Historical information

This book was given as a Sunday School prize to James Cassady. The donor was William Wines. The Wines families were pioneers in the Woodford district. James Cassady was the son of William and Elizabeth Cassady and the family lived at Boughton on the Merri River (near Cassady’s Bridge, Caramut Road today). This property was established about 1845. Charley and Joe, whose names have also been written in the book, were James’ brothers.

Significance

This book is of interest because it belonged to James Cassady, the son of pioneer settlers in Cassadys’ Bridge/Woodford area.

Physical description

This is a hard cover book of 220 pages with 32 extra pages at the back of the book giving information on other books produced by the same publisher. The cover is grey-green with gold lettering, green and black floral decorations and gold images of two men on horseback and a South American Indian chief. The spine is torn away at the top and the cover and pages are stained and crumpled. There are many black and white illustrations throughout the text, with the frontispiece protected by a piece of tissue. The inscriptions are handwritten in black ink and pencil.

Inscriptions & markings

‘Woodford Sunday School presented to James Cassidy (sic) by his well-wisher William Wines’ (this is re-written underneath in pencil with the correct spelling of ‘Cassady’)
‘Chaley cassady, boughton, merri river (sic)
“Joe’