Johns marriage to Margaret Thomas

In 1866 it was rumoured that John Ebbott was to engaged to be married to a local girl, she wrote to Aunt to tell her about he happy event but unfortunately something must have happened as the next thing we know John’s father dies in 1867 and in 1868 he is marrying Margaret Thomas The marriage was announced in the Bendigo Advertiser on the 7 Dec 1868

“On the 12th ultimo, in the Wesleyan Church, Forest street, by the Rev William Hill, Mr John Ebbott to Margaret, youngest daughter of Mr John Thomas, all of California Hill”

Margaret Thomas was baptised on the 5 January 1848 in the St Blazey Parish church, Cornwall, the daughter of John Thomas & Margaret Smith. 

Extract for the parish register.

The worlds of John Thomas a miner and Margaret’s eventual father in-law John Ebbott, a Farmer may never have crossed in England, but in Australia things were different, it was a land of possibilities. 
The couple married only 4 years after Margaret arrived in the colony travelling with her mother and older sister Sarah on the “Forest Rights” in 1865, to join their father who had already been in the colony since 1861. By the time they arrived he owned several houses which he was renting out.

When he married John was working as a Mine Manager however a year earlier in 1867 he was a member of the Victorian District Independent Order of Rechabites Cobden Tent No.39 and listed as  John Ebbott aged 27 a butcher with his brother Philip Hy Ebbott aged 24 a carpenter.
Perhaps his marriage to Margaret had resulted in a career change.