Coghlan Road on the outskirts of Cowes is now a busy thoroughfare leading from farm land near the Phillip Island Road, to Western Port at Silverleaves.
The road is named after Eliza Coghlan, known as ‘old Eliza’ to early island settlers because she lived to 113 years of age, with incredible stamina and hardiness.
Eliza was born in 1791 in West Meath Ireland and died in 1910 and was believed to be the oldest subject of the British Empire at the time of her death, and the oldest resident to live on the island.
According to Joshua Gliddon, author of Phillip Island In Picture and Story, Eliza was the housekeeper of James Duffus, who selected block number 142 in 1873.
“She was probably 30 years her employer’s senior and had served his parents and the Duffus family since her early girlhood,” Gliddon writes.
He writes that Eliza spent an active life, and thought nothing of walking to Cowes, at five miles distant, carrying a load of turkeys or other produce for sale.
“When asked why she walked the journey, she replied: “The servant must not drive with the master.”
One day, she was out catching a horse when she fell and broke a leg.
Yet reports at the time say she immediately set about crawling through bush and paddocks a half mile to the house.
Her death was reported in The Argus on February 11, 1910: “Eliza Coghlan has died at Cowes….The old lady was in full possession of her faculties, except hearing, until the last.”
