When John Cant died in 1887, the Colac Herald reported that a large number of local people attended his funeral "to testify the respect entertained for him as one of our oldest residents."
John was born at Rafford in Morayshire, Scotland, in 1823, the fifth of eight children of Alexander Cant and his wife Janet Henry. By 1851 he was working as a farm labourer on his father's property.
With five sons in the family and little land to divide between them, John chose to seek his future elsewhere. He boarded the immigrant ship Scottish Maiden in April 1853 and sailed from Dundee, arriving in Melbourne four months later.
The following year, in a Presbyterian service at Geelong, he married Mary Russell, who had emigrated from County Antrim in Ireland with her family. Together John and Mary raised eight children, all of whom survived to adulthood.
By 1864 the growing family had moved from Mount Duneed to Colac, where John took up farming land. It was a busy life, with children to raise, crops to tend and a new district taking shape around them.
In 1872 John appeared before the court at Mount Moriac charged with obstructing traffic after leaving his horses and wagon on the road for several hours. John maintained that he had merely stopped to help another traveller whose cart had overturned nearby, but the magistrate was unimpressed and fined him £1 or three days imprisonment.
As he grew older, John's health deteriorated and he suffered from kidney disease and jaundice. He died on 3 June 1887. Mary outlived him by thirty years and was buried beside him. Today, Cants Road remains a lasting reminder of the family's connection to the district and the land they once farmed.

Research by Stephen Brooks
Story by Stephen Brooks

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