A Salmon run?

One of the interesting features of Dungog’s history is that it once boasted two Presbyterian Churches. Two rival churches that faced each other across a now obscure doctrinal divide for some 30 years before they merged into the present St Andrews. The chapel of one of these rivals was the John Knox Church located in what is now front yard of Bill and Rosemary Salmon’s house at the southern end of Dowling St. The Salmon’s came to the district in 1981 and moved into their lovely Victorian home in 1997, having no previous connection with Dungog – or so they thought! In fact nearly 140 years before Bill Salmon came to Dungog, another Salmon, the Rev Alexander Salmon also came to Dungog to deliver the opening service at the John Knox Church as well as a three hour lecture on the ‘new’ subject of geology (for a shilling a ticket). The Rev Salmon would have been as surprised as Bill Salmon recently was to learn that one day the foundations of the little chapel he was opening would lie under the front lawn of his great great grandson’s house.