Josephin, son of Joseph-Louis Cresp and Catherine Tassanari, was born in Antibes, France on 26 February 1848.  He was nine when his father died in the wreck of the Grand Bay on the coast of India.   It was about this time that Josephin commenced work on a coasting vessel captained by his Uncle Felix.

Josephin said that he last saw his mother when he was thirteen. We assume then, that it was in 1861 that he joined an ocean vessel and left France.   For reasons unknown, Josephin deserted ship in America and, a month before his sixteenth birthday, he joined the army to fight for the “Union” in the Civil War.   At the time that Josephin deserted ship in America, wealthy people went to the docks seeking to pay sailors to take the place of their sons in fighting the war.  Could it be that one Mr Martin preferred to pay a young French sailor to ‘answer the call’ for his son, Peter?

From records obtained from the National Archives in Washington on a Peter Martin, we learned that, on the 15th January 1864, he enlisted as a volunteer in the infantry at Dennis, Massachusetts, claiming his age to have been eighteen. After serving almost four months, he transferred to the Navy, enlisting at Brooklyn, N Y on 9th May. He served as an ordinary seaman on the North Carolina, New Hampshire, O M Pettit and the Vermont and was honourably discharged on the 2nd April 1866.

Josephin also worked on the Stations as a shearer. In the 1870’s the English market preferred clean wool and many of the Stations washed the sheep, the week before shearing, in dams constructed on creeks. This was not popular with the shearers because the sheep were harder to hold and the fleeces more difficult to handle. When tried at Pine Plains and Wonga Lake, which in most seasons suffered from lack of water, the sheep were little better after washing than before.

Josephin Cresp, contractor, and Catherine O’Connor, servant, were married at the Church of Saints Michael and John, Horsham on 1st April 1878. Catherine, the daughter of Michael O’Connor and Ellen Burke, was born at Leeds, Miltown Malbay, County Clare in 1848.  Catherine arrived in Adelaide in 1877. Reports within the family indicate that Catherine worked as a laundress at an hotel in Warracknabeal or Horsham, and that Josephin paid to have her released from a commitment to work for two years, a condition of her immigration from Ireland. At that stage he was known as Peter Martin which would perhaps indicate that he feared the French authorities for his desertion more than any other.  It is said that Catherine refused to marry him under his assumed name and insisted that he use his birth name, Josephin Cresp.  On the Marriage Certificate both gave their addresses as Lake Hindmarsh. A short time after marriage, they moved to Lake Wonga Station where Catherine worked as a cook and Josephin as a shearer. Wonga Station covered most of the northern part of Wyperfeld.

In 1878 Josephin and Catherine moved to a farming property of 178 acres in Warracknabeal.  Farming costs were high; the cost of transporting the wheat to the nearest railway station could take a large portion of the profits. Many of the big station owners had been forced to abandon their properties because rabbits had destroyed the grazing lands. Therefore, they no longer provided employment. Consequently, Josephin most likely supplemented his income by continuing to do contract building and fencing.

In July 1886 the family consisted of six children and they lived in a two-roomed dwelling of log and pug with a bark roof. Around 1893, then with nine surviving children, they moved further north to a 660 acre property at Reedy Dam (about mid-way between Beulah and Birchip).

Michael Thomasxe "CRESP:Michael Thomas" born on 8 Dec 1878

Constance Ilenexe "CRESP:Constance Ilene", on 13 Dec 1892