A few years ago I was reading a news article in the Windsor and Richmond Gazette from March 1902 were it outlined the death of my great great Grandfather Joseph Hawkins. In the article it mentioned that he was driving home from Salis Flats. Now as a born and bred, you would think that I would know all of the place names in the District, especially since my late father knew so much about the history of our area and he passed it on to me - yet this one had been stumped.
I began looking through sources but found no reference to the locality of Salis Flats. During my search I discovered that the name of the area was actually Sally's Flats not Salis Flats. Reading through the newspaper stories, to me Sally's Flats seemed like it was close to Blaxland's Ridge and East Kurrajong. Further research found a story about the death of Mr J Micock where it said he was born in Sally's Flat now Tennyson.
To complicate it further I discovered a reference to ''Sally's bottoms'' which lead to further investigation which found that Sally's Bottoms was officially changed to Tennyson in 1894.
But as to the source of the name - who was Sally? I then remembered a story about an indigenous woman living in the area and I thought her name was Sally. In Trove, I searched for "Sally" and came upon an article from September 1895 which talked about a bushfire and how a local Aboriginal woman named Sally perished in the blaze. She had lived with the Pitt family. Was Sally's Flats named after her? Or was it to do with Sally/Sallee Wattles growing there? The search continues!