WHAT do you do if you want to hold a party, a concert, a ball or a dance and there’s no school of arts, no public hall and not even a hall attached to one of the three churches in the township?

And let’s add into the query, the fact that the only mode of transport you have is on horseback or in a horse and buggy or for those who live close by, on foot?

The answer?

You look for a big farm building owned by a family who don’t mind a regular clean out and repurposing of the big timber barn beside their home and don’t even look askance when you refer to it as the local hall.

Such was the case when Thomas and Bridget Coveney were among the first settlers at Rosevale after the land was surveyed into farm blocks in 1875, under the Homestead Act.

The couple had been living near Castle Hill Lane outside what would become Peak Crossing on a 50 acre farm.

Thomas purchased that small farm in 1868, brought his bride, Bridget (nee Duffy) there after their marriage in Ipswich in 1872. However, he saw greater prospects in the land at Rosevale as many of the newly surveyed properties had a frontage to the Bremer River.

The couple brought their young family of two to Rosevale in 1876, where Thomas had been able to acquire 120 acres of agricultural land and 160 acres of country listed as suitable for pastoral pursuits.

Exactly when their new home and barn was built is not known. What is known, is that as another three children joined the family, the couple prospered on the land.

By 1889, Thomas was the owner of more than 937 acres (380ha) and by the early 1890s, reports of events held in Coveney’s barn or Coveney’s hall appeared quite frequently in the Ipswich newspaper.

It was where the Rosevale Cricket Club held a fundraising ball in 1892; where the local “young ladies and gentlemen” held a social to raise money for St Mary’s Catholic Church building fund (Ipswich); and where the Coveney family held a bazaar in 1903 for the same purpose.

That barn was the chosen venue for the concert (1899) and fancy dress ball (1911) run by the Rosevale Tennis Club and for an impromptu surprise going-away party (1903), which, according to the newspaper report, it was also a surprise to the owners of the barn … “but everyone helped clear the barn and soon all were dancing”.

In 1904, it was where a ball was held to celebrate the opening of the co-operative cattle dip.

So big was the barn that often as many as 80 to 100 people would be accommodated at one of the events.

When Thomas and Bridget retired to Rosewood in 1913, their son Thomas took over the holding and continued the tradition of offering the barn as a venue.

Thomas (junior) sold out to James Kelly in 1920 and moved with his wife, Mary (nee Hogan) to Rosewood.

Unfortunately, Thomas did not have long to enjoy town life as he died in a freak accident at the Wallangarra Railway Station two years later, when he was 44 years old.

According to reports which appeared in the newspapers after an investigation into his death, Thomas (known as Tom), had left Rosewood on May 23 by rail and was bound for Cottonvale outside Warwick.

He changed trains in Warwick, slept through the stop at Cottonvale and was obliged to continue to the border station at Wallangarra. It was believed that at some point while waiting for a return train, he had fallen onto the line and was run over by a train that was shunting.

One of his elder brothers had also been lost in an accident in 1913.

William, two years senior to Tom, had moved to Bamford in the Mareeba Shire in North Queensland to work in the mines in 1904 and had made a life there with his wife Agnes.

On December 5, he acted as scorer for the local cricket team in their match against the team from nearby Emuford. The group were cantering home in the evening light, when William’s horse shied and ran him into a tree.

His death (at 37 years old) was considered a great loss to the community and the sympathy offered to his widow was further deepened as the couple had buried a son and a daughter in the past two years.

Thomas senior passed away in Rosewood in 1929. His wife, Bridget, predeceased him in 1918.