The Frankston area is deeply connected to the Mayone-bulluk clan of the Bunurong tribe, part of the Kulin nation. Their social structure was governed by the two moiety totems, Bunjil (eaglehawk) and Waa (crow), which dictated marriage, kinship, and clan responsibilities. Through this system, the Mayone-bulluk clan maintained close ties with the Wurundjeri-balluk clan from the central Melbourne area, of the neighboring Woiwurrung tribe. These spiritual and cultural connections are symbolically represented today by two monumental eagle sculptures by artist Bruce Armstrong: a 5-metre sculpture erected in 2001 on Mayone-bulluk land in Young Street, Frankston, and a 25-metre sculpture in 2002 on Wurundjeri-balluk land in Melbourne Docklands.

European contact in Frankston began in the early 1800s. In January 1803, Captain Charles Robbins sailed the Cumberland into Port Phillip as part of Charles Grimes’ surveying expedition. Grimes went ashore at Kananook Creek and made peaceful contact with around 30 local Indigenous people, likely members of the Mayone-bulluk clan. Another potential encounter occurred in December 1803, involving escaped convicts from Captain David Collins’ failed Sorrento settlement. Among them was William Buckley, who later lived for 32 years with the Wadawurrung-balug clan. Buckley recorded encountering a “large tribe of the natives…armed with spears” near a creek likely corresponding to Kananook Creek or Long Island in Frankston, although no direct contact occurred.

At the time of European contact, the Bunurong tribe numbered approximately 300 individuals. James Fleming, a member of Grimes’ expedition, observed smallpox scars on the Indigenous people, suggesting the devastating epidemic had already affected the population prior to 1803. Smallpox, introduced to Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, reached Port Phillip by 1790 and likely claimed at least half of the combined Kulin nation populations.

The arrival of permanent European settlement in 1835 brought further hardships. Another smallpox outbreak reduced the Bunurong population to 83 by 1839, and an influenza epidemic in the 1840s further diminished their numbers to just 28 by 1850. The last full-blooded member of the Bunurong people, Yam-mer-book, also known as Jimmy Dunbar of the nearby Ngaruk-Willam clan, passed away of natural causes in 1877.

Frankston’s modern landscape now sits atop thousands of years of Indigenous history, reflecting a legacy of rich culture, early European encounters, and the profound impacts of disease on the region’s original custodians.