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REMINISCENCES
OF
HARRY
HARBORD
and
Reginald Spencer Browne
By
GP
Published
in Cummins and Campbell’s
Monthly
Magazine (1952)
What
romance there is in stories of the great Palmer Goldfield? After the space of
over three quarters of a century, not a fraction of those stories can now be
told: the principal characters- those rugged, bearded, diggers of those
colourful days- have long since passed away.
A
few, before they died, told some exciting memoirs and those which saw print can
now only be found in the yellowed files of old newspapers. From cuttings in the
possession of my friend, Mr. J. W. Collinson, F.R.G.S.A., of Brisbane, came
these reminiscences of Harry Harbord, an old time prospector and explorer, and
Reginald Spencer Browne, a journalist on a Cooktown newspaper during the
Palmer’s most roaring days.
These
articles were published in the “Cairns Post” in 1924, 1925 and
1930.
Those
of Spencer Browne were printed in the Brisbane “Courier
Mail.”
The
following is a condensation of Harbord’s letter:
When Oaky Creek was
discovered (early in 1874); Oaky Creek is situated a few miles south of the
Palmer River), Callaghan and his mates opened up as butchers with Tom Leslie in
charge. It was a sight on a Sunday morning to see the crowds of diggers waiting
to get beef.
George Bradbury would be cutting up, and Tom Leslie in an eight by ten
tent alongside, with the scales weighing out the gold, that was being paid for
the beef- price about 1/- lb due to the formation of Mt. Mulgrave Station by
Paddy Callaghan, which was within easy reach of Oaky
Creek.
I
have often waited four and five hours before I could get near the block to get
my week’s beef…five or six bullocks were killed every day, but on Sunday, as
many as twenty bullocks were disposed of.
Grog
was regarded as a necessity, and there were many brands, mostly of local
manufacture; the ingredients were doubtful but guaranteed to produce a kick like
a mule…Once I let an old “swiper” have a dozen bottles of painkiller for an
ounce of gold. He could get no grog, so liquored up on pain
killer.
The
township was formed on the side of a steep hill, with a straggling street of
tents and bough sheds. At the bottom ran the creek, and where the butcher’s
“shop” was, there was a sloping flat.
The
late Dr. Kortum had a tent on this side, and patients would be grouped all round
it getting treatment from the doctor. Fever and ague were the main illnesses.
Across the creek was Dr. Hamilton’s tent. You paid him £9 a week for food (a
little rice) and treatment. Each doctor had his own private graveyard, and there
are a few hundred buried there between the two of them. I put in seven weeks
under Jack Hamilton with fever and “shakes.”
Hamilton was not a qualified doctor but his father had been one and he
had picked up a lot. He was clever at treating fever and ague, or dysentery, and
whether a man had gold or not, he would treat him just the same. Hamilton was a
great man with his fists and fought some good fights. He liked nothing better
than a fight. One time one of his patients refused to pay him, although Hamilton
knew he had plenty of gold to pay him with. The ex-patient was a big burly New
Zealander, and Hamilton was tall and slender but all muscle. On the flat of the
creek bank, they peeled off, and in three rounds the medico cut his opponent to
pieces, so he had not only had to pay up the five ounces of gold he owed
Hamilton, but he again temporarily became Hamilton’s
patient.
Hamilton was a splendid rifle shot, and he won the championship of
Australia for revolver shooting. For twenty years he represented the Cook
district in Parliament. Ebagoolah was named the Hamilton Goldfield after
him.
Dr.
Kortum was a German who had been through the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, after
which he came out and commenced practice in Charters Towers. Oaky Creek gave him
a good start, and he lived in Cooktown up to the time of his death, which
occurred about 1922. Many poor families and diggers had occasion to bless
him.
My
mate and I in our first six weeks on the Palmer (1874), got 640 ounces, but
plenty of men got more than that. I was on the river where the town of
Palmerville soon afterwards sprang up, and only a few hundred yards from
Mulligan’s Prospecting Award Claim, in February of 1874, and it was the heaviest
wet season I have ever experienced in North Queensland.
Bill
McLeod opened up McLeod’s Gully and got 193 ounces the first week.
The
McAuleys- mother, father, and three sons- got very large quantities from “The
Red Streak,” in the same locality, while men pushing out in the gullies and
beaches near Palmerville (the first camp) won small fortunes in a small
time.
The
miners pushed up the river and found what was called the Left hand Branch or
North Palmer, which was exceptionally rich in gold, particularly at German Bar
and revolver Point.
J.
Edwards formed a camp on the main river, and started butchering, and soon
storekeepers, shanties etc., sprang up. The place was known as Edward’s Town,
but was afterwards altered by Warden Sellheim to Maytown.
In
1878 it boasted thirteen hotels, two chemists, hospital etc., whilst on the
Queen of the North side of the reef, there were three more hotels, boarding
houses etc. The Queen was three miles from Maytown, and at the Ida a mile away
there were three more hotels.
At
the Louisa mine there were two more, at the German Bar there was one and three
at Revolver Point (Echotown).
For
many years the field continued to expand, and yielded large quantities of gold
above water level. Reefing was also carried out, and various mines were
exceptionally rich, but here again the lack of good pumps, and the heavy water,
prevented development.
The
Anglo Saxon Mine (discovered by Henry Harbord in 1887 and about which more
later), gave its English shareholders a very large return, and A. J. Madden, a
storekeeper of Cooktown, alone reaped £31000 profit for backing the
discoverer.
Digressing from the late Harry Harbord’s writings for a moment, a person
calling himself “Ajax” wrote as follows about the Maytown area in the “Cairns
Post” in the early 1920s:
“During 1874 and 1875 flour was 3/6 a lb, blucher boots 50/-, tobacco
20/-, and everything to match, except beef. The butchering firm of Edwards,
Leslie, Callaghan, and Duff, killed from 15 to 20 bullocks a day and sold it on
the block at 1/- lb weighed out in gold.
It
was this firm which brought the first crushing mill to Maytown. They charged
50/- per ton for crushing at first, and carting was also 50/- within a radius of
three miles. The screens were coarse, they had no concentrators, and of course,
much gold was lost, yet those who owned the leading mines made money rapidly.
They had previously lived by dollying gold from the rich stone on the outcrop of
the Ida, Louisa, Queen of the North, and other mines. This latter reef crushed
10 ozs per ton for the first 100 tons, and the Ida crushed 6000 tons for an
average of 2 ozs to the ton.
There were three banks in
Maytown- the Queensland National, Joint Stock and New South Wales. They paid
£3/15/- per ounce of gold, which was worth over £4. Mr. J. S. Denny was assayer
and gold smelter, and his bars of bullion on exhibit each week alongside
dishfuls of nuggets and gold dust, made a fine display.
The leading storekeepers at
Maytown were McKenzie, Jones, Nolan and McLean. The hard conditions of camp
life, and the sudden access to fortune, all combined to produce a spirit of
hilarity, recklessness and good fellowship or both.
A man in that frame of mind
didn’t care whether he “shouted” for you, or went out in the street and had a
few rounds with bare knuckles. Consequently in the good days of the Palmer,
while everyone had money, the pubs flourished exceedingly. There were around
Maytown, the Ida, Louisa and Queen, no less than 35 hotels. The leading ones in
Maytown were Prince of Wales, Ahler’s, Clifford’s, Mrs Bardsley’s, Bill Nunn’s,
and John Davis. All these did a roaring trade. In 1879, after the “Chinese
Invasion,” there were between 38,000 and 40,000 Chinese and about 20,000 white
people on the Palmer. There were about 10,000 whites and Chinese in
Maytown.
The reefs worked during the
first three years were Mountain Maid, Hit or Miss, Caledonian, Just in Time,
King of the North, Viking Nos 1 and 2, North Queen, and 1 and 2 South Queen,
four numbers on the Caledonian North
and South, Smithfield, Cornet, Louisa, Ida, British Lion, General
Sarsfield, St. Patrick’s, The Chance, Cosmopolitan and Wild Irish
Girl.
This is how Revolver Point
got its name. Murdoch Cameron, later of Townsville, came upon a rocky bar in the
river late one evening, but not too late to see the nuggets of gold sticking in
the crevices in the rocks. He pegged the ground…but next morning he was dismayed
to find two men gouging out the nuggets with sheath knives. Cameron challenged
them, telling them they were on his claim and they disputed this…revolvers were
drawn…and it came to Cameron and one of the other men facing each other with
loaded six chambered revolvers, and each looking down the barrel of his
opponent’s revolver, kept up a lively argument. Then a compromise was suggested,
shooting irons were lowered, and a bargain was made that the two intruders
should peg immediately below the bar, while Cameron took the bar and the claim
above.
When news reached Maytown of
the rich find at Oaky Creek (May 1874), many who had decent claims rushed away
and left them in search of something still better.
Horseshoe nails were very
scarce and the demand was great. Storekeepers were able to get weight for
weight- gold against horseshoe nails.
Reverting again to Henry Harbord’s letters in the Cairns Post we
find the following, which, for the purpose of this article, is not a copy
verbatim.
“Jim
Watters, a mining expert, and I were old friends. He came from New South Wales,
and had been a soldier. He worked in the Comet and I was working at the same
time in the Ida (the late 1880s). We had lively times working together in those
days. Isaac Brown, who lived in Mareeba when he retired, was his great chum.
Brown was then engine driver at the Comet, and a Mr George Thompson was manager.
When they closed down the mine, Thompson and waters strongly advised me to buy
it, which I did, for £1200, including the machinery. I got my money back from
treating the mullock heap alone, and several hundreds in addition. I then lent
Thompson the battery and he put through the rest of the tip; he made £370 clear
of wages out of it.
There
was a good deal of public crushing at the time and I was also working the
Caledonia Reef. I had taken up the Just in Time, the Albion, and Caledonia. The
latter was being worked by Smith and Jones. I gave them £500 for their claim and
took up the whole line of reef. It is necessary to remind readers that at this
time, after 15 years of working the Palmer, was definitely on the down grade. At
this time (1888 or 1890), I was manager of the Anglo-Saxon Gold Mining Company
of London, and could not give all the attention I would have liked to the
Maytown reefs.
The
last work done on the Queen of the North at Maytown was George Chapman and
myself in the 1890s. We took it over from the Queensland national Bank on
tribute and had 16 men working for us. We did very well out of the tribute, but
did not work the Queen reef proper but another reef behind it carrying good
gold. The boiler we had was an old one, and one day it burst. We borrowed one
from the Bank, but the pump was too small and the water too heavy; we had to
drain the surrounding country as well as the Queen reef. One day Chapman told me
that there was a little block of ground up in the stope, but the men were
frightened to take it out as the ground was bad; I thought there was four or
five ounces of gold in 5 cwt of quartz by the look of it. Sergeant Whelan of the
Native Police, wanted to go down with me, but I would not let him as he would
have got his good uniform ruined. I started down the old underlay, when a ladder
suddenly broke and I fell 57 feet. I struck two props in my fall and broke my
leg in two places. It took 16 men four days to carry me to Laura, a distance of
67 mils, as all the creeks were in flood. I spent 15 weeks in Cooktown hospital.
Upon my return to Maytown, we abandoned the Queen. Financially we had done well
out of it.
We
had taken over the Queen after a syndicate had failed to sell it. The syndicate
comprised Sir Rupert Clarke, Kyle Bellew (the actor), Mrs Brown Potter (the
actress), and Frank Gardiner, a mining man in London. They took up 300 acres,
including the Comet, Louisa, and Caledonian. I was appointed manager for the
syndicate. They then decided to sell, but owing to the Chillagoe debacle, the
shares were valueless. Thus the Queensland National Bank came into
possession.
I then joined J. V. Mulligan in searching for a “lost reef” upon the Coleman River. Mulligan had been fitted out by the Government in 1875 to explore the Peninsula for minerals. Warner, the surveyor, J. Dowdell, and Christy Palmerston were with him on this occasion. Palmerston and Warner found good gold in a ravine 20 miles distant from their camp on the Coleman, but there was no water anywhere. No one has ever found that ravine again. Mulligan and I went out and spent three months looking for it, and then I took my blackboy and two packhorse loads of tucker and spent many months in the search- without success.
I
returned to Maytown my home, and heard that the Government had put a beautiful
plant on the Louisa mine, with a manager from the south. I found my old mate,
Chapman, there, also Jim Sloane, of Herberton, who was my mate. When we used to
take contracts in the Ida in the early days. I had seen the plant before at
Wolfram Camp, where a French Company had erected it. It was a lovely plant, all
lit up with electric light. Mr Snowdon, the manager, was a coal mining man,
however, and knew nothing about quartz mining. He got me to stay with him and
write my fortnightly reports, and do other clerical work.
In pumping water from the
Louisa, we were draining reefs up Louisa Creek a quarter of a mile away, and
also the Comet shaft and the King of the Ranges. We got down to about 86 feet in
the Louisa, and in 6 feet more would have bottomed. Then the word came to close
down. Why, we never did find out, and weren’t the men wild! I offered to take
the mine over on tribute, but it was not accepted and I don’t know why. After
going to all that expenses putting up a good plant, and doing all that work, with good gold in sight.
It was cruel. However, that was the end of the old Louisa, about the year 1903.
(End of Mr. Harbord’s letter).
The Louisa machinery stood
lonely and deserted until about three years ago (circa 1949?) when a private
enterprise bought it and removed it to Ravenswood, where it has now been
re-erected. With its removal, the last inhabitant of old Maytown left- the
caretaker who had been looking after the Louisa mine for so long. The last of
the buildings in Maytown have now also been removed for the sake of their iron.
Where thousands once lived. not a stick now remains.
Cummins and
Campbell’s
Monthly Magazine
(February
1952)
Last
month we quoted a condensation of the late Harry Harbord’s letter which appeared
in the Cairns Post in the 1930s; he was then over 80 years of age. He was
one of the veteran prospectors of the North; a contemporary of the great J. V.
Mulligan, a discoverer of the Palmer, and Hodgkinson. In 1887 Harbord discovered
the fabulous Anglo-Saxon Mine. From his writings and from those of the late
Spencer Browne, an old time journalist, the old days of the Palmer are
retold.
We
continue with an abridged account of Harbord’s
experiences.
The late Mr. Patrick Grogan was backing me prospecting when I found the Anglo Saxon. The mate I had was a native of Saxony, hence the name Anglo Saxon. Before the mine was flooded, he sold his interest to Mr H. Ahlers, of Maytown. His backers were Jim Tully, a packer, and Louis D’Avis, a storekeeper at the Ida.
The
Anglo-Saxon is on the Palmer- Mitchell divide, and is six miles north of the
Mitchell and 40 miles south of Maytown. I was managing director of the No 1 West
Anglo-Saxon. W. Johnstone was manager, and a good man too, sent by captain Paul
from Charters Towers. The last time I saw him was in 1895. He was then keeping
an hotel in Kingsborough. My wife and I stayed with him.
The
late Pat Grogan was taking us overland from Mareeba to Limestone (the Anglo
Saxon township). I had been down south, and was sent to report on the Queen
Constance Mine for Brisbane people.
One
night we camped on the Mitchell River in company with Mr. Jas. O’Neill, now a
cane farmer at Gordonvale, but who at that time had a prosperous business in
Groganville (at the Anglo Saxon). He had a pub and a store, and so had Jim
Tully; Grogan and Grainer had a store and butcher’s shop.
Other
places of business were a saddler’s shop, kept by Peter Cameron; Tom Kelly’s pub
over on the Good Hope side of the hill, and three hotels at Harbordville, the
Anglo Saxon battery site, kept by Mrs. Huddy, Harry Von Bremen, and Mr. Nolan.
They have all crossed the divide in company with many more of my old friends of
the Limestone and Palmer days. What a goodly company they were- all white men,
every one; and what a good time they’ll have when they get together in the place
they’re gone to. Tom Kelly did well at Groganville, and after leaving there,
opened a shoe store in cairns which has grew into R. H. Kelly’s
emporium.
Among
other businesses in Groganville was a chemist’s shop and which supplied very
good Four XXXX brandy, and various brands of whisky and port wine. Often when
the packers did not arrive in time, the crowd had nothing to drink but “Warner’s
Safe Cure.” There were a lot of shanties, and on one occasion the late P. Grogan
and myself had ten women before us selling liquor without a licence. We were
both JPs, and dispensed law and justice on our own ideas. If they did coincide
with the Justices Act, or Wilkinson’s, well, then, the Act was wrong, certainly
not us. We fined nine of the women £10 each and costs of court, and one woman
who would not keep quiet, we fined £20 and costs, and didn’t she
“buck.”
After
finding the Anglo-Saxon, I laid on two old mates, Frank Monaghan and Long Jim
Verge, to take up No 1 West; and other old mates to take up No 1 East. My old
friend Jim Watters, was in Maytown, but when he heard of the richness of the ore
he came out, six months after the Anglo-Saxon was found (late 1887). Monaghan
and Long Jim were sinking and my mate and I were driving a tunnel on the reef.
Monaghan and Long Jim were “dollying” rich pieces of ore, and I smelted 90 ozs
of gold for them that they got in one week. I also dollied a lot of gold out for
my shareholders and eventually went to London and had it floated into a company
of 51,000 £1 shares, and had 103,000 shares applied for. The first crushing I
put through for the company was 503 tons, which yielded 4444 ozs of smelted
gold.
I
retorted and smelted it all myself and had to take it into the bank in Maytown,
40 miles away, and we paid a 10/- dividend. I was manager for 12 years and paid
£178,000 in dividends.
Watters, who was an old friend of Monaghan and verge, told them he could
sell their mine for them, and they said he (Watters) would have a third share if
he did.
They
wanted 1500 for the ground (300 feet along the line of reef). Watters went to
Charters Towers and sold it to E. H. and T. Plant and Captain Paul of the
Mexican Reef. Monaghan and Long Jim Verge got £5000 each out of it and that is
where Jim Watters got his rise; it enabled him to build the Federal Hotel in
Cairns. He was a splendid businessman, and had a wonderful memory. I knew his
wife well; she was a Miss Jones, and her father had Koolburra up the Peninsula
and was murdered by a blackboy named Joker (end of Harbord’s
letter).
In
1874 and 1875 approximately 40,000 Chinese landed at points nearby, and made
their way to the Palmer. As everyone knows, that was the downfall of the field,
and the quantity of gold they sent back to China will never be known, but as the
white miners produced about 1¼ million ounces, the Chinese certainly obtained an
equal amount. The white miners rebelled against this Chinese “invasion,” and on
one occasion 1000 newly landed Chinese were rounded up in Cooktown, shorn of
their pigtails and stoned out of the place. They fled pell-mell but reached the
Palmer just the same. There they joined others of their countrymen, filling up
the creeks and gullies like a plague of grasshoppers. An Inspector of Police in
Cooktown, ordered his black troopers to fire on the rioting white population,
but they refused. This order so enraged the whites that they are said to have
thrown the Inspector, without undue ceremony, into the
harbour.
Queensland records read: “1st April, 1875, Cooktown. R.M.S.
Singapore landed 395 Chinese. P & O Company’s Adria landed 400
Chinese. 12th April 1875: Namoi and Egeria landed 1272
Chinese at Cooktown in one day,” and so on.
Reginald Spencer Browne, a journalist on the staff of the now long
defunct Cooktown “Courier” wrote of his reminiscences in the Brisbane
“Courier”, in February 1924. The following is an abridged
account:
Forty
miles below Palmerville, and on the Palmer River, the rush to Lukinville took
place in about the middle of 1878. It was a good, old-fashioned rush; and
Cooktown sat up and smiled, the hope being that the long –deferred renaissance
had arrived. For a good many months, the outturn of gold was considerable, and
probably not less than 10,000 men, the greater portion being Chinese were
pulling along.
Supplies were drawn from Cooktown by means of bullock wagons and packers,
and stores were unreasonably dear. Beef at times was down to 1d per lb, there
being a good deal of cut-throat competition. This arose through butchers not
paying fair prices for cattle travelled to the field. The cattle owners, rather
than take any old price, put up yards and tents, and cut up their own beef. The
butchers then began to undersell, and there was a reply from the stockowners.
The diggers got the benefit.
The
Chinese at Lukinville ate meat, though not in big quantities. They roasted it,
cut into little cubes about the size of dice, and with a little sauce, made it
quite palatable.
They
also had dried fish of various sorts, and generally were able to make up
something better than the damper and beef diet of the European
diggers.
The Lukinville area was like the rest of the Palmer, all shallow alluvial, but there was not so much bar gold won. It may be well to explain bar gold. The Palmer had in places quite a rocky bed, and across the stony spreads were little breaks or “ripples”, and against these the water carried the gold. In some places large quantities of clean gold were taken out, and did not even require a washing over. It was like picking up wheat – good shotty gold with all the Palmer virtues, and far and away better than the poor stuff on the Coen.
Some
8000 Chinese had found their way to Lukinville, and had not been there long
before faction riots began. Mr. P. F. Sellheim, in his report (1878) said: “I
regret to have to refer to some serious riots that took place amongst the
Chinese at the beginning of the rush, during which four men were shot dead, and
many others were more or less seriously wounded.”
As a matter of act, at least 200 were casualties, most of them shockingly wounded, and many died and were secretly buried. It was a fierce quarrel between the Cantonese and the Macao men. The “clash of the different tribes”, as the warden put it, was a fierce quarrel between the Cantonese and the Macao men. The last mentioned came from the island of Macao at the mouth of the Canton River, and were Portuguese subjects, just as the Chinese of Hongkong were British. Macao belonged to the Portuguese. The Islanders and the Cantonese were very bitter enemies.
At
Maytown and Palmerville, and indeed all through the Palmer workings, the tribes
or sections had tacit arrangements
for what the diplomats term spheres of influence, and those arrangements
were strictly adhered to, but the Lukinville rush upset all this. Without any
organisation whatever, a battle began between 6000 Cantonese and 2000 Macao men.
Many were armed mainly with Snider rifles and old carbines, but others had to
get to close quarters with sticks, picks, axes, and shovels. Some of the Chinese
were very plucky, and went into battle with determination; others were shifty
and nervous. It was not unusual for a Chinese to look out from behind a tree,
and spot an enemy, say a quarter of a mile away, then dodge back and stick the
Snider out, pull her off, and then to bob out from cover to note the effect of
the shot.
Generally, my impression was that at a distance the Chinese were nervous,
but at close quarters they were fierce fighters.
Warden Sellheim and the police would stop the fighting one day, but it
would be revived on the next, and this went on for some time. At length it was
suggested that certain leaders should be arrested, and an armistice arranged. By
this time the “gambling vagabonds” had done fairly well, and the time was ripe
for a modus vivendi. About 30 men were arrested, and in a little while agreed to
go to their respective factions, and recommend the adoption of different spheres
of work. The decent Chinese were glad of the chance of getting down to steady
work, and an amateur delimitation commission was appointed. In three or four
days the respective areas were defined, and that saw the end of the
fighting.
In my opinion there were
between 20 and 30 killed in the little war of Lukinville. At times it was a hot
shop, and one never knew where the Snider bullets would
lodge.
Lukinville was named after Mr. George Lukin, Under-Secretary for Mines,
father of Mr. Justice Lukin, and a brother of Mr. Gresley Lukin, a one-time
managing editor of the “Courier”.
The
Chinese, as usual, took the river in a face, and worked on syndicate lines, and
the Europeans stuck to an area recognised as their own. The place in time was
worked out, and deserted.
Spencer Browne described a visit he made to the Palmer when its hectic golden days were passing. The date is not given but it was probably 1888, and it fits in with Henry Harbord’s story. Browne writes in part:
‘My
first trip to the Palmer was with Mr. C. H. Macdonald, referred to earlier –
officer in charge of road works, pastoralist, and really the explorer of the
McIvor River country.
We
went out to Byerstown, which was named after Johnny Byers, who was formerly head
of Byers and Little Bros., hotel and storekeepers, butchers, gold buyers,
bankers, and all sorts of things.
The
Little brothers included “Billy Little” who was an identity on the Palmer, the
Etheridge, and the Hodgkinson, and was a member of the Legislative
Assembly.
From
him, we have a remark which has become common. He was discussing the Cairns
Railway project, and referring to part of the route, said – “Why Mr. Speaker, a
crow could not fly down it without a breeching.”
Johnny Hogsflesh, who ran the mails to Maytown, was with us, and took us
some short cuts, which were very risky.
From
Byerstown on, the country was very rough. Maytown was very dull, but outside
there were places I am glad to have seen before their complete
desertion.
We
were out at what at what was known as the Queen Reef District where the Huddys
kept the hotel, and saw the almost abandoned works of the Ida and other mines,
which the late Dr. Robert Logan Jack always held would be worth
reviving.
The
heavy hand of depression was on the whole area, and “failure” was “writ large
upon it.”
Away
some miles from Maytown, and nestling in a watered gap of rugged spurs, was one
of the monuments of failure – the building and machinery of the Lone Star
Mine.
Like
the Queen Line, the Lone Star promised well. The reef was small, but very rich.
Money was easily forthcoming, and at great expense a plant was erected. Then at
a depth came the rush of water, and more refractory ore, and the place was
abandoned.
We
stood on the hills, looking down on a very lonely Lone Star, where so many hopes
were buried.
In
those days, there were still some thousands of Chinese on the Palmer, taking
sections of river bed and drift, in a face; but over the whole place was written
“Ichabod” for the glory had departed.
It
would be absurd even at this period to say that Charles Nolan or Mr. Nolan,
“Charley Nolan”, was one of the conspicuous figures left on the Palmer. He had a
store near Revolver Point, which had been one of the very rich spots of the
field.
The
river flowed along, but every yard of “dirt” had been tumbled over and over
again until there would not have been enough gold left to cause an uneasiness if
dropped into one’s eye.
Charley Nolan was a little over middle height, spare, erect, blue eyed,
and with a long, fair, beard. He was a cultured man, a delightful companion, a
generous and staunch friend to hundreds who sought his help when the Palmer
waned.
Later
on, he went to the Johnstone River, and established a successful business, and
there his name is continued in Nolans Ltd. He was a typical
pioneer.
It
went without saying that we should pay our respects to the Warden and Police
Magistrate, Mr. P. F. Sellheim, the father of Major General
Sellheim.
Later, Sellheim was well known at Charters Towers and Gympie as Warden
and Police Magistrate., and then as Under Secretary for Mines in
Brisbane.
Before entering the public service, he had done a good deal of pioneering
pastoral work.
We
went out and dined with him at his home overlooking the river, a few miles out
from Maytown.
Sellheim was born in Austria, was of a noble family, and had a very keen
objection to being considered in any sense a German.
He
married a daughter of Colonel Morissett, a British officer serving in
Australia.
The
Warden told us some amusing stories about Maytown in the days of its glory.
After a good clean up, the miners would get a washtub and fill it with champagne
and carry it round the town, ladling out liberal helpings with a quart pot. Any
one who refused to drink had his head dipped in the bubbling wine – at least
that was the alternative laid down; but Sellheim, in his quaint way, put it: “It
is not on record that any Palmer man was ever dipped.”
The
Warden was a splendid type, and knew well how to handle a rough crowd of
diggers. Those who met him in Brisbane later will remember how courteous he was,
how capable an officer, and how relentlessly he put down all
humbug.
I did
not know many of the bank men, just a few, including young Lotze, of the Bank of
New South Wales; Egerton Chester-Master (son of Chester-Master, the Usher of the
Black Rod in our Legislative Council), of the old A.J.S. Bank, and earlier there
were Kent, of the Q.N. Bank; F. W. Burstall, Parnell, and Cecil Beck, of the
A.J.S.
“Jack” Edwards, the king of
the Palmer, and the head of some of the biggest trading, pastoral, and
butchering affairs, was a man of great ability. He was a wonderful organiser and
money maker, but his money belonged to any one and every one who sought help.
The Edwards River commemorates the name of one of the sturdiest and truest of
the pioneers.
John
Duff and Tom Leslie were Palmer men who were associated with Edwards, and
afterward had pastoral holdings in partnership with O’Callaghan. The last named
was a splendid type of man, about 6’ 2” and 14 st in weight, with a dark beard.
I did not see much of him, but he was always spoken of as a very able business
man, of simple and temperate habits.
“Jack” Duff and “Tom” Leslie came down to Cooktown in my time, and opened
a butchering business, and Fred Pogson was their bookkeeper and financial man.
Two more popular men than Duff and Leslie could not be found in the North. They
were generous to a fault. Leslie should have made his mark in politics, but he
would not touch “the game”. He was remarkably well informed, and a keen judge of
affairs.
“Jack” Duff married a pretty Miss Reynolds, of the Reynolds’ Hotel
family, and a sister of Owen Reynolds, who was a well known carrier to the
Palmer and an owner of teams. I don’t think that any man in the North impressed
me more than Leslie, but Duff, from his great charm of manner, was the more
popular. Duff and his brother Dave were handsome, fair bearded and blue eyed
men, straight and stalwart as Vikings of old. Both Duffs and Leslie came of good
Scots blood.
The
Palmer and Cooktown, and especially Palmerville, had no better known man than
Maurice Fox. He had a brother Pat., who was not so prominent, but was also a
splendid bushman. Maurice Fox was a daring explorer, and there was abundant
evidence that he was the discoverer of Lukinville, but he did not convince the
Mines Department, and failed in his application for the
reward.
Maurice fitted out many prospecting parties. He was a fine looking
fellow, and it was a treat to see him ride into Cooktown with his wife, who was
tall and graceful, and a consummate horsewoman.
A
fine man and a fine type was “Jim” Earle, station owner and carrier, with a wife
and family well representing a good old stock from the Old Land. Some of his
family are, I am told, now in the Cairns district. They ought to be good types
of Queenslanders, but the older of them were only kiddies in my
time.
Then
there were the Wallace brothers, Sandy and Charlie Wallace. Probably they were
Hunter River natives, also of good Scots stock. They had station property, and
were carriers, and no dance, no cricket match, or race meeting or sports
gathering would have been complete without them.
There was also William Webb,
of Oakey, who had drifted into possession of the hotel, and was concerned in the
early settlement of the McIvor country. He married a sister of Willie Till, who
was a compositor on the Cooktown “Herald” in the days when C. J. James
and I ran it.
