Woodanilling Spring
The current name for the town and shire have been taken from this spring. The spring is also significant for its association with the development of the pastoral and sandalwood industries; for its association with the building of the railway and for its connection with pioneering families.
It is situated in the bed of the Moojebing Creek about 1km south of its junction with the Boyerine Creek and a similar distance from the Woodanilling townsite. The spring runs all the year and creates a pool some six metres long, two metres wide and about a metre deep in the creek bed. The water level is about a metre below the surface as heavy creek flows have eroded a channel between the Casuarinas which line the banks of the pool. The spring is located in the centre of Williams location 281 of 100 acres originally taken up as a special lease (no. 55).
The name Woodanilling pertains to the native fish – minnows – which are still in good numbers in the spring pool. The pool provided fresh water for early pastoralists, shepherds and their flocks of sheep. They were also a source of water for sandalwood cutters and carters in the early days of European settlement.
The Quartermaine family had from the mid 1860’s held huge pastoral leases on the Boyerine Creek. Extending northwards from their base at Yowangup, some 65,000 acres were held in this manner up to William Andrews’ holding around Norring Lake. In 1868 Elijah Quartermaine (Junior) took the northern leases over in his own right and, after freeholding land at his home at Boyamine, secured permanency at the creek pools by buying 40-acre blocks surrounding Boyerine Pool (1873), Ngeatalling Pool (1878) and Dolapin Pool (1879).
The property surrounding the spring passed from the Quartermaine family to Claire Stewart (1907/8), to Richard Wilcox and to Tom Garstone in 1912.
