines.
Planting and Building at Cooranbong
Two things were on Ellen White's mind as she hastened back to Cooranbong--the planting of the orchard and the construction of a humble dwelling. The preparation of the land and planting had the priority. Right after she returned, W. C. White learned that J.G. Shannon, a good Adventist builder from Tasmania, was in Sydney looking for work. For the Whites it seemed most fortunate, for they were at a loss to know who to get to put up the home on the land just purchased. For eight shillings ($2) a day, this master builder was employed and dispatched to Cooranbong to begin work on a five-room cottage (8 WCW, p. 46). Ellen White wrote of the activities at her place:
Today [Sunday] I am rushing the workmen on preparing ground for the orchard. We have today captured a part of the students' manual training company to clear the land for fruit trees which must be set this week and next, or give up the matter and lose one year.
Emily and I are driving a span of horses hither and thither and are hunting for cows and gathering all the information possible in regard to planting, growing, et cetera....
Log heaps are burning all around us.... Immense trees, the giants of the forest, lie cut up by the roots all around us. It takes days to cut out one big tree. We are indeed in the very midst of clearing and burning the greatest trees I ever saw.
I came up here really sick, but I am giving orders to my hired businessman ... to rush the work ..., for the trees must be planted without delay. Every other business stands aside now. I wish to provoke the workers on the school grounds to do something and do it now and not lose one year by delay.
Letter 125, 1895.
Counsel and Help from an Experienced Orchardist
In search for information and guidance in putting in the orchards on her little farm and on the college estate, they were directed to a Mr. Mosely, a successful fruit grower. In a letter written Sunday, August 4, Ellen White told of how he was "coming in one week to see all the trees set properly and staked properly" and observed, "I shall have most careful work done."--Ibid. Feverishly they pushed the work of clearing the land for the orchard and garden--three acres (Letter 126, 1895). Ellen White picks up the story on Tuesday and writes of what was ahead:
Brother Lawrence's hands are helping to clear the land, and good work is being done. The trees are ordered of Mosely, and he will be here on Sunday and he wants every student to be on hand to see how he does the setting of the trees, and help him, and he says he will give talks to the students in the evening upon the subject of fruit raising and vegetable raising, if they wish him to....
I shall have the privilege of experimenting in reference to Mr. Mosely, who promises to look after the trees. I think he will have a determination to do his best for me.... We will do our best, and if we make some mistakes we will know better next time. The men work for me with decided interest.--Letter 149, 1895.
On several occasions Mr. Mosely came over to plant trees and give instruction on orchard planting and care. The virgin land was well prepared. It took six span of bullocks pulling an immense plow to break up the unworked soil. As she watched, Ellen White marveled, and wrote that the bullocks were "under discipline, and will move at a word and a crack of a whip, which makes a sharp report, but does not touch them" (Letter 42, 1895). At an early point in the tree planting, she had some input, about which she reminisced a little more than a decade later:
While we were in Australia, we adopted the ... plan ...of digging deep trenches and filling them in with dressing that would create good soil. This we did in the cultivation of tomatoes, oranges, lemons, peaches, and grapes.
The man of whom we purchased our peach trees told me that he would be pleased to have me observe the way they were planted. I then asked him to let me show him how it had been represented in the night season that they should be planted.
I ordered my hired man to dig a deep cavity in the ground, then put in rich dirt, then stones, then rich dirt. After this he put in layers of earth and dressing until the hole was filled....He [the nurseryman] said to me, "You need no lesson from me to teach you how to plant the trees."--Letter 350, 1907.
On through August the tree planting went. The men working on Ellen White's "farm" vied with the men at the school to see who could get the trees in first. The men at the school won out by one day, but it was not Ellen White's fault that her work lagged. At school they had been working for weeks clearing the land and getting ready. At her place, it had to be done in days. The school planted twelve acres of trees; Ellen White planted two (Letter 42, 1895). On August 19 she reported to Edson:
Mr. Smith [not an Adventist], who has recently moved to Cooranbong, is interested in the truth. He was on the ground receiving all the instruction possible from the lessons given by Mr. Mosely, the fruit grower. The keeper of the police station was on the ground, and both these lookers-on begged for Brother Rousseau to sell them a few trees--on Sunday, mind you--which he did. We are seeking to be friendly with all.--Letter 126, 1895.
Thus from the very start, Ellen White was able to accomplish one of her objectives: to teach the people in the community what could be done by employing intelligent agricultural procedures. This was not just her own determined, ambitious plan. "The light given me from the Lord," she told Edson, "is that whatever land we occupy is to have the very best kind of care and to serve as an object lesson to the colonials of what the land will do if properly worked."--Ibid. And she wrote a few days later to Dr. J. H. Kellogg:
The cultivation of our land requires the exercise of all the brainpower and tact we possess. The lands around us testify to the indolence of men. We hope to arouse to action the dormant senses. We hope to see intelligent farmers, who will be rewarded for their earnest labor. The hand and head must cooperate, bringing new and sensible plans into operation in the cultivation of the soil.--Letter 47a, 1895.
In another communication she wrote:
We shall experiment on this land, and if we make a success, others will follow our example.... When right methods of cultivation are adopted, there will be far less poverty than now exists. We intend to give the people practical lessons upon the improvement of the land, and thus induce them to cultivate their land, now lying idle. If we accomplish this, we shall have done good missionary work.--Letter 42, 1895.
She was on the lookout for the best of seeds, most of which had to come from Sydney, but choice tomato seed she secured from one of her neighbors. She recognized that they would at times err, working as they were in unfamiliar territory:
Mistakes will often be made, but every error lies close beside truth. Wisdom will be learned by failures, and the energy that will make a beginning gives hope of success in the end. Hesitation will keep things back, precipitancy will alike retard, but all will serve as lessons if the human agents will have it so.--Letter 47a, 1895.
Rather jubilantly she could write to Dr. Kellogg in late August of the influence of her work at Cooranbong, and of the appraisal of one expert on the quality of the land, a point her ears were attuned to:
I came to this place, and began work on my place so earnestly that it inspired all with fresh zeal, and they have been working with a will, rejoicing that they have the privilege. We have provoked one another to zeal and good works.
The school workers were afraid I would plant the first trees, and now both they and I have the satisfaction of having the first genuine orchards in this vicinity. Some of our trees will yield fruit next year, and the peaches will bear quite a crop in two years. Mr. Mosely, from whom we bought our trees, lives about twenty miles from here. He has an extensive and beautiful orchard. He says that we have splendid fruitland.
Well, the school has made an excellent beginning. The students are learning how to plant trees, strawberries, et cetera.--Letter 47, 1895.
Buying Cows
Mrs. White also needed cows to provide a supply of milk and cream. In a letter written to friends in the United States she described the venture to supply the needs in this line:
I drive my own two-horse team, visit the lumber mills and order lumber to save the time of the workmen, and go out in search of our cows. I have purchased two good cows--that is, good for this locality.
Almost everywhere in the colonies they have a strange custom of confining the cow at milking time. They put her head in a fixture called a bail, then tie up one of her legs to a stake. It is a barbarous practice.
I told those of whom I bought my cows that I should do no such thing, but leave the creatures free, and teach them to stand still. The owner looked at me in astonishment. "You cannot do this, Mrs. White," he said; "they will not stand. No one thinks of doing it any other way." "Well," I answered, "I shall give you an example of what can be done."
I have not had a rope on the cows' legs, or had their heads put into a bail. One of my cows has run on the mountains till she was 3 years old, and was never milked before. The people have not the slightest idea that they can depart from their former practices, and train the dumb animals to better habits by painstaking effort. We have treated our cows gently, and they are perfectly docile. These cows had never had a mess of bran or any other prepared food. They get their living by grazing on the mountains, and the calf runs with the cows. Such miserable customs! We are trying to teach better practices.--Letter 42, 1895.
A Start with Buildings for Avondale College
Land had been cleared on a high rise in the ground with the hope that when funds were available, a beginning could be made in putting up school buildings. The master plan worked out by W. C. Sisley and adopted by the union conference committee called for three buildings as a beginning--the central building for administration and classrooms, flanked on either side at a distance of one hundred feet by dormitories for the young men and the young women. These were to be erected on what L. J. Rousseau described in his letter to the churches, dated February 25, 1895, as "one of the prettiest elevations that could be found in the whole vicinity."--DF 170, "The Avondale School, 1895-1907."
But before there could be buildings, there had to be lumber, milled from trees cut from their forest. This called for a sawmill. W. C. White, writing to his brother Edson on August 3, described plans for the building to house the mill. He reported:
Brethren Rousseau and Metcalfe Hare have been in Sydney for two weeks buying building materials, horses, wagons, farming implements, fruit trees, et cetera, et cetera.... Last night we advertised for a boiler, engine, circular saw, planer, turning lathe, and for a brickmaking plant.--8 WCW, p. 31.
He commented, "We shall have very busy times at Avondale for the next few months."
Ellen White Continues to Write
As the work of clearing land and planting trees on "Ellen White's farm" continued in the weeks of early spring, and the construction of her little home progressed, she stood by to serve in running errands for the workmen to save their time. Yet she pressed in a little writing.
Starting almost from scratch, as it were, in early August, the men made considerable progress on "the farm," and the foundation was in for the house (Letter 156, 1896). Her August 28 description of the little camp at Sunnyside is revealing:
I am seated on the bed writing at half past 3:00 A.M. Have not slept since half past one o'clock. Ella May White and I are the sole occupants of a large, comfortable family tent. Close by is another good-sized tent, used as a dining room. We have a rude shanty for a kitchen, and a small five-by-five storeroom. Next is another tent, which accommodates three of my workmen. Next is a room enclosed but not finished, for washhouse and workshop. This is now used as a bedroom by two men, Brother Shannon, my master builder, and Brother Caldwell. These five men we board. Several others are at work on the land who board themselves. Fannie Bolton occupies another tent, well fitted up with her organ and furniture. You see we have quite a village of tents.--Letter 42, 1895.
She could write to Elder Olsen, "I have been enjoying tent life for four weeks."--Letter 64a, 1895.
But tent life for her and some of her helpers ended in early September as she returned to her Granville home.