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John Hugh McCracken was born in Belfast around 1846, the son of Samuel McCracken - a family birthday book records his birthday as being on the 3rd. December. He consistently gave this place and year at the time of registering his 2 marriages and at the births of each of his children.
John came to Australia in the mid 1860's as part of the crew of a ship. He arrived in Pt. Adelaide on the merchant barque "Woodbine" on 14th. January 1865 and left her there. The Woodbine had sailed from London, UK carrying 400 tons of coal. 15 months later John was engaged to work on the ketch "Ellen Lewis" which left Pt. Adelaide on the 2nd May, 1866 carrying livestock for Adam Bay in the Northern Territory. A family diary says that he was working on the cutter Firefly when she was shipwrecked in Anxious Bay (near Elliston, Sth. Aust.) in 1866 and that this was how he came to know the "West Coast", however no record of him sailing on her has so far been located.
John worked as a shepherd on properties around the district until in 1887 he was able to buy some leashehold farming land between Colton and Mount Wedge. He named this property "Kilroy". He later bought additional land and one part of that he called "Larne". (Larne is not far from Belfast and has always been a very important port - in fact many of the early irish emigrants to North America left from Larne.)
He married Martha Foster nee Brown in 1874 and together they had 10 children. 10 years after Martha's death in 1894 he married Augusta Krusewitz nee Crossland and together they had another 2 children. He later adopted Augusta's son from her first marriage.
John died of stomach cancer in 1919.
Augusta and her children stayed on to run the two properties. | 
