The failed North Melbourne to Essendon railway, built by Hugh Glass and Peter McCracken and others, closed in 1864 and the government's slowness to purchase the line was probably responsible for the "accidental" medication overdose that caused the death of Glass and Peter McCracken's loss of "Ardmillan". However the government finally acted, extending the line circa 1872 as the North Eastern railway which eventually reached Albury.

There was no station at such a lonely place as today's Strathmore but by the mid 1850's there were two pubs virtually across the road from each other. A descendant of the Morgan family has a terrific website about the Cross Keys Hotel which includes a photograph of the original hotel.This is the website.

Morgan family at Cross Keys Hotel Essendon - Home
morganandkellyfamilyhistories.weebly.com/‎
North Essendon was formerly known as Hawstead and was in the Parish of Doutta Galla, County of Bourke. Bob said the details were a bit confusing and I have ...

The researcher asked the owner of the new Cross Keys about the original Cross Keys and was told that it was across the road. There was certainly an old hotel across the road but it wasn't the Cross Keys. I have sent the researcher the following information.

The owner of the Cross Keys was right about an old hotel being across Pascoe Vale Road from the Cross Keys but wrong about assuming that it was the original Cross Keys. It was on the site of Melfort Avenue,the block at Hawstead granted to John Haslett.

Ellen Haslitt (sic), National Hotel, Moonee Ponds. Granted.
(P.6, Argus, 16-4-1856.) N.B. Moonee Ponds meant near the Moonee Ponds Creek, not the suburb.

Sam Merrifield's Annals of Essendon had an entry circa 1888 about a fellow called Robinson who apparently had just bought the hotel and was advertising some sort of race (bike?) to promote his hotel which he must have renamed as the Melfort. My old mate, Bob Chalmers, does not seem to have included this entry in his annals.

Hotel owners were wise to follow Morgan's scheme to protect his Cross Keys ( as you have described) because the Melfort was soon targeted.

CLEARING OUT A HOTEL.
Between 1 a.m. and 6 ajn. on Thursday,
burglars made a raid, which in its particular line
has not often been surpassed, on the Melfort
Hotel, which stands in a rather lonely spot on the
Pascoe Vale-road, Moonee Ponds, near Melbourne.
The place had been closed by Mr. Thomas
Adams, the licensee, at the usual hour, and
he and his family retired to rest. It was rather
a wild night, and. they, slept soundly. No noise
was heard by them, but on rising at 6 o'clock
Adams was astonished to find the front door open,
and a large proportion of his liquor stock
gone, in addition to six large boxes of
cigars and some cash. When the place
was thoroughly examined, it was found tbat the
work of the robbers had been effected with much
determination. They bad first examined all the
windows on the ground floor looking into the
street ; but finding the catches too strong, and
probably being chary of breaking the glass and
thus causidg- a noise, had obtained a carpenter's
brace and bit, and bored boles all round
the the woodwork near the back of the
bar door. The wood was then taken out
in one piece and the lock pushed back. Tbe
bar was then at their mercy, and they carried. ofiE,
amongst other property, 24db of tobacco, a keg of
whiskey, a number of bottles of brandy and
whiskey, a dozen bottles of ale, and so forth.- The
money bad been taken from the till. In order to
carry the plunder away they must have bad a
horse and conveyance. They left no clue.
(CLEANING OUT A HOTEL.
Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931) Saturday 3 August 1889 p 5 Article.)

Incidentally the names of HASLETT and BERGIN will be discussed in my BULLA or BROADMEADOWS journal re the Somerton Rd area. I will be checking but offhand,Haslett was the grantee of Sherwood/Ballater Park if I remember correctly and Bergin had a small grant on section 3 Bulla Bulla near the cemetery.

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xxx thanks so much for your contact on my webpage http://morganandkellyfamilyhistories.weebly.com/ and the information you have sent me regarding the other Hotel on Pascoe Vale Road.

One of these days I will find time to go through the land titles for the Cross Keys Hotel for myself. Probably not until I retire though.

I "googled" you and have found your Strathmore History page. I'm looking forward to reading through it. I must admit I get so confused with all the different names in the area, ie Hawstead, North Essendon, Pascoe Vale, Moonee Ponds. I suppose boundaries changed over the years?

I also see you are into Tullamarine history. I have been searching for more descendants of my Morgans from the Cross Keys Hotel. My grandmother's eldest brother was John "Jack" Adams who apparently died in a nursing home at Tullamarine in 1983. I have been told Jack may have been some sort of caretaker at a farm around Craigieburn/Yuroke. In the Vic electoral roles his address was with his son Morgan Adams at 51 Fraser Street Niddrie from 1963 until 1980.
If you happen to use ancestry.com the link to Jack in my tree is http://trees.ancestry.com.au/tree/6900954/person/-1207540832

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It may just be co-incidence but Fraser St was close to the northern boundary of "Niddrie" (17B, Doutta Galla) whose eastern boundary is indicated by Treadwell St off Keilor Rd and Nomad Rd in Essendon Aerodrome. If I remember correctly,the farm was purchased by Dr. (Patrick?) Morgan in 1906. Patrick may actually have been the author of the family history THE MORGANS OF NIDDRIE. I don't know if this family was connected to your CROSS KEYS mob but family folklore would know of any doctors in the family.

There were plenty of Morgans around the area, Fred Morgan who married a Knight girl and farmed The Pines at Pascoe Vale and was somehow related to Joseph and John English who bought Fawkner's Belle Vue Park and built the mansion at the top of Oak Park Court; I think The Pines was part of Belle Vue Park.
(BETWEEN TWO CREEKS, Richard Broome.)

There was also a Morgan who bought Camp Hill at Tullamarine (from the Gilligans in about 1913 if I remember correctly) and W.R.Morgan who started an engineering firm in Glenroy and later transferred his operations to about the site of Hannah Pascoe Drive on the Moonee Ponds Creek floodplain on Camp Hill (renamed Gowanbrae by Scott.)

You wouldn't happen to have any idea of the owner of the property that Jack Adams was managing near Yuroke/
Craigieburn? Poole,Saunders,Simmie, Alston etc?

Hawstead was probably a place in the old country that the surveyor had come from and is the only case I have come across where suburban blocks (surveyed in every township) were actually given a suburb name. The name probably disappeared because it was replaced by NORTH PARK, which was probably a farm name before Alexander McCracken built his mansion of that name (now the Columban Mission) on the block. Part of Pascoeville/ Pascoevale/ Pascoe Vale became Oak Park when Hutchinson of the Glenroy flour mill changed the name of Fawkner's Belle Vue Park to Oak Park because of the many oak trees that Fawkner had planted.

Strathmore was known as North Essendon, as was the area near the Essendon Crossroads (near Keilor Rd corner) until the North Essendon Progress Association finally got a station near the Cross Keys. Names for the Stations (Strathmore, Glenbervie) were both places associated with Thomas Napier's native area in Scotland.

Moonee Ponds meant NEAR THE MOONEE PONDS CREEK for a great many decades.

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If any other researchers of the Morgans of the Cross Keys Hotel would like to get in touch with Kerryn Taylor,send me a private message or contact her through her website.

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DROWNED IN A TANK.
Dr. Cole, district coroner, held an inquest yesterday afternoon, at the Cross Keys Hotel, Pascoevale-road. Essendon North, on the body of John Morgan, licensee of that hotel. He was found drowned on Thursday afternoon, in a tank on the premises containing 10ft. of water. The deceased had employed two men to effect some repairs to the tap, which was out of order and during the course of their work they had to go to a buggy-shed, some few
yards away, to obtain some implements.

Morgan at that time was standing on the top of the tank, the lid of which was off. Hearing a splash they returned, to find Morgan missing. About 10 minutes elapsed before they could recover his body, life being
then extinct. There being no evidence to show how the deceased had got into the water, an open verdict was returned.(P.19, Argus, 1-3-1907.)