established a cotton plantation called Townsvale in the area now known as Veresdale and Gleneagle. In 1863, he imported 73 Melanesians to work on the plantation. St Joseph's Catholic Church was the first Catholic church in the Logan River district and was opened in 1876 on a site, then known as Tullamore Hill, later as Veresdale, and now within Gleneagle. The site for the church was donated by William Rafter, whose residence was called Tullamore after his home town Tullamore in Ireland. Tullamore was the major centre of the district. A cemetery was established behind the church. On 2 June 1889 Roman Catholic ArchbishopRobert Dunne blessed the Catholic cemetery. In 1936 the church was lined and ceiled for the first time. By the early 1950s the smal church was in poor repair and it had a very small congregation. At that time, Mass was being held regularly at the O'Reilly Guesthouse in Goblin Wood, the private home of Bernard O'Reilly. So it was decided to relocate St Joseph's to the O'Reilly Guesthouse as a permanent church. It was dismantled, transported and re-assembled. On 27 November 1955, Father Steele presided over the first Mass in the relocated church and Archbishop James Duhig performed the opening ceremony. Although privately owned by the O'Reilly family, it is still strongly associated with the Beaudesert Catholic parish. The cemetery in Gleneagle still operates. In 1983 the Catholic cemetery at Waterford West was sold by the Catholic Church for re-development; graves marked with headstones were exhumed and relocated to Gleneagle Catholic Cemetery. Veresdale railway station was on the disused Beaudesert railway line from Bethania to Beaudesert. The line opened on 16 May 1888. Christ Church Anglican was dedicated on 29 May 1906 by Henry Le Fanu, Archdeacon of Brisbane. Its closure on 3 May 2003 was approved by Assistant BishopRon Williams. Formerly in the Shire of Beaudesert, Veresdale was split between Logan City and Scenic Rim Region following the local government amalgamations in March 2008.
