For those of us who have travelled the old Hume Highway to Kilmore, we remember the ominous journey over the Big Hill better known as Pretty Sally Hill (or just Pretty Sally), between Wallan and Kilmore. This dormant volcano, 529 metres above sea level, sat at about the 31-mile marker post from Melbourne.
We have all heard stories of drivers ‘taking a run up’ to get over Pretty Sally Hill only to finish up on the side of the road after the car boiled, and then patiently waiting for the engine to cool so that the radiator could be refilled and the journey continued. My Father was one such person and told us stories of how cars backed up Pretty Sally Hill in a low gear ratio just to make it to the top of the prolonged climb, and how he himself off-loaded his passengers (his parents and parents-in-law, much to their disdain) in order to successfully climb the last portion of Pretty Sally Hill.
This treacherous bit of road, particularly the stretch just over the hill on the Wallan side, was a notorious blackspot and tragically the site of many road fatalities, both horse and drays and eventually motor cars. Early reports of the road over Big Hill talk of torrential rain, of the wheels of bullock drays carving gutters in the muddy road, only for the next traveller up the hill to get stuck in them.
But where did the name ‘Pretty Sally’ originate?
For a short but impactful time, the spot where the road crested the hill was a place of rest, company, a meal and perhaps something a little stronger. A woman named Sarah ‘Pretty Sally’ SMITH ran a sly grog shop where travellers could rest and slake their thirst and it was said that ‘Sally’ was known to have enjoyed a tipple or two. (Sally was a common diminutive of the proper name Sarah thus the shanty being referred to as ‘Pretty Sally’s’).
One can only assume whether it was because it was so small and remote, that only passers-by knew what awaited them, as it appears that no newspapers at the time mentioned Pretty Sally’s shanty and eating-house. The following article seems to be the earliest account of Pretty Sally’s establishment on the Big Hill where it describes a traveller’s disappointment of it no longer being in existence:
“… commenced the ascent of the Big Hill, in the full assurance of finding a house of entertainment about half way over, which existed some fifteen months previously, under the auspices of Pretty Sally” but what was my chagrin to be informed that the present proprietor, Mr BUDD [William Henry Budd – see separate article], did not combine such a mode of augmenting his income with his agricultural and dairy pursuits, … on the site formerly occupied by ‘Pretty Sally’. (The Argus, May 22 1850 p 2)
Records exist of Joseph and Sarah SMITH holding a pastoral license for the area of Big Hill and Merri Creek from 1841 to 1847. (Billis, R V (1974) Pastoral Pioneers of Port Phillip, p 141)
Sarah SMITH had a terrible accident which was reported in The Melbourne Argus, 10 September 1847, p2
“An accident has occurred near Beveridge’s Swamp, on Wednesday last, which I am informed is likely to be attended with fatal results. Mrs. Smith, better known as pretty Sally, was driving a spring cart; one of the wheels of the vehicle coming in contact with a stump caused a capsize, when by some unaccountable means Mrs, S. fell under the vehicle, which being alone, seriously crushed her before she was released.”
Despite her injuries being severe and the newspaper reporting her imminent death, there is no record of the death of a Sarah or Sally SMITH in 1847, either in the newspapers on Trove or in Vic BDM.
However, a Grant of Administration for a Sarah SMITH who died in 1851 was witnessed by William Hartley BUDD(b.c.1809 – 1888), who, together with his second wife Rececca (b.c.1819 – 1890) held the Big Hill Run from 1841-42, was obviously known to Joseph and Sarah SMITH aka ‘Pretty Sally’.
The burial record of this Sarah SMITH aka ‘Pretty Sally’, the legendary woman who offered respite to weary travellers, states that she died in Melbourne about 13 March 1851 and was interred the next day (whereabouts unknown), that she was 54 years old and the wife and widow of Joseph SMITH. According to William BUDD, Sally had no next of kin in the district.
In his book Truth, Stranger than Fiction, William Ashton Coomer Robinson gives us this description;
… “We soon arrived at a mountain range (over part of which the road winds), called Pretty Sallyʼs Hill, named after … a very stout and ugly old woman who kept an inn at its base.”
A second insight into ‘Pretty Sally’ states “The person in question was not the handsome slender young lady the name evokes, but a formidable woman of 114 kilograms as ugly as you would meet…’. (Pretty Sally’s Hill – A History of Wallan, Wandong & Bylands, 1981; J W Payne)
The Kilmore Historical Society researchers consider that the position of ‘Pretty Sally’s’ shanty was at the top of the hill beside what is today called the Old Sydney Road just west of the transmitter station (half-way over) near Beauview Drive, Wallan. The current road is much straighter and safer. As the Hume Highway bypass was constructed in the 1970s, the original road became part of the Northern Highway and is situated just North of Wallan , leading to Kilmore.
As is the case with most bush legends, details about the life of this formidable woman are sketchy, but for a few short years in the 1840’s, Sarah SMITH aka ‘Pretty Sally’ left a lasting mark on the Australian landscape and helped supplement her family’s income by making her shanty available to weary travellers.
Contributed by Dianne Wheeler PPPG member No. 1505