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VERBURG, EDWIN (KLEIN, JOHN) (1869–1965), gardener, was born in 1869 in Colynsplaat, Zeeland,
Holland the son of Cornelis Verburg and Tacomina, nee Westerweel. Cornelis Verburg was a farmer. After a
difference with his father, Edwin ran away to sea when he was about 14, settled in the United States and took out
American citizenship. He was among the troops who fought in the Spanish American war during which he was
wounded. For this service, he received a pension, which was paid to him for the rest of his life.
About 1913 he settled in the Northern Territory. In September, his address then being Brocks Creek,
he applied for a Grazing Licence on Hayward Creek. He was granted Miscellaneous Lease No 3 for 21 years
from 1 January 1914. This was for a little more than 392 hectares of land on the west bank of the Adelaide River,
adjacent to the railway line. Here he began to grow fruit and vegetables with immediate and consistent success.
As early as December 1914 he advertised that he had potatoes, pumpkin and watermelon for sale. In one of the
first press reports about him, it was noted that he had ‘really good samples of lucerne and English potatoes... under
irrigation... working upon American methods’. In 1917, it was noted that ‘a prodigious bunch of bananas has been
sent to the Government Office’. The report continued that Verburg was one of the few settlers who, by sheer grit
and determination and the exercise of common sense, has practically overcome the path of the pioneer agriculture
(sic) in this country and that he is now in the happy position of realising a comfortable income from the produce
of his farm’.
Until 1918, Verburg was known as John Klein but he formally reverted to his own name by an announcement in
the press on 15 June 1918. His land title was noted accordingly. It is not known why he used the name ‘John Klein’.
Perhaps he needed another name to leave the United States; perhaps Verburg was too ‘European’ in Australia.
Perhaps too ‘John Klein’ was too Germanic for the hysteria generated in Australia during the First World War.
His family understands that at one stage he was under threat of being interned until it was discovered he was
Dutch born.
Verburg’s farm became something of a local attraction and the annual railway picnic was regularly held nearby.
A treat for the picnickers in 1917 was watermelons from his garden. By 1920, Verburg’s irrigated farm on which
he had spent about 4 000 Pounds in various improvements, with the help of a loan from the Advances to Settlers
Board, was an ‘object of wonder and interest to visitors’. He had, reported the press, thrown a ‘concrete wall...
across the river, raising the water about fifteen feet and conserving a magnificent sheet of water for a long distance
up stream. A centrifugal pump, capable of throwing probably 455 000 litres of water per hour is to be worked by a
turbine, the power for which will be supplied by the pressure of the water in the dam’. It was the journalist’s fervent
hope that a largely increased population in the area would follow his efforts but until the influx of servicemen to
the Adelaide River area during the war years, this was not to be. Verburg’s original debt and his improvements had
been paid out of his profits; the Administrator was pleased to report in 1920.
There was a set back in 1921 when the widespread incidence of a canker resulted in the destruction of all citrus
trees north of the 19th parallel. Compensation was paid, with Verburg heading the list. He received 867 Pounds for
446 trees. The next largest holding was of 247 trees for which only 113 Pounds and Five Shillings. Was paid, the
other 15 growers affected (including the Bathurst Island Mission) each had less than 100 trees on their properties.
This clearly demonstrates the pre-eminent position Verburg held then, and was to maintain until the Second World
War, in fruit and vegetable growing.
In 1930, Verburg applied to have his lease converted into freehold. The North Australian Commission then in
charge of the Top End of the Territory approved the grant and described him as ‘undoubtedly the best settler in the
NT’. During the 1930s, Verburg had a small shop in Cavenagh Street and each Saturday he would go to Darwin on
the train and sell his fresh produce. Darwin-born Jack Haritos and Les Liveris, then young lads, remembered their
Saturday visits to the fruit shop with great affection.
Marauding cattle and other livestock were always a problem. Frequently, and from as early as 1918, Verburg
advertised that he would destroy cattle found on his property. In a case against his neighbour, Hardy, whose cattle
regularly got into his crops, he was described as ‘quarrelsome’. The magistrate commented that all his immediate
neighbours, many of whom he had sued, had had some difficulties with him. In Verburg’s defence it must be
pointed out that being the only settler with a commercial garden and with no-one’s tenure requiring fences he
had some right to be irritated by wandering cattle looking for a feed. He had also upset officialdom by employing
Aborigines without always having obtained the requisite permission though it was acknowledged that he paid well
above the prescribed minimum wages. Officially he was described as an ‘eccentric’ and ‘difficult to deal with’
though there was universal agreement that in growing fruit and vegetables he was in a class of his own and he was
certainly the first man other than the Botanic Gardens curators to grow anything like marketable produce. Among
the crops that he tried was beetroot.
In 1941, Verburg had a nearly new home on his farm and all improvements, including his crops, were valued
at 10 895 Pounds and 10 Shillings. By this time, he was about 72. On 4 May 1942 members of the 2/3 Pioneer
Battalion took over the farm. It seems odd indeed, given the amount of food the troops required and the fact
that large Army farms were subsequently developed in the Adelaide River area, that Verburg’s property was
not utilised. By then, he had over 40 hectares acres under cultivation, all held under freehold title. On the north
side of the river he had 981 acres with a further 98 hectares on the south side, resumed in 1943 and April 1945
respectively. Among the crops, there were 1 000 citrus trees, 100 mango and 12 000 pineapples. He was evacuated
and took his family to Longreach in Queensland.