Cooee: What is in a name?

South of Benalla’s central shopping street lies Big Casey Island and Little Casey Island. All three are named for the same man.

Henry Casey was an Irishman from Limerick who arrived in Melbourne in 1853.

He was just in time to join the madness that gripped Victoria after gold was discovered in Ballarat.

Aged 20, Casey followed gold discoveries first to the Ovens diggings and then to Woods Point.

Riches eluded him, so Casey joined Victoria Police.

By the time he arrived in Benalla in 1860, Casey was no longer a policeman.

In Benalla, he took the licence of Mount Ada Hotel.

Having relinquished the Mount Ada Hotel licence, Casey took the licence of the Back Creek Hotel no later than January 1861.

He was gregarious and extroverted.

For example, Casey assembled a large crowd to hear him expound his views on local matters when he stood, unsuccessfully, for council.

Both hotels eventually would lose their licences, thanks to Licences Reduction Board that removed the licences of 1054 hotels during the period 1907 to 1916.

In 1863, Casey married Elizabeth Harker of Jamieson.

They went on to have four children.

Casey operated the Back Creek Hotel, or, as it was known later, the Broken Creek Hotel, successfully.

The hotel was near a weir erected where the Broken Creek enters the Broken River.

Because Henry Casey’s hotel was the nearest building to the weir, this weir became Casey’s Weir.

Today there is nothing remaining but a large flat space east of the weir.

Casey must have served many meals to travellers and locals because Joseph Brumby thought it worthwhile to apply for a slaughtering licence at Casey’s hotel in 1882.

It was granted, but Casey had not confided his own plans to Brumby.

After Brumby’s efforts to provide meat for the hotel, Casey moved into Benalla in 1883, the very next year.

He bought the licence of the Royal Hotel.

One indication of Casey’s social skills lies in the fact that the Agricultural and Pastoral Society always met at the Royal Hotel while he owned it.

Casey and his wife also owned a large house of seven rooms at the end of Arundel St.

It also had a separate kitchen, pantry, cellar, bathroom and laundry with a stable and buggy shed attached.

As an investment, Casey bought two islands south of what is now known as Jaycee Island.

Casey rented the islands’ 104 acres (42ha) as grazing land.

They were made more profitable in 1892 when the council agreed to meet half the cost of fencing the islands.

At first, the islands were called Casey’s Islands but, over time, received their present names — Big Casey Island and Little Casey Island.

Casey retired from the hotel business in 1900. Mrs Casey died of a heart attack in 1909. After her death, Casey leased their house.

He died in 1916 aged 83. Both are buried in Benalla cemetery.

— John Barry, Coo-ee