1. John Lloyd

John Lloyd of Melbourne purchased Lot 10 on February 6, 1867 at a land sales auction held at the auction room of Messrs Gemmell, Tuckett, and Co, Collins Street west in Melbourne from 2pm. On the day town lots from Epping, Wollert, Scoresby, Greensborough and Lillydale went under the hammer. The upset price per acres for the Lillydale lots was £8 per acre. In all there were 41 lots ranging from 24 perches to 2 roods in area that were to be sold. (1)
Reporting on the auction the Age newspaper reported there was a good attendance and brisk competition for some lots.

Argus Tuesday 5 February 1867, page 6.

John Lloyd purchased two lots including lot 10, for £4/10/-. We have been unable to find out more about John Lloyd other than he was from Melbourne.(2)

2. Edwin Millard
On September 1, 1871 John Lloyd sold lot 10 to Edwin Millard. On the new title issue on Septmeber 9, 1871, Edwin Millard is listed as being “of the Courier office Ballarat.” (3)
Edwin Millard was actively involved in mining in the Ballarat area and was first President of the Royal Exchange at Ballarat from 6 July 1881.(4)
He later became Chairman of the Ballarat Stock Exchange and a member of the Stock Exchange of Melbourne. (5)

3. James Graham
Millard’s ownership of the lot was short lived as he sold it on August 3, 1872 to James Graham of Lillydale. (6)
The newly formed Shire of Lillydale, the successor of the Upper Yarra District Road Board was created in February 1872 and in readiness for it, the first Rate Book was created based on residents owning or leasing property as at December 21, 1871. Listed in that Rate Book is a James Graham who gave his occupation as a baker. He was leasing a baker’s shop and residence at Lillydale owned by Edward Poyner. The property was valued at £16.(7)
It was not until the end of 1873, that he was listed as having an allotment in to the township and the shop. (8)

3. William Smith
In May 1874, Graham sold the property to William Smith and probably left Lilydale as he disappears from the Rate Books.(9) Also, Edward Poyner is now paying the rates on his own bakery.(10)

On the Title, William Smith is described as a blacksmith from Yering and like those before him, his ownership was short. In the 1874 Shire of Lillydale Rate Books he is listed as owning a township allotment and leasing 12 acres and a shop from Robert Black and a further 28 acres from a W. Pentland. (11)

William Mitchell Smith was born in New Cumnock, Ayrshire in 1841 and arrived in Australia in 1853. He married Annie Rintoul at Rosedale in Gippsland in 1867 and they had nine children born between 1868 and 1883. The family arrived in the district by 1872 when their third child Gilbert was born at The Lodge – the then name for Coldstream.

In 1875 he purchased his own land and by 1878 had purchased a further 67 acres and erected a residence which became Lodge Park, a property still existing today.(12)

However, tragedy struck the family when in February 1878 their two-year-old son James wandered away and drowned in a water hole on the property. The hole had only just filled after recent rain. The cause of death was accidental drowning.(13)

William Smith died at Carlton on February 24, 1885, aged 44 years. He is buried in a unmarked grave along with his son James and young daughter Elizabeth in the Lilydale cemetery’s Presbyterian section.

5. Leon Leroy
William Smith sold it to Leon Leroy on April 27, 1875. (14) Leroy’s ownership was to transform the property as it was during his time a building was erected. By December 1876 he had erected a brick house on his ½ of land which was now valued at £25 and in the following year had added a shop which combined were valued at £28. (15)
Writing in the Back to Lilydale Re-union book, Arnold Deschamp wrote:
“Here vigneron Augustus Deschamp erected a cooperage and appointed cooper Leroy its manager. Casks of every description were made here and sent to all parts of Victoria.” (16)
It was run by F. Leroy, a French cooper, who, with several tradesmen under him, made casks to the order of local and other winemakers. Leroy coopered for a while for my father at St. Hubert’s. I well remember him when I was a small boy. He was an enthusiast about fishing and shooting and kept for a while in the cooper’s shop a pair of leverets he had secured in Melbourne. He ultimately released these in the vineyard, with the result that hares, of which there had been none about previously, became plentiful a few years later. (17)
Leroy mortgaged the property to Augustus Deschamp on June 18, 1876 which gave Leroy the money to erect the cooperage and gave Deschamp security over his investment. (18)