A. Friedman’s Post Office Store, James Street Dunoon. Circa 1900

In the recent past I have contributed a number of items on the history of Dunoon gathered almost exclusively from the records of the land titles office in Sydney. But for this article I am indebted to others. Annette Potts is the editor of the quarterly Bulletin of the Richmond River Historical Society and I help her by arranging the text for that publication. Patricia Roberts contributes to the research. In the most recent issue of the RRHS Bulletin, Annette has contributed an article on “The Jews of early Lismore”. I thought it appropriate to show her what I considered to be information on the commercial activity of Jews in early Dunoon. My information is not based on solid evidence but on the given names of individuals as recorded on title deeds. Charles Jacob Lowenthal acquired three acres from Michael Donohoe on 2 May 1904. On the very same day Alfred Friedman acquired about one acre of that land and built the Post Office Store. While Friedman is almost invariably referred to as Alfred, the name in the land records is Isaac. When Friedman moved on, his property in Dunoon was transferred to a Moses Bernhard Morgentheim a broker of Sydney. The title of the land was later transferred to Percy Walkley the new storekeeper and postmaster. Annette has suggested that Isaac and Alfred may have been different individuals. In her search for an Isaac Friedman she has located in Edge of the Diaspora (Suzan D. Rutland) reference to “one of the first Hungarian migrants to Australia who was well educated in Jewish Law”, in Hobart in 1840s (p33) and “Bendigo’s longest serving Jewish minister was the Reverend Isaac Friedman, from August 1853 to 1863, but there is no evidence to indicate whether this was one or two individuals or if there was any connection to Dunoon’s first storekeeper.
Annette has reminded me that Mr Rue Friedman is mentioned in the Dunoon story. She has found entries in the electoral rolls for Dunoon in 1906 and 1909 for Alfred (storekeeper), Jeanette Sarah (home duties) and Rudolf Ellis (commercial traveller). She has also found Alfred and Jeanette at the Channon in 1922. Annette also reminds us that in Dunoon Public School Centenary 1884 -1984 (p26) we are told that Alfred Friedman signed the petition dated 21 Oct 1910 for a new school. He was listed as having two school age children
The Dunoon Story tells us that Alfred was in Broadwater before coming to Dunoon and that he later opened a store in the Channon. Annette has checked A Short History of the Clarence (CWA 1905) and found a claim that Friedman had bought the Riley Hill store from Ware. And Pauline Barratt in Around the Channon says that “Rue Friedman from Dunoon opened a general store on the present site ...”at the Channon and that the Friedmans sold the business to Alfred Abrahams in April 1911, but bought it back again later that decade”. It was then sold to Odgers. Annette found five Abrahams on the electoral roll for 1913: Alfred Michael storekeeper, Emma Jane and Ernest Phillip draper all of the Channon; and at Numulgi Henry James Berkeley farmer and Beatrice Blanch.
Of the other two acres sold by Donoghue in 1904 various pieces were bought and sold but C.J. Lowenthal remained the owner of part of that land until his death in Sydney in 1925. In the Dunoon Story we read (p14) that a Mr. A.M Lowenthal of Sydney had invested in the arcade of four shops built about 1912, and again (p24) that the War Chest Fund had established a depot in Mr. A.M. Lowenthal’s shop in the Arcade. It seems that A.M. stood for Abraham Marcus a brother of C.J. It would appear that a more correct spelling of the name should be Loewenthal and that the family was based in Lawrence on the Clarence River where their father L.S. opened a “well stocked general store”. C.J. became a well known commercial traveller but he succeeded his father in the family business. He conducted the store at Lawrence for a time. This information seems to come from the reminiscence of Duncan McFarlane, published in the Grafton Daily Examiner in 1924 and 1938 and compiled in 2005 by Esma Mary Job of the Clarence River Historical Society. It seems that L.S. Loewenthal had migrated from Germany and his store was well patronised by the many German Settlers on the Clarence. He had married in Sydney.
In Nimbin Centenary 1882-1982 (p16) we are told that in 1906 Mr L.W. Lowenthal built the Nimbin Arcade of four shops. C.J. Had a brother Lazarus Aaron born 1879. Could he be the owner of the Nimbin Arcade?

Denis Matthews