The settlers became very resourceful and it was a case of "necessity being the mother of invention". Later Charlton became the place for shopping and the outlet for produce, etc. Then nearer still at Glenloth, and finally, the railway came through to Quambatook. So the old river road from Quambatook to Charlton had many memories and associations for the first generation of the Adamthwaites in Quambatook. It was a slow trip, even when covered by horse-drawn wagons or carts, and the travellers would be pleased to call in on settlers living on, or near the track, to enjoy a chat and a meal. Very often they would stay overnight and continue their journey the next day. Friendships formed were very deep and lasting in those early pioneering days, when every settler depended so much upon his neighbours and his neighbours likewise depended on him, in prosperity or adversity.

The railway came to Quambatook in the year 1893 after many months of negotiations with the Government of the day. Joseph was chairman of the local committee which promoted the plan to bring the line from Boort through to Quambatook. In 1893, there was a great depression in Melbourne, so the Government agreed to send gangs of men to build the line. It took some time to obtain the consent of some farmers between the two towns to accept some compensation for loss of land and to let the line come through. Now Quambatook was on the map and from then on the town began to grow. The school and the hall were moved into the new town area, and other businesses were set up.

In the earliest times Quambatook was part of the Swan Hill Shire which extended to the South Australian border. As more settlers came to Kerang and surrounding areas, there was a strong move for severance from Swan Hill and for creation of the Shire of Kerang. Here we find that Joseph was a powerful advocate of this change, and a member of the committee which was successful in the year 1896, when Quambatook became part of the Kerang Shire.

A school was built in 1879 near the weir opposite Joseph and Emma's home, and to this school went all the young Adamthwaites of school age. However, due to lack of numbers, this school was closed in 1891, and some members of the family had to travel to a school along the river south of Quambatook. They travelled by horse and buggy and their teacher was Mr McDonald. In those days the Government paid sixpence per week per child as a travelling allowance for any distance over three miles. When the town began to develop after the coming of the railway in 1893, school was held in the old Mechanics Hall building and the first teacher was Annie, second eldest daughter of Joseph and Emma. She had received her education by winning scholarships, and then returned to be the first teacher at State School 2443. The first school building in the town was erected in 1900, in River Street, and to this school went the second and third generations of Joseph and Emma’s family. Now the new school stands on the new site to which the first Quambatook school was moved about 25 years ago and the fourth generation of the family is attending this school today [this was written in 1978 ... are there still Adamthwaite children attending?]

The old hall situated at the weir was moved into the town to become the supper room of the new Mechanics Hall, and it was Edmund, the son of Joseph, who used a team of bullocks to carry out this operation.

Joseph and Emma were Anglicans and the first remembered visit of an Anglican clergyman was in 1885, when Rev. Gordon Hayward of Inglewood made the journey to Quambatook and stayed overnight at the old home. While there, he baptised three of the family.

The early settlers had to depend for medical aid on a doctor as far away as Charlton. Many times when the river was in flood, the doctor could not come and the Adamthwaite family, along with other such settlers, had to depend largely on their own resources and on home cures. Neighbours helped one another, but sometimes in spite of all care, lives were lost be­cause medical aid was so far away. Medicines found in the family chest included: Greathead's Castor Oil, Senna Tea, Licorice Powder, Zambuck Ointment, Hypol, Olive Oil, Eucalyptus and Fluid Magnesia.

The first crop to be sown on the farm was that of one quarter of an acre of carrot seeds in the year 1882. This turned out to be a very dry year and the seeds did not grow, but in the following year there was a crop of carrots, enough for the family's own use. The first ploughing of the paddocks was of paramount importance and the furrows had to be straight. One man had to drive and the other strike the furrow. The plough was drawn by horses; the seed sown by the broadcast method, and it was in 1883 that the first successful corn crop was grown in the forty-acre river paddock. Although the rainfall was rather light, there was a harvest. The whole crop was threshed by an old-fashioned threshing machine from the Charlton district (Chambers). Binding of sheaves of hay was all done by hand and great care and pride was taken in the building of the hay stacks.