Up the Palmerston - North Queensland...

Up the Palmerstona history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920 | VOL. 3

Mike RimmerThe Tablelands

Up the Palmerstona history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920 | VOL. 3

Mike Rimmer

The Tablelands

Published in 2010 by the author, Michael Robin Rimmer

Email: [email protected] Web: www.northqueenslandhistory.com

Copyright © 2010 M R Rimmer

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Rimmer, Mike (Michael Robin) Up the Palmerston: a history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920. Vol. 3 ISBN 978-0-646-53327-8 (pbk. : Vol. 3) Includes index Includes bibliographical references Cairns Region (Qld.) – History Queensland, Northern – Discovery and exploration Queensland, Northern – History. Dewey number: 994.36

Photographs throughout (as noted) courtesy of the Cairns Historical Society All other photographs © M R Rimmer

Printed by Union Offset Printers, Canberra

Graphic design, typesetting and illustrations by Fusebox Design, Mt Eliza

Maps by Les Isdale

The author (centre) and some of his Oakey students on a history excursion to North Queensland in August 1974

This book is dedicated to the memory of Brian Robinson (1927–2005)

Up the Palmerston – a history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920 – Vol 3 v

Table of contents

Acknowledgements .....................................................................................................................................vii

Preface ......................................................................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1: Transport links to the sea ........................................................................................................... 5

Chapter 2: Christie Palmerston – Australia’s most versatile bushranger ...................................................... 17

Chapter 3: Pioneer pastoralists .................................................................................................................. 50

Chapter 4: The Evelyn Tableland – Australia’s Garden of Eden .................................................................. 57

Chapter 5: Yungaburra, Malanda and Millaa Millaa .................................................................................. 80

Chapter 6: Atherton – a town of which ‘Old John’ would be proud ......................................................... 90

Chapter 7: Mareeba – its pre-tobacco days ................................................................................................ 99

Postscript ................................................................................................................................................. 106

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 110

Index ....................................................................................................................................................... 111

vi Up the Palmerston – a history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920 – Vol 3

Up the Palmerston – a history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920 – Vol 3 vii

I’m the author of this book, but gathering the material for Up the Palmerston and putting the fruits of my research into a presentable form was a collective effort involving hundreds of people. Obviously I can’t mention them all, but I feel I must begin by acknowledging the role of my old boss at the Ravenshoe State School, Brian Robinson. If it hadn’t been for him, Up the Palmerston would never have been written and the priceless tapes that I made of old people’s recollections in the 1970s wouldn’t now be in the vaults of the James Cook University Library in Townsville.

A significant percentage of the material I used was provided by residents of the Cairns hinterland. Foremost among them were Henry Condon, Ernie Edwards, Mrs B. Gillespie, Barney Kelly, Reg Lockyer and Mary Wardle, all of Ravenshoe; Lewis Jackson, Johny Bowe and Clarence Macauley of Mt Garnet; Tom Genninges of Tumoulin; Les Keough of Evelyn; Gerry Culloty and Christie Samundsett of Herberton; Harry Collier and Pat Morris of Watsonville; Mrs Pederson of Bakerville; Bill and Anne Byrne of Irvinebank; Mrs Knudsen and Mike Mansfield of Millaa Millaa; Mrs Virge Johnson of Malanda; Mrs Allen, Frank Callaghan, Winnie Dean, Mike O’Callaghan and Mrs Sycamore, all of Cairns; Sonny Prior of Mareeba; Gordon Hay of Dimbulah; Bert Fletcher of Mt Mulligan; Vince Volkman of Thornborough; Herb Geraghty and Mr and Mrs Little of Mt Molloy; Darby Macnamara of Mt Carbine; Mrs Glidden of Cooktown; W. H. Hodgson and the ‘Young Fella’ of the Tate River Township; and Mickey Atherton of Chillagoe.

On my travels I sometimes had to stay in hotels. But, more often than not, those who believed in what I was doing provided me with a bed for a night or two: people such as Tony and Cathy Carr, Andrew and Jacky Petrie, Mark and Anne Woodman, Dean and Lochie Jurd in Brisbane; Debbie and Lance Burgess in Cairns; Kay and Paul Martinez in Townsville; John and Cathy Kelly, Judy and Gary Turner and Geoff Waters,

all of New South Wales; Mr and Mrs Henry of Langwarrin, near Melbourne; Bill and Sue Wood of Ballarat; Ernie Cunningham of Glengormley, near Belfast; Harold Wright of Cramond, Scotland; Terry and Liz Garrett of Trawden, Lancashire; Mrs Joan Bradley of Southport, Lancashire; John and Kate Condon of Donhead St Andrew; and my parents, who live in Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex. Thanks to their generosity I was able to keep down my accommodation costs to an acceptable level.

The media were very co-operative. At one time or another I was assisted by ABC Radio in Cairns and Toowoomba; the BBC in Belfast and Edinburgh; the Advertiser, Cairns Post, Herbert River Express, Millstream Times, Tablelander, Townsville Bulletin and Tully Times in North Queensland; the Chronicle in Toowoomba; the Mourne Observer in Northern Ireland; the Bradford Argus; the Forres, Elgin and Nairn Gazette in Scotland; the Hunts Post in Cambridgeshire; the Blackmore Vale Magazine in Dorset; and the News in Portsmouth.

I received a great deal of assistance in the libraries in Malanda, Sunbury-on-Thames and Uxbridge (both in Middlesex), James Cook University, the University of Queensland, the Parliamentary and John Oxley libraries in Brisbane, and the state libraries of New South Wales and Victoria. I was also well served by the staff in the State Archives in Brisbane, the Public Record Office in Belfast, Register House in Edinburgh and St Katherine’s House in London.

Four people – Colin Bowman of the British School of Lomé (in Togo), Mrs Eden of Ravenshoe, my brother Andrew and my father, J. F. D. Rimmer – read through early drafts of my manuscript and pointed out the all-too-frequent grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. More recently, Jim Mansell, who’s been a journalist for the best part of four decades, was kind enough to proofread Volume Three and, thanks to his efforts, it’s much more polished than it would have been if he’d not become involved.

Acknowledgements

viii Up the Palmerston – a history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920 – Vol 3

While I was living in Ravenshoe, Janette Dingwall, Alison and Jenny Jones, Shelley Kidner, Linda Klease, Chris Nacklicki, Glenda Sergeant, Janette Shepherd and Wendy Stanford typed out at least one chapter for me. All except Glenda were students at the Ravenshoe State School. When I moved to Oakey, Liz Brideson, Mrs Cath Cox, Lyndelle Hamlyn and Janelle Hurley came to the rescue and gave me the benefit of their keyboard skills. Susan Lester, Janine Ludwig and Steven McKay, all of whom were students at Kepnock State High School in Bundaberg, did some typing for me in the late 70s. For the next quarter of a century I relied entirely on Catherine Blinco. She eventually put the whole manuscript onto disk and did the layout for Volume One.

Alex Godfrey and Peter Rohen, of Mt Eliza in Victoria, are responsible for the layout in this latest volume. While attending Kepnock High School during the early 1980s Peter drew the marvellous cartoons and line drawings in Up the Palmerston. He also designed the covers for the three volumes.

Since January 2005 I’ve been living near London. Whenever I need anything cross checking, as I often do, Les Pearson invariably comes to the rescue. Les, who lives in Cairns, also lent me some of the photos he’s accumulated during the course of his own research and helped persuade the Cairns Historical Society to let me use some of theirs.

I’d also like to express my gratitude to two well-known North Queensland families – the Cullotys of Herberton and the Chesters of Tumoulin. The Cullotys live in an ‘Old Queenslander’ on the outskirts of Herberton and whenever I went to Irvinebank or Chillagoe on my trail bike I’d pop in and have my batteries recharged by a cup of tea and something to eat. The family were very supportive and on a couple of occasions, Gerry Culloty and his son-in-law Frank Sims took me on memorable trips to the back of beyond.

The Chesters were unbelievably kind to me. We went on numerous trips together, they put me up on dozens of occasions and even lent me a vehicle so I could venture up to Cooktown and out to the back of Chillagoe to track down information and take photographs. They were always a great inspiration. They too wanted the North’s history preserved before it was too late and they never faltered in their belief that Up the Palmerston would one day be published and bring a great deal of joy to hundreds of people. Because of them, and the many other people who assisted me, I was determined that my book would be the most thorough local history that anybody has ever produced anywhere in Australia. To this end, I’ve put in thousands of hours of work over the past 38 years, and I can only hope I’ve done justice to the wonderful raw material I had to work with.

Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, UK February 2010

The author (centre) taking a break from his literary activities to attend the Year 11 leavers dinner at the British School of Lomé in May 1996

Up the Palmerston – a history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920 – Vol 3 1

This is the third and final volume of Up the Palmerston – a history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920. When I started writing it almost four decades ago I was just beginning my teaching career, I was a keen (although not very good) soccer player and thought nothing of running 8km several times a week to keep fit. Now that I’m on the verge of launching the last part of the book, I’ve retired from teaching and would be hard put to get through a game of darts without gasping for breath.

My interest in North Queensland history began soon after I commenced work at the Ravenshoe State School early in 1972. According to education theorists, children generally enjoy discovering what’s gone on in their own area. People of their ilk are wrong about most things, but not this. I’ve taught local history to hundreds of students, and most of them thoroughly enjoyed learning what their ancestors got up to.

At first I’d no intention of writing anything other than a few lesson notes for the children I was teaching. But in June 1972 the principal of the school, Brian Robinson, asked me if I’d be prepared to write a 10–15 page booklet about the history of Ravenshoe to accompany the school’s 60th anniversary celebrations due that September. I’d a great deal of respect for Mr Robinson and rather relished the prospect of delving into the history of a part of the world I’d become very fond of.

I thought the task would simply involve wading through the various histories of Ravenshoe and concocting a summary of what had already been written. How could I have been so naïve? It quickly became apparent that there were no histories of Ravenshoe, and that nothing much been written about the other towns in the Cairns hinterland either. The European settlement of our part of Queensland had occurred relatively recently, and in the early 1970s quite a few of the people who’d been born in the area – or who’d moved there as children – prior to the outbreak of the First World War were still alive. Needless to say, they were nearing the end of their lives, and I felt duty-bound to preserve their recollections for posterity while there was still time;

then use them as an essential ingredient in a book about the history of the entire Cairns Hinterland.

Dramatically increasing the scope of the project meant I was unable to give Brian Robinson the humble booklet he’d asked for, but he was instrumental in setting in motion a labour of love (or bizarre obsession, depending on your point of view) that resulted in 43 cassette tapes of the recollections of old people, all of whom have since died; thousands of photos; and a three-volume tome that covers a vast area of North Queensland, stretching from the Palmer River in the north to the Valley of Lagoons in the south, and from the town of OK in the west to the main range of the Eastern Highlands in the east.

I completed the first draft of the book in 1977 and sent it to a couple of publishers. They both rejected it and I’m pleased they did, because it’s much more comprehensive now. I did a great deal of research in the UK in the 1980s and rewrote the entire manuscript while I was teaching at the British School of Lomé, in the West African state of Togo, between August 1992 and June 2003. It might seem a little odd to have channelled so much time and energy into writing about the history of North Queensland while being surrounded by the rich pageant of Africa, but this isn’t the first time something like this has been done. When the English novelist Arnold Bennett was rich and famous, he lived in luxury on the French Riviera and wrote a series of books explaining how wonderful it is to be poor and live in the Staffordshire Potteries, in the English Midlands. Rudyard Kipling also found it easier to wax lyrical about places that were far removed from where he happened to be at the time. For much of his adult life he divided his time between Sussex, where he wrote at great length about India, and South Africa, where his literary output was dominated by stories glorifying England.

In August 2003 I took myself off to Central Asia and taught for a year at the Dushanbe International School in the former Soviet Republic of Tajikistan. Soon after I started there I heard that Mr Robinson was dying of cancer, and this convinced me that I’d better stop faffing about and get the book ready for publication.

PREFACE

2 Up the Palmerston – a history of the Cairns hinterland up to 1920 – Vol 3

Three months after I arrived in Dushanbe, I had a nasty scare – one which strengthened my resolve to get Up the Palmerston into print, even though I knew such a move would leave me considerably out of pocket. On the morning of 1 December I felt so ill I could hardly get out of bed, but I managed to drag myself to work and inform the school doctor that I had a nasty bout of food poisoning. After a few seconds of poking around below my navel, however, she told me that the acute pain I was experiencing was being caused by my appendix and it needed removing immediately.

‘Oh well, that’s it,’ I thought to myself. ‘I’m going to die’.

At the time, Tajikistan was one of the most isolated places on the earth (which is one reason why I’d wanted to go there in the first place). There was a weekly flight to Europe, but that had gone two days earlier and if I were to wait for the next one I’d be well and truly dead by the time it departed. This meant I was going to have to have my appendix removed in Dushanbe – a very daunting prospect. In Soviet days, Tajikistan’s health system had been very good, but following independence in 1991 and the subsequent civil war most of the doctors and nurses had fled abroad and the country’s hospitals lacked even the most basic equipment and medicine. Fortunately, however, at least one competent doctor had remained. His name was Dr Anwar and he and his team at Hospital Number Three whipped out my burst appendix and treated me wonderfully while I was recuperating.

In my semi-conscious state immediately following the operation two thoughts were uppermost in my mind. While I’d been living in Lomé I’d unofficially adopted my maid’s son. He was seven and he and his mother were utterly dependent on the money I’d been sending them. If I were to die, their future would be as bleak as that of 90% of their compatriots.

My other main concern was my North Queensland book. This was going to be my legacy and if I didn’t recover the wonderful stories that the likes of Johny Bowe, Darby Macnamara, Mike o’Callaghan and Mary Wardle had told me would never see the light of day.

As soon as I was out of hospital I sent an email to my long-time friend and former colleague, Catherine

Blinco, asking her if she could do the layout for the book and liaise with Glovers of Bundaberg to get it printed. I’d already commissioned Les Isdale to do a series of maps and Peter Rohen to design a cover to complement the wonderful illustrations he’d done 20 years earlier when he’d been a student at Kepnock High School in Bundaberg. Over the next few months I had to co-ordinate their efforts – along with those of Les Pearson who was helping me with photos from the archives of the Cairns Historical Society – from Dushanbe; and this wasn’t easy, because Catherine was in Bundaberg, Peter in Canberra, Les Isdale in Brisbane and Les Pearson in Cairns. If it hadn’t been for the advent of email we couldn’t possibly have got the book ready in time.

When I asked Peter to design a cover I thought there’d be just one book which is why nearly all the photos on the front and back of Volume One are of people and places mentioned in Volume Two. To save face I tell anyone who asks that it’s a cunning ploy to whet appetites for subsequent volumes, but this piece of playful nonsense fools nobody!

A couple of days into 2004, while I was recuperating at my parents’ home in Sunbury-on-Thames, just outside London, I received an email from Catherine that contained some alarming news. I’d earlier calculated that once the book had been laid out in its final format we’d be looking at a total of something like 350 pages. But, according to Catherine, Up the Palmerston was going to contain at least 800 pages (the exact figure would depend on the number of photos, illustrations and maps we used). Admittedly, maths has never been my strong point but this didn’t stop me from being shocked at the extent of my miscalculation. Catherine’s email had put the kybosh on my plans and I wondered what on earth I was going to do. A couple of days later, however, a solution suddenly presented itself…

On 6 January 2004 my dear old Dad asked me if I’d accompany him to the cinema in Feltham, so he could watch a film he was anxious to see.

‘Which film?’ I asked.

‘It’s called The Return of the King. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. It’s the final part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I saw the other two films and they were absolutely superb.’


As soon as Dad uttered these words I knew that salvation was at hand: surely if it was acceptable for Peter Jackson to chop Tolkien’s masterpiece into three easily digestible portions, then nobody could possibly object if I did the same with my ever-growing manuscript? I went ahead with Volume One in 2004, followed it up four years later with the second instalment and here, at long last, is Volume Three.

Sad to say, my former principal, Mr Robinson died in February 2005, but he’d been well enough to attend the launch of Volume One the previous July. As I handed him his copy a photographer from the local paper – the Millstream Times – took a photo of the two of us and a few days later it was the centrepiece of an article that appeared under the headline ‘32 Years Late’.

First and foremost, Up the Palmerston is meant to be a straightforward account of who went where, what they got up to once they’d arrived and when all the

events took place. In other words, it sets out to be informative. But I also had two other aims in mind: I wanted the book to be readable; and to contain a modicum of humour.

Many books are written in such a convoluted way that the average reader is unable to gain anything from them. Up the Palmerston doesn’t fall into this category. As for the humour, slipping in the odd joke or witty remark every now and then adds spice to the narrative, and also helps the book to mirror the way in which most of us lead our lives. The bulk of our time on earth is spent undertaking routine, humdrum tasks. But every now and then we experience odd moments of jollity, gaiety and laughter. Hopefully, readers of Up the Palmerston will find a little of this scattered among its pages. I’d be very disappointed if I were ever to come across somebody who’d read any of the three volumes without experiencing at least the odd titter!


Chapter 1 – Transport links to the sea

Chapter 1

During the half century that followed James Venture Mulligan’s discovery of gold on the Palmer River in 1873 many thousands of Europeans came to live in North Queensland, but only a few settled on the Tablelands. The main centres of population were mining towns such as Maytown, Thornborough, Herberton, Irvinebank and Chillagoe – all of which lay north and west of the Tablelands – and the ports of Cooktown, Port Douglas and Cairns. Today the situation is very different: the coastal towns continue to flourish, but the mining towns have declined in both relative and absolute terms, and the Tablelands have become one of the most densely populated parts of rural Australia.

This book deals with the first half century of European settlement on the Tablelands. The graziers were the first Europeans to live there on a permanent basis, so Chapter Three is devoted to them. This is followed by a series of chapters on the major Tableland towns and the areas they serve.

But I’d like to begin Volume Three of Up the Palmerston by examining the roads and railways that were built to link the mining centres with the coast. It’s a fascinating subject and the most suitable place for it is straight after the history of the mining towns – which has already been done in the two previous volumes – and before the story of how the main population centres on the Tablelands were created; because it was the mining towns that caused them to be built in the first place, and it was only after a communications network had been established that the economic exploitation of the Tablelands could begin.

The stories of how the Valley of Lagoons, the Palmer River and Hodgkinson Goldfields and Herberton were linked to the sea have already been told in the first two volumes of Up the Palmerston. In 1878 James Robson, William McCord and John Atherton cut a track down to the coast. Two years earlier Atherton had settled close to what later became

Transport links to the sea

Port Douglas from Newell Beach c1974



Mareeba and the track, which was always known as Robson’s Track, left him a little less isolated. It was never suitable for wheeled traffic, but was later used extensively by the Irvinebank Mining Company. Throughout the 1880s most of its tin was taken along this route by mule team. Mules are more sure-footed than horses and capable of carrying heavier loads. There were approximately 40 mules to a team and each beast generally took four 90lb (40kg) ingots at a time, although ‘Jumbo’, the most famous of the company’s mules, is said to have been able to carry 6cwt (720lb or 300kg) on its back.

The seaward end of Robson’s Track was situated close to Cairns, at Redbank. From there it went south to Gordonvale, then west along the Mulgrave Valley (taking practically the same route as today’s Gillies Highway) to Boar Pocket, Allumbah (after 1893), Kulara and Scrubby Creek, where it joined the Herberton–Port Douglas Road. General stores, which also functioned as hotels and post offices, were set up at Boar Pocket, Allumbah and Kulara.

As we saw in Chapter 12 of Volume One, the route for the Bump Road was identified by Christie Palmerston and a shadowy figure whose surname was Leighton, Layton, or Lakeland, in 1877, and within a short time drays, wagons and coaches were plying backwards and forwards between Port Douglas and the Hodgkinson Goldfield. When Thomas Brandon, John Brown, Willie Jack and John Newell discovered tin on the Wild River three years later, Palmerston, Mullins and McLean blazed a track that linked up with the Bump Road, and when this was cleared it too was suitable for wheeled traffic. Later still the road was extended to John Moffat’s mining towns, and as far west as Georgetown and Croydon, so for a few years it was possible to take a coach from Port Douglas nearly all the way to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Port Douglas isn’t a particularly good site for a port. It’s fairly well protected and located near the Mowbray Valley (which was a distinct advantage in the old days because that’s where the Bump Road crossed the main range), but the water by the town’s jetty was too shallow to accommodate most ships. Consequently, they had to anchor offshore, and use small boats to take their passengers and cargo to the pier while the animals swam ashore.

The teamsters and carriers who made their living plying up and down the North’s rough, dusty highways used to camp just south of Port Douglas at Craiglea, using this as a home-away-from-home while waiting for their next load. A memorial cairn next to the Cook Highway (the road that links Cairns with Mossman and Daintree) marks the site of the old campground.

From Port Douglas all traffic would go in a southerly direction as far as the Mowbray River then swing inland to ascend the range. Palmerston and his offsider had done a wonderful job in locating this route, but the journey was an ordeal for both man and beast. As evidence of this, Cobb and Co. (the main operator on the road) needed teams of seven horses to pull their passenger coaches up the face of the range and over the Bump to the gentler gradients of the Tablelands.

Once on top of the range the teamsters, passengers and beasts could refresh themselves at Allen’s Hotel. As they went inland they could avail themselves of similar facilities at Mullavey’s Hotel; Groves’ Wetherboard Station; Hughes’ Shanty (located where Mt Molloy was later established); Crowe’s coach change and carriers camping ground, next to the Little Mitchell River; and the Granite Creek (Mareeba) coach change, where coach passengers would often spend the night. Nobody today seems to know for certain where the road to the Hodgkinson Goldfield left the Herberton Road, but Mrs Wardle (the amazing woman who had a whole chapter devoted to her in Volume One) thinks that the old pack track joined the main road somewhere near the site of Mt Molloy, and that after the opening of the Granite Creek coach change all wheeled traffic bound for the Hodgkinson would go to Granite Creek before turning west towards Thornborough and Kingsborough.

From Granite Creek the Herberton Road went to Tolga (or Martintown as it was then); past Kelly’s Hotel, situated just outside what was soon to become Atherton; and through Scrubby Creek, where Matt Peterson kept a hotel. For many of the people using the Port Douglas Road, Herberton was as far as they went, but if they were going further there were any number of places where they could have a meal or stay the night. Cobb and Co. passengers generally used Finnegan’s Hotel in the



centre of Herberton if their journey was taking them further west.

After leaving Herberton, passengers going on to Georgetown would cross over the Great Divide to Watsonville, take a break at Orient Camp, then stop for the night at the Miners Arms Hotel in Montalbion. Arthur Lambert would groom, feed and water the horses in the Cobb and Co. stable, which was adjacent to Foy’s bakery and Halpin’s butcher shop. California Creek, which had Frank Hargreaves as its resident groom, and Wadetown (near Petford), where Harry Wade had a hotel, were their next two rest stops. From there travellers would go to Emerson’s at the Sandy Tate, Quartz Hill (near Mt Surprise) and finally arrive in Georgetown, at least five days after leaving Port Douglas.

Many of the teamsters who used the Bump Road became well-known in the North. This is especially true of Ted Troughton – a man with a dual claim to fame. Firstly, in 1878 he carried a ten-tonne boiler from Port Douglas to Kingsborough and delivered it to Messrs Plant and Jackson, who needed it for their battery. This was the heaviest load ever to go along the Bump Road. And secondly, Ted lived to the ripe old age of 104. Other teamsters associated with the

Port Douglas road network were George Kane, Jack Langtree, Paddy Macnamara, the Malone brothers, Pat Molloy, Jim Tait, John Trezise (a Cornishman who later settled near Port Douglas), Jack Tunnie, Hans Wieland and dozens of others.

Several coach drivers have also passed into the annals of history. Rod McCrae (until he formed his own company), Ted Richards, Bob Walsh, and Jack Warner all used to drive for Cobb and Co, while Harry Chatfield and Albert Bimrose both owned their own coach. Chatfield carried passengers out to Almaden, Chillagoe and Georgetown until about 1910, and later worked in the Herberton area. Bimrose, who ran his coach from Boonmoo to Mt Garnet via Irvinebank and Coolgarra, certainly merited every penny he earned, because much of the country through which he passed was extremely rugged.

When the Bump Road opened in 1877 Cairns, which had only been founded the previous year, went into decline. In 1878 the police magistrate was transferred from Cairns to Port Douglas and the following year the same happened to the local Land Office and District Court. The opening of Robson’s Track in 1878 and the discovery of gold in the lower Mulgrave Valley in 1879 helped

Port Douglas jetty c1974



Cairns to some extent. Even so, at the beginning of the 1880s the town was fighting for survival. By the early 1890s, however, there’d been a dramatic reversal of fortunes – Cairns was forging ahead in leaps and bounds, while in Port Douglas all was doom and gloom.

The turn-around had its origins in a speech made in January 1882 by the MLA for Charters Towers, Francis Horace Stubley. On a visit to Herberton, which lay in his electorate, he said he wanted to see the Government build a railway linking Herberton with the coast. Soon after Stubley had first raised the issue the MLA for Cook, F. A. Cooper, promised the people of Port Douglas that he’d do all in his power to ensure that if a railway were to be built, it would have its terminus in their town. As expected, his assurances were warmly received in Port Douglas, but didn’t go down well in Cairns and Geraldton (modern Innisfail). The people there were as keen as anyone to see a railway built to the inland tin fields, but they wanted it to start from their home town, not Port Douglas. On 7 February 1882 a Railway League was formed in Port Douglas and soon afterwards similar organisations were established in Cairns and Geraldton.

Later the same year the Minister for Works and Mines, John Murtagh Macrossan, appointed

Palmerston to explore the various river valleys between Port Douglas and the Mulgrave River, and work out which would be best for the proposed railway (details in the next chapter). On 6 February 1883 the Government Surveyor, George William Monk, was appointed to survey all possible routes. He arrived in the North on 11 May and his report was ready by March 1884. In his opinion, the railway should use the Barron Valley route and have its terminus in Cairns. Cabinet gave the go-ahead on 10 September 1885 and work on the railway officially began on 10 May 1886. The Premier, Sir Samuel Walker Griffiths, was the guest of honour at the celebrations that accompanied this milestone in Cairns’ short history. He was meant to turn the first sod with a silver spade, but this never materialised – not that anyone noticed. The townspeople were too busy celebrating their economic salvation. The mood must have been similar among the tin miners in the Herberton district. Now that work on the line had commenced it surely wouldn’t be long before they’d be holding a similar ceremony to mark its completion. As things turned out, this didn’t happen for another 24 years!

Building a railway across the coastal plain and up the main range to the Tablelands was a vast and complex undertaking, but fortunately the people

Redlynch Station c1974



in charge were of the highest calibre. Monk was the principal surveyor and Willoughby Hannam the chief engineer. They were ably assisted by Owen Livingston Amos, a surveyor, and Robert Ballard, an engineer. The construction of the line as far as Granite Creek was put in the hands of three private contractors. P. C. Smith was awarded the contract to build it from Cairns to Redlynch. John Robb would then take it up the range to Myola (just past Kuranda), leaving Sutherland and Mackenzie with the comparatively easy task of continuing it on to Granite Creek.

If all had gone according to plan the Cairns–Redlynch section of the line would have been completed in less than a year – after all the two places were only 16km apart and there were no major rivers or hills between them. But P. C. Smith encountered a number of unforeseen problems, the first of which occurred when the Lowther Castle arrived in Trinity Bay with the first consignment of rails. The ship was expecting to tie up next to Louis Severin’s newly-constructed wharf, but it was unable to because Cairns Harbour was too shallow. Eventually the rails were brought ashore in small boats – an operation that cost Smith £2,000 (a sum approximately equal to the cost of shipping the rails from England to Cairns). This unfortunate incident helped delay work during the dry months, and the wet season that year turned out to be especially severe, with 4.38 metres of rain falling on the summit of the range in 1886. That figure wouldn’t have been as high on the coastal plain, but high enough to cause further delays and make life miserable for Smith and his employees. Many people became sick and at least two died.

By November 1886 Smith had had enough and pulled out of the project. The Government promptly appointed McBride and Co. to take his place but it couldn’t make ends meet either and the line to Redlynch had to be completed by the Queensland Government. The first train ran on 26 September 1887 – with Harry Fuelling as driver, Willie Bell as fireman and H. Harris as guard – and on 8 October the line was officially opened.

Meanwhile, work had already started on the second stage of the line, from Redlynch to Myola. On 21 January 1887 the Government accepted John Robb’s tender of £290,094, and a few weeks later the Mabel White sailed into Trinity Bay carrying

a locomotive and various other essentials for the project. Preliminary work began on 25 April and in May Robb built a sawmill at Kamerunga, then known as Barronville. For a time this was his base camp. Materials for the line, such as bags of cement for lining the tunnels, were brought in by rail then taken to wherever they were needed by mule team.

It took Robb and his workmen a little over four years to reach Myola. This was a commendable achievement considering they were working in one of the wettest parts of Australia, and to lay the track they had to drive a number of cuttings and 15 tunnels into the mountainside, erect several bridges and construct no fewer than 98 curves.

Robb had on his payroll a small army of labourers, most of whom were Irish or Italian. They had a reputation for wild and drunken behaviour – at least during their brief moments of leisure – but given the dangerous and unpleasant nature of their work it’s scarcely surprising that they felt inclined to cut loose every now and then. Most of their revelries took place in makeshift townships located close to where they were working. The first of these was at Kamerunga but as the track moved further up the Barron Valley the shops and hotels were dismantled and erected elsewhere. At one time or other there were townships at Tunnel Number Nine, Camp Oven Creek and just below Glacier Rock at the Springs.

Robb had to come up with practical solutions to a variety of engineering problems to complete the line to Myola. His most challenging moments came during the construction of Stoney Creek Bridge and Tunnel Number Fifteen. The bridge had to be built next to a cliff face, making it difficult to position the heavy girders. The tunnel, the longest between Redlynch and Myola, took more time to complete than expected and put a brake on progress during the latter part of 1889. By the middle of 1891, however, Robb and his men had overcome all the obstacles that Mother Nature had placed in their way, and on 23 June the first passenger train travelled up the Barron Valley to Myola. To celebrate this historic event a big party was held at the Barron Falls.

The opening of the line to the top of the range heralded the dawning of a new era for Cairns. Ships that had once landed passengers and cargo at Port



Douglas now began calling at Cairns instead, and the Cairns Railway replaced the Bump Road as the economic lifeline of the Tablelands and the mining towns further west. The teamsters, coachmen and packers were still needed – at least for the time being – but after 1891 they operated from the railhead rather than Port Douglas. The Bump Road was used less and less until eventually it was abandoned. Port Douglas didn’t suffer to quite the same extent – it became a sleepy backwater, sustained by the fishing and sugar industries, tourism, and people on the Tablelands who had holiday homes in the town – but, like the princess in the well-known fairy story, it was suddenly revived after almost 100 years of slumber by a dashing young man. Admittedly the person concerned, Christopher Skase, was a property developer rather than a prince, and he ended up fleeing to Spain to escape the clutches of the law in Australia, but this scarcely matters. His millions breathed new life into Port Douglas, and at the start of the 21st century it’s as vibrant and bustling as it was back in the 1880s and its long-term prospects appear considerably brighter.

Myola didn’t remain the terminus of the Cairns Railway for long. A little over two years after Robb’s big party at the Barron Falls the line reached Granite Creek, some 33km to the west. While the rails were being laid by the contractors Sutherland and McKenzie, a decision was made to give a more permanent-sounding name to the collection of dwellings and business premises that had been built next to where the Port Douglas–Herberton road crossed the creek. The name that was chosen – Mareeba – was an Aboriginal word that had long been associated with the area and is thought to have meant ‘the meeting of the waters’. Whether or not this is an accurate translation is open to question, but it would certainly be appropriate because Granite Creek joins the Barron River just east of the town and the headwaters of the Mitchell lie immediately to the north.

During the 1890s the tin miners of Herberton had every reason to believe their part of the Wild River valley would soon be echoing to the distinctive, and some say rather attractive, sound of railway wagons bumping in the night. Unfortunately, the year the Myola–Mareeba section was opened also saw the onset of a severe recession. The Queensland Government was forced to curtail its expenditure

drastically and, despite the urgings of John Newell and other Herberton dignitaries, it wasn’t until the early years of the new century that work began on the next stage of the line – the stretch from Mareeba to Atherton. The two towns are only 33km apart and there were no major geographical barriers between them – the terrain is relatively flat and there were no swamps or rivers that had to be crossed – so the work didn’t take long to complete.

Atherton finally entered the railway age in June 1903. The arrival of the first train was easily the most important event in the town’s short history and the locals responded by organising the sort of reception normally associated with the ending of a war or the arrival home of a victorious sporting team. The festivities were, however, marred by vandalism. The focal point of the celebrations should have been a memorial arch with the word ‘Welcome’ inscribed upon it, but the night before the train arrived someone blew it up. At the subsequent trial one of the witnesses was asked if he’d drunk much beer at the time of the incident. ‘Not much,’ he replied, ‘only a bucketful or two.’

Building the railway from Myola to Atherton had been relatively easy, the only significant obstacles being the Clohesy River at Koah and the Barron River at Biboohra. It had also made a lot of economic sense. The railway served the nearby Walsh–Tinaroo mining field, where new mines were coming into production all the time, and it enabled the exploitation of the Tablelands’ seemingly limitless timber and agricultural resources to begin in earnest.

But extending the line beyond Atherton to Herberton was an altogether different proposition. For a start, the two towns were separated by a mountain range. It wasn’t as high as the one that had stood in Robb’s way, nor did it receive anything like the same amount of rainfall, but to drive a railway through to Herberton was bound to be very costly. And there was a further problem: by the first decade of the 20th century it had become apparent that Herberton’s tin mines were running out of ore. To many there seemed to be no logical reason for spending tens of thousands of pounds on a railway to a dying mining town. There was, however, a countervailing argument. Certainly Herberton’s mining industry faced a bleak future unless new ore bodies were found; but beyond the town lay the



Evelyn Tableland – an area of outstanding natural beauty that contained countless acres of rainforest, including many stands of red cedar, and in whose rich volcanic soils just about anything would grow. In the end the latter point of view prevailed. Approval for the railway was granted and on 20 Thursday October 1910 the people of Herberton turned out en masse to welcome the first train.

What happened on that memorable day is described at length in the Wild River Times that came out the following week. It’s often said that it’s only bad news that sells papers, but this particular edition of this particular paper was full of hope, optimism and joy. The main article about Herberton’s day of days appeared under the headline ‘Official Opening of the Herberton Railway – A Brilliant Success’ and it began like this:

Thursday 20th, October 1910, will long be remembered by the residents of this district as an event of national importance, for on that day, the long looked for and 20 years’ promised railway to Herberton was declared officially opened by the Deputy-governor, Sir Arthur Morgan.1

When the train pulled into Herberton it was greeted by thousands of excited people, several bands, a memorial arch and a veritable sea of flags and bunting. It must have been a wonderful sight and nobody would have relished it more than the man at the controls of the engine at the head of the train, Mick Woods. Woods had long been associated with the North, first as an engine driver and later as the MLA for Woothakata. He’d always been popular in the Herberton area, and during his years in State Parliament had always been a vocal supporter of building the very railway on which he was now travelling.

At 12.30pm Woods drove the engine through a ceremonial ribbon. There followed a series of speeches and once these were over the crowds dispersed. Some found their way to the Showgrounds where a programme of popular entertainment had been laid on, while others went to Nigger Creek for a picnic. It’s likely that some used the occasion as an excuse to get drunk but

thankfully nobody got drunk enough to blow up the memorial arch!

It’s a pity that the person who had first suggested building a railway to Herberton from one or other of North Queensland’s ports was unable to take part in the festivities, but Francis Horace Stubley had died 25 years earlier by the side of a lonely road in the Gulf Country (see Chapter Four). If he had been alive, the occasion would have been of double significance for him – firstly as the culmination of a dream, and secondly as a promise of better things to come for Evelyn Station – the grazing property he’d owned for several years beginning in the mid-1870s. Work had already commenced on extending the line to Ravenshoe and at one point the planned route would pass close to his old homestead.

In the weeks and months that followed Woods’ triumphal entry into Herberton, the men laying the track across the Evelyn Tableland made such rapid progress that by August of the following year they’d reached Tumoulin, only about 6km short of Ravenshoe. During the first phase of the line’s construction most of the workforce lived in a semi-permanent camp next to Nigger Creek. It was within easy walking distance of Herberton, but a Cornishman by the name of F. A. Grigg set up a store next to the camp and made a living selling provisions to the navvies.

Most of the men who frequented Grigg’s store were either railway workers or men employed in the nearby tin mines, but one of his customers, a young man from New South Wales whom everyone knew as ‘Jack’, was destined to become one of the Australia’s most prolific authors. I am, of course, referring to Ion Idriess. He came to Nigger Creek while the railway was being built and remained there for some time. In the first part of his book Back o’Cairns, he describes some of his experiences, and thanks to him, F. A. Grigg and a couple of the navvies he met, Jim Bell and Mick Moore, have been immortalised in print.

When the railway workers moved away, the township next to Nigger Creek all but disappeared. The area later became known as Wondecla, but unfortunately, the creek, (a tributary of the Wild River), still retains the name it acquired during the 19th century. I say ‘unfortunately’ because many people must find the name offensive. One can only 1 Wild River Times, 28.10.10



hope it’s soon discarded in favour of something more appropriate – for example, Ion Idriess Creek.

The Queensland Government was committed to providing the people of the Evelyn Tableland with a line that stretched all the way to Ravenshoe, but as soon as it reached Tumoulin the men were paid off and the track-laying equipment sent to other parts of the state. Work recommenced three years later but there were frequent interruptions due to shortages caused by the war effort and it wasn’t until the end of 1916 that Ravenshoe became part of the North Queensland rail network. The long delay in completing the line to its final destination meant that between August 1911 and December 1916 Tumoulin acted as the main conduit for freight and passenger movements in and out of Ravenshoe. It also meant that Tumoulin Railway Station which, at 950m above sea level, is the highest in Queensland, was for a time one of the busiest in the North. Some people built homes and business premises next to the station, even though they knew the railway would soon be extended to Ravenshoe, and that Tumoulin would inevitably sink into obscurity.

One person who knew Tumoulin during its heyday was Tom Genninges. He was still alive while I was teaching in Ravenshoe in the early 1970s, and when

he heard I was writing a history of the Tablelands he offered to help. He’d spent most of his life in the Tumoulin area and his father was rumoured to have helped build the railway from Herberton to Ravenshoe.

We began our long association with a series of discussions that took place in Ravenshoe’s main street – more often than not in front of Shepherd’s Newsagency – then in November 1973 we made a tape of his recollections. Some of the remarks he made have nothing to do with the railway so, strictly speaking, they should be included in the chapter about the Evelyn Scrub and Ravenshoe, but I was reluctant to divide the fruits of that memorable recording session into a number of disparate segments, hence their inclusion here.

Tom seemed genuinely excited at the prospect of having his recollections preserved for posterity. I began by asking him to describe the role his father had played in bringing the railway to Tumoulin.

‘He cleared a path through the forest for the railway to follow. He began work at Kalunga sometime in 1909 and it took him until the end of 1910 to reach Tumoulin. The first train came to Tumoulin in August 1911 and for the next five years the place was really busy. At any one time there must have been about 50 sleeper cutters at work in the

The Railmotor at Tumoulin Station c1974



area, and at least 30 teams carting sawn timber and logs from Chilverton and Ravenshoe. We had a hall; two stores, one owned by Grigg who’d shifted from Nigger Creek, the other by Merrin; two butchers’ shops, one owned by Wolfe, the other by Pat Toohey; a refreshment room; a timber mill; and a hotel.

‘The timber mill was built by a chap called Dakin Peberdy – he came from somewhere in New England – and the hotel was put there by Dan Woods. He later sold it to Edwards, then Ross had it until it was burnt down in 1926 or 1927.

‘The first farmer to come to Tumoulin was Jim Hopkins, but the Tooheys also took up a selection in the very early days and so did my oldest brother. Later my youngest brother and I took up a selection each. We grew mainly maize and potatoes, and railed them down to Cairns, but Dad also used to run a vegetable cart around the local area.

‘You were asking earlier about the railway. I’ve just thought of something else that would interest you. One of the gangers was a badly deformed Irishman who went by the name of “Crooked Mick”. He was hunchback and people used to say he got that way after somebody had deliberately pushed him into a cutting while he was helping build the Cairns Railway. I don’t know the full story, but his accident must have taken place long before he came to Tumoulin.

‘Did I ever tell you where the name Tumoulin came from? I didn’t! Sorry about that. It’s a blackfella name. It’s what they used to call Bullock Swamp on Keough’s place and somebody must have decided to apply it to the whole area.

‘What’s that you say? Was there much trouble between the blacks and the white settlers? No, there wasn’t. That’s all baloney. People sometimes say, “Oo, there were wild blacks here and they’d do all sorts of bad things”, but any trouble I ever knew was the fault of the whites.

‘My old man used to get on well with them. He was born in Toowoomba and raised around Rockhampton, and he took a couple of mobs of cattle from Bowen Downs to Port Darwin. Whenever he passed through country where a lot of blacks lived he could have started shooting them, but he knew they’d attack if he did that so he’d

shoot a bullock for them. And because he did this he was never attacked, nor did he lose any cattle.

‘I remember seeing a funny sight concerning the blacks when I was a kid. The railway was just about finished from Herberton to Tumoulin, and the blacks would often wait for the ballast train at Nigger Creek and get a ride to Tumoulin. The guard and driver would let them on and the blacks who got a ride – and there’d be a couple of hundred of them – thought it was just wonderful. I’ll never forget that. What a spectacle! Just like kids they were, on a Sunday School treat.’

Tom’s observations on Tumoulin were fascinating, but I couldn’t possibly have let him go without asking him for some biographical details. After all, there’ll only ever be one group of non-Aboriginal pioneers in the Tumoulin area and he was one of them. Tom, however, seemed surprised at my interest.

‘If you really want to know,’ he began, ‘I was born in Croydon. My father had given up droving a few years earlier, and in the 1890s and the early part of this century he carted goods in the Hughenden–Croydon–Normanton area. We later moved to Almaden, where he carried sleepers and other supplies for the Etheridge line, and that was our home until the big strike forced us to go elsewhere. Luckily Dad managed to get a job in Tolga carting logs from near what is now the top of the Gillies Highway. While I was finishing school in Tolga, Dad began carting material for the railways – he carried blocks and cement for the tunnels, and girders for the bridges on the Herberton line – and while he was doing this Parkinson, the engineer on the line, asked him to put in a tender to clear the land past Wondecla. Dad got the contract and that’s how we came to live in Tumoulin.’

Work on extending the line to Ravenshoe began in about October 1914, with Willoughby Hannam, who’d just completed the Dimbulah–Mt Mulligan branch line, in charge. Progress was painfully slow and it wasn’t until 5.50pm on Monday 11 December 1916 that the first train rolled into Ravenshoe. At that time the people of Ravenshoe weren’t in a celebratory mood for two reasons. Firstly, hundreds of Australian soldiers, including several from the Tablelands, had been killed on the Western Front that year and there was no immediate prospect of the war ending. Secondly, one of the



town’s most respected citizens, Mr J. M. Major, had just died.

A number of proposals were put forward at various times to extend the line to Millaa Millaa, the Valley of Lagoons and even Pentland (a tiny settlement roughly midway between Charters Towns and Hughenden). This last proposal, details of which appeared in the Wild River Times in February 1887, was the brainchild of the distinguished geologist Robert Logan Jack. In his opinion it would have been viable because it would have passed through auriferous country. Needless to say the Herberton–Pentland line, which presumably would have gone via Ravenshoe and Mt Garnet, never materialised and Ravenshoe remained the terminus of the Cairns Railway, for 72 years.

So far in this chapter, I’ve only dealt with the construction of the line to Ravenshoe. By the time of its completion, however, it was by no means the only stretch of track in inland North Queensland. Between 1899 and 1901 Archie Frew built a line from Mareeba and Mungana on behalf of the Chillagoe Company, and later feeder lines were constructed from Dimbulah to Mt Mulligan; Boonmoo to Stannary Hills and Irvinebank; Lappa to Mt Garnet; and Almaden to Forsayth. Other branch lines went from Biboohra to Mt Molloy; and Tolga to Yungaburra, Malanda and Millaa Millaa.

Details of how, when and why these lines were built appear elsewhere in this trilogy.

In many parts of the world railways still play a vital role in transporting passengers and freight. This is especially true in Western Europe and the Far East where billions of dollars have been invested in high-speed rail links and state-of-the-art rolling stock. The railways of the Cairns hinterland, however, haven’t fared too well. The smaller branch lines were all abandoned long ago and at the very end of Australia’s bicentennial year the Atherton–Ravenshoe section of the main Tableland line suffered a similar fate. At the time of writing (February 2010) the Mareeba–Mungana and Almaden–Forsayth lines are still open but not, one suspects, for much longer. A bitumen road is in the process of being built out to Chillagoe, which is the only sizeable community served by either line, and when it’s finished the Queensland Railways Department will find it practically impossible to justify retaining any of its operations west of Mareeba.

There is, however, one part of the inland network that definitely won’t be closed in the foreseeable future – the Cairns–Kuranda line. It makes a tidy profit thanks to the tens of thousands of tourists who travel along it each year, but even if it were to run at a loss no politician would dare order its closure because it’s become almost as much a part

Ravenshoe Station early 1970s



of the cultural heritage as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Great Barrier Reef. It also stands as an enduring reminder of the vital role the railways played during the early years of European settlement in Far North Queensland. When they were built their main purpose was to serve the inland mining towns and they did this admirably, but they also had an enormous impact on other parts of the North, in particular Cairns and the Tablelands.

At the beginning of the 1880s Cairns was languishing in the economic doldrums, but when the Government chose it as the terminus of the inland railway, it began to grow almost immediately, and by the time the shiny steel rails had reached the top of the range, Cairns had become the most important port in Far North Queensland. The impact of the railways on the Tablelands was equally dramatic. Without them it would have been virtually impossible to start exploiting the area’s rich agricultural and timber resources. It was only after the advent of rail transport that Mareeba, Atherton, Malanda and Millaa Millaa were able to become towns of any importance.

So far the emphasis of this chapter has been on events rather than people. Tom Genninges had two whole pages devoted to him – which would have pleased him no end if he’d lived to see them – but lack of space prevented me from including any biographical details of James Robson, John Robb, Archie Frew or any of the other people who played a leading role in providing us with the first roads and railways.

There is, however, one individual for whom space must be found. His name cropped up on a number of occasions in Volumes One and Two and also in this chapter, in relation to the part he played in finding suitable routes for a couple of important roads and in helping to decide which river valley the Herberton Railway would follow on its way up the main range. This person, however, was much more than simply a magnificent trailblazer: he’s reputed to have had a fine singing voice; he moved with ease amongst the Aborigines in a number of different parts of the North; and, most remarkable of all, he was one of Queensland’s most notorious and successful bushrangers. His name was Christie Palmerston and he was such an extraordinary man that he merits a chapter all to himself.


Chapter 2 – Christie Palmerston – Australia’s most versatile bushranger

Chapter 2Christie Palmerston – Australia’s most versatile bushranger

Back in the days when the school year was divided into three terms, we used to have a four-day break at Easter. In 1973, however, Easter fell so late that it almost coincided with Anzac Day; and, as a result, schools all over Australia closed for six days. When the teachers at the Ravenshoe State School became aware of what was happening, the general consensus was that we should use the longer-than-usual break to do something adventurous. It was a noble idea, but like many a noble idea there was a snag. In our case, the problem lay in choosing a venue. Some of us wanted to head off to Laura, while others favoured a visit to Cape Tribulation. The chances of coming to an agreement seemed unlikely, but just as we were about to abandon the idea of going off somewhere together, a breakthrough occurred.

Christie Palmerston in 1877 (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)

It happened early in April and the person responsible was Madeleine, who taught maths and science and came from the same part of England as James Cook. One morning she announced that she’d thought of a solution. She began by reminding us of a trip we’d made to Dunk Island a few months earlier, but was immediately interrupted by one of the English teachers. ‘But we’ve already been there and we decided at our last meeting that if we were going to do something exciting at Easter, we’d have to go somewhere that none of us had been to before. That, if I remember correctly, is about the only thing we did agree on!’

‘Hold on a minute. I’m not about to propose returning to Dunk – although I for one would happily go there two or three times a year for the rest of my life – but that’s not the point. What I have in mind is a trip to Wheeler Island.’

‘Wheeler Island! Where’s that?’ asked Edwina, our French teacher.

‘Near Dunk Island,’ replied Madeleine.

‘Never ‘eard of it,’ I said.

‘There’s no reason why you should. It’s only small and nobody lives there.’

‘Well, in that case, how are we supposed to get to it?’ asked Beverly, a multi-talented science teacher.

‘I was just coming to that. On our way back from Dunk Island last year I had a long talk to Perry Harvey. He, as I’m sure you’ll all remember, is the owner of the MV Purtaboi, which took us to and from the island. Anyway, during the course of our conversation Perry suggested that one of these days a group of us might like to be marooned on an uninhabited tropical island. I let him know that I found the idea immensely appealing, so he went on to explain how it could be done.’

‘I rather like the sound of this,’ said Edwina.

‘So do I,’ smiled Irene, who taught English.



‘I thought you’d react favourably. In fact, I was so sure you would I took the liberty of ringing Perry, and he told me that the best course of action would be for him to drop us on Wheeler Island at the start of the Easter break. He’ll leave us there for four days, and then pick us up sometime during the afternoon of the day before we’re due back at school. He said we’d have to promise not to leave any litter lying around or do anything detrimental to the environment, but I was able to reassure him on that score. I pointed out that we were all dedicated conservationists and told him that not only would we remove all our own litter, but we’d also gather up any other junk we found lying around.’

Everyone approved of Madeleine’s initiative and over the next couple of weeks we collected all the food and equipment that was required. Not all the teachers ended up going – some had more pressing engagements, and a couple were put off by the thought that if there was a medical emergency, there’d be no way of letting anyone on the mainland know. But most of us went and a good time was had by one and all.

Shortly before Easter I finished one of the chapters in what turned out to be Volume Three of Up the Palmerston and I thought Wheeler Island would be as good a place as any to start the next one. I’d already sorted out the sources I needed and these went with me to the island. By the end of the second day I’d read through everything I’d accumulated and had worked out an overall framework for the chapter, but I couldn’t think of a way of starting it. The following morning I wrote three quite different introductions but I wasn’t happy with any of them. In desperation, I discussed the problem with my colleagues and they were good enough to read through what I’d written, but unfortunately they weren’t a lot of help. In their opinion any would have sufficed but that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. This particular chapter was about the person whose name appears in the book’s title, so it had to be good. Having an introduction that was merely ‘all right’ just wasn’t acceptable.

There’s a lot to be said for living in a tropical paradise with a group of amiable, like-minded people. During our short stay we explored the island, prised oysters off the rocks, caught several fish, including a magnificent coral trout which we ate for breakfast and co-operated to produce a series

of succulent meals, the likes of which Robinson Crusoe could have only dreamed about. A life of bliss, however, tends to wear thin after a few days, and by the time the Purtaboi came to return us to the real world we were all rather relieved that we’d soon be having a warm shower and sleeping in a soft bed.

When we arrived back at Clump Point we said our goodbyes to Perry Harvey, and thanked him for giving us the opportunity to live as castaways in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. It had been a wonderful experience and I pointed out to Perry that there was a chance, albeit a slim one, that someday one of us might be able to capitalise on what we’d just done. I mentioned that in Britain one of the most popular radio programmes is Desert Island Discs. Each week someone well known is asked to imagine how they’d cope if they were cast alone on a tropical island, and to choose which eight gramophone records they’d like to have with them. I told Perry that if any of us were to become famous enough to be invited to appear on it, we’d be able to talk with a degree of authority unmatched by any of the previous guests.

In less than an hour of tying up at the jetty we’d begun to ascend the range behind which lie the Tablelands. The highway on which we were travelling was named after the person I was endeavouring to write about, and this made me think that somewhere along its length I might find the inspiration I was looking for. But when we turned off the highway at Millaa Millaa I was no nearer to writing the opening paragraph. To make matters worse, I knew that I wouldn’t have time to work on the book for at least two weeks because I was due to take about 30 students on a 10-day excursion to Mt Isa and the Gulf of Carpentaria during the May holidays and the intervening period was bound to be dominated by last-minute arrangements. Once the trip was under way, however, I thought I might have the odd moment to myself and this led to me putting a notepad, my folio of sources and a couple of pens at the bottom of my rucksack.

The main aim of the trip to north-west Queensland was for everyone to enjoy themselves, but I also hoped that by the time we arrived back in Ravenshoe the children would have become more self-reliant and acquired an appreciation



of the difficulties living cheek by jowl with a motley assortment of individuals for a prolonged period. In addition, I was keen for them to visit a few of the places they’d been learning about in history, particularly the old gold mining towns of Ravenswood, Charters Towers, Croydon and Georgetown.

By the time we reached dear old Ravenswood any doubts I may have had about the wisdom of spending a holiday with 30 adolescents had long since disappeared. The humour of the children and the raw beauty of the places we visited combined to set the adrenalin surging through my veins, and this made me feel like writing. I rummaged through my luggage and pulled out a pen and notepad, but I found myself confronted by the same stumbling block I’d encountered on Wheeler Island: how on earth was I going to begin Chapter Two of Volume Three? Then, just as I was about to despair, one of my Year Nine students gave me the necessary inspiration.

The incident occurred shortly before midnight on the second Saturday of May in a cafe in the middle of Mt Isa. The students had come to town earlier that evening to watch a film, and after it was over they’d decided they wanted to go for a snack before returning to the caravan park where we were staying. While we were plucking up the courage to venture out into the cold night air, one of the Year Nine boys – a farmer’s son from the Evelyn Scrub – put a coin in the jukebox and seconds later a song entitled Ernie began playing. It was sung by the well-known British comedian Benny Hill, and had been a hit a year or so earlier. I’d heard it many times before, but had never really listened to the words. On this occasion, however, I followed them carefully and as a result received a totally unexpected bonus!

Ernie tells the story of a milkman who falls in love with a widow name of Sue, who lived all alone at Limbling Lane at Number 22. To begin with Sue appears to respond favourably to Ernie’s amorous advances, but one day he discovers he has a rival – an evil-looking man, named Two Ton Ted from Teddington – and it’s clear to all and sundry that Sue is more than a little interested in him. The situation quickly deteriorates and the men decide that the only way to resolve matters is to have a fight. Ernie ends up being killed.

With a story-line like this one might have expected Ernie to be a real tear-jerker, whereas the opposite is true: it races along at a tidy pace, has a catchy melody and is extremely funny. Each of the verses contains an element of mirth – the basis of which is usually sexual innuendo – but it was the last one that caught my attention. It goes like this:

A woman’s needs are many-fold, And Sue she married Ted,

But funny things happened on their wedding night, As they lay in their bed.

Is that the leaves a’rustlin’, Or the ‘inges of the gate,

Or Ernie’s ghostly gold-tops A’rattlin’ in their crates?

Even before the verse had ended I knew that salvation was at hand.

‘That’s it,’ I said to myself. ‘That’s how I’ll start my Christie Palmerston chapter!’

That night, as I lay in my sleeping bag gazing up at the clear desert sky and marvelling at the incredible number of stars on display, I tried to think of ways of adapting Benny Hill’s words. The following day the process advanced one stage further: I took the students to Lake Moondarra and while they were burning up some of their excess energy I stretched out on the ground and committed my thoughts to paper. By the time we arrived back in Ravenshoe I’d written about a quarter of the chapter, and by the end of July I’d completed it to my own satisfaction. Later, in light of other people’s research, I was forced to make a large number of changes, but I hardly touched the introduction. It remains basically the same as it was when I wrote it all those years ago, next to the favourite haunt of the fastest water skiers in the West…

The Palmerston Highway is the most southerly of the roads that connect the Tablelands with the Coastal Lowlands. To the government officials who authorised its construction in the 1930s the road’s sole purpose was to facilitate the movement of people and goods from one side of the main range of the Eastern Highlands to the other. But when it was completed they discovered they’d created something that was as beautiful as it was functional (the same can also be said of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was built at the same time) and as a result the Palmerston Highway quickly became a



magnet for tourists. They come from all over the world, partly to visit the various attractions that lie close to the road – for example, the Millaa Millaa Lookout and the Millstream and Zillie Falls – but also to see the road itself because it has a character all of its own.

There’s a constant flow of tourist traffic along the Palmerston Highway but the busiest time is undoubtedly the winter period. Between May and September the weather in North Queensland is absolutely glorious: daytime temperatures are usually in the mid-20s, and there’s not as much rain as at other times of the year. Down south, however, places like Melbourne and Canberra are subjected to prolonged periods of cold, wet weather and leaden skies. Each year a significant number of people manage to escape to warmer climes. Many southern sun-seekers only make it as far as the Gold or Sunshine Coasts, but those with enough money tend to go the whole hog and head for the Tropics. Among their number were an elderly couple from Melbourne, whom we’ll call Mr and Mrs Cox. They drove all the way from Victoria to North Queensland in July 1974, and late one afternoon found themselves on the Palmerston Highway heading towards the Tablelands.

The first section of the road, between the junction with the Bruce Highway and Crawford’s Lookout, passes through some of the most attractive scenery in northern Australia. Dominating the skyline to the west is a jungle-clad mountain range, the highest point of which, Mt Bartle Frere (1,622m) is Queensland’s highest peak. At the foot of the mountains is a patchwork of fields which until recently were used almost exclusively for growing sugar cane. During the planting season, when the fertile volcanic soil is laid bare to the elements, the landscape takes on the appearance of one side of a giant red and green Rubik’s Cube. At the time of the Coxes’ visit the soil was hidden from view, but the crushing season had begun a week or so earlier. This meant that in fields next to the road they were able to see cane being harvested, while in others they were treated to a floral display as attractive as any they’d seen at Ballarat’s famous Begonia Festival. When sugar cane is fully matured it produces a long white flower at the top of the stem. This lets the farmer know that cutting should commence, and at the same time adds an extra colour to the landscape,

which at this time of year is dominated by various shades of green.

The crushing season is also characterised by spectacular fires. Before harvesting can start the farmer will set fire to his crop. To the uninitiated this sounds suspiciously like an insurance scam but it’s not. The fire does no harm to the cane – it merely removes dead leaves and grass that would otherwise hinder the harvesting operation; and chases away unwanted pests like snakes and rats. The Coxes had already seen a number of cane fires when they were passing through the Lower Burdekin and Ingham districts, but the novelty had yet to wear off, so when they saw the first of the day’s cane fires about to begin they stopped their car and watched it with the enthusiasm of children at a fireworks’ display.

Shortly after they’d begun to ascend the range the Coxes noticed a sign pointing to Crawford’s Lookout. They’d read in their guidebook that it was well worth a visit, so they decided to investigate. The lookout is situated on the north side of the Palmerston Highway and gives an uninterrupted view over a stretch of the North Johnstone River. Mr Cox thought it was magnificent.

‘Hm, if we were 30 years younger and weren’t so pressed for time, I’d suggest walking down to the river,’ he said. ‘It’d only be about 5km there and back, and I’m sure that we could find a path through the forest.’

Mrs Cox was too busy taking photos to pay any attention to her spouse, but when a large tourist coach pulled into the rest area next to the lookout all thoughts of prolonging their stay quickly vanished.

Crawford’s Lookout marks the eastern end of the most spectacular part of the Palmerston Highway. From there to the top of the range, the road twists and turns through an area of rainforest as magnificent as any in the country. The trees come right to the edge of the road, which means that visitors are able to see the forest giants and the parasitic plants (like vines and epiphytes) that grow on them without leaving the comfort of their vehicle. They might also see the occasional small marsupial, snake, wild pig or, if they’re extremely lucky, cassowary, crossing the road. But rainforests aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and Mrs Cox, who’d



never been in one before, was beginning to feel distinctly uneasy. After a while she confided her feelings to her husband.

‘I don’t like this road. It gives me the creeps,’ she said.

‘Does it? Why?’ he asked.

‘I think it must be claustrophobia. I feel like I’m in a tunnel. The upper branches of the trees on either side of the road have formed a sort of roof and this makes me feel hemmed in. I’m sure I’ll be all right when we see the sun again.’

‘I’m afraid that all rainforests are like this. I had plenty of experience of them in New Guinea during the war. They aren’t pleasant to fight in, that’s for sure, but I found them a source of endless fascination – still do in fact – and absence of sunlight is one of their distinguishing features. If you wanted the sun to shine on the road you’d have to contact the local council and ask them to cut down all the offending trees, and there’s no way they’d agree to that because the environmentalists would be up in arms. Anyway don’t worry; we’re almost at the top of the range, so the sun won’t be hidden for much longer. And I’ll tell you what: I’ve a feeling we might be in for a real treat. As you know, I was stationed on the Tablelands for a few months in 1943, and we’d often get to see the most amazing sunsets. Even the Americans who were camped next to us had to admit they’d never seen anything to compare in their own country.’

‘I remember you telling me that story the first day we met, but one thing you’ve never explained is how this dreadful road got its name.’

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ replied Mr Cox, keen to show off his knowledge even after 27 years of marriage, ‘it’s obviously named after the British politician, Lord Palmerston. My old history teacher at Geelong Grammar used to idolise the fellow. While he was at university he did a thesis on Palmerston’s contribution to the unification of Italy, and he’d often talk about him in class. I’ve forgotten most of what he told us, but I know that Lord Palmerston was foreign minister for much of the second quarter of the 19th century and I think he became prime minister midway through the Crimean War. Oh, and another thing – I can distinctly remember this teacher telling us that when Palmerston was almost 80 years old he was accused of having an

* The woman’s name was Mrs O’Kane, and by a strange twist of fate the repercussions of her alleged tryst with Lord Palmerston were subsequently felt on the North Queensland mining fields just when Christie Palmerston was beginning to acquire a reputation as a fearless bushman and explorer. In 1863 Lord Palmerston became caught up in a messy divorce case involving Thadeus O’Kane, who was an Irish radical journalist, and his short, plump, attractive wife. For reasons better known to himself, O’Kane was under the impression that his spouse had committed adultery with Lord Palmerston, even though he was almost 50 years her senior and not in the best of health. Before there’d been any talk of a divorce, O’Kane had approached Palmerston and demanded that he hand over £20,000 by way of compensation. Palmerston had denied any impropriety and refused to pay, so the matter ended up in court. During the trial, Mrs O’Kane, who was adamant that she’d never had sex with Lord Palmerston, created a sensation by claiming that she and O’Kane weren’t legally married. O’Kane couldn’t come up with any evidence to the contrary and the case was dismissed. After this humiliation, O’Kane lost any credibility he may have had in the UK, so he emigrated and ended up as editor of the Charters Towers-based publication, the Northern Miner which was widely read on both the Palmer and Hodgkinson Goldfields by people interested in mining, including, one would assume, Christie Palmerston!

adulterous affair with the wife of a mischievous Irish journalist*.’

‘Good gracious! That sounds a bit far-fetched. Do you think he did?’

‘I don’t think anyone really knows. He denied it, of course, but then he would, wouldn’t he?’

As Mr Cox was saying these words, a strange laughing noise came echoing through the forest. ‘What on earth was that?’ shouted Mrs Cox, looking over her shoulder at where the noise had come from.

‘I honestly don’t know. It must have been a bird of some sort. I can’t think of an animal that would have made a noise like that, except maybe a hyena and they’re only found in dry parts of Africa.’

‘It sounded to me like the hideous cackle of a half-demented human – someone like Frankenstein, or Count Dracula. Come on, Edward, can’t you drive any faster? I want to get out of this spooky place and find a nice comfortable motel.’

The noise the Coxes heard was probably the cry of a cat bird, or perhaps a rifle bird, but it just might have been the ghostly laugh of the person after whom the road was really named; and that wasn’t the former prime minister of Great Britain and maker-of-laws, the Third Viscount (or Lord) Palmerston, but a mysterious North Queensland jack-of-all-trades and breaker-of-laws



called Christie Palmerston. During the last quarter of the 19th century Christie was as well known in the North as his illustrious namesake… and just as controversial!

Christie Palmerston was a truly remarkable individual. He was a legend in his own lifetime and has been the focus of a great deal of attention since his death in 1897. For this he’s indebted to a number of popular writers, in particular to Ion Idriess who wrote about him in Back o’Cairns and Men of the Jungle. Idriess spent the best part of two years in North Queensland and got to know many of Palmerston’s old stamping grounds. Palmerston had left the area more than 20 years earlier, so the two of them never actually met, but Idriess would have talked to old-timers who’d known him and must have heard plenty of colourful stories about him. Many years later Palmerston came under the spotlight once again when Hector Holthouse included a swagful of far-fetched yarns about him in River of Gold.

Idriess and Holthouse’s portrayals of Palmerston are probably no more accurate than Geoffrey of Monmouth’s# lively account of the adventures of Arthur, King of the Britons, but this is only to be expected. Their main aim was to write books that would sell, and they were loath to omit any entertaining stories simply because they weren’t true. This cavalier attitude upsets some people, but it’s worth noting that many reputable historians have done exactly the same thing. The Greek historian Herodotus is a good example. In his famous book The Histories he spiced his account of the Persian Wars with some of the most wonderful tales that have ever been told. A significant proportion are complete fabrications – as Herodotus himself readily acknowledges – but this hasn’t prevented him from being dubbed ‘the Father of History’. Posterity is

unlikely to be so generous to Idriess and Holthouse, but academic historians have no right adopting a sniffy attitude towards these two writers. They’ve created a lot of of interest in North Queensland history and there must be many instances of individuals who, after reading a fanciful story in one of their books, were inspired to turn to something more substantial to find out what really happened – although in the case of Christie Palmerston, this was rather difficult because until recently nothing suitable was available.

As a result of all the literary attention he’s received, Palmerston has become something of a folk hero. He hasn’t achieved the same status as Sir Donald Bradman, Caroline Chisholm, John Simpson Kirkpatrick or Phar Lap – nor is he ever likely to because he spent much of his time engaged in activities that were both illegal and unsavoury. He is, however, a far more impressive individual than Ben Hall, Ned Kelly, or any of Australia’s other well-known bushrangers. Their fame is due entirely to their success in stealing other people’s property and dishing out violence. Palmerston used to do this – specialising, it would seem, in highway robbery and running protection rackets – but he also had a number of more socially acceptable talents and these set him apart from the usual run-of-the-mill hoodlum.

We know for certain that Palmerston was a successful pathfinder. As we saw in Volume One, he answered the prayers of the inhabitants of the Hodgkinson Goldfield by finding a route through the main range of the Eastern Highlands that enabled a dray road to be built down to the coast. This occurred in 1877 and brought about the creation of Port Douglas. Soon after the discovery of the Great Northern tin lode Palmerston, along with Messrs Mullins and McLean, worked out the best route for a road connecting the town that grew up next to it, Herberton, to the existing road network. Then in 1882 he blazed a track, which was eventually cleared and made into the highway that now bears his name.

Palmerston appears to have had an unequalled knowledge of the customs and languages of the North Queensland Aborigines, and is said to have been a fine singer and a great lover. He was, however, no lover of the Chinese. He seems to have had a pathological hatred of the Cantonese miners

# Geoffrey of Monmouth lived in the 12th century and included a lengthy account of the adventures of King Arthur in his monumental tome Historia Regum Brittaniae. During the course of his research he was able to consult a number of existing texts, but much of what he wrote was based on stories that had been passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. Some sceptics believe that Arthur never actually existed, but there’s sufficient evidence to suggest that a charismatic chieftain of that name once led the tribes of south-west England and Wales to a series of military victories against the invading Saxons. No one can say for certain when these battles took place, but it must have been at least 600 years before Geoffrey began writing about them.



who had come to North Queensland to look for gold, and saw nothing wrong in hurting them. In other words, if the legends that have grown up around Christie Palmerston are based upon fact, he deserves to be regarded as a sort of Ned Kelly, William C. Wentworth, Margaret Meade, Dame Nellie Melba, Errol Flynn and Genghis Khan all rolled into one! Little wonder then that he’s had a highway and a nearby national park named after him. Indeed, with credentials like these, it’s surprising that his name isn’t known more widely. It’s probably going a bit far to suggest that the international airport in Cairns should have been named in his honour (if for no other reason than to avoid offending Chinese visitors!) but one would have thought that at least one university, cultural centre or five-star hotel should have ended up bearing his name.

Palmerston lived in the second half of the 19th century. This isn’t all that long ago and he spent his most productive years in a relatively accessible part of the world. One would have thought therefore that, given his reputation, at least one inquisitive journalist or would-be biographer would have persuaded him to give an account of his life, but this didn’t happen. At the height of his fame a reporter from the magazine Queensland Figaro managed to interview him but the article contained no revealing disclosures about his personal life and no mention of any alleged wrong doings.

The lack of verifiable facts about Palmerston means that bona fide historians find it difficult to know what to write about him, but for popular writers, like the two already mentioned, it’s an absolute godsend. They’re free to say what they like, safe in the knowledge that nobody will be able to contradict them. The question of Palmerston’s origin is a case in point. When I began doing the research for this chapter, I discovered an article about Palmerston in the North Queensland Register written by someone called ‘Bartle Frere’. It contained a number of interesting observations, including this one:

Christie Palmerston was the natural son of Lord Palmerston who became Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1855, during the Crimean War… He was educated at one of the great public schools in England and as a young man came to North Queensland after the rush of

1873 to the Palmer River gold diggings. He came from a distinguished paternal ancestry in England, to which he did not have a legitimate claim, and he had a most romantic connection on the distaff side.1

The ‘romantic connection’ referred to by Bartle Frere is the commonly held belief that Palmerston’s mother was an opera singer named Madame Carandini. There’s some evidence to suggest that he might possibly be connected to the Carandinis in some way: he’s reputed to have had a fine singing voice and musical ability is often inherited. But the most compelling evidence is found on his marriage certificate. On 6 December 1886 Palmerston walked down the aisle of St Joseph’s Church, Townsville, with an Irish-born music teacher named Teresa (or Theresa) Rooney. On the piece of paper that legalised their union, he claims that his real name was ‘Christofero Palmerston Carandini’, that his father was someone called ‘Casino Carandini’ and his mother’s maiden name was ‘Mary Burgss’ (sic).

The Carandinis were undoubtedly real people. Mary (or Maria) Burgess was born in England and, after emigrating to Tasmania, married an Italian aristocrat named Jerome (not Casino) Carandini on 11 March 1843. Jerome and Mary were both talented musicians and they created a company that performed in many parts of Australia, including the Palmer River where Palmerston could have attended one of their concerts. The Carandinis had a number of children, one of whom, Rosina (born in 1844) married a gentleman by the name of Edward Hodson Palmer in 1860. Is there a connection here? When Palmerston first appeared on the Palmer River in the early 1870s, J. V. Mulligan was under the impression that his name was Christie Palmer. Incidentally, Rosina gave birth to a daughter – Rosina Marie Hope Palmer – but she died after just four months.

From the odd clues that historians have been able to muster, it would appear that Palmerston lied on his marriage certificate, and had no blood ties whatsoever to the Carandinis; but the reason for the deception wouldn’t have been to avoid any unnecessary embarrassment for Lord Palmerston,

1 North Queensland Register 9.2.52



because he’d been dead for over 20 years. We can’t be 100% certain that Christie and the Third Viscount weren’t linked by more than just a name, but in light of the evidence presently available, it would seem that the chances of the former being the illegitimate son of the latter are about as likely as Florence Nightingale giving birth to a love child after an illicit liaison with Abraham Lincoln!

If Christie Palmerston wasn’t the son of Lord Palmerston and Madame Carandini, then what were his origins? According to the Australian Encyclopaedia, his parents had a dairy farm in the Gippsland district of Victoria, and it was there that he grew up; but, if the Queensland historians Woolston and Colliver are to be believed, he came from the very town where the Carandinis settled upon arriving in Australia. In an article in the magazine Queensland Heritage, they have this to say about Palmerston’s early life: C. Palmerston as a youth was brought from Hobart Town by Mark Christian and worked on that gentleman’s Millanje Station* in the Broadsound District2

(the Broadsound District is situated midway between Rockhampton and Mackay, not all that far from Cape Palmerston, which James Cook named after the Second Viscount Palmerston).

Complicating matters still further are two contradictory statements made by Palmerston himself. When he was in his late teens he told the prison authorities at St Helena that he was from Adelaide. Twenty years later he claimed on his marriage certificate to have been born in Melbourne.

In 1987 a book entitled Christie Palmerston, Explorer went on sale in bookshops up and down the country. It marked the culmination of many years research on the part of the author, New Zealand-born journalist Paul Savage. He succeeded in tracking down a considerable amount of information that had previously been overlooked, but even he was unable to shed much light on Palmerston’s early years. He does, however, draw his readers’ attention to the fact that Palmerston isn’t a recognised surname. It’s not mentioned in the authoritative Penguin Dictionary of Surnames, and there aren’t any Palmerstons in the London telephone directory. There are a few in Sydney, but

McHugh Bridge on the Palmerston Highway

2 Woolston, F.P. and Colliver F.S. Christy Palmerston – a North Queensland Pioneer, Prospector and Explorer Queensland Heritage November 1967

* He did in fact work on Woolangie (now Wilangi) Station.



they’re related to two Greek brothers who chose the name when they came to this country because they liked the sound of it. The Third Viscount Palmerston’s family name was Temple, and prior to the death of his father, the Second Viscount, he was known as Henry (or Harry) Temple.

The most we can say about the first part of Christie Palmerston’s life is that he must have been born between 1849 and 1851, and is more likely to have spent his childhood in south-eastern Australia than in England. We’ve no idea who his parents were (perhaps he didn’t even know himself ), and the name by which he’s known today wouldn’t be the one he was born with. He could have been given the name Palmerston by somebody else – such as the director of an orphanage, or a foster parent – but he’s more likely to have assumed it himself. The most logical explanation is that he decided to take the name of a well-known statesman to make himself sound important, but he might possibly have developed affection for Cape Palmerston while working in the Broadsound District and changed his name accordingly. This might sound a little far-fetched, but if a reputable journalist can get away with using the name of Queensland’s highest mountain, Mt Bartle Frere, as a pseudonym, then it’s surely not beyond the realms of possibility that a Central Queensland jackaroo (which is what Palmerston was in the late 1860s) should have substituted the name of one of eastern Australia’s most attractive headlands for the one he already had.

There’s another theory currently doing the rounds which could explain why Christie felt it necessary to change his existing name. While living in Central Queensland a man called George Charles Frederick Palmer committed a grisly murder just outside Rockhampton. If Christie’s real surname was Palmer – and there is a distinct possibility that it was – he might have changed it in case anyone thought that he was related to George.

The first time that Palmerston’s whereabouts can be pinpointed with absolute accuracy is 13 February 1869. He was in Rockhampton at the time and during the morning he was arrested on suspicion of having stolen a horse and saddle. Initially, he said his surname was Palmer, but he subsequently told the authorities that it was in fact Palmerston. After three weeks behind bars he appeared before the District Court in Rockhampton on 8 March.

Prior to his arrest Palmerston had been working for the Christian brothers, Mark and William, at their Woolangie* grazing property in the Broadsound District. Early in 1869 he and a fellow employee, one Henry Hopson, had been told to take a mob of cattle to Rockhampton. On the way, however, Palmerston suddenly left Hopson and rode to Rockhampton where, it was alleged, he disposed of a saddle and a horse that belonged to Mark Christian. During the trial Mark Christian said he had no knowledge of Palmerston’s past, and it was his brother, William, who’d employed him. Palmerston pleaded not guilty, but the jury found him guilty of stealing the saddle – and the judge sentenced him to two years in jail. He was taken to St Helena Prison and remained there until being set free on 8 November 1870. Rather surprisingly, William Christian didn’t participate in the original trial, nor was he summoned to give evidence at the appeal. This took place in June 1869 in Brisbane, so it would have been difficult for William Christian to attend. The same, however, can’t be said for the Carandinis – by an extraordinary coincidence, they were performing in Brisbane at the same time as the appeal!

When Palmerston was released the Brisbane papers were full of stories about the wonderful opportunities to be had on the newly-discovered Etheridge Goldfield. We don’t know if it was this that motivated him to go there, but go he did and he was there on 3 September 1873 when J. V. Mulligan rode into Georgetown (the main town on the Etheridge) and announced he’d discovered gold on the Palmer River. Like many of the diggers in the district, Palmerston decided to accompany Mulligan on his return journey. Soon after his arrival at the diggings, Palmerston was among a group of miners that was attacked by Aborigines. None of the Europeans was killed but Palmerston and two others received spear wounds. The skirmish was reported in a number of newspapers including the Cleveland Bay Express, which refers to Palmerston as ‘Christy the Singer’.3 The information in the article was supplied by somebody who’d gone to the diggings, and the

3 Cleveland Bay Express 3.11.73

* Willie Joss, who later played a significant role in the early days of Herberton, grew up on a nearby Maxton Station.



casual reference to Palmerston is the most solid piece of evidence that he had a musical streak in him.

While he was living on the Etheridge Goldfield Palmerston’s name appears on three mining leases, which suggests he spent the bulk of his time working as a miner, but on the Palmer he appears to have found less laborious ways of earning a living. All sorts of legends have come down to us about what he got up to during the heady days when large quantities of gold were found in the area, but verifiable facts are difficult to come by. He’s said to have made large sums of money by stealing other people’s gold, but did it in such style that many of his contemporaries regarded him as a latter day Robin Hood and, whenever the need arose, there was always someone willing to help him avoid falling into the hands of the police. He also seems to have developed a remarkable affinity with the Cape York Aborigines: he learned their language and spent most of his time in their company; and, with their help, he was always able to keep one step ahead of any would-be pursuers.

The only piece of solid evidence to have emerged relating to Palmerston’s criminal activities during his Palmer River days appears in the Cooktown Herald. In Issue No 242 on 7 October 1876 we learn that he’d been found guilty of assaulting two Chinese and given the option of paying a £5 fine or going to prison for three months. Then, on leaving court, he was arrested for the illegal use of a horse and remanded for three days.

During my two-year stint at the Ravenshoe State School I organised a number of excursions to the Mt Molloy/Mt Carbine area, and these would always include an audience with Mt Carbine’s most illustrious son, Darby Macnamara. He would entertain the children with a repertoire of songs, poems, and stories, one of which was about Palmerston. Darby’s father and Palmerston were contemporaries, and the former lived in a part of the North that the latter visited frequently. Regrettably, neither I nor any of the students thought to ask Darby if the two had known each other, although his failure to mention any such link suggests that their paths never did cross. It’s unlikely that the story is an accurate account of a real event, but it’s a rattling good yarn, and the picture he paints of Palmerston fits in well with the image that most people have of him…

Christie Palmerston was often in trouble with the police, but he was such a good bushman that they could never lay their hands on him. Sometimes though, when things started getting a bit too hot for comfort, he’d round up a mob of blackfellas, then head off to a place called Christie’s Pocket, and remain there until things had quietened down. Christie’s Pocket is a patch of open forest in the middle of the scrub behind Cape Tribulation, and once he was there the police didn’t have a hope of catching him.

One time a police sergeant and four constables went looking for Palmerston. They followed him for a few days and eventually caught up with him. They spotted him sitting on a ledge next to a big rock and the sergeant decided to walk over to him and place him under arrest. He didn’t think that Christie had noticed him, but when he got behind the rock he realised that he’d made a serious mistake. Palmerston was sitting there as calm as could be, pointing his rifle directly at him. “Look mate,” he said, “This gun is loaded. Tell your men I’m not here, otherwise you’re for it.” “Righto,” replied the sergeant and off he went taking his constables with him.

In Darby’s story, Palmerston comes across as a swashbuckling character who was too clever by half for the local law enforcement officers. He’s obviously a superb bushman and has the same sort of relationship with his Aboriginal friends that Robin Hood had with his Merrie Men. Holthouse, in River of Gold, portrays him in a similar fashion, but he also has a thing or two to say about why the police were anxious to apprehend him in the first place:

He arrived on the Palmer early in the rush, bearded and unkempt as a blackfellow, with a carbine slung over his shoulder, a Colt revolver on his hip, and a small army of half-wild myalls at his back. No one ever saw him digging for gold, but he always seemed to have a good supply of it. Old diggers muttered darkly that it came from miners who had been murdered by the blacks. In Cooktown’s gambling dens he was nearly always lucky, and in the dance halls women flocked about him.

In the rugged country between Cooktown and the goldfields, Palmerston seemed to know his



way about as well as the blacks themselves, and, with the help of his black bodyguard, he developed the uncanny knack of knowing everything that was going on in it. Several times myalls, massing along the track to ambush diggers, found themselves mown down by a fusillade from the Sniders of Palmerston’s men. Even the police admitted that Palmerston was worth a whole regiment of troopers for the work he did in controlling the blacks.4

In the same chapter, entitled Robbers and Killers, Holthouse describes Palmerston’s attitude towards the Chinese. For them he had:

…a fanatical hatred. He raided them ruthlessly, robbed them of their gold and stores, killed them by the dozen, and it was alleged, bartered those he took prisoner with the cannibal blacks knowing they would be used as food.5

These remarks about Palmerston’s exploits during the days when the Palmer River Goldfield was in its heyday are written in a light-hearted manner, but they contain a couple of very serious allegations. If, as Holthouse says, large numbers of Aborigines were mown down after running into a fusillade from the Sniders of Palmerston’s men, and if he really was responsible for the deaths of dozens of Chinese, he was anything but a Robin Hood figure. Instead of robbing the rich to give to the poor, Palmerston’s motto seems to have been ‘steal from the poor and keep the lot’ and never in the stories of Robin Hood does one read about the persecution of ethnic minorities and mass murder.

By their very nature the kind of stories associated with Palmerston are impossible to verify, but such evidence as does exist suggests that he wasn’t as brutal as Holthouse makes out. If, as the author infers, he used to ambush groups of Chinese and hand them over to his Aboriginal companions to be eaten, he’d surely have ended up dangling from the end of a rope. He couldn’t possibly have committed crimes of this nature without being found out; and, even though there must have been some measure of anti-Chinese feeling among the police, they surely wouldn’t have ignored something as monstrous as this.

The notion that he was responsible for the deaths of large numbers of Aborigines doesn’t ring true either. He could well have killed one or two when he was attacked shortly after his arrival at the Palmer River in October 1873, and Mulligan tells us that he shot two after being ambushed on the King River in the summer of 1879–80. He also orchestrated a mini-massacre not far from Crawford’s Lookout on Boxing Day 1882. But if, as Holthouse seems to imply, he wiped out scores, if not hundreds, of Aborigines, this would soon have become common knowledge among the native people of Cape York and they’d have either shunned him or taken revenge. As it was, Palmerston spent most of his time in their company, and knew their ways better than any other European.

In 1878 the Cairns police were anxious to speak to Palmerston about a serious offence that had been committed on their patch. No hard facts have yet come to light, but it seems he was suspected of taking part in a robbery the previous November. We’ve no idea whether or not he was involved, but charges were never laid, presumably through lack of evidence.

Early in 1876 a party of prospectors led by Mulligan found payable gold next to the Hodgkinson River. During the ensuing months hundreds of diggers came into the area and a number of towns, the most prominent of which were Kingsborough and Thornborough, were created. At first, supplies for the new goldfield came through Cooktown and along a hastily built road from Maytown, but in September 1876 Bill Smith and Sub-Inspector Douglas cut tracks to Trinity Bay, which was much nearer to the Hodgkinson than Cooktown. The tracks, however, couldn’t be used by wheeled traffic so the Hodgkinson was still dependent on the long and tortuous road from Cooktown.

This situation lasted for over a year, but in May 1877 Palmerston and a companion named Leighton (or Layton or Lakeland), followed the Mowbray River down to the coastal lowlands and claimed that a dray road could be built along its valley. This was very fortuitous because a new port site, named White Cliffs, had been discovered close to the mouth of the Mowbray, and it appeared to have more going for it than the infant settlement of Cairns, which had grown up at the seaward end of the Smith and Douglas tracks. The local

4 Holthouse, H. River of Gold, Arkon, Sydney 1973 p 105.

5 Ibid.



mining warden, W. O. Hodgkinson, travelled along the Palmerston–Leighton track and confirmed that it was suitable for a dray road. On 11 June 1877 a meeting was convened in Thornborough to discuss giving the two pathfinders a reward for their efforts. Palmerston was present, and so too were Hodgkinson and Mulligan. The outcome was a public subscription which eventually raised the princely sum of £246. The track was quickly cleared and a road built. White Cliffs didn’t live up to expectations, but another site was found 16km away. At first the port that grew there was called Port Salisbury, but by the end of the year it had acquired the name it bears today – Port Douglas.

Palmerston was very much a loner and in all the years he spent in Far North Queensland he doesn’t appear to have had a single European friend. He did, however, spend a significant amount of time in the company of Mulligan. There’s an inevitability in this, given that they both lived and worked on the Cape York goldfields from 1873 until well into the 1880s, and shared a common interest in prospecting and exploring. They appear to have got to know each other in Gympie, prior to Palmerston’s spell in prison. Palmerston accompanied Mulligan to the Palmer in September 1873 and joined him on at least one of his subsequent forays into the bush – the expedition that Mulligan put together at the end of 1879 to explore the King and Lukin rivers. As we saw in Volume One, it was something of a fiasco: those who went found very little gold, and at one stage it seemed they were all destined to suffer the same fate as Burke and Wills. Nevertheless, the expedition wasn’t a complete waste of time as far as Palmerston was concerned. In the eight or so weeks they were away Mulligan was able to pass on many useful tips to his younger colleague, and later Palmerston was able to put into practice much of what he’d learned from the old maestro.

Two people who knew Palmerston better than most were the owners of the Mitchell Vale grazing property, Henry and John Fraser. He was a frequent visitor and they held him in the highest regard… at least that’s the impression John Fraser gives in an article he wrote for Cummins and Campbell’s Magazine. His sentiments need to be treated with some caution because the article appeared many years after the explorer’s death and when Fraser was an old man. Unfortunately, Fraser has very little

to say about Palmerston’s background, and there’s scarcely a mention of his brushes with the law, but he does give us an interesting description of what he looked like:

He was a man of over medium height, stout build and very active, with a black bushy beard, and thick black curly hair. As he wore no hat, it looked like a big mop. He was dressed in what I used afterwards to call his fighting rig, it consisted of a cotton shirt, held round the waist by a broad belt, glistening with cartridges, and holding into his hip a large sized Colt revolver, while a Snider rifle hung from his shoulder. Blue moleskin trousers were tucked into knee boots.6

It was during one of his visits to Mitchell Vale that Palmerston first set eyes on the person who came to mean more to him than anyone else in the world. They met sometime in 1877 against a backdrop of bitter conflict between the Frasers and their Aboriginal neighbours. When they’d arrived at Mitchell Vale the brothers appear to have been under the impression the Aborigines would meekly acquiesce in the seizure of their land, but this had been quickly shattered by a series of attacks on their horses. Palmerston was informed of the situation and was asked to assist in preventing all-out war. Given his knowledge of Aboriginal lore and his ability to converse with the indigenous people in their own tongue, he was the obvious person to turn to. But, even if he’d been blessed with the wisdom of Solomon, he couldn’t possibly have come up with a solution that was acceptable to both sides. Since the arrival of the Frasers in 1876 the Aborigines had seen a decline in the availability of the kind of tucker they were used to, and helping themselves to the Frasers’ stock was literally a matter of life or death. On the other hand, the Frasers were understandably more than a little peeved at the loss of many of their best horses.

Palmerston soon had a first-hand view of what the Frasers were up against. He and John Fraser went after a group of blacks they suspected of being implicated in the disappearance of the missing animals. When they eventually caught up with them

6 ‘Memories of Christie Palmerston: Reminiscences of John Fraser’, Cummins and Campbell’s Monthly Magazine Feb. 1947.



the Aborigines were camped beside Rifle Creek preparing a communal meal, the centrepiece of which was one of the Mitchell Vale horses. When they realised they’d been spotted, all but one of the Aborigines took off into the bush. The exception was a young boy – a member of the Kuku Yalangi linguistic group, to whom Palmerston gave the name ‘Pompo’. He didn’t seem at all put out by the sudden appearance of a couple of Europeans on horseback. This might have been because he knew who they were and thought it unlikely he’d come to any harm. He was further reassured by Palmerston’s ability to converse with him in his own language, and when Palmerston suggested they both go back to his camp he readily agreed.

So began a relationship which in North Queensland mythology was as close and fruitful as those between Laurel and Hardy, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, Batman and Robin, and Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh. It lasted for five years and only came to an end when Pompo died at a tragically young age.

At the end of 1878 Palmerston and Pompo went prospecting in the Daintree area. We know from a couple of entries in a subsequent diary that the expedition ended sooner than planned because of heavy rain, and that he and Pompo were accompanied by somebody whom Palmerston

refers to as a ‘half-caste’. Thanks to Mulligan’s diary, which appeared in the Queenslander early in 1880, we know Pompo was a member of the ill-fated expedition to the King and Lukin Rivers but we cannot say for certain if he was with Palmerston when Palmerston made his next useful contribution to the European takeover of Far North Queensland.

In April 1880 Thomas Brandon, John Brown, Willie Jack and John Newell discovered a massive tin lode on the headwaters of the Wild River. They didn’t have the wherewithal to develop it themselves, but Jack and Newell knew somebody who did – their former boss, John Moffat, who was managing director of a flourishing tin operation in the New England district of New South Wales. When Moffat became aware of the magnitude of the lode and the quality of the ore, he decided to develop it. But before work could begin a road had to be built, and this is where Palmerston came in. He and two companions – one called McLean, the other Mullins (or perhaps Muller or Miller) – mapped out a suitable route. We’ve no way of knowing whether Pompo went with them (although he probably did) and we’ve no idea if they began in Herberton (the town that grew up next to the lode) and worked north, or went about it the other way round. Well-known Queensland historian, Ivan Searston, made me realise that working out

The Palmerston Highway in the 1980s



a route for a dray road connecting Herberton to Port Douglas wasn’t as impressive as I’d previously thought. He pointed out Mulligan and Atherton had both done the journey before and Palmerston more or less followed in their footsteps.

The road Palmerston and his partners helped create left the Port Douglas–Thornborough road near Mt Molloy, crossed Granite Creek at what is now Mareeba and went through the Tolga Scrub, before emerging just to the north of where Atherton later grew. This part of the road crossed flat country and was relatively easy to build, but just south of Mazlin Creek the construction teams had to take the road over the Herberton Range. Fortunately for them, Palmerston, McLean and Mullins had pointed them in the right direction, and the all-important stampers for the Great Northern’s battery arrived in Herberton in February 1881.

By the late 1870s the more accessible parts of North Queensland had all been picked-over by parties of prospectors but few Europeans had been game enough to venture into the mountains that lay to the back of the stretch of coast between the Johnstone and Endeavour rivers. Palmerston evidently thought that if payable gold were to be found anywhere in the North it would be in the catchment area of one of the rivers that breach the main range of the Eastern Highlands. Eventually, he discovered gold on the Russell River but his first efforts at prospecting in the thickly-forested mountain ranges were concentrated further to the north.

Sometime in 1880 Palmerston decided to mount an expedition to the headwaters of the McLeod and Daintree rivers. For reasons of security he wanted at least two other people to accompany Pompo and himself but he had difficulty in persuading anyone else to come with him. It’s not hard to see why. Besides being mountainous, much of the country through which the expedition would have to pass was covered in dense rainforest and was home to people who were adept at using the harsh environment to wage guerrilla war on unwanted intruders. As a result, even if Palmerston and Pompo had gone during the dry months, their journey would still have been dangerous; but for some reason they didn’t get going until the end of September, perilously close to the beginning of the wet season. Palmerston probably intended setting off earlier but he was laid up at Mitchell Vale with

fever for three weeks and was too ill to travel. Perhaps the sight of Palmerston’s helplessness caused Henry Fraser to take leave of his senses temporarily, because he decided to join Palmerston and Pompo on their dangerous mission.

Palmerston, Pompo and Fraser left Mitchell Vale on 29 September 1880. They evidently expected to be away for a long time, because they took with them nine horses, half a ton of supplies and a handful of dogs. They ended up being away two-and-a-half months, and had to put up with all sorts of trials and tribulations. If they’d discovered a goldfield of the same magnitude as the Palmer or Hodgkinson their suffering would have been worthwhile, but all they found were a few specks so the pain and misery were in vain.

A few days after leaving Mitchell Vale Palmerston and Fraser were involved in an ugly incident that resulted in the deaths of at least two people. The fatalities occurred while the two prospectors were making their way back to camp at the end of a hard day’s exploring on Escape Creek (a tributary of the McLeod). The surrounding country had been set ablaze by Aborigines. This was severely restricting their freedom of movement and making it very difficult for them to see where they were going. Palmerston was under the impression the fires had been lit to facilitate an attack, so he’d loaded his Snider rifle. Fraser was also aware of the potential danger but while trying to scramble up a steep slope he failed to notice three armed Aborigines, the eldest of whom was about to throw a spear in his direction. Luckily for Fraser, Palmerston saw the danger and promptly shot the spear-thrower, along with at least one of his companions. In his diary, which appeared in instalments in the Queenslander early in 1881, Palmerston insists that he had no alternative. His exact words are: I had been compelled to shoot in defence of my mate (i.e. Fraser).7 It’s a terse, simple explanation and one that most of his European contemporaries would have accepted without question.

Over the next couple of months Palmerston and his two colleagues were attacked on a number of other occasions and they can count themselves lucky to have survived, but it’s apparent from the

7 Palmerston, C. ‘Daintree Explorations’ Queenslander, 22.1.81



tone of his diary that he had a grudging respect for his adversaries. He obviously admires their unconquerable hostility8 and describes them as the finest and fiercest tribes of aboriginals I have met with in my numerous Northern explorations.9

Apart from a few skirmishes with the Aborigines, the first three-and-a-half weeks of the expedition were reasonably pleasant but thereafter the explorers lurched from one crisis to another. The first occurred on 21 October when Pompo almost died following an injury to his neck. According to Palmerston, it was an unfortunate accident caused when he tapped Pompo on the neck with a scrub knife to attract his attention. The knife severed Pompo’s jugular vein, causing him to bleed profusely, and for a time it looked like he might die. This explanation, however, beggars belief. Could the real reason have something to do with the fact that Palmerston was angry at Pompo over an incident that had occurred a few hours earlier? The previous night he’d left him in charge of a captured Aboriginal girl – in fact he’d tied her to Pompo’s leg – but she’d escaped. Maybe this led Palmerston to lose his temper and set about Pompo with his knife. This seems a more rational explanation than Palmerston’s.

Palmerston felt awfully aggrieved 10 at what he’d done, but Pompo was up and about again by the end of the month, which is just as well because on 1 November Palmerston suffered a severe bout of fever. He quickly recovered but a week later Fraser went down with the same complaint. He dosed himself up with Beckley and Taylor’s Mixture and was soon well enough to get back into the saddle. The medicine, however, did nothing to allay the misgivings he was beginning to have about the expedition and on 23 November he told Palmerston that he’d had enough and wanted to return to Mitchell Vale. Palmerston was all for carrying on, but failed to persuade Fraser to change his mind. The ferocity of the Aboriginal attacks had unsettled Fraser and he was convinced that sooner or later he’d be killed – a dismal prospect for someone so young.

After the expedition had been abandoned Fraser, Palmerston and Pompo rode together for just over a week. Then on 2 December, when they were about 50km from Mitchell Vale, Fraser left the other two and made his way home. There was, however, one more drama before the expedition finally ended.

On 11 December, while prospecting in the upper reaches of the Mitchell, Palmerston handled some spears left by their Aboriginal owners. Soon after he rubbed his face without first washing his hands, and the following day was horrified to find that he’d lost the sight in one eye. A few hours later the same thing happened to the other eye and for five days he was in considerable pain. It was about the worst thing that could have happened to him and if he’d been alone he could well have died, but Pompo was able to lead him to Thornborough and the nearest doctor. He said the blindness was unlikely to be permanent but he’d need to travel to Brisbane or Sydney and consult a specialist to be sure. This is presumably what he did during the ensuing months, although we’ve no knowledge of where he went, who treated him, or how long it was before he recovered.

As we saw earlier, the discovery of the Great Northern tin lode had profound consequences for the economic development of North Queensland, and for the Aborigines whose very existence seemed likely to stand in the way of that development. The Great Northern turned out to be one of the most productive tin lodes in Australian mining history, and it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t the only ore body in the area. During the early 1880s other tin deposits, both lode and alluvial, were found close to the Great Northern, and in 1881 Mulligan discovered silver just a few miles away.

The road that was built to connect the Great Northern with the coast enabled the deposit to be exploited, but it fell well short of providing the tin miners and their dependents with an adequate link to the outside world. The Wild River is a long way from Port Douglas, and the fact that the road had to cross two mountain ranges meant that journeys along it were painfully slow. Moreover, during the wet season the creeks rose, the surface of the road acquired the consistency of molasses and Herberton could be isolated for weeks, even months.

The success of any mining venture depends on transporting bulky items quickly and cheaply to wherever they’re needed. In the case of Herberton, much of the machinery in the mines – and at the

8 Ibid

9 Ibid

10 Ibid, 29.1.81



battery Moffat erected next to the Wild River – was large and heavy and, if smelters were to be built (as Moffat intended), huge quantities of fuel would be needed. Such an operation could have been performed by a fleet of horse-drawn vehicles, but the cost of transporting fuel this way would have been prohibitive. What Herberton needed was a railway to one of the coastal ports. The Government was made aware of the urgency of the situation by various civic and mining industry leaders, and was called upon to come up with a favourable response at the earliest possible date.

The problem facing Herberton in the early 1880s was very similar to the one that had hindered the development of the Hodgkinson Goldfield a few years earlier. The Great Northern was only about 130km from the coast but there appeared to be no way through the main range of the Eastern Highlands. The best outcome would have been a railway linking Herberton with Innisfail (or Geraldton as it then was) because the nearby port of Mourilyan is closer than either Port Douglas or Cairns, but the people of Herberton were quite prepared to let the Government choose the site of the railway’s terminus just as long as work began right away.

The Government was eager to assist in bringing the project to fruition. The level of mining activity on the Walsh–Tinaroo Mining Field was such that a railway appeared to be a viable proposition, and of course there were votes to be had if the plan were given the go-ahead. A decision was made early in 1882 to appoint someone to explore the coast between the Mossman and Mulgrave rivers to see if there was a gap in the mountains through which a railway could be built. The person chosen was neither a qualified surveyor nor a civil engineer, but he knew the scrub better than any other member of his race and had a proven track record of finding routes through mountainous terrain. He also had a record of a somewhat different nature and there were rumours that he’d been involved in a number of nasty incidents during his day on the Palmer River. All this, however, was overlooked because the Government wanted the best man for the job, and that’s exactly what they got when they selected Palmerston and asked him to see if he could do for Herberton what he’d already done for the Hodgkinson Goldfield. It’s by no means certain what caused Palmerston to be given the nod, but on 28 February 1881 the by-now legendary

J. V. Mulligan had written some flattering remarks about his remarkable bush skills in a Brisbane newspaper, and this may possibly have swayed the Government.

Palmerston started work at the beginning of April 1882 in the vicinity of Port Douglas, and over the next four months he and Pompo gradually made their way south, surveying the various river valleys and mountain spurs. Palmerston kept a diary, which he sent at regular intervals to the authorities in Brisbane (the first instalment to the Minister for Mines, the rest to the Minister for Works). An edited version of the diary was published in the Brisbane Courier at the end of August 1882, while the full text can be read in Paul Savage’s excellent book Christie Palmerston, Explorer. Palmerston could have intended to proceed further south than he did, but by the end of July he was suffering from severe head pains and the Minister for Works was anxious for him to complete the survey as soon as possible. So on 2 August, when he and Pompo were in the vicinity of Mt Bellenden Ker, he decided to head back to Cairns and dispatch the last part of his report to Brisbane.

The people of Cairns were hoping Palmerston would recommend the railway be built along the Barron Valley, but when his report was published they were disappointed. After spending several days in mid-June exploring the eastern end of the Barron Gorge, Palmerston was forced to conclude that it would be extremely difficult to take a railway through it. Here, in part, is what he had to say:

I do not know what height the range is where the river (the Barron) breaks through, neither do I care, for it would cost a mint of money to construct a line the few miles I have travelled this morning, and then it would be a dangerous one, because in many places the mountains were that precipitous they would overhang the line, and the risk to life, and property would be enormous caused by landslips. I do not know what induces people to recommend such places as these…11

This was hardly the ringing endorsement that those favouring Cairns had been hoping for and it angered the Chairman of the Cairns Divisional Board,

11 Palmerston, C. Diary entry 11.6.82



Archie Meston, but the report didn’t actually do Cairns’ cause any harm. In the time he was away, Palmerston hadn’t seen a single significant gap in the range, and he says as much at the end of his report. He was:

…positive there is not a natural road over the coast range or anything approaching it, will require great skill and engineering wherever you wish to cross it…12

Despite the fact that he’d failed to find a way through the mountains the Government was well pleased with his efforts. So too, in a perverse way, were the elected representatives of the European settlers who’d made their homes in and around Geraldton. By pouring cold water on the aspirations of Cairns and Port Douglas, Palmerston had marginally improved Mourilyan’s chances of becoming the terminus for the Herberton Railway.

On 8 August 1882 Palmerston was approached by Mr H. M. Stapleton, then Chairman of the Johnstone River Divisional Board (the forerunner of the Johnstone Shire Council), and asked if he’d be interested in leading an expedition through the mountains to the back of Geraldton. Three months earlier Sub-Inspector Douglas had tried to find a track from Herberton to the tidal reaches of the Johnstone, but had run into all sorts of difficulties and had been forced to conclude that if a railway were to be built between Herberton and the coast, it would have to take a different route. In 1876, however, Douglas had tried to find a way through the mountains that lay between the Hodgkinson Goldfield and the sea, and all he could manage was a pathetic little track that was hardly ever used. A few months later Palmerston had turned his attention to the same problem and found a much better route – one suitable for wheeled traffic – and thousands of people, both on the coast and in the inland mining centres, had reaped the benefits. Stapleton was hoping history was about to repeat itself.

The offer Stapleton came up with was, on the face of it, reasonably generous. If Palmerston could blaze

a track to Herberton he’d be paid £400, although if he failed he’d receive nothing. A couple of weeks later the two met again and hammered out a slightly different agreement. A route suitable for an ordinary pack-track would earn Palmerston £300, and if his exploratory work were to lead to the construction of a railway, he could expect a further £100. If, on the other hand, his efforts were in vain, the Board would still give him enough money to cover the cost of the expedition. The sum of £100 was agreed upon and Stapleton assured Palmerston he’d receive the first instalment early in October… provided the other members of the Johnstone River Divisional Board didn’t object.

Soon after the first meeting between Palmerston and Stapleton, Pompo died suddenly. Palmerston gives us a brief account of the tragedy in the first instalment of the diary he kept while on his epic journey from Mourilyan to Herberton and back, and the inquest into the death has survived. In addition, one of the main figures in the next chapter – John Fraser of Mitchell Vale – claims to have come across Pompo as he lay dying. Using these three sources it’s possible to piece together the dismal tale of Pompo’s death.

During the last week of August 1882 Palmerston and Pompo were in Herberton, staying at Kilgour’s Hotel. Pompo hadn’t been in the best of health for some time, and by the morning of Saturday 26 August he’d become so ill that Palmerston thought it wise to take him to the Herberton Hospital. Pompo was seen by Doctor Anderson, and then entrusted into the care of the hospital wardsman, Laurence David Alexander Montgomery*. Given the gravity of Pompo’s medical condition and that there was a danger of him absconding, one might have expected Palmerston to have stayed at Pompo’s bedside… but he went drinking instead.

During the night Palmerston’s worst fears were realised: Pompo somehow managed to climb through a window eight feet above ground level, and by the time Montgomery arrived at work early the following morning there was no sign of him. Montgomery alerted the police and they set about

12 Ibid. 1.8.81

* We met L.D.A. Montgomery in Volume Two. Earlier in his life he’d served in the British Army and seen action in the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny. He subsequently became a storekeeper at the Tate River Township, and is buried there.



13 Ibid.

locating a couple of black trackers to search for Pompo, while Montgomery went to Kilgour’s Hotel and told Palmerston.

The search for Pompo lasted well into the afternoon He was eventually located by William A Miller, after an un-named ‘cattle drover’ came across him at the Poor Stroller Mine. Pompo was still alive when Miller got to him, but was naked and teetering on death. He mustered the strength to lift his head and ask for water but never spoke again. When Palmerston appeared on the scene Pompo was just about conscious but he died 20 minutes later with his head on Palmerston’s lap.

In the first part of the diary he kept while trying to find a route suitable for a railway through the mountains behind Geraldton, Palmerston describes his reaction to Pompo’s death:

This irreparable loss plunged me in great misery. Even now it is with an overwhelming sense of grief and swimming eyes I copy these lines. It is not in me to express how much this little aborigine had endeared himself to me by his bright intelligence and fidelity. He accompanied me through the darkest scenes of my life – sickness, famine, adversity – and saved me from death several times; and these troubles were much harder to bear than many can imagine, because they came upon us when cut off from all communication with civilisation while exploring the wilds of North Queensland.13

The Mitchell Vale grazier John Fraser claimed many years later to have come across Pompo as he was going through his death throes, so I naturally assumed that he must have been the ‘cattle drover’ Palmerston mentioned at the magisterial inquest, although I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t name Fraser because he knew him well. The inquest, on 30 August was extremely thorough. Pompo was referred to throughout as ‘Christopher Palmerston’ and Palmerston claims that he was his god son.

Site of one of Christie Palmerston’s camping places as he blazed his track from Geraldton to Herberton (it’s located next to the Millaa Millaa Falls)



Palmerston, Montgomery, Dr Anderson and several policemen all made submissions. Their accounts didn’t always tally but the cause of death seems clear enough – a combination of malaria and congestion of the lungs.

Now that Pompo was dead, Palmerston had to decide what to do with the body. He may have toyed with the idea of getting in touch with Pompo’s Kuku Yalangi language group so he could be buried in the traditional way, but in the end Palmerston decided the only feasible course of action would be to bury him in Herberton. This duly happened and, according to Fraser, Palmerston erected a headstone above the grave.

The most logical place for Pompo to have been interred was in the main Herberton cemetery. Aborigines weren’t usually buried alongside Europeans in those days, but I thought an exception might have been made in Pompo’s case because of his celebrity status. One Saturday in July 1973 I decided to see for myself.

As I walked up and down the rows of headstones I paused to take photos of a number of graves, including those of John Newell and Thomas Brandon, but I was unable to find one bearing Pompo’s name. Before heading back to Ravenshoe, however, I went round to see long-term Herberton resident Gerry Culloty and I asked him if he knew where Pompo was buried.

‘So you’re looking for Pompo’s grave, eh? Well you’re in luck: you’ve come to one of the few people in Herberton who knows where it is. He’s not buried in the main cemetery, but in an earlier one. It’s located on the Wondecla side of town, to the right of the main road and very close to the railway line. I’ll take you there if you like, but you needn’t bother bringing your camera because there’s practically nothing there. You said something earlier about Palmerston putting up a headstone. Well that’s not right. Headstones cost an arm and a leg in those days, and it took a long time to get them brought up from the coast. As you know, Palmerston was never in one place for more than a couple of days at a time, so he had someone knock up a wooden cross for him. The other graves in the cemetery were marked in the same way, and that’s why you’re not going to get the photo you want.

‘A few years back a bushfire went through the graveyard and everything in it was destroyed. I remember the Catholic priest we had at the time being very upset. He was a bit of a History buff, and was disgusted that nobody had had the presence of mind to grab hold of Pompo’s cross before it was consumed by the flames.’

When I wrote the first draft of this chapter I was happy to take the inquest report and what Palmerston and Fraser had to say about Pompo’s death at face value. But on 2 November 2008 I had a nasty shock, and it occurred, appropriately enough, less than a kilometre from the spot where Pompo was buried. Ivan Searston had arranged for me to promote Volume Two of Up the Palmerston in the Herberton Mining Centre, and the day before the event he told me that he’d discovered something that would amaze me. After the promotion he handed me a couple of documents.

‘Righto Ivan, what’s this?’ I asked.

‘Some startling and puzzling information relating to the death of Pompo,’ he replied.

‘How intriguing! What have we got here? Let me see. It’s the Queensland Police Gazette Number 21, 1882, page 171, and… good grief. It mentions the death of a 12-year old stockman named Christopher Palmerston on 27 September 1882, and W. A. Muller is credited with being the last person to see him alive. I’m stunned. What does this all mean? At the inquest William A Miller, who’s obviously the same man as this W. A. Muller, is said to have found him, and Pompo’s official name was said to have been ‘Christopher Palmerston’, but in this document there’s no mention of Christie Palmerston and the date’s wrong.’

‘That about sums it up. You’re right about the date. Christie is meant to have been with Pompo when he died, but on 27 September he was in Townsville. But if you think this is a little odd, take a look at the other piece of paper.’

I picked up the second document that Ivan had photocopied. It was page 163 of the Queensland Police Gazette Number 20 and contained the death record of an ‘Aboriginal Servant’. The person in question died on 26 August 1882 (which is the day Pompo was rushed to hospital); Christie Palmerston and W.A. Muller are listed as being the last to see



the deceased; and the cause of death was ‘congestion of the lungs’, which tallies precisely with the verdict the inquest into Pompo’s death came up with. Nothing too shocking here, but when I read the name of the person, I nearly fell off my chair in amazement. It was ‘Charlotte Palmerston’, which would tend to suggest that if the entry was genuine Pompo must have been a girl!

‘What a bombshell! One of Palmerston’s few endearing features is the way in which he’s said to have cared for Pompo and treated him like the son he never had; but, if this is what it seems, the relationship with Pompo could have been of a very different nature. In my book I suggest that it might be appropriate to name something like a government building, or a university, after him. In light of what you’ve just shown me, I doubt that this will happen in a hurry!’

‘To be quite honest, I’m not exactly sure how this stacks up. It’s not at all clear if Charlotte and Pompo really were the same person.’

‘They can’t possibly be. When Pompo was found at the Poor Stroller Mine he was naked… and then there was the inquest. If Pompo had been a girl, everyone would have known and he wouldn’t have been called ‘Christopher’. Besides, there were lots of people who didn’t like Palmerston: if he really had been cavorting around the scrub with a female travelling companion, barely in her teens, one of them would surely have dobbed him in.’

‘Exactly. Another good reason for thinking that Pompo must have been male.’

‘Well, that’s good to know. By the way, who’s this William. A. Miller?’

‘We know hardly anything about him, apart from the fact that he was with Palmerston when he found a route for the dray road to Herberton. He’s also sometimes referred to as ‘Mullins’ or ‘Muller’, but it appears to be the same person.’

‘I’m also slightly puzzled by the Fraser account. Where does this info you’ve just come up with leave that?’

‘Again, I don’t really know, but it probably contains at least an element of truth. You need to remember that Fraser was an old man when he recalled stumbling across Pompo as he lay dying, but what he said about the flight from the hospital, and the cause of death,

fits in well with what the police report has to say about Christopher Palmerston’s death a month after Charlotte’s, or, if you prefer, the inquest version of the Christopher Palmerston whose life ended on 27 August at the Poor Stroller Mine.’

‘How very odd!’

‘Quite. Anyway there’s still work to be done on all this, but I hope the picture will have clarified by the time of your next visit.’

‘Be a bit late. Volume Three will have come out by then, and if you’ve uncovered new information in the meantime, I’ll doubtless be left with egg all over my face!’

• • •

The events leading up to Palmerston’s celebrated journey from Geraldton to Herberton and back again are included in the preamble to the diary he kept once the expedition was under way. It’s by far the most comprehensive and interesting of all his diaries, and was serialised in the Queenslander in September and October of the following year.

Palmerston tried to fill the void left by Pompo’s death by recruiting no fewer than five people to accompany him on his journey from Geraldton. He enlisted the services of two South Sea Islanders (one named Trousers, the other Wyloo) and three Aborigines for what promised to be an arduous trek through some of the most inhospitable terrain in Australia. Two of the Aborigines were from the Geraldton area and Palmerston must have known their real names, but in his diary he refers to them only as ‘Charley’ and ‘Willie’. Similarly, the other Aborigine in the group, a young man (or boy) from the Etheridge River, is identified as ‘Sam’, rather than by the name he was born with.

Before setting off on the first leg of the journey to Herberton Palmerston spent some time exploring the area immediately to the west of Mourilyan. His diary doesn’t go into details, but he saw enough to convince him that if the Government did authorise the construction of a railway from Mourilyan to Herberton, the engineers would have no difficulty in building a line between the wharf and the foot of the mountains.

The expedition that was to lead to one of Australia’s best-known roads being named after Palmerston began at approximately 10.00pm on



31 October 1882. An Aborigine employed by a certain Mr Stamp rowed him and his companions approximately 12km up the North Johnstone, and set them down close to where the Bruce Highway now crosses the river. They spent the whole of the next day sorting out the food and equipment, and then on the morning of 2 November they were ready to begin the back-breaking task of finding a way through the 100km of scrub that lay between them and their destination.

It took Palmerston and his colleagues a mere 11 days to reach Herberton but at times it must have seemed more like 11 months. During the course of their journey they ran into so many difficulties that Odysseus’ epic 10-year voyage from Troy to his palace in Ithaca seems almost uneventful by comparison.

Palmerston’s main concern was the weather. It rained almost constantly for a week and, while this wasn’t life-threatening, it was extremely unpleasant. Everyone in the group had to get used to wearing wet clothes by day and sleeping in wet swags at night.

On the morning of 4 November Charley and Willie sneaked off into the forest, taking all the scrub knives with them. Palmerston could easily have gone back to Geraldton and bought some more but to have done that would have meant wasting valuable time and the other members of the group might have regarded him as a soft touch. He daren’t risk that, so he went looking for the two absconders. It was a bold move and it paid handsome dividends: he caught up with them early the following day and frogmarched them back to where the others were camped.

Now he’d retrieved the knives and shown he wasn’t to be trifled with, Palmerston could have shown compassion to Charley and Willie and let them return home but he insisted they remain with the group. The reason is unclear – perhaps he was counting on them to show him a way through to the Tablelands – but their continued presence didn’t do a lot for his own peace of mind, as this extract from his diary shows:

I have to handcuff the two Johnstone boys every night, and all the scrub knives and tomahawks are stacked for me to sleep upon, this precaution being needed because not one shred of reliance can be placed upon my boys. I am acquainted with the aborigines’ treacherous ways only too

well, and I am inclined to look with suspicion on their every action, trusting them just as far as I am obliged, and no further, for at any moment they may attempt to steal a march on me, and one feels unutterably lonely with such companions, for they are actually worse than non entities.14

The day before the expedition reached Herberton Charley escaped again, but this time Palmerston couldn’t chase after him because the wily Aborigine had taken the precaution of stealing his boots, thus rendering him virtually helpless. Palmerston’s only way of exacting revenge was to write a few barbed comments about him in his diary, knowing full well that they’d subsequently be read by a wider audience.

One would have thought that by this stage of his exploring career, Palmerston would have felt reasonably at home in the rainforest environment and been capable of dealing with the biological ‘nasties’ that occur on, or just above, the forest floor, but some of the comments in his diary suggest otherwise. For example:

The leeches are terrible this evening: our legs are one mass of blood. The irritation caused by these vermin, combined with the scrub itch, is far from being pleasant… Many times this day that healthy tropical plant, the stinging bush, reminded me that my arms and legs were not quite as numbed with cold rain as I thought they were.15

And one of the hazards he encountered was so unpleasant that it reminded him of a group of people that for him was beyond contempt – lawyers.

Clambering and sliding over slippery logs, and up to one’s ankles in crackling nut shells: the rip and tear of one’s clothes, or rather rags, the pernicious lawyer – well named – clinging to one while there is a rag to one’s back, also taking a little skin and flesh at times. It resembles wire in strength and is of various lengths and sizes, tapering towards the extreme ends, with hundreds of fishhook points set firmly in each

14 Palmerston, C. The Explorer Queenslander 29.9.83

15 Ibid



side in its entire length… One finds it rather a difficult customer to deal with.16

When Palmerston led his men into Herberton on 12 November his clothes had been torn to shreds and, thanks to Charley, he’d nothing on his feet, but the main purpose of his mission had been accomplished and this made the suffering worthwhile:

…I am free to confess that I myself felt very pleased at our success, having fathomed the mystery as to the practicability of the route for a railway, for I am positive if these plateaux are properly traced the Coast Range can be surmounted, and the altitude scarcely noticed.17

Palmerston spent the next few weeks in Herberton, and then on 21 December he began the return leg. Charley and Willie were replaced by two Aborigines from the Thornborough area (who presumably belonged to the same Kuku Yulangi linguistic group as Pompo). By delaying his departure until so late in the year Palmerston ran the risk of having to contend with the onset of the wet season, or even a tropical cyclone; but this time the weather was kind and everyone in the group appears to have had an agreeable time. Sadly, the same cannot be said for a party of Aborigines who had the bad luck to meet the explorers as they were descending the range.

The fateful encounter took place on Boxing Day and Palmerston describes what happened in his diary. There was an unusually large number of Aborigines in the area at the time, and all the indications are that Palmerston’s visit coincided with a festival of one kind or another. The particular group he met were carrying swords and shields and had decorated their faces, which suggests they may have been on their way to a sacred site to perform a ceremony.

When Palmerston first saw the Aborigines he assumed they’d run off into the scrub but they appear not to have seen any Europeans before and were oblivious to the danger they were in. Palmerston tried telling them to keep their distance but he couldn’t speak their language so the message never got through. He then aimed his rifle at the Aborigines but they continued to edge closer. The next step should surely have been to fire a few warning shots but Palmerston decided on a more direct approach: he pointed his rifle at

the Aborigines’ leader, squeezed the trigger and killed him!

The dead man’s companions were appalled:

Four of the old general’s comrades ran to his assistance when they saw him wrestling with death. I ceased firing, for they seemed so helplessly at my mercy. On seeing a stream of blood oozing from the ghastly wound they became very excited, commencing a hideous and diabolical howl, accompanied with apish antics, at times showing pearly white teeth, also drawing their whiskers tightly from their chins, and holding them in large mouthfuls, all the while shaking their heads towards me as if in defiance…18

But worse was to follow. Palmerston and one of his colleagues (he doesn’t say who) turned on the Aborigines and inflicted further casualties. He describes their actions thus:

My black companion did not understand the use of firearms, but carried a large scrub knife: he was an athletic fellow, and fought like a demon. Between us we made terrible havoc before the enemy gave way.19

Like much of what he wrote, Palmerston’s description of this ghoulish episode can be interpreted in a number of different ways. His knife-wielding accomplice might simply have hastened the deaths of people suffering from bullet wounds, but he could have killed them independently. The details, however, aren’t important. What does matter is that Palmerston was instrumental in murdering, or inflicting grievous bodily harm upon, an unspecified number of Aborigines for no apparent reason. And the climate of the time was such that he felt no compunction about telling the outside world what he’d done, safe in the knowledge that the authorities were unlikely to take any action and, equally shocking, most of the Queenslander’s readers would have condoned his actions.

16 Ibid

17 Ibid

18 Ibid 6.10.83

19 Ibid



When Palmerston and his colleagues had set off on the outward leg of their journey, they’d only been paid a small fraction of what they’d been promised, so when they arrived back in Geraldton on 1 January 1883 one of their first priorities was to secure the balance of what they were owed. When Palmerston finally caught up with Mr Stapleton, however, he was horrified to learn that while he’d been away Stapleton’s underlings on the council had rejected the agreement the two of them had come to the previous September. This meant that instead of receiving £300 and having a reasonable expectation of being paid a further £100 if, as appeared likely, the decision regarding the railway were to go in Geraldton’s favour, he was going to end up with next to nothing. He did manage to extract a cheque for £20 from Stapleton but it bounced!

Despite the shabby treatment he’d received from the Johnstone River Divisional Board, Palmerston continued to back Mourylian in its bid to become Herberton’s outlet to the sea. Given his track record as a bushman and the fact that he’d already found the route for one important communication link, there was a possibility that his thoughts on the matter might sway the Queensland Government in its deliberations. Several influential people in Cairns and Port Douglas were evidently alarmed at this prospect, and on 2 June 1883 one of them – the Chairman of the Cairns Divisional Board, Archie Meston – had a letter published in the Brisbane Courier which contained, among other things, a bitter attack on Palmerston.

Meston was an honourable man and was destined to make a number of useful contributions to North Queensland, especially in the field of Aboriginal welfare, but this particular letter does him no credit whatsoever. For a start, much of what he says is simply untrue. He insists, for example, that if Mourylian were to become the terminus for the Herberton Railway, no new sugar lands would be opened up. This, of course, is absolute poppycock – if the decision had gone in Mourylian’s favour, it would have brought about the rapid development of one of the most productive cane-growing areas in Australia. Palmerston’s diary hadn’t yet been published, but it was generally believed that his party had been forced to cut a track through something like 80km of thick rain forest to reach Herberton. According to Meston, however, one of

the Aborigines in the group had guided Palmerston to an existing path, thus giving him easy access to the Tablelands. Palmerston may have found this comment mildly amusing, but he would have been absolutely furious at Meston for having the gall to suggest that he’d distorted the facts about the proposed Geraldton–Herberton route, after receiving what amounted to a bribe from the local council. If Meston had been conversant with the facts, he’d have realised that if Palmerston had been tempted to be anything other than objective, he’d have extolled the virtues of either the Barron or the Mowbray valley routes.

Palmerston couldn’t allow this challenge to go unanswered, so he replied in the Brisbane Courier on 30 July. He resisted the temptation of carrying out a character assassination on Meston, opting instead to deal with his detractor’s allegations in a calm, dignified manner and rebut them one-by-one. It was a masterful performance and Meston was made to look foolish. His sole intention in writing to the Brisbane Courier had been to boost Cairns’ chances of becoming the port for the northern tin fields, but his petulant remarks had actually damaged his cause and created a wave of sympathy for someone who’d recently shot dead a defenceless old man.

The question of which of the three contenders would become the terminus of the Herberton Railway still hadn’t been resolved by the end of 1883, but moves were afoot to ensure that the decision wouldn’t be delayed for much longer. On 31 December Palmerston and two Government-appointed surveyors, George Monk and John Stuart, left Herberton and spent the next 10 days investigating the land between there and Geraldton. Once their work was done, the surveyors submitted a report to the Engineer in Charge of the Central and Northern Railway, Willoughby Hannam. He considered their findings and concluded that the railway ought to be built along the Barron Valley, with Cairns as its terminus. On 26 February 1884 he wrote a letter to the company’s Chief Engineer, Bob Ballard, in which he outlined the reasoning behind his decision. Ballard accepted Hannam’s recommendation and quickly prepared a report for the Minister of Works. Palmerston disagreed with the verdict and said so in a letter which appeared in the Brisbane Courier on 4 April 1884, but the



decision was final and there was nothing that he or anyone else could do to make the Government change its mind.

The publication of his various diaries, and the tales about him that had been spread by word of mouth among the disparate communities of tropical Queensland, had caused Palmerston to become something of a celebrity. His newly-acquired status, however, had been achieved at great personal cost. His punishing lifestyle had taken its toll on his health; he’d no home to call his own, no wife, no children and precious little money. He obviously couldn’t spend the rest of his life finding his way in and out of mountain gorges and hacking paths through rainforests, so he began to look for alternative ways of satisfying his immediate and long-term needs.

Over the next couple of years Palmerston spent much of his time looking for gold and was eventually rewarded when he found a payable deposit in the upper reaches of the Russell River. When Mulligan had discovered gold on the Palmer and Hodgkinson in the 1870s, he’d invested much of what he’d earned in a small business and become a pillar of the local community. Palmerston, however, reacted somewhat differently: he decided to supplement his income by setting up an extortion racket similar to the one run by the notorious Kray twins in London during the 1960s. These developments coincided with another attempt by Palmerston to guarantee himself a worthwhile future: at the end of 1886 he married into a respectable Townsville family and three years later became a father. All this, though, lay in the future. The rest of 1884 and the whole of 1885 represented something of a hiatus in his life. He appears to have kept out of mischief but he didn’t achieve much either. Take, for example, the expedition he helped organise at the end of 1884. He and three others spent several weeks looking for gold in one of the most inhospitable parts of the North, and at the worst possible time of year. The fact they survived was a minor miracle but they failed to find any gold.

The expedition seems to have been inspired by a report in the Cairns Post on 18 December 1884, indicating gold had been discovered in a tributary of the Johnstone River. There was already a Chinese presence at the diggings, but this didn’t deter Palmerston from wanting to investigate the new

field for himself. He was in Herberton at the time, but before he could even contemplate taking part in the rush he needed to enlist at least one other European. This was necessary mainly for reasons of security, but he also needed an extra pair of hands to assist with the day-to-day chores and to have someone on hand in case he became ill. In the event he was lucky: he managed to enlist the support of George E. Clarke who, besides being a superb bushman, was also one of the North’s most experienced and successful prospectors. Twelve years earlier he’d been a member of the group that had discovered the ore body on top of which Charters Towers subsequently grew and Palmerston was hoping that he’d be as useful to him as he’d been to Hugh Mosman.

Clarke and Palmerston set out from Herberton on 21 December 1884, along with their respective Aboriginal companions, Sam and Willie. Clarke’s offsider, Sam, came from the Flinders River area, so he was going to have to cope with an environment that was totally alien to him; but Pompo’s successor, Willie, had been born and raised close to where the gold had been discovered, and his presence was to prove crucial in the struggles that lay ahead.

The prospectors arrived at their destination on Boxing Day. They made a quick tour of the diggings and saw some of the gold the Chinese had obtained, but it occurred in such minute quantities that the field was never going to be payable. Rather than return to Herberton, however, Clarke and Palmerston decided to head off into the scrub and look for gold elsewhere. It was a very courageous (some would say foolish) decision: the wet season was due at any time, which meant there was a distinct possibility of being stranded in the middle of nowhere by flooded creeks, they’d all but run out of provisions and their clothes had been reduced to rags. But the lure of gold can make people do strange things, and it wouldn’t be the first time that Clarke and Palmerston had chosen to subject themselves to a variety of hardships to give themselves a chance of finding a gold deposit large enough to set themselves up for life and write themselves into the history books.

Early in January 1885 Clarke became very ill. He went to Geraldton to seek medical attention and took no further part in the expedition. Palmerston, however, accompanied by Sam and



Willie, persevered and the three of them spent the next few weeks vainly searching for gold in the upper reaches of the Johnstone and Barron rivers. As usual, Palmerston kept a diary and a version of it later appeared in Volumes Three and Four of the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, NSW Branch, under the title ‘From Herberton to the Barron Falls, North Queensland’.

The diary contains a number of interesting observations on the lifestyle of the rainforest Aborigines and there’s a graphic account of what happens when somebody has the misfortune to brush up against a stinging bush, but strangely there’s no mention of the Barron Falls. There is, however, a logical explanation for this. The last entry in Palmerston’s diary was made on 27 January 1885, when he and his two companions were beside the Barron River, due east of where Atherton now stands. They were travelling in a northerly direction and presumably reached the falls a couple of days later, but for some reason he never got round to writing about this part of his expedition… or, if he did, the relevant pages became lost somewhere between Herberton and Sydney.

Palmerston kept out of the limelight for the next year-and-a-half and as a result we’ve no idea what he was up to, but we’ve a reasonably clear picture of his activities between July 1886 and March 1888 and for this we’re largely indebted to Palmerston himself. Ever since the publication of his Daintree Diary in the Queenslander early in 1881 he’d rather fancied himself as a writer, so whenever he did anything of note he went to great lengths to keep a written account. Fortunately though, not all the surviving documents were written by their principal subject: in 1887 Palmerston found himself in trouble with the law and much of the resulting paperwork has come down to us, in the same year there was an article about him in the Queensland Figaro magazine and in 1888 the distinguished geologist, Robert Logan Jack, described a prospecting trip the two of them made to the Russell River Goldfield. Thanks to these sources, we’re able to piece together a reasonably clear and balanced picture of what Palmerston was doing during one of the most productive (and controversial) periods of his life.

Between July and November 1886, Palmerston went prospecting on three separate occasions in

the mountains west of Geraldton. We know this because he kept a diary which was subsequently serialised in Queensland Figaro. The first expedition began on 12 July from a base camp he’d established inside a bora ground, some 23km south-west of Geraldton. At the outset he had one European with him (a man identified only as H. Svensson) and 17 Aborigines. As with most of his forays into the scrub, Palmerston’s main aim was to find gold in payable quantities and in this he was disappointed. But the articles in Figaro are worth their weight in gold – at least as far as subsequent generations of anthropologists are concerned. During the 1880s the rainforest Aborigines were still living much as they had done for tens of thousands of years, and Palmerston was able to give an eye witness account of several facets of their day-to-day existence – for example, the manner in which they gathered and prepared their food. If Clarke, Svensson or any other European had been in charge of these expeditions, they’d have done their best to ignore the local people. But Palmerston didn’t and as a result we’ve a better idea of how the Aborigines managed to survive in the unforgiving environment into which they’d been born.

The only thing that we know about Svensson is that he became ill a couple of weeks into the expedition. He took things easy for a few days but doesn’t appear to have fully recovered and when the party finally reached Geraldton on 16 August he stayed put. Palmerston, though, had no intention of doing likewise. He and Svensson had come across traces of gold in some of the creeks they’d prospected, and this had sent adrenalin surging through his veins. A decade-and-a-half earlier, William Hann had found small amounts of gold in a minor tributary of the Palmer and this had inspired Mulligan to see if he could find it in larger quantities. Palmerston was quietly confident that at least one of the tributaries of the three rivers that begin their journeys to the sea in the vicinity of Mt Bartle Frere (the North Johnstone, Mulgrave and Russell Rivers) would also contain payable gold. Earlier in August he’d found gold in a tributary of the Russell named Cooppooroo Creek. His stay had been cut short by his companion’s illness and the fact that he was practically out of food but he was determined to return as quickly as possible.



The second of Palmerston’s three prospecting trips to the upper reaches of the Russell River began approximately a week after the completion of the first. This time he’d no other European with him, so he had to rely entirely on his Aboriginal bearers. Initially, he had three and they carried his food, medicine, tent, cooking utensils, lamps, mining equipment and writing materials but while he was away he employed several others on a part-time basis.

As a rule, July and August are relativly dry in the northern half of Australia, but it can rain at any time of year and it just so happened that the ‘dry’ season of 1886 wasn’t dry at all. Palmerston had been forced to endure prolonged periods of rain while he was with Svensson. It started raining again soon after he left Geraldton, and there was to be no let-up for the rest of the month.

Palmerston’s sole purpose in returning to the Upper Russell was to find payable gold. At first his chances seemed promising: he didn’t discover any major reefs or concentrations of alluvial gold like those that had greeted Mulligan upon his arrival at the Palmer. But by the end of August he’d found enough in the bed of Cooppooroo Creek to have made his trip worthwhile. During the first week of September, however, he was unable to do much prospecting due to a nasty accident, and a bizarre incident which he describes at great length in his diary.

On 1 September Palmerston injured his ankle while trying to get past a waterfall on Cooppooroo Creek. The following day he was unable to move from the camp in the morning, being sick and weary with… pain 20 and on the morning of 6 September the ankle was still too painful to walk on. During the course of the next few hours, however, he made such a miraculous recovery that by the afternoon he was well enough to undertake a route march similar to those potential recruits to the SAS have to undergo to prove their fitness.

The catalyst for this remarkable turnaround was a piece of startling news brought to him by his bearers. Earlier in the day two of their colleagues

had been murdered by members of a distant tribe 21 and were about to be eaten. It’s not clear how well Palmerston knew the victims – one would suspect not very well, because he doesn’t even name them – but he was determined to punish those responsible for their deaths. He organised the remaining bearers into a raiding party and they set off in hot pursuit. Despite the rugged nature of the terrain, they managed to travel 3–5km and locate the place where the dead men had been taken to. But the people they were after had heard them coming and fled into the scrub. At the time of Palmerston’s arrival they’d been busy preparing a meal, which consisted largely of the two missing men. Palmerston describes the scene thus:

The dead bodies had been decapitated; the lower jaw severed from the head; the hands and feet cut off; the trunks disembowelled; and some of the intestines were roasting on the embers.22

By now it was now too late in the day to give chase, so after burying what remained of his colleagues, Palmerston returned to his camp at Cooppooroo Creek. At first light the following morning he and a dozen trackers, who’d inexplicably appeared on the scene, picked up the trail of the wanted men and followed it to the most northerly tributary of the Russell. They then crossed over a flat-topped ridge and descended into the catchment area of the Mulgrave. Later that same day Palmerston split the party: he and two trackers went ahead to see if they could see any sign of the murderers, while the rest stayed behind to set up camp.

Sometime after sunset Palmerston came across a group of Aborigines performing a corroboree. He estimated that over 100 were taking part and, from the description in his diary, it would appear that preparations must have been going on for days. To obtain a better view, he climbed a tree and made a mental note of what was happening for inclusion in his diary.

It wasn’t until three o’clock the following morning (8 September) that Palmerston and his two accomplices made it back to camp. He must have been exhausted but instead of catching up on some much-needed sleep he and his trackers returned to the scene of the corroboree and they were there when the sun came up.

20 Palmerston, C. ‘Diary of a North Queensland Pioneer’ Queensland Figaro, 1887

21 Ibid

22 Ibid



What happened next is a mystery. In the version of his diary that appeared in print, Palmerston describes the climax of the hunt for the killers in a few terse sentences:

I placed my boys three parts round the borah ground, which I attacked shortly after day-dawn. After the skirmish my trackers wanted to indulge in cannibalism, but I threatened to shoot the first who attempted it and they desisted… After reducing heaps of war implements to ashes, we moved towards home, taking two prisoners with us.23

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this passage is that Palmerston and his allies killed some of the Aborigines and scared off the rest, thereby avenging the deaths of the two bearers. If this really is a true indication of what happened, then Palmerston is guilty of carrying out one of the most horrendous crimes in Australian history. Gunning down a group of Aborigines as they lay asleep after taking part in a religious ceremony is almost on a par with the atrocities committed by the Nazis and Japanese during the Second World War, but before anyone starts entertaining thoughts of drawing up a petition aimed at having Palmerston’s name struck from the highway and national park that perpetuate his memory, it ought to be pointed out that there is one major difference between what they did and what Palmerston claims to have done: their crimes were real whereas his almost certainly weren’t.

The story of the deaths of the two bearers and Palmerston’s dramatic response is so far-fetched and contains so many inconsistencies, that it may be dismissed as a figment of the author’s imagination. Given Palmerston was the only literate person to witness any of the events of those two action-packed days, we’re unlikely ever to discover what really happened, but the most likely scenario is that because of his bad ankle he was unable to do any prospecting. Palmerston, who was used to being constantly on the move, would have found this period of enforced idleness extremely irksome, so to wile away the hours he decided to concoct a story that would appeal to the readers of whichever publication ended up buying his diary. If this was

his intention, he succeeded brilliantly. Most of what he wrote about his expeditions to the Upper Russell is of little interest to the lay person, but his account of how he hunted down a group of murderers and gave them their just deserts is full of suspense and drama, and would have gone down a treat with subscribers to the magazine in which it appeared.

Unfortunately, Palmerston’s imagination didn’t stretch as far as working out a plausible way of explaining how it was that he and his 12 bearers, most of whom wouldn’t have known how to use firearms, could have taken on 100 or so would-be cannibals and lived to tell the tale. Homer managed to handle a similar situation in the concluding part of the Odyssey (the scene where Odysseus and his son Telemachus give Queen Penelope’s suitors their come-uppances in the great hall of the royal palace of Ithaca). Homer, however, was one of the greatest story-tellers of all time, whereas Palmerston was just an ill-educated bushman valiantly trying to convey what life was like in the wilds of Far North Queensland. When one considers that he probably had little formal education, he makes a reasonable job of describing the places he visited and the events he witnessed. But when, as has obviously happened here, he strays into the realms of fiction, he’s hopelessly out of his depth.

Why on earth Palmerston felt the need to make up a story in which he portrays himself as a late-19th century equivalent of one of the legendary heroes of Ancient Greece is anyone’s guess, but it may have been his way of coping with his disappointment at not discovering a major goldfield. Certainly Cooppooroo Creek contained a small amount of gold, and when the time came to return to Geraldton he’d accumulated more than enough to recoup what he’d spent on the expedition – but it came at a price. He and the people with him had to put up with prolonged heavy rain, they were continually pestered by march flies and Palmerston went down with fever yet again. Prior to the first of his expeditions to the Upper Russell Palmerston was regarded by a large section of the public as an all-conquering hero, and it was mainly to live up to this image that he made up the story of the two bearers. Sometimes he’d achieved great things without having to resort to lying; but if the need arose he was quite prepared to come out with the

23 Ibid



most monstrous lies… as a poor unsuspecting music teacher in Townsville was soon to find out!

On the way back to Geraldton Palmerston ran into a prospecting party made up of George Clarke, Willie Joss and a number of Aboriginal bearers. Clarke told him they were heading for the area he’d just come from, and Palmerston responded by showing him the gold he’d accumulated and letting him know where he’d found it. That, at any rate, is Palmerston’s version of the meeting. According to Joss, however, he and Clarke took pity on Palmerston because he was down on his luck and they agreed to give him a share of their mining venture, in return for which he’d supply them with Aboriginal packers.

Palmerston’s third and final expedition to the headwaters of the Russell River began on 7 October and lasted over three weeks. While he was away he met Clarke, but doesn’t appear to have had any desire to join forces with him. This is rather surprising, because the day before he met Clarke a falling rock had crushed the forefinger on his right hand, and this severely restricted his freedom of movement for several weeks.

Given that he was in constant pain, one would have thought the last thing on Palmerston’s mind would have been an attempt to become the first-known European to scale Queensland’s highest peak, Mt Bartle Frere, yet this is precisely what he decided to do. When he first broached the subject with his bearers they thought he must have taken leave of his senses and tried to persuade him to abandon the idea, but Palmerston was adamant and they all had to traipse up the mountain with him.

The upper parts of Mt Bartle Frere are often covered in cloud, but Palmerston’s arrival at the summit coincided with a short burst of fine weather and this enabled him to feast his eyes on one of the most spectacular views in North Queensland. He was able to pick out a number of familiar landmarks including Double Island, the granite mountains beside the Hodgkinson River and Stewarts Nob (near Herberton). Palmerston was immensely proud of making the first recorded ascent of the mountain, and once they were safely at the top the Aboriginal bearers also seem to have been pleased with what they’d achieved.

Before heading back to Geraldton, Palmerston sought out Clarke and Joss and found them in a buoyant mood. They’d been working some alluvial deposits on an elevated terrace next to Cooppooroo Creek and had obtained an appreciable amount of gold. They were tempted to keep quiet about their good fortune and dig a few more holes into the terrace, but after discussing the matter with Palmerston they concluded the best course of action would be to notify the authorities and claim that they’d discovered payable gold. This was duly done and they eventually collected a £300 reward from the Queensland Government to share among themselves, which is more than they deserved

Christie Palmerston



because the Russell River Goldfield was barely payable and its deposits were soon exhausted.

There’s no mention in Palmerston’s diary of when exactly his final expedition to the Russell River came to an end, but it must have been sometime during the first week of November. Once he’d recovered from his ordeal and put his affairs in order he left Geraldton and headed down to Townsville where, on 6 December, he did something totally out of character – he got married!

Palmerston’s bride was Teresa (or Theresa) Rooney, a 35-year old music teacher from a respected Townsville family. We’ve no idea how long the two had known each other, or anything about their courtship, but we do know that at the time of the wedding the Rooneys believed that Palmerston was a member of the illustrious Carandini family. The prospect of becoming the daughter-in-law of an Italian aristocrat, and a well-known and talented singer must have had some bearing on Teresa’s decision to accept Palmerston’s proposal of marriage; and the fact that he came from a Catholic background would have been a relief to her parents.

Thanks to the evidence provided in Paul Savage’s book Christie Palmerston Explorer, we know Palmerston couldn’t possibly have had any blood links with the Carandinis, which is what he claimed on the marriage certificate. Deliberately falsifying his origins was a calculated gamble, but Palmerston presumably thought he could get away with it, and all the indications are he did – at least in his own lifetime. When, for example, Teresa gave birth to a daughter in June 1889 she called her Rosina Marie, after the eldest Carandini daughter (Rosina Martha Hozanah) and Rosina’s mother (Maria, or Marie, née Burgess). It’s also unlikely that any of the Carandinis ever discovered that their name had been used to help dupe a respectable fellow musician into marrying a colourful rogue who already had one prison sentence behind him and never held a conventional job in his life, apart from a short stint as a ringer when in his late teens. Count Carandini certainly didn’t: at the time of the wedding he’d been dead 16 years, while the eldest son, Frank, an officer in the British Army, was living on the

other side of the world. Mme Carandini was still in Australia but in 1892, after giving a glittering farewell concert in Melbourne, she went back to England, taking her four youngest daughters with her and died in 1932. It’s not clear what became of Victor, the baby of the family, but it’s thought that he probably died in infancy, thus leaving Rosina as the only member of the family left in Australia. She’d married a bank employee and lived in far-off Melbourne, so there was little chance of her and Teresa ever coming across each other.

Palmerston’s daughter eventually became a successful violinist but rather than make an issue of the Carandini connection – which might possibly have helped her career – she preferred to use her mother’s maiden name. This might be because she’d found out that she wasn’t a real Carandini, but a more likely explanation is that she wanted to dissociate herself from her errant father.

According to Ion Idriess, Palmerston married and was a beloved husband and father 24 but, as Teresa and Rosina knew only too well, nothing could be further from the truth. Admittedly, his marriage began conventionally enough with a church wedding in St Joseph’s Church on The Strand and a honeymoon in Sydney and Brisbane. And, for all we know, he might even have paid for the odd drink and taxi fare out of his own pocket, but soon after arriving back in the North Palmerston left his wife and was back on the Russell River Goldfield by April 1887. There’s some evidence to suggest that at the end of 1887 he spent some time in the Metropole Hotel in Townsville. Some historians have suggested that he even worked there for up to three months. This, however, seems unlikely. When he left the Russell River in November 1887 he had 300 ounces of gold with him, and I’d suggest that most of the money he earned from this would have ended up in the till at the Metropole Hotel. One would assume that he also gave his wife a loaf of bread and can of syrup every now and then. The two of them must at least have been on speaking terms at the time of Rosina’s conception (September 1888); but a few months after she was born Palmerston left Australia for good, and over the ensuing years he made little effort to let the two women in his life know what he was up to – scarcely the actions of a devoted husband and father!

24 Idriess, I, Men of the Jungle, Angus and Robertson, 1948, page 48.



News that gold had been discovered next to one of the tributaries of the Russell River spread like wildfire, and as many as 300 miners came into the area. But most soon left and by the time Palmerston reappeared, in late March or early April, only 25 or so hardy souls remained. The terraces above Cooppooroo Creek continued to provide a living for a handful of people well into the next decade but it was hard going and nobody became rich on the proceeds.

During the last quarter of the 19th century anti-Chinese feelings were running high among Australians of European extraction in all of North Queensland’s mineral fields, and they managed to pressure their representatives in the Queensland Parliament into enacting a series of laws aimed at preserving their privileged position in the economic pecking-order of the day. One piece of discriminatory legislation prevented the Chinese from taking out leases on officially-proclaimed goldfields for at least three years. The Cantonese community in Geraldton was thus barred from working within the boundaries of the Russell River Goldfield, but sometime during the early part of 1887 a group of them found gold further down the Russell and, fortunately for them, it lay outside the existing goldfield. When news of what had happened reached Geraldton many Europeans wanted them to be banned from the Lower Russell too, but on this occasion the authorities took the side of the Cantonese.

The stretch of the river where the gold had been found wasn’t far from Geraldton, but anyone going there would first have to hack their way through thick rainforest and run the risk of being attacked by Aborigines who were reputed to be cannibals. The Cantonese must have had some expertise in the bush otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to locate the gold in the first place but the thought of all those hungry Aborigines was enough to deter them from returning to the scene of the discovery.

In April, however, three Geraldton traders – Lok Hin, See Poy and Sun Chang Shin – saw a possible way out of the impasse. They’d heard that Palmerston had arrived back in town and was at a loose end. If they could enlist his services there was a good chance that the gold deposits on the Lower Russell could be worked after all and this would give the local economy a much-needed boost. A meeting was duly arranged for 28 April.

The outcome was an agreement that promised to be of benefit to both parties: Palmerston undertook to guide 30 Cantonese miners to the Russell River and defend them from Aboriginal attack; in return, he was to receive £1 for each member of the group, and have exclusive rights to supply them with beef from a butchery he intended establishing at the diggings. The journey to the goldfield took place soon afterwards and no major problems were encountered en route. Once there, however, Palmerston didn’t make as much money as he’d anticipated because none of the Cantonese stayed more than a few days; and, as a result, he’d nobody to sell his beef to.

Most of the Cantonese miners who’d accompanied Palmerston to the Lower Russell had no intention of returning, but 10 of them thought the area had possibilities and they began making preparations to go back. Their optimism rubbed off on a number of their fellow countrymen and by June there were approximately 200 of them at the diggings.

The Cantonese who went to the Lower Russell knew from the outset they’d be in for a torrid time. Many of them would already have had first-hand experience of lawyer vines, leeches, scrub itch, snakes and stinging bushes, and those that didn’t would have known what to expect; but there was one obstacle they had to contend with that none of them could possibly have anticipated. An elaborate scheme to extort money from them had been put in place, and the instigator was none other than Palmerston.

Whenever newcomers arrived at the diggings they’d be approached by Palmerston, or some of his henchmen, and asked to hand over £1. If they did, they were given a receipt which read:

Received from ____ the sum of £1 (one pound) clear of all demand. C. Palmerston.

If, as often happened, Palmerston came across someone who didn’t have the full amount, he was prepared to accept part-payment, but woe betide anyone who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give him anything. In the words of the local police magistrate, they were subject to abuse, had their places torn down and their implements and trifling effects thrown into the river or otherwise destroyed. 25

25 Walsh, W. S. Letter to the Colonial Secretary 5.12.87



When the time came for them to return to Geraldton the unfortunate miners would have to show their receipts to one of Palmerston’s cronies. Those who couldn’t would either have to pay £1 in cash or gold, or return to the diggings and try to cadge a loan. Palmerston’s enforcers, all of whom were Aborigines from the local area, had also been instructed to accept a bizarre passport issued to people who’d paid their dues. It took the form of an envelope, containing a small quantity of cow hair and bearing the name and address of Johnstone, Allingham and Co (the Geraldton butchers with whom he had a business arrangement).

Palmerston had a store and butcher’s shop at Palmerston Camp. This was the lowest mining camp on the Lower Russell Goldfield, located close to Tachappa Creek. He sold beef for 9d a pound – a not unreasonable sum when one considers that it had to be transported from Geraldton – but the Cantonese weren’t willing to pay that amount, so one or two of them tried bringing their own meat into the area. Palmerston, however, wasn’t prepared to let them do this, as a trader named Ah Due found to his cost. When he tried taking a consignment of fish, pork, and processed meat to the diggings his goods were thrown into the river and he was beaten up.

When Palmerston had agreed to guide 30 Cantonese to the Lower Russell, he’d been promised £1 for each member of the group and exclusive right to supply them with beef. The terms of the agreement don’t appear to have been written down, so there’s no way of knowing what they were. But, as far as See Poy and his colleagues were concerned, the arrangement only applied to the original group. Palmerston, on the other hand, thought he was entitled to exact money from every Oriental who ventured onto the Lower Russell Goldfield and force them to buy his meat.

News of Palmerston’s antics soon reached the police magistrate responsible for the Mourylian district, William S. Walsh. He was deeply disturbed by what he heard, but was reluctant to act because the incidents were taking place outside his area. On 6 July, however, while on a visit to Geraldton, he instructed the local magistrate, Mr O’Donohue, to initiate proceedings that would result in Palmerston having to appear in court. The following day a miner named Lee Cook made a formal complaint,

alleging that Palmerston had assaulted him and destroyed some of his property. On 9 July Palmerston appeared before a JP and made a counter-allegation against Lee Cook. Referring to the same incident that had led to him being summonsed two days earlier, he accused Lee Cook of trying to steal 40oz of gold from him while he was in a gambling saloon at the Lower Russell diggings. 40oz of gold is a sizeable amount for someone who’d only been working for a couple of months on a not particularly productive goldfield, and poor Teresa must have been mortified to discover what her husband had been up to a mere seven months after she’d married him. The upshot of Palmerston’s allegation was that a warrant was issued and Lee Cook was locked up until the matter could be resolved in court.

The two cases were heard by Mr Walsh in Geraldton on 15 July 1887. He obviously sympathised with Lee Cook and subsequently called Palmerston’s version of the incident ludicrously improbable 26, but neither of the men had any independent witnesses to testify on their behalf so Walsh had no alternative but to dismiss both cases. He did, however, order Palmerston to hand over sureties totalling £200 and bound him over to keep the peace towards Lee Cook for three months. Palmerston was furious with Walsh and went so far as to write a letter of complaint to the MLA for Cook, Jack Hamilton. He was a long-time friend of Mulligan and a supporter of Palmerston. The issue was discussed in Parliament the following November and Walsh was asked to provide a written explanation of his handling of the case, but he doesn’t appear to have been reprimanded in any way.

Following his court appearance Palmerston seems to have spent up to three months in Townsville but he was back in the Geraldton district by the end of the year. We know this because a journalist working for the Queenslander paid a visit to Geraldton during the latter part of 1887 and, in an article which appeared on 24 December, he says that he met Palmerston and that he was living near the Russell River Goldfield. Palmerston was still in the area a couple of months later and took Robert Logan Jack on a whistle-stop tour of the Russell River

26 Ibid



Goldfield. The Scottish geologist repaid the favour by writing nice things about him in a report that was presented to both houses of the Queensland Parliament. Logan Jack greatly admired his prowess as a bushman, and was also impressed by the way he handled his bearers:

I observed with interest Mr Palmerston’s method of ‘working’ his boys. Its essential elements seemed to be giving them time, feeding them well, and keeping them in good humour by allowing for their propensities to hunt or play, and by making fun with them… Mr Palmerston’s method is evidently successful, as I never saw more contented, willing, useful and well-bred young men of any nationality.27

One can only hope that Logan Jack’s assessment of Palmerston’s methods of dealing with his Aboriginal companions is a little more accurate than his comments about the Russell River Goldfield. In his opinion it was destined to employ the energies of thousands of men… for many years to come 28; but, as things turned out, it only ever provided a meagre living for a handful of people, and was all but deserted by the end of the next decade.

A-year-and-a-half after his foray into the scrub with Logan Jack Palmerston was in Townsville. We know this because it was he, rather than his wife, who provided details for Rosina’s birth certificate. The sight of his newborn child did not, however, inspire him to abandon his nomadic lifestyle and help provide for her. In fact, it may have had the opposite effect. In 1890 he turned his back on his family and the land of his birth to take up a job in Malaya, working as an explorer and prospector for the Straits Development Company. He was thus able to carry on living in much the same way as he had in North Queensland, and there was even a large Chinese community for him to terrorise!

On Christmas Day 1896 Palmerston attended a function put on by his employers. Another of the guests was the Chairman of Directors, Mr E. B. Wilkinson, and he couldn’t help but notice that

Palmerston was far from well. He tried to talk him into visiting a doctor but Palmerston would have none of it. A couple of weeks later his condition had become so serious that he was unable to walk. He was put on a stretcher and carried 50km to the town of Kuala Pilah. A doctor was summoned and he travelled through the night to attend to him but by the time he arrived there was nothing he could do and a few hours later Palmerston was dead.

In a letter that he wrote to Mrs Palmerston Wilkinson had this to say about the cause of death:

Mr Palmerston died not of any special disease, but the effects of thirty years of the hard life he had lived. 29

Despite the fact that Palmerston hadn’t been in contact with his wife for several years, Wilkinson took it upon himself to send her all his personal effects. These wouldn’t have amounted to much but could have included a batch of diaries and letters. There’s no record of Wilkinson ever having honoured his pledge, but if a collection of her husband’s documents did fall into Teresa’s hands she must have been sorely tempted to follow the example set by someone who’d been in a similar position seven years earlier.

Isobel Burton (née Arundel) was the wife of Sir Richard Burton who, besides being one of the greatest explorers of all time, was also a prolific and highly-talented writer. Isobel was immensely proud of her husband, but she heartily disapproved of the subject matter of some of his literary output. During the course of his travels Burton always tried to find out what he could about the sex lives of the people he encountered, and wasn’t the least bit coy about including the fruits of his research in the books he wrote after each of his major expeditions. He was also in the habit of regaling his dinner guests with tales of bizarre sexual practices, and he occasionally turned his hand to writing pornography. Isobel was appalled by her husband’s cavalier attitude towards what, for most middle-class Victorians, was a taboo subject, but while he was alive there wasn’t a lot she could do to prevent his stories from appearing in print. When he died, however, she was presented with a golden opportunity to stem the flow of raunchy stories emanating from the Burton household. Immediately she realised her husband was done for, she ransacked

27 Jack, R.L. Geology of the Russell River (a report presented to both Houses of the Queensland Parliament) 1888.

28 Ibid

29 Wilkinson, E.B. Letter sent to Mrs Palmerston 22.1.97 and quoted in the North Queensland Register 24.2.97.



his study and gathered all the personal papers she could lay her hands on. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to separate the smut from the sort of material she would have approved of, and the whole lot ended up being tossed onto a bonfire.

A conflagration of a similar nature could also have occurred at Teresa Palmerston’s Fryer Street home. If, and when, the bundle of documents arrived from Malaya, she’d have had every reason to respond in the same manner as Isobel Burton. Being a musician, she might even have bashed out a few jaunty airs on her piano as her runaway husband’s last opportunity of personal self-aggrandisement drifted skywards in a plume of smoke.

Palmerston was only in his mid-40s when he died, but he crammed a lot into his short life. There can be no doubt whatsoever that he achieved a great deal in the two decades he spent in tropical Queensland. The road network he helped establish played a crucial role in the economic development of one of Australia’s most productive regions and the diaries he bequeathed to posterity have enabled historians and anthropologists to acquire a better understanding of the way of life of the Aboriginal nomads who lived in the North Queensland rainforests. Until, that is, people like him came along and all but wiped them out!

Even while he was still alive, Palmerston was regarded as something of a folk-hero among certain sections of the European community in Far North Queensland. In the eyes of most people his powers of endurance seemed almost super-human, and he had the uncanny knack of being able to get the Aborigines in whichever part of the North he happened to find himself to do his bidding. He was also reputed to be the finest bushman of his generation, while his brushes with the law would only have added to the aura which developed around him.

At the time of his departure for Malaya many thousands of Australians were familiar with Palmerston’s exploits, and hundreds of people would have actually met him; but paradoxically nobody,

not even his wife, knew much about him. He was very much a loner and it’s probably true to say that, apart from Pompo, he never had a single friend in his entire adult life. Logan Jack and Mulligan both thought highly of him – although they only had to put up with him for short periods – and Jack Hamilton was another fan. He once stood up in Parliament and referred to Palmerston as a respectable truth-telling person, and minutes later said that, as far as he was concerned, there is no man better known than Christie Palmerston in the North or more respected, and what’s more, he regarded him as a personal friend.30

Hamilton was obviously no judge of character. If he had been he’d have realised that Palmerston was a liar and unworthy of anyone’s respect. Despite what Ion Idriess may have thought to the contrary, he was a lousy husband and was seemingly indifferent to the well-being of his only child. He despised the Cantonese and on several occasions shot Aborigines who weren’t posing any threat to him (although this didn’t prevent other Aborigines from assisting him whenever the need arose). Many of the major players in the opening-up of the North were decent and honourable people – one has only to think of Leichhardt, Kennedy, Daintree, Dalrymple, Mulligan, Newell, Mary Hull and Walter Scott – but Palmerston cannot be so classified. Essentially a manipulative and ruthless thug, he can count himself lucky not to have spent the greater part of his adult life in prison.

It’s clear then, that one of Australia’s loveliest roads is saddled with the name of a singularly unlovely person. But the people who use it can console themselves in the knowledge that the Palmerston Highway is at least named after someone who spent several years in the area through which the road passes, and who made an impact on the lives of many of the people who once lived there. The same certainly can’t be said of places such as Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, all of which owe their names to British toffs.

30 Queensland Parliamentary Debates, 1887, pp. 1653-55.


Chapter 3 – Pioneer pastoralists

St Katharine’s, Blackrod – the church in which John Atherton was baptised

Chapter 3Pioneer pastoralists

The open forest country that covers much of the northern and western parts of the Tablelands and the adjacent mining belt is ideally suited to the raising of cattle. Prior to the mid-1870s no grazier ventured this far north, because there was no market for beef but following Mulligan’s discovery of gold on the Palmer River in 1873 there was a large influx of people from all over the world, causing a vast area of the North be taken-up and used for cattle grazing.

The best-known of all the pioneer pastoralists were the Athertons of Emerald End. The patriarch of this particular branch of the family, John Atherton, was born on 9 August 1837 and spent the first six years of his life on a farm just outside Blackrod, a small coal-mining community not

far from Bolton in north-west England. The farm was called White Hill and it still functions today, although the house in which Atherton spent his early childhood was demolished and rebuilt in the early 1990s. The interior of the barn and the milking shed were extensively altered too, but their outward appearance remains much as it was in Atherton’s day. The view due east towards Rivington Pike (a prominent hill that dominates the skyline) hasn’t changed much either, and the same is true of St Katharine’s Church where Atherton and most of his siblings were baptised.

Blackrod is situated in an attractive part of Britain but life must have been tough for Atherton’s parents, Edmund and Esther. They had a large family and it couldn’t have been easy to make ends meet from



the income they received from their small block of land. Many others in the district were in the same position, but Edmund and Esther weren’t prepared to put up with a life of never-ending poverty, so they decided to migrate to New South Wales.

According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Edmund and Esther Atherton and their children Alice, Rebecca, John, James, Edmund, Henry and Thomas came to Australia on the SS Great Britain in 1843 or 1844. If true, the Athertons would have been lucky because that vessel is one of the most famous in maritime history. It was the world’s first iron-built steamship and in 1861 had the distinction of carrying the first English cricket team to visit Australia. In fact, it isn’t true. If the Athertons had boarded the ship in 1843 or 1844 they’d have been forced to sit around for months watching the workmen putting the final touches to Brunel’s masterpiece, before accompanying it on the sea trials that this revolutionary new ship required. The family did in fact come out from England on a vessel called the Briton. It left Liverpool on 15 March 1844 and arrived in Sydney on 26 June of the same year.

Because Atherton left England as a child, his experiences in Blackrod wouldn’t have greatly influenced his later life. He wouldn’t even have retained his accent, which is a pity because people in this part of Lancashire have a rich, almost musical dialect, quite unlike that of Manchester only 24km away. Bill Harris, the Tent Hill hermit in Chapter Four of Volume Two, had just such an accent, but he lived in Lancashire until he was a man, whereas Atherton left when he was only six. The Athertons appear to have had friends or relatives in New England and this was their destination after arriving in Sydney. They lived for several years at Bald Blair – a grazing property not far from Armidale where Mulligan was to spend time more than a decade later – but in 1858 Atherton and his brother James went on a droving trip to Central Queensland, and while there took up Mount Hedlow and Bamoya stations. Upon their return they persuaded the other Athertons to move to Central Queensland and in 1860 the whole family – along with three bullock teams, a horse team, pack horses, riding horses and 2,000 head of short-horn cattle – undertook the long and arduous journey from northern New South Wales to the Rockhampton area.

For the next few years most of the Athertons lived at Mt Hedlow station, but John spent much of his time at nearby Bamoya and had interests in a number of other Central Queensland properties. He and his brothers also opened up the coast road to Yeppoon and in 1864, while living at West Hill (between St Lawrence and Mackay), he cut a road through from Broadwater to Mackay.

In 1873 Atherton took a mob of cattle to North Queensland. He intended going all the way to the Palmer River, but ended up selling them before he got there. It must have been during this trip that Atherton decided to settle in the North and take advantage of the large market for beef. Early in 1875 he and his two sons moved to Basalt Downs in the Cashmere district (which is located to the back of the main range behind Cardwell) and spent several months building a homestead and cattle yards. When everything was ready Atherton went to Townsville to meet the other members of his family. Unfortunately, one of the children was taken ill so the journey was in vain. He returned to Townsville a few weeks later, but by then the wet season had begun and the Athertons ended up waiting a month on the Seaview Range while the creeks and rivers between there and their new home subsided enough to let them cross.

Atherton didn’t stay long at Basalt Downs. It was a long and difficult journey from there to the Palmer River, his only sizeable market, so he sold out to W. McDowell and in 1877 took two bullock drays, 100 horses and 1,500 head of cattle to the Tablelands and settled on the banks of the Barron River, close to the present site of Mareeba. Atherton called his property Emerald End and with the help of Chinese labour built a homestead durable enough to withstand the 1878 cyclone.

Emerald End was an ideal place to establish a grazing property: there was plenty of feed for his cattle and horses; the Barron River, with its headwaters in the scrublands to the south, never runs dry; and there was a market for beef on the Palmer and Hodgkinson Goldfields, and in the coastal towns of Cairns and Port Douglas. But there were problems, the most serious initially being the stock losses incurred at the hands of their neighbours. The Aborigines soon discovered the Athertons’ bullocks were delicious, so whenever they were feeling hungry they’d help themselves to one.



Occasionally, the Aborigines also attacked Europeans. Atherton himself was struck on the side of the head by an axe near the Clohesy River and carried the scar until the day he died; but I’ve yet to find a single instance of any member of a grazing family on the Tablelands actually being killed by an Aborigine. This is rather surprising as numerous Aborigines were slaughtered in the early stages of European settlement, and there were certainly European casualties in clashes with the Aborigines on the Palmer River and in the Upper Burdekin pastoral country, both of which are close to the Tablelands.

Atherton’s role in the development of the tin industry has already been described in Chapter One of Volume Two. He also pioneered and named Chillagoe, Wabaredory and Nychum stations, and played a leading role in civic affairs. He was, for example, patron of the Mareeba District Mining, Pastoral, Agricultural and Industrial Association. Of even greater benefit to the Tablelands was the track he and his neighbour James Robson and William McCord blazed from Tinaroo to the coast in 1878. Robson’s Track, as it became known, was of enormous importance, especially to Herberton.

Atherton’s wife, Catherine (née Grainger), came originally from County Cavan in Ireland and her father was at one time Superintendent of Police in

Belfast. She married Atherton in 1862 and they had four sons and four daughters. Edmund Henry was the eldest son, being born in 1863, but he died of influenza in 1919, the year of the great epidemic.

William is probably the best-known of John’s sons. He was born in 1865 at Yaamba (near Rockhampton) and, as mentioned in Chapter Twelve in Volume Two, became the sole owner of Chillagoe Station in or around 1899. In 1908 he purchased Nychum station from his father, thereby increasing his pastoral holdings. William played a prominent role in the community, serving on the Cairns Harbour Board, the Cook Dingo Board and the Chillagoe Shire Council. His grave, now cracked and in poor repair, is in the Chillagoe cemetery.

John Grainger Atherton was born in 1875 and spent most of his life in the Chillagoe district. He lived and worked on Nychum Station for many years then, after the completion of the Chillagoe railway, he opened a butcher’s shop in Mungana. In 1907 he moved to Gurrumbah after buying a butcher’s shop from Ernest Garbutt. He wasn’t away from the Chillagoe area for long, however. He moved to OK and sold meat there for some years. In 1915 he went into partnership with his young brother, Ernest, by purchasing a retail and wholesale butcher’s business from the estate of the late W. J. Munro.

The Atherton Tableland viewed from Gillies Range



The youngest brother, Ernest Albert (Paddy), led a similar life to elder brother, John. Before their joint venture he sold meat in Chillagoe, OK, Cloncurry, Almaden and Mareeba.

John Atherton, the founder of the Tablelands branch of the family, died on 16 May 1913 aged 76. He was buried at Emerald End, alongside his wife, who’d died in 1903.

The Athertons were the most illustrious of the pioneer pastoralists, but they weren’t the first to bring cattle to the Tablelands. In 1876, while the Athertons were still at Basalt Downs, the Fraser brothers came north and founded Mitchell Vale Station. The Frasers were the first graziers on the Tablelands, but aren’t as well-known as the Athertons and information about them is scant.

John Fraser was born on 1 August 1854. He travelled to the North in 1875 and stayed for a short time with his uncle, James Atkinson, in the Abergowrie district of the Lower Herbert. Later in the same year he and Arthur Temple Clark explored the Upper Mitchell, looking for suitable cattle country. Fraser must have been impressed, because in 1876 he overlanded a mob of cattle to the headwaters of the Mitchell and built a homestead, which he called Mitchell Vale, close to what was later to become Mt Molloy. Mitchell Vale was officially taken-up in the name of Robert

Fraser and sons, but it was the two sons, John and Harry, who ran the property. Like the Athertons they lost many cattle to the Aborigines, but instead of punishing them they made a conscious effort to improve relations between themselves and their Aboriginal neighbours. On one occasion, for example, they and a Mt Mulligan Aborigine, who acted as their interpreter, went into the bush and persuaded about 40 Aborigines to come home with them, and later go down to Port Douglas. According to John Fraser, that was the start of the blacks mixing with the whites.

After holding the run for 10 years the Frasers sold to Fullarton and Lord, and John Fraser left the area altogether. He stayed seven years on a sheep farm in South Australia, followed by six years at Coolgardie, then spent the rest of his life on a sheep farm in the Glenthompson district of Victoria.

The two most important grazing properties in the Ravenshoe district during the early days were Evelyn (see Chapter Four) and Woodleigh. The founder of Woodleigh station was Charles Overend Garbutt. He’d spent the first few years of his life at Marton Hall in North Yorkshire (which is the part of the world where James Cook had been raised a century earlier) and had come to Australia at the age of 16 in 1864, along with his mother and two brothers. The Garbutts brought £50,000 with



them and used most of it to buy grazing land in the Beenleigh area, but the venture wasn’t a success and in 1878 Garbutt sailed to Port Douglas looking for grazing land somewhere on the Tablelands. Woodleigh was available but even though it was a long way from the Hodgkinson Goldfield – then the main market for meat – he decided to buy it. He later extended his holding by buying nearby Tirrabella which, like Woodleigh, was drained by tributaries of the Herbert.

He soon ran into difficulties. His arrival in the district coincided with a succession of droughts and his herd was decimated by ticks. In either 1884 or 1885 Garbutt was forced to put Woodleigh on the market and it ended up in the hands of the Grant brothers, but the Garbutts continued to live at Tirrabella for a few more years.

Charles Garbutt was desperately unlucky in his pastoral ventures, but he was compensated to some extent by a happy and stable family life. In 1868, while on a trip to the old country, he fell in love with Lucy Elizabeth Watson. She came from the London suburb of Stamford Hill and her father, John, was a prominent railway engineer. One thing led to another and three years later Garbutt returned to England to marry her. She turned out to be an excellent wife and gave Garbutt no fewer than eight children.

While living at Woodleigh Garbutt became the first recorded European to set eyes on the Innot Hot Springs. One day he and one of his stockmen were in the vicinity of Nettle Creek (a tributary of the Herbert) when he noticed what appeared to be the smoke of a campfire. Garbutt had recently lost a number of cattle through Aboriginal attacks, and he thought the fire was being used to barbecue one of his bullocks. He and the stockman were both armed so they had nothing to fear. They crept towards what they thought was the Aboriginal campsite, but when they reached it they realised that what had looked like smoke was in fact steam rising from a series of hot water pools beside Nettle Creek. During the course of the next few years a number of mining communities grew within easy striking distance of the springs, and for a while they were a major attraction. A hotel was built next to them and bathing in their sulphurous waters became very popular.

When Garbutt sold Woodleigh to the Grants he decided to remain in the North and over the next couple of decades he watched his children grow into adults. He collapsed and died suddenly in 1906 as he was riding along the road that connected Innot Hot Springs with Herberton. Mrs Virge Johnson of Malanda, who spent her childhood on Mandalee (a resumption of Woodleigh), remembers that whenever she used to ride past the spot where it had happened, she’d always say to whoever was with her, ‘This is where old Mr Garbutt died.’

Garbutt’s three oldest sons – Charles Cecil, John Overend and Herbert Radcliffe – all stayed in the North and brought great credit to the family name. Charles had an auctioneering business in Mareeba, John was a butcher and stock buyer in the Mt Garnet area for many years, and later went into business with his youngest brother Ernest, while Herbert ended up as a cane farmer near Innisfail, after earlier helping his mother grow and sell fruit at Kuranda and serving on the Italian Front during the First World War. The most successful of all the brothers, however, was Ernest Temple. He was born in 1884 and at the age of 14 went to the Gulf Country, where he worked on Dunbar and Highbury Stations. This was followed by a brief spell at Tirrabella, then at 16 he decided to open a butcher’s shop in Coolgarra. This was his first commercial venture and marked the start of a highly successful career in business.

While Ernest was in Coolgarra his parents were forced to sell Tirrabella. His mother set up a combined butchery and fruit business in Kuranda in partnership with Herbert, but they soon ran into difficulties. Ernest left Coolgarra and tried to help them turn things around but the venture failed. Ernest quickly got back to work – this time at his brother John’s butcher’s shop in Mt Garnet. When tin was discovered at Gurrumbah he promptly set up a business of his own selling beef to the miners. He made a tidy sum in Gurrumbah and used it to establish a butchery near the corner of Flinders and Stanley Streets in Townsville. When he started it was a small shop but within a few years it had become the largest retail butchering business in Townsville. Ernest was subsequently joined by his older sibling, John, and they made Garbutt Brothers into a highly profitable company. It still operates today and has interests in shipping and cattle properties.



The Grant brothers, who bought Woodleigh from the Garbutts in the mid-1880s, were of Scottish origin and had lived most of their lives in Tasmania. The first member of the family to come to Australia was James Grant. He arrived in 1824 and took up a 2,000 acre (800 hectare) property in the Fingal Valley in what was then Van Diemen’s Land. He called it Tullochgorum after the birth place of his father, the Reverend James Grant.

There were four brothers in the generation of Grants that came to Queensland, although one of them, Ted, never ventured into the tropics. Harry and Wallace bought Woodleigh after earlier trying their luck in Cooma, in the New South Wales snow country. They battled hard against the same problems that had dogged the Garbutts, but their efforts were in vain and soon after the bank crash of 1893 they sold Woodleigh and went south. Their youngest brother, however, stayed put. In 1896 Franklin Grant (who’d been named after the explorer, Sir John Franklin*) took up a block of land that had been resumed from Woodleigh and called it Mandalee. Many years later the property passed to his grandson, Lionel. He owned it in the early 1970s and when he heard from his daughter Franklyn (who was one of my students) that I was trying to write a history of the district, he invited me out to Mandalee and spent a whole morning telling me what he knew about his family. He also put me in touch with Mrs Virge Johnson of Malanda, who was a Grant before her marriage, and it was she who told me about a remarkable Aborigine who was a friend to at least three generations of Grants. His real name was Bouerji, but everyone knew him as ‘Beadle’ and he lived with the family from the time he was a tot until his death in 1943.

The circumstances surrounding Beadle’s first encounter with the Grants can best be described as tragic. Members of his kinship group were alleged to have been spearing cattle on Woodleigh, so the Grants appealed to the authorities for help and a

detachment of Native Police came from Cashmere to punish the offenders.

The Grants led the police to where the suspected culprits were camped. They certainly didn’t expect them to massacre everyone in sight, yet this is exactly what they tried to do. They rode into the camp brandishing rifles and knives, and within a few minutes the dead and dying lay everywhere. The Grants appear not to have been present while all this was going on, but they were on hand to witness the grim aftermath of the terrible act of retribution they’d helped bring about.

The perpetrators of the massacre then conducted a search of what remained of the camp, and this led to the discovery of two babies, one male and one female, in a gunyah. What happened next came as a profound shock to the Grants. Up until then they’d naively assumed that the Native Police were in the business of enforcing law and order and helping establish justice in the outback, but when the babies were discovered an Aboriginal trooper picked up the boy by his legs and started whirling him around in the air. Realising that he intended smashing his skull against the nearest tree, Harry intervened and saved the little mite’s life and Wallace did likewise with the girl. They put each of them into a dilly bag (a native carrying basket), attached them to a quiet horse and took them home.

The two youngsters were taken in by Woodleigh’s resident cook and soon their stomachs were bulging as a result of the food they’d been eating. Boujerie’s paunch made Harry think of the beadle (town-crier) in Oliver Twist and this was the origin of his nickname.

Several years later Beadle’s brother, Mutyeroo, suddenly appeared and informed Beadle that his father, Quingai, and mother, Karingia, had both avoided the massacre. He also told him his real name, but by this stage Beadle had come to regard himself as one of the Grant family and had no desire to shed the name Harry had given him.

The Grants allowed Mutyeroo to work alongside his brother and the girl whom they’d rescued (she went by the name of Una). She mostly worked around the homestead, but the two boys became first-rate stockmen. They were also entrusted with the Grants’ cattle entries at the annual Herberton Show.

* Like Leichhardt, Sir John Franklin had the good fortune to disappear off the face of the earth and presumably die in a cruel wilderness. The mystery surrounding the fate of his expedition and the speculation as to his fate led to him becoming a national hero. If he’d succeeded in his mission to find a way through the Northwest Passage that was thought to exist immediately to the north of Canada, it’s unlikely that James Grant would have named one of his sons after him!



Partly thanks to their care the Grants often came away with prizes.

When things became difficult for the Grants, Beadle spent just over a year working as a horse-boy for Cobb and Co. at Mailchange Gully, a couple of kilometres from Woodleigh. But he returned to them just before Harry and Wallace left the North for good. Franklin, however, decided to stay in the area and he took Beadle to work for him at Mandalee. From then on, apart from a couple of years when drought forced Beadle to take a job driving bullock teams in the Peeramon area, he remained with Franklin until 1926 when his boss died.

Beadle was considered to be entirely trustworthy and reliable. So in 1896, when Franklin went to Tasmania to get married, he was left in charge at Mandalee, and 10 years later he ran the station for six months while the Grants went for a holiday in Tasmania. He was obviously proud of the responsibility, but when the family returned home he was absolutely overjoyed. Beadle was popular with Franklin’s children. He taught them to speak his language, to swim, throw boomerangs and track animals. He’d loved to have had children of his own but he took such a long time finding a wife that this never happened. When he was young he became very fond of an Aboriginal girl who lived not far from Woodleigh, but she ended up marrying someone else. Thirty five years later, however, her husband died and Beadle asked her to marry him. This time she said yes and came to live at Mandalee. The Grants provided the newlyweds with a cottage and Mrs Johnson assures me that they lived happily ever after.

When Harry and Wallace sold Woodleigh during the early 1890s it passed into the hands of the Munro Gordon Company. The next owners were the Williams of Carrington (see Chapter Six) who bought it sometime in the second decade of the 20th century and the same family owns it today. Due to a number of resumptions Woodleigh isn’t nearly as big as it once was – in 1886 it was 650 square kilometres, today it’s a mere 104 square kilometres – but it’s situated in the middle of some excellent grazing country and, even though being a cattleman isn’t the easiest way of earning a living, progress in communications and tick control have greatly reduced the number of problems which confronted the Garbutts and Grants.

Ever since the first graziers began appearing on the Tablelands, the raising of beef cattle has been of great significance to the North Queensland economy. In the half century that followed Mulligan’s discovery of gold on the Palmer River, the main role of people like the Athertons, Frasers and Garbutts was to supply the mining towns and ports with beef. Since then the local market has remained buoyant and large amounts of beef are now exported to Asia and North America. Pastoral activities, however, don’t provide much in the way of employment and if the Tablelands had been used exclusively for raising beef cattle, the population would be a lot lower than it is today. During the latter part of the 19th century certain parts of the Tablelands began being used for the cultivation of crops, and the timber industry began to grow rapidly. These developments led to the creation of a number of towns and it is to their history that we must now turn.


Chapter 4 – Evelyn Tableland – Australia’s Garden of Eden

Chapter 4Evelyn Tableland – Australia’s Garden of Eden

One morning in November 1971 a colleague at Brisbane State High School told me the acting principal, Jerry Reed, wanted to see me in his office.

‘Did he say what it’s about?’ I asked.

‘No he didn’t,’ came the reply.

I entered the principal’s office in some trepidation. I couldn’t think of anything that I’d done wrong recently, but I still felt uneasy as I sat down beside Mr Reed’s desk.

‘Ah yes, Mike. Look, I’m afraid I’ve some bad news for you.’

‘Oh no! Has something happened to my parents?’

‘No, no – nothing like that. Something’s cropped up in relation to your position at this school. I’ve just heard from head office that you’ve been given a transfer.’

‘Have I? That’s interesting. Where to?’

‘Ravenshoe.’

‘Ravenshoe! That’s great!’

‘Here, hang on a minute. You don’t even know where Ravenshoe is.’

‘Oh, yes I do. It’s on the Evelyn Tableland about 60 miles west of Innisfail and if I remember correctly it’s about 3,000 feet above sea level.’

‘Hmm, most impressive. Although, come to think of it, you are employed here as a geography teacher, so I suppose you should know things like that.’

‘Being a geography teacher doesn’t really come into it. The main reason I know a bit about Ravenshoe is because during the last school holidays I went up to the Tablelands. I didn’t actually get to Ravenshoe, but I did go through Millaa Millaa and that’s pretty close. And of course John Culloty, who sits at the next desk to me in the staffroom, is from Herberton and he’s told me a lot about the Tablelands and the mining country to the back of Herberton.’

Millstream Falls



‘Look, Mike I’ve got something else to attend to in a minute, but I’d just like to say that I’m relieved that you’re not sorry to be leaving us. Many teachers in the same position as you would respond by asking “Where’s Ravenshoe?” and then threaten to resign as soon as they’d found out.’

‘Thanks Mr Reed, but don’t get me wrong. I am sorry to be leaving this wonderful school, very sorry. I’ve had a great time here. But my colleagues tell me that working in small country schools is much more rewarding than being in a great big place like ours, and I know from personal experience that the scenery in Far North Queensland is second-to-none.’

‘You’re quite right of course. In fact it might surprise you to learn that I once taught in Millaa Millaa and I thoroughly enjoyed myself while I was there.’

• • •

When the time came for me to leave Brisbane, I was beginning to think that Ravenshoe mightn’t be such a marvellous place to work in after all. Would the students at the Ravenshoe State School be a bunch of hoodlums? Would the townspeople be friendly? Would there be plenty to do in the evenings and at weekends? If there wasn’t, I’d be in trouble because in those days Ravenshoe didn’t even have television. And how would I get on with the other teachers? Questions such as these pass through the minds of all teachers about to start at a new school. But I needn’t have worried. The two years I spent in Ravenshoe turned out to be among the happiest of my life and, of course, it was while I was there that I began to write this book – a project that has occupied me for almost 40 years.

People who know Ravenshoe are aware that it’s in the centre of a veritable Garden of Eden; but what most of them wouldn’t realise is that the town, and its surrounding district, also have a fascinating history. For a few years much of the Evelyn Tableland was part of a large pastoral holding known simply as Evelyn. Then in the 1880s a handful of farmers and their families came to settle on the belt of rich volcanic country just to the south of Herberton. They called the area the Evelyn Scrub because when they arrived much of it was covered in virgin rainforest. It wasn’t until 1899 that a settlement was established at what today is Ravenshoe. Like so many of the other towns in North Queensland it owed its existence to the entrepreneurial foresight and energy of John

Moffat of Irvinebank. At the tail end of the 19th century there was a large market for timber, especially red cedar and kauri pine, in the mining communities on the Walsh–Tinaroo Mining Field, so Moffat built a sawmill next to a tributary of the Millstream known as Cedar Creek. For a few years the settlement that grew up beside the sawmill was also called Cedar Creek, then in 1907 it was renamed Ravenshoe. At first the town was entirely dependent on the timber industry, but just prior to the First World War the district was transformed by an influx of farmers who took up blocks of land immediately to the east of the town. They spent the next few years cutting down the rainforest and replacing it with grass for dairy farming. Between the wars the timber industry grew in importance and Ravenshoe also acted as a service centre for the farmers in the surrounding district.

The first European to take up land on the Evelyn Tableland was Frank Stubley. In 1879 he invested a considerable sum in a pastoral holding which he called ‘Evelyn’, and over the next couple of years he stocked it with cattle. It’s often said that if a family acquires its riches quickly, there’s a good chance it’ll go from rags to riches and back to rags in just three generations; but the branch of the Stubley family associated with Evelyn Station didn’t need anything like that long. It completed the full cycle within ten years – a quite remarkable feat, which merits our attention, if not our admiration.

Francis Horace Stubley came originally from England. He was born in 1833, or thereabouts, and when he was a young man he emigrated to Victoria. After working for a few years as a blacksmith Stubley went into business in Warrnambool. Like many aspects of his early life the exact nature of the business is something of a mystery. If the Biographical Register of the Queensland Parliament is to be believed, he was a ship-broker, but in his obituary notice in the Sydney Bulletin he’s described as a venturesome potato speculator. There can, however, be no doubt as to the fate of his business – it failed – and Stubley was left with scarcely a penny to his name. Some evidence suggests that he might have returned to England at this time, but if he did it couldn’t have been for long because sometime during the early 1870s he surfaced in Charters Towers. When he arrived he couldn’t even afford to buy himself a cup of coffee – that, at any rate, is what he used to tell people – but he quickly fell on his feet. By 1878 he was one of the richest



men in North Queensland and had embarked upon what should have been a successful career in politics.

Stubley made most of his money by speculating in mining shares. We can safely assume, therefore, that he was once a familiar sight in the Charters Towers Stock Exchange. This magnificent old building is now one of the most iconic tourist attractions in North Queensland. After lying virtually abandoned for many years it was renovated in the 1970s and now functions as a museum and tourist information centre. Stubley bought and sold shares in a number of different mining companies. Several of them had their main operations in other parts of Australia or New Zealand, but most of the £200,000 he’s said to have made during the 1870s came from his interests in the Brian O’Lynn, Old Identity and St Patrick mines in the Charters Towers district.

In 1878 the voters in the electorate of Kennedy chose Stubley to represent them in the Legislative Assembly, but two years later he went to live in the upmarket Melbourne suburb of South Yarra. He continued to hold the seat until October 1883, but by that time he’d lost all of his credibility and most of his money.

According to an editorial published in the Charters Towers Herald shortly after his death, Stubley was unfortunate in not having the necessary balance of mind to preserve the advantages thrown by blind fortune into his lap… he evidently began to think himself infallible and this led him to tempt ‘Dame Fortune’ in a most reckless manner.1 He certainly lived recklessly after moving to Melbourne: he piled up a heap of gambling debts, bought expensive jewellery for his wife and lost something like £17,000 in a failed shipping venture.

On 11 March 1884 Stubley found himself in court facing insolvency proceedings. The person conducting the trial, His Honour Judge Noel, asked him to make a list of his assets, but he was either unable or unwilling to disclose the whereabouts of his wife’s jewellery. He told Judge Noel that he and his wife weren’t on very good terms, and he didn’t know exactly what had become of the jewels but he suspected they’d all been pawned. The judge was not satisfied with Stubley’s explanation and sent him to jail. He did not, however, remain there for more

than a few days. When details of the case appeared in a paper called The Week on 22 March he’d already been released.

Two years after his confrontation with Judge Noel Stubley returned to North Queensland. Gold had recently been discovered at Croydon and he evidently thought that if he were to get there soon enough he might be blessed with the same good fortune that had marked his years in Charters Towers. It wasn’t to be. He left the port of Normanton early in March 1886, along with 10 others. When they were approximately 100km east of Normanton, in the vicinity of Green Creek, they stopped for a drink at a roadside shanty. Almost immediately Stubley began to complain of fever and a few hours later he was dead. Three of his mates – John Thomas (alias Barcoo Jack), James McLean and Thomas Cory – also died and all the other members of the party became seriously ill (a telegram sent from Normanton to the Colonial Secretary in Brisbane stated that they weren’t expected to live). At first the men were said to have died of ‘heat apoplexy’, but the Queensland Government thought there must have been more to it than that, so a doctor was sent to exhume the bodies and find out what had really happened. Unfortunately, his report doesn’t appear to have survived but it was widely believed at the time that the deaths were caused by ‘doctored grog’. If this explanation is correct – and what little evidence there is certainly points in this direction – Francis Horace Stubley died in a manner that’s about as pathetic and squalid as one could possibly imagine and in one of the most god-forsaken places in the whole of Queensland.

It was in happier times that Stubley had become involved in Evelyn Station. In October 1879 he took out leases on two blocks of land – Eve Linn East and Evelyn. The former was 160 square kilometres and the latter 80. Then in 1882 he took up an adjacent block called Westward Ho. This extended over 56 square kilometres and was later to be the scene of a considerable amount of mining activity (for example, Irvinebank and Montalbion both grew up within its boundaries). Lands Department records show that Evelyn Station was once a consolidation of five runs – the three already mentioned plus Ravenshoe and Dalton. Ravenshoe was first taken up in 1880 by G. E. Clarke – a man whose links with Charters Towers went back further than Stubley’s. (Clarke was a member of the prospecting party that 1 Charters Towers Herald 2.3.1886



found the gold deposit around which the town later grew up.) The fifth run, Dalton, was taken up in 1885 by Edward Atkinson.

When Stubley got into financial difficulties his three runs passed into the hands of the Bank of New South Wales, and in the same year that Atkinson took on Dalton the bank split Evelyn Station in two. Atkinson must have subsequently assumed control of one half, and acquired an interest in some of the adjoining blocks too. This seems to be the only explanation for an advertisement which appeared in the Queenslander on 10 January 1891. Evelyn Station was up for sale and its owner, Edward Atkinson, had on offer 240 square kilometres of leasehold and 208 square kilometres of grazing rights, along with approximately 2,200 cattle and 45 horses. The advertisement assures would-be buyers that the country is unsurpassed in the district (which is unsurpassed in the colony) for fattening qualities, being thickly grassed and permanently watered, drought being unknown here.2

According to an article by Glenville Pike in Cumming and Campbell’s Monthly magazine in December 1951, the next owner of Evelyn Station

was a certain Mr Halloran. It later passed into the hands of the Dempsey family – Tim Dempsey owned the lease, and his brother Jim managed the property for him – then in 1898 the Dempseys sold it to John Moffat. His main interest was a fine stand of red cedar that Bill Mazlin is reputed to have stumbled across next to a tributary of the Millstream, known as Cedar Creek. While Moffat owned Evelyn a man named Pope ran it for him. In 1899, however, the property changed hands yet again. The new owner was Bob Perrott and he held it until it was broken up a few years later.

Glenville Pike got most of his information about Evelyn Station from Bill Pearson – a keen historian who taught for many years at the Chilverton and Ravenshoe State Schools. Bill also worked in schools near Bowen, El Arish and at Townsville South; but while teaching in Townsville he was killed in a traffic accident. Bill’s information came mainly from oral sources, so what he put down on paper mightn’t be totally accurate.

2 Advertisement placed in the Queenslander 10.1.1891

Evelyn Station c1974



Stubley decided to build his homestead alongside a tributary of the Millstream in the area now known as Kaban. It’s long since been abandoned and the house in which people like Stubley’s manager Willie Joss, Jim Dempsey and Perrott used to live has been carted away to a grazing property in the Mt Surprise area. Several of the outbuildings – including what appears to have been an accommodation block for station hands, and the meat shed – were still there when I paid my last visit to Evelyn Station on Christmas Day 1974. Other items to have withstood the ravages of time are a pumping engine next to Evelyn Creek, and a winch on which bullock carcasses were suspended before being cut up. But the most impressive feature of the homestead complex is the old stockyard. Made from timber trimmed by a broad axe, it’s a wonderful example of bush carpentry and is possibly the oldest construction on the Evelyn Tableland. It pre-dates the establishment of Ravenshoe by 20 years and there’s every reason to believe it was erected during Stubley’s time.

When the first European settlers began to trickle into North Queensland during the 1860s and 70s they found that most of the land to the west of the main range of the Eastern Highlands was covered with what geographers call ‘open’ or ‘dry sclerophyll’ forest. This type of country is ideal for grazing cattle, so the first wave of Europeans to take up land in the Cairns hinterland were graziers. People like John Atherton, the Fraser brothers and Stubley selected blocks where there was permanent water and an abundance of grass, and raised cattle to sell on the Palmer and Hodgkinson Goldfields. The new arrivals soon discovered that the Atherton and Evelyn Tablelands were dominated by tropical rainforests. These acted as a magnet to a handful of cedar-getters, but to the miners and graziers they were simply a barrier – albeit a majestic one – and at first were largely ignored. In April 1880, however, a rich tin lode was discovered in the upper reaches of the Wild River and the town of Herberton came into being. Over the next few years tin deposits were found on the other side of the Great Divide and this led to the creation of towns like Watsonville and Irvinebank. The major tin mining communities were all located in open forest country, but not far away lay the Evelyn Tableland. This was fortuitous, because the rainforest that covered much of the area contained valuable building timber while the red, volcanic soils appeared to be far more fertile

than the sandy soils that occurred in the few areas of flat land in the mountains behind Herberton.

The settlement of the Evelyn Scrub began in 1883 and, according to a report that appeared in the Wild River Times in December 1887, seven families had moved into the area by Christmas of that year. Unfortunately, the reporter doesn’t specify who they were, but prominent among them, and possibly the first to arrive, were the Mazlins. By the time I arrived on the Tablelands the Mazlins had long since left the North, but in September 1972 I had a long discussion with Percy Mazlin and his daughter, Mrs Wylie – who, at the time, was living in the Brisbane suburb of Aspley. They gave me a lot of useful information about their family’s role in the economic development of the North. I’ve included part of what they told me in this chapter and left the rest until Chapter Six.

Percy Mazlin’s father, William Mazlin, was one of the key figures in the opening up of the Cairns hinterland. He arrived in the North in the late 1870s and – together with brothers Thomas, James and John – worked for some time as a timber-getter in the lower reaches of the Johnstone River. Soon after the discovery of the Great Northern tin lode William moved up to the Tablelands, with at least one of his brothers (John), and cut timber for Burns Philp. He erected a home in Priors Pocket (which later became the town of Atherton), next to the creek that bears his name. The building has long since disappeared but it was situated close to the current Ambulance Station.

Mazlin moved to the Evelyn Tableland in 1883. Until then he’d worked almost exclusively in the timber industry, but was destined to devote most of the next couple of decades to agriculture. According to Percy Mazlin, his father first saw the site of his new home while searching for timber (presumably while living at Priors Pocket). He was immediately attracted to the area and managed to secure title to a 64 hectare block, which he subsequently extended. He called his property ‘Orange Grove’ and ended up living there for over 20 years.

Orange Grove was situated near the edge of the scrub in open forest country but, according to Percy Mazlin, while his parents were getting established the rainforest provided them with most of their income. Percy told me his father cut down several red cedar trees on his property, and they found a



ready market on the Walsh–Tinaroo Mining Field. But Cairns historian Les Pearson, who’s done an enormous amount of research into the settlement of the Evelyn Tableland, believes that Percy could well be mistaken. Les points to the fact that, unlike Henry Stone on nearby Montacute, the Mazlins didn’t have much rainforest on their land; and, prior to the construction of John Moffat’s mill at Cedar Creek (Ravenshoe) in 1898, the only mill in the area belonged to Edward P. Williams on the corner of Cressbrook, and it ceased operating in about 1891. After the tramline was built from Turulka to Evelyn Central there was another outlet for logs but, even so, Les is adamant that Mazlin wouldn’t have earned much money from selling the timber on his own land.

Mazlin grew a variety of crops – at first mainly oranges, but he later experimented with apples, apricots, figs, grapes, lemons, mulberries, peaches, pears and quinces. He sold most of his fruit in Herberton and, if the medals he won at local agricultural shows are anything to go by, at least some was of the highest quality. Mazlin also raised pigs and grew oats, which he sold as oaten chaff to teamsters for about £7 a ton. In addition, he had the distinction of being one of the first farmers on the Tablelands to grow paspalum grass and the first to bring English bees onto the Tablelands. He purchased four hives in Sydney, but the Chinese carrier who carted them from Port Douglas lost half of them in a creek. From the two that were rescued Mazlin built up an apiary of approximately a hundred hives.

An enormous amount of work needed doing at Orange Grove, and Mazlin employed a Chinese gardener, several Aborigines (among them Kitty and Boko) and a handful of what used to be called ‘Kanakas’ (indentured labourers from the South Sea Islands). In addition, his wife was the stereotypical ‘Aussie battler’. Besides keeping the house in order and looking after the children, she used to make butter, most of which was sold in Herberton.

When the Mazlins first arrived at Orange Grove they were worried that they might be attacked by disaffected Aborigines. To make their house easier to defend, they gave it two storeys, and built it as close as they could to James Mazlin’s residence on the next block. William Mazlin’s wife also took the precaution of carrying a loaded revolver with her at all times,

but she doesn’t appear to have ever been called upon to use it.

William Mazlin was a successful farmer but he contributed to the economic development of the Evelyn Tableland in a number of other ways too. In 1887 he cut a path through the scrub from Evelyn to the Millaa Millaa Falls, following an Aboriginal track also used by Christie Palmerston. And when, 11 years later, Moffat brought in the first machinery for his timber mill at Cedar Creek it was Mazlin, assisted by Tom Smith, who cleared the track that enabled it to get there. In 1899 he pushed a pathway through to Archers Creek – which lies midway between Ravenshoe and Mt Garnet – and he was also responsible for route ways to the Tully Falls and from Evelyn to the Crater.

In Back o’Cairns Ion Idriess makes a claim which, if true, would mean that Mazlin was primarily responsible for the birth of Ravenshoe. According to Idriess, it was Mazlin who discovered the stand of red cedar next to Cedar Creek that was the town’s raison d’etre. Percy Mazlin, however, thinks this unlikely. He can’t recall his father ever mentioning the discovery of the cedar and believes that if he really was responsible, he’d have told his children.

In 1905 William Mazlin sold Orange Grove to Ned Harte (who, incidentally, was married to one of John Atherton’s daughters), and from 1906 until 1912 he managed a mine on the Herberton Deep Lead. During the First World War four of his sons – Frederick, Leslie, Norman and Victor – joined up. Leslie and Norman were both killed at Gallipoli in 1915 (on 30 April and 8 August respectively) and Victor was sent back to Australia after fracturing his skull. Frederick too was invalided out of the army and assigned to recruitment duties – not an easy task, given what had happened to him and his brothers.

In 1918 William Mazlin moved to Brisbane and lived there for over 20 years. He named his house ‘Evelyn’, which tends to suggest that his heart lay elsewhere. He died in 1941 at the age of 85, and lies buried but not forgotten in one of the Brisbane cemeteries.

When I interviewed Percy Mazlin it didn’t occur to me to ask him about his mother. Consequently, I know almost nothing about her. Fortunately, this didn’t happen when I interviewed two members of another of the Evelyn Tableland’s pioneer families – the Hulls. In June 1973 I had a long conversation



with Mrs Winnie Dawson at her home – just 18km from Ravenshoe. Then, more than 16 years later, I interviewed her younger sister, Mrs Edith Fardon, at Medlow Bath in the Blue Mountains. They both spoke about their mother, Mary Hull, but hardly mentioned their father, John. This, however, is to be expected because Mrs Hull was one of the most respected of all the early pioneers on the Tablelands, whereas her husband didn’t endear himself to the local community to anything like the same extent. We know he was a butcher in Herberton and that he did a lot of stock work over the years. He’s also reputed to have been a serial philanderer and sired several children out of wedlock – but I’d better not get drawn into that! Les Pearson describes him as a ‘shrewd wheeler dealer’, which is a good summation.

Mary Hull was a woman of many talents. She had a remarkable knowledge and understanding of horses and was one of the best riders in the North. She was frequently called upon to deliver babies and cure all manner of ailments. There was nothing she couldn’t turn her hand to on her farm. According to Mrs Dawson (herself a fiercely independent woman), her mother was in no way daunted by the responsibilities involved in running a farm; but, given the nature of her upbringing this is scarcely surprising.

Duncan McAuslan (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)

The matriarch of the Hull family was born in the South Island of New Zealand in 1866. She came to North Queensland when she was a toddler, and spent the rest of her life in the catchment area of the Herbert River. Her parents were Duncan and Maria McAuslan, and Mary the younger of two children. The family are thought to have arrived at the Valley of Lagoons between 1868 and 1870 after travelling overland from Bowen. The two girls are reputed to have made the journey sitting in sugar bags placed either side of a trusty horse.

To begin with Duncan McAuslan worked as the head stockman at Stone Hut – a sizeable property in the Lower Herbert used by the owners of the Valley of Lagoons for breeding purposes. While there McAuslan bought some land on Trebonne Creek, then later purchased 1,260 acres beside the Stone River. He and his family moved to the Valley of Lagoons head station sometime in the mid-1870s, but in 1879 he resigned; and, after taking two mobs of cattle to the Palmer River, he joined forces with Stone at Wairuna Station.

In later years Mary would often reminisce about her childhood at Stone Hut and the Valley of Lagoons, and was obviously fond of both places. Her father’s boss, Walter Jervoise Scott, was always kind to her and it was during these years that she developed her life-long passion for horses. In addition, it was while her father was employed by the Scotts that her mother taught her and her sister Anna to read – although not from conventional reading books, but from bundles of children’s newspapers that a friend had sent her.

In 1881 the McAuslans shifted to their property on the Stone River. It lay adjacent to The Grange (which belonged to Henry Stone) and they called it ‘Greenfields’. It was swampy, open forest country, and Mary was expected to work outdoors with her father. What McAuslan really wanted was a son, but when Mary was born he was told that his wife couldn’t have any more children. This came as a devastating blow, and he reacted by treating Mary as the son he could never have. His elder daughter, Anna, was allowed to help her mother in the kitchen and at the sewing table, but Mary had to work from dawn to dusk with her father, breaking in horses, carting supplies from the local store, thatching farm buildings, growing crops and tending livestock. Mrs Fardon was highly critical of the way in which her mother was treated,



but it’s difficult to see what else McAuslan could have done. What’s more, by treating Mary the way he did he taught her many of the skills that she was to use to such good effect when she came to the Evelyn Tableland, and she actually seems to have enjoyed working alongside her father.

One of the consequences of Mary’s unconventional upbringing was that she practically forgot how to read and write. While growing up she missed out on school completely, and after spending her days working in the hot sun she was too exhausted to study in the evenings. When Mary was in her late teens she was sent to boarding school in Townsville, but a group of girls used to tease her because she was so far behind with her reading and writing. Eventually, after six months’ misery, she suffered a nervous breakdown and her mother brought her home. Her father had died a year or so earlier, on 22 July 1883 (which presumably had some bearing on the decision to send her to school in the first place) so she was free to strike out in new directions. She took a job in Alston’s store, near Ingham, and in or around 1887 she got married.

John Hull was born on 14 July 1865 in Mallerstang, which lies just outside Kirkby Stephen – a market town in northern England. When he was about four

his family emigrated to Australia and they pitched up in the Lower Trebonne Creek area around 1871. The Hulls were farmers and, after failing in an attempt to grow tobacco, they went in for dairy farming. Their main speciality was cheese-making and, according to Mrs Fardon, they once won a prize for their cheese at an international competition in London.

Soon after they married John and Mary Hull moved inland to Wyandotte Station where Mary befriended the Aborigines. She already knew their language, having learned it while living at the Valley of Lagoons, and she took great interest in their culture. At Wyandotte she also spent a lot of time caring for sick animals, so by the time she arrived on the Evelyn Tableland she was a competent amateur vet.

In 1888 the Hulls had their first child. When the baby was almost due, Mary rode alone to Stoneleigh to be with her mother, and after she’d given birth to Winifred Jane (the awesome Winnie Dawson, whose fiery outbursts added spice to Chapter Five in Volume One) she returned to Wyandotte with the baby on the saddle in front of her. What a woman!

The next of the Hull children, Rhoda Maria, was born in 1889, not far from Stoneleigh, at The Grange. Mary’s mother had been working there as housekeeper for some time for her other daughter, Anna, and son-in-law, Henry Stone. According to popular legend, she’d serve them their meals in the dining room, and then retreat to the kitchen to eat the leftovers!

By the time the Hulls’ next child arrived (Anna in 1891) they’d move to Devaney’s Paddock – a small holding near the confluence of Nigger Creek and the Wild River at Tepon (which is on the Evelyn side of Wondecla) – and were making a living by caring for and breaking in horses. They stopped there for a couple of years, then in January 1892 Mary’s mother was killed, after the buggy in which she was travelling hit a stump and hurled her head first onto the road. Mary inherited the bulk of her estate and a few months later she bought a 163-acre (65ha) block on the Evelyn Tableland from E. P. Williams. He’d gone broke and the property was hers for a mere £300.

Towards the end of 1892 Mary and her three children trundled across to her new home, with her possessions stuffed into boxes and carried on the backs of horses she’d inherited from her mother. Husband John doesn’t appear to have been

Mary Hull (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)



with them, presumably because by this stage his unfaithfulness had come to light and he and Mary were living apart. They did get together every now and then over the next few years – and three more children were born as a result – but theirs was by no means a happy marriage.

Besides establishing a timber mill on his property, Williams had constructed a fenced paddock (presumably for his bullock team) and planted a small orchard. He’d also built a cottage, but it wasn’t anything like big enough for Mary’s needs. She commissioned Bill Mazlin, who was one of her closest neighbours, to build something more substantial, and a decision was made to call the property ‘Cressbrook’ after the cress that grew in profusion in nearby Mill Creek. Incidentally, the creek had acquired its name, because Williams’ sawmill, which used a water wheel to drive the machinery, was located beside it.

Over the next few years the Hull family continued to grow in size: Elsie was born in 1892, Rowland in 1894, Kenneth in 1899 and Hazel (Edith) in 1905. According to Mrs Fardon, her mother initially found great difficulty in making ends meet and she survived by selling logs. Les Pearson, however, points out that there was no rainforest on Cressbrook and in the years when she was getting established there were no working mills nearby. It seems more likely a combination of Mary’s mother’s legacy and farm income were primarily responsible for keeping the wolf from the door.

Eventually, Mary accumulated enough money to extend her own farm by 73 acres and buy blocks of land for her two sons. She also purchased Hepburn’s property on Geraldton Road to ensure that if all the grass on Cressbrook was wiped out in a bushfire, they’d have an alternative source of stock feed. These acquisitions were made possible, in part, by Henry Stone leaving Montacute to Mary in 1919.

One of the most enduring memories Mrs Fardon has of the house in which she grew up is that it was always full of visitors. Some came on business, others were simply after a ‘chinwag’ and a cup of tea. But quite often people turned up because they had ailments and Mary, renowned for her skill as a prescriber and dispenser of bush medicine, was expected to cure them. Mrs Fardon has no idea where her mother acquired her medical expertise (perhaps it was from the Aborigines, because she developed close

ties with them wherever she went) but she was able to recall one of her cures…

Every now and then a distraught mother would appear on Mary’s doorstep complaining that every time she suckled her baby, she’d experience severe pains in her breast. Whenever this happened Mary would find a cabbage and put some of the outer leaves in the oven. As soon as they began to sweat, she’d remove them from the oven, wrap them around the affected breast, then put the patient to bed. Several hours later the pain would have disappeared.

Mary Hull took her role as a health worker very seriously – even when she was old and ill and in need of medical assistance herself. Her dedication to the well being of others can be illustrated by an episode that occurred towards the end of her life, while she was recuperating from a series of heart attacks. I don’t have any names or dates, but I’m sure that the story is at least based on fact…

One day Mary was informed that a neighbour was about to have a baby. The would-be mother’s doctor was otherwise engaged and Mary was aware that unless she could get to her a disaster might occur. Despite the pleas of family members, Mary insisted on going to the woman’s aid. She didn’t have the strength to mount her horse, so she walked instead. Her message to her anxious relatives as she set out from Cressbrook was: ‘if God wants me to attend this birth, it will be with His strength that I go’. Evidently God looked favourably upon Mary’s errand of mercy. He gave her the strength that she needed, the baby was delivered safely, its mother survived and so, remarkably, did Mary.

For several years in the late 1920s and early 30s, Mary Hull supplemented her income by taking in paying guests at Cressbrook. Some of her customers were people seeking refuge from the incessant heat on the coast, while others were government officials who wanted somewhere homely to base themselves whenever their work took them to the Tablelands.

Mary Hull lived at Cressbrook until her death on 31 October 1940. As one would expect, her funeral was one of the biggest ever seen in the North. She was buried just a few hundred metres from the house where she’d raised her children, in the small bush cemetery where several of her nearest and dearest had been interred earlier. The grave of her sister Anna – who, as we saw in Chapter Five of Volume One, had



been her next-door-neighbour from 1904 until the time of her death in 1913 – was there. So too were those of her brother-in-law, Henry Stone, and son-in-law Alexander Fraser (he’d married the Hull’s second eldest daughter, Rhoda, but soon after had been killed cutting timber).

John Hull drifted away from the Tablelands and ended his days in the Eventide Home in Charters Tower, where his sister Millicent was a fellow patient. He died in 1956 and presumably is buried somewhere in ‘The Towers’.

During the course of my conversations with Winnie Dawson and Edith Fardon the name Henry Keough kept cropping up. He lived within easy walking distance of Cressbook and, like the Hulls, was one of the first European settlers on the Evelyn Tableland. Henry (or ‘Old Daddy’ as everyone used to call him) was held in the highest regard by just about everyone.Mrs Dawson went so far as to say that he was the finest man she ever met. He founded a dynasty that is still prominent in the Evelyn district to this day.

As one might expect with a name like Keough, Henry came originally from Ireland. He had a somewhat unusual background in that his family were Protestants living in a part of Ireland that was almost exclusively Catholic. The Keoughs, however, never suffered any kind of discrimination from their neighbours in New Ross, County Wexford, and throughout his life Keough could never understand why it was that Catholics and Protestants seemed

unable to live together in peace in other parts of his native land.

Soon after leaving school Keough emigrated to Australia and found work just outside Beenleigh, in south-east Queensland, at a place called Agiston. Incidentally, someone else who left the New Ross district of Ireland at approximately the same time as Keough was a young man named Patrick Kennedy. He chose to go to America instead – a decision that was to have profound consequences. His grandson, Joseph Kennedy, became a successful businessman and was for a time American Ambassador to Britain; and in 1960 Patrick’s great-grandson, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, brought even greater honour to the family by becoming President of the United States.

In the mid 1870s Keough left Agiston and moved to the tropics. He spent some time in the Mackay district working for the CSR Company in their Homebush Mill, but this doesn’t appear to have suited him so he headed off to the Burdekin Delta and took a job at Maida Vale working for Dr Burnie. He did not, however, remain with Dr Burnie for long and John Drysdale, one of the leading figures in the Australian sugar industry, gave him a job as a field overseer.

While living and working in the Burdekin Delta Keough met his wife, Kate Stanley. They spent their first two years of married life in the Ayr district, then sometime in the mid-to-late 1880s they packed their possessions into a spring cart and, along with their first child (Charley) and two kangaroo dogs, travelled overland to the Tablelands. They were held up for six weeks at the Valley of Lagoons but after six months on the road they arrived at Nyleta.

The Keoughs remained at Nyleta for several years while they cleared the block of land they’d selected on the Evelyn Tableland, and their second son, Stanley, was born there in 1892. Soon after they moved to Evelyn and before long they were making a reasonable living selling butter and vegetables in the nearby mining towns. Kate spent most of her time at home, but Henry often used to travel around the district and became very well known in places like Herberton and Atherton. He always wore a piece of red flannel around his neck and never swore. Whenever anything shocked him, his usual reaction was to say ‘Well, well, well’, and repeat it a few times.

Henry (‘Old Daddy’) Keough (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)



The Keoughs had three sons, the youngest of whom, Leslie, was still alive when I first went to Ravenshoe. I interviewed him on a couple of occasions and in November 1973 he took me to where his parents had built their homestead. To my surprise it was situated on top of a hill. I’d never known a farmhouse to be located in such a position before, so I asked Les why his parents had put it there. Surely it couldn’t have been for the magnificent view?

‘No, not for the view,’ replied Les. ‘On wet days – and there were plenty of them – there wasn’t much of a view anyway. The Dad built here because he’d had a bad experience with a flood down south. I don’t know if the place he was living in actually went under, but the damage he saw stuck in his mind, so when he was looking for a place to settle down and bring up a family, he came to the highest part of Queensland and built his house on top of a hill. He always used to tell us that the Bellview homestead was the highest building in the state. I don’t know whether that’s right or not, but I do know that there was never any chance of us getting flooded out.

‘As I told you before, the family farm was called Bellview, but the name has no connection with the French word “belle”. Sometime early in the piece the

Minister for Lands came here. His name was Bell and the Dad decided to call it after him.

‘In the early days, when the Dad was clearing his block he cut down lots of cedar, maple and all sorts of other trees that would be worth a fortune today. He sold the cedar and pine, although he didn’t get much for it, but most of rest just went up in smoke. The Dad realised at the time that this was a terrible waste, so he decided to do something about it. What he did is down in the gully. We’ll go and take a look, then we can wander up to the old house. How does that sound?’

It sounded marvellous. Les led me across a paddock and into a small pocket of rainforest. It was a beautiful summer evening and in several places rays of sunshine were able to penetrate through the tree tops and illuminate parts of the forest floor. The scene resembled something out of a Tolkien novel. In fact, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if we’d stumbled across an elf sitting on a toadstool, or a group of pixies playing hide and seek around the base of one of the giant rainforest trees.

‘The Dad was appalled at all the destruction he saw going on around him. This made him think that unless something was done quickly the Tablelands

Les Keough at Bellview



would eventually be left without any timber, so in 1899 he planted a stand of maples right where we’re standing. You see this tree here? What do you think its girth is? Six feet, you reckon? Could be. I’d say it’s more like seven or eight. Anyway, the point is that in 74 years these maples have grown to this size. There’s a spring in here and the trees help keep the ground firm. They also provide shade for the cattle in summer.’

After we’d finished exploring what must surely be one of North Queensland’s first conservation projects, we walked up the hill and Les spent a few minutes showing me round the remains of the house in which he grew up. He told me his parents were buried close by, but we didn’t have time to visit their grave. Fortunately Les’ son, Geoff, was kind enough to take me there the following May. The grave, which is very simple, is in an out-of-the-way spot, but it’s where Kate and Henry wanted to be laid to rest – among the trees they loved so much and close to the home where they’d raised their family.

On our way back to Les’ four-wheel-drive vehicle, we watched the sun go down over the part of the Evelyn Tableland to which the Mazlins, Hulls and Keoughs had come in the latter part of the 19th century. It was a magnificent sight and made me think of an inscription I’d once seen in the Red Fort complex in Delhi. It was put there on the instructions of the man who gave the world the Taj Mahal – the Mogul Emperor, Shahjahan – and is in Old Persian, but is usually translated thus:

If on earth there be an Eden, It is this, It is this, It is this.

The Red Fort is undoubtedly one of the world’s architectural gems and in Shahjahan’s time it would have been even more spectacular than it is today, but on a fine summer evening the view from the Keoughs’ Bellview homestead is, in its own way, every bit as impressive. The jungle-covered mountains, the rich green paddocks of the dairy farmers and the fields of maize and potatoes combine to produce a landscape that is the equal of any in Australia. If there is a part of the world that’s more like the biblical vision of the Garden of Eden, I’ve yet to see it.

Sometime during the latter part of the 19th century the great mining entrepreneur, John Moffat, became

aware of the existence of a magnificent stand of red cedar next to a tributary of the Millstream known, appropriately enough, as Cedar Creek. There was a ready market for cedar in the towns of the Walsh–Tinaroo Mining Field, so Moffat decided to secure title to the land on which the trees stood and bring in a mill capable of turning them into sawn timber. In 1898 he bought Evelyn Station from the Dempseys and appointed Mr Pope to take charge of its pastoral activities. At the same time he purchased a timber mill in Tasmania and had it shipped to Cairns.

In those days the railway to the Tablelands only went as far as Mareeba, so for the last 100km components for the mill had to be transported by bullock wagon. The two men given this unenviable task were Jack Bailey and Jack Kidner. The first leg – the 40km stretch between Mareeba and Atherton – was relatively straightforward. There were no hills and the road was, by the standards of the day, well-maintained. Just the other side of Atherton, however, the two men began to run into difficulties. There was nothing wrong with the surface of the road: gradients were the problem. Between Atherton and Herberton the road crosses a mountain range and hauling heavy machinery up its steeper sections was no easy task, but Bailey and Kidner did what any bullocky would do in such a situation. Whenever they came to a hill one of the men would unhook his team from its wagon and couple it to the front of the other team. The two sets of bullocks would then pull the wagon up the road for a few hundred metres. Once it was securely in position the two teams would return to the other wagon and repeat the procedure.

It was on the far side of Herberton that Bailey and Kidner encountered their most formidable problems: there was a road through part of the Evelyn Scrub but it was simply a dirt track and was impassable, even for light traffic, for much of the wet season. And for the last few kilometres there’d been no road at all when Moffat made the decision to bring a mill into the area. Bill Mazlin and Tom Smith (who, incidentally, later became a resident of Chilverton) cut a track through the forest and this enabled Bailey and Kidner to reach their destination. They completed their initial journey on 11 June 1899, but had to return to Mareeba on three subsequent occasions to complete their task.

Moffat’s engineers erected the mill next to Cedar Creek on the site now occupied by the Ravenshoe



tennis courts and it began operating in November 1899. The first consignment of timber was for Sam Davidson. It was delivered to him by Kidner and he used it to build Lucey’s Hotel in Mt Garnet. Over the next few years the mill appears to have changed hands on a number of occasions. Unfortunately, I was unable to track down any contemporary records, so to piece together the early years of the mill’s history I’ve had to rely on an article written by local historian Bill Pearson and taped interviews with Ted Malone and Christie Samundsett. Bill lived on the Evelyn Tableland for many years and would have known several of the early residents of Cedar Creek. His account should, therefore, be fairly accurate, but it doesn’t always tie in with what Ted and Christie told me. Both men lived in the Cedar Creek district before the First World War and they worked in the timber industry, so their recollections must count for something – although it should be stressed that when I interviewed them they were trying to remember things that had happened more than 60 years earlier.

Initially, the mill was either managed, or leased, by Mr Watson. He was quickly replaced by Mr Ward, then in August 1901 William Hay took over. Like the

mill itself, Hay was from Tasmania and prior to his arrival at Cedar Creek he’d been involved in building the Chillagoe Smelters. In 1903 he was on the move again, this time to the Philippines to take up a well-paid position as a constructional engineer. At the time of his departure the mill’s workforce included Cec Adair, Hubert Barrett, Ted Firth, Nat Hay, ‘Bricky’ Holdcroft, Tom Mitchell, Hans Neilson, Will Paisley and Rowley Smith.

In 1903 the lease passed into the hands of Tom Mitchell – a man whose family had been associated with the mill since its earliest days. His brother, Joe, had been one of the first employees, while Tom had been on the payroll when Hay left to go to the Philippines. Initially, Mitchell was in partnership with William Ross, but this arrangement didn’t last long and Mitchell was left in sole charge until 1909 when the mill was forced to close due to the hazardous state of its boilers. Moffat continued to own the mill, but in advertisements it was always referred to as ‘Mitchell’s Mill at Cedar Creek’.

When Christie Samundsett arrived on the Evelyn Tableland in 1910 there was no activity at the mill, but it reopened in 1911 or thereabouts. In 1909

Kauri pine log from Henry Stone’s selection (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)



Moffat had sold it to Robert Perrott of Evelyn Station and Fred Robinson of Wooroora. They bought an engine and boiler from Glutton Gully (near Mt Garnet) and had them carted to Cedar Creek. Fred Haigh (who married Anna Hull) and Nat Hay (a brother of the former manager) acquired the lease in or around 1911, and held it for approximately a year. The mill’s next lessee was J. M. Johnstone. He took over in March 1913 and traded as Cedar Creek Saw & Planing Mills. In August 1915 J. S. Churchward bought the mill from Johnstone.

During the First World War Ernest William Mazlin (known to all and sundry as ‘Bill Junior’) built a timber mill on the north bank of the Millstream, right next to the railway station which first became operational in December 1916. According to Bill Pearson, Mazlin bought Moffat’s old mill and simply moved it across town, but Christie Samundsett told me that it was a completely separate venture. Admittedly, Mazlin bought some of the machinery from the Cedar Creek Mill, including one of the planers, but he acquired most of what he needed (including a new boiler which arrived in March 1917) elsewhere; and several items of machinery from the old mill were purchased by other people – for example, Christie Samundsett’s father acquired the rack benches. Be that as it may, the first log in Mazlin’s Mill was processed in June 1917.

Mazlin eventually sold out to Rosenfeld and Sons and they ran it until the 1960s when it was finally shut down and abandoned. During the ensuing years the Ravenshoe Progress Association looked into the possibility of turning the mill into a working museum. At the time one of the planers that Moffat had brought up from Tasmania was still on the premises, and the buildings were in relatively good condition; but by the early 1980s the planer had disappeared and the buildings had deteriorated to such an extent that it was no longer feasible to renovate or restore the mill.

Over the years a number of other mills have operated in the Ravenshoe district. Among them were Samundsett’s, which worked during the late 1920s, close to where Corney and Smith’s mill now stands; Condon’s, located beside the Tully Falls Road on the far side of Vine Creek; Stewart’s, which operated next to the Millstream between Ravenshoe and Tumoulin; and Keough’s Mill, which commenced production in or around 1939.

By far the most unusual of the early mills was one that Joe and Tom Mitchell built just outside Ravenshoe close to the Tully Falls Road. They thought they could use water power to drive their machines, so they constructed a network of fluming between their mill and Vine Creek and directed a steady flow of water into the buckets of an overshot waterwheel. The wheel, which had a diameter of nine metres, was a wonder to behold; and, to the amazement of the locals, it actually worked. Sadly, though, the Mitchells didn’t reap any reward for their ingenuity and engineering expertise because they fell out with the person who owned the land and they had to abandon their mill. They were able to take their machinery elsewhere but they had to leave their waterwheel behind. Over the years it slowly rotted away and by the 1970s had virtually disappeared.

The North Queensland rainforests contain hundreds of different species of trees, but prior to the First World War only red cedar and kauri pine were required in any great quantity by the timber industry. The mills in and around Ravenshoe were in an ideal position to take advantage of this situation: they were close to one of the largest concentrations of red cedar in Australia and there was plenty of kauri pine in the district (Christie Samundsett remembers a particularly fine stand growing in what are now the grounds of Ravenshoe’s Roman Catholic Church). Soon after the commencement of hostilities in 1914 there was an upsurge in demand for North Queensland maple (it was found to be ideal for making aircraft propellers) and, as it grew in abundance on the Evelyn Tableland, the local mills were able to make an important contribution to the war effort and at the same time boost their own profits.* Subsequently uses were found for many of the other types of tree that grow in the vicinity of Ravenshoe, and this meant the timber industry was able to continue long after the more accessible supplies of red cedar, kauri pine and maple had been used up.

Small-scale operators, like the Samundsetts, had to rely on their own efforts to keep supplied with logs but the large mills, like those owned by Moffat and Mazlin, obtained theirs from self-employed

* According to Les Pearson, I’ve got the wrong war. He thinks that the maple propellers were used on World War Two planes. He could well be right. He usually is!



timber-getters. When I began writing Up the Palmerston a number of the men who’d earned their living this way during the early years of the 20th century were still alive, and one of them, Henry Condon, was kind enough to tell me how he and people like him used to operate.

The timber-getters Henry knew were usually men who liked being their own boss, but they almost always worked in pairs (one man was known as the ‘cutter’, the other as the ‘blue tongue’). This was done partly for reasons of safety (felling trees and transporting logs was even more dangerous in those days than it is today) and partly because trees were cut down using cross-cut saws which needed two people to operate. In the early days the mill owners were only interested in logs whose girth exceeded eight feet (between two and three metres). Whenever timber-getters came across a tree this big they’d first have to make sure that it belonged to a species for which there was a commercial demand. If it did, they’d then have to work out the direction in which they wanted it to fall. They had to be especially careful to avoid other large trees, as there was always the danger that instead of dropping to the ground the tree being cut down might end up propped against another of the forest giants.

Once the all-important decision had been made a ‘belly’ or ‘scarf ’ would be cut into the side of the tree, either with an axe or a saw (the latter did the job quicker) and this determined which way it would fall. The timber-getters would then spend several hours sawing through the trunk towards the belly using a cross-cut saw. They’d each take hold of one end of the saw and would keep going until the tree began to topple. Then the bottom part of the tree would be cut into logs approximately four metres in length. These would later be ‘snigged’ to a ramp to be loaded onto a wagon, which would take them to a sawmill.

The people who made a living by transporting logs through the scrub soon discovered that bullocks were far better suited to the work than horses. As long as they were sprayed with arsenic dip every three or four weeks to rid them of ticks, they could work in the scrub for days at a time and suffer no apparent ill effects. They didn’t even appear to be affected by stinging bushes, which is quite remarkable because a horse would become very distressed if it brushed against one.

The bullock drivers became very fond of their animals, although this didn’t prevent them from constantly shouting and swearing at them. They’d always place their two most experienced beasts at the front of the team and communicate their demands to the other animals through them. The number of bullocks in a team depended on a variety of factors – like the nature of the terrain, the state of the roads and the weight of the load – but there were usually about 20. The bullocks were always yoked up in the same order and each had an individually made yoke and bow to fit them.

Until 1910 the timber industry was by far the largest provider of employment in the Ravenshoe district, but in the years leading up to the First World War the local economy began to diversify due to a large influx of newcomers. They came from all over Australia and from a variety of backgrounds, but they all shared the same dream – to establish a farm on the outskirts of Ravenshoe and make enough money to provide a comfortable home for themselves and their dependants. Their presence attracted more services to the district and by the 1920s the timber industry didn’t dominate the local economy to anything like the same extent that it had done in the early years of the 20th century.

Most of the new settlers belonged to organisations that had been established for the purpose of acquiring land in the Ravenshoe district. The largest and best organised of these were the Major Group, the West Australian Group and the North Cedar Creek Group (which was also known as the Charters Towers Group Number Three) and they began their activities in 1907. The first moves were made by W. E. Kelly – an employee of Mitchell’s Mill who was acting on behalf of the West Australians. He urged the Queensland Government to make land available to the would-be settlers as soon as possible. The Charters Towers Group made similar representations, and as a result about 300 blocks were surveyed by Tindal Pearson Porter and Frederick Drew. Porter’s draughtsman was a certain Mr Kingston, while Drew had Eric Kenny working for him in a similar capacity. Drew was also fortunate enough to have well-known local bushman, Jack Macmillan, guiding him around the district. The land being surveyed was part of Evelyn Station, which at the time was owned by Bob Perrott and John Moffat. Soon after Porter and Drew had completed their work, Perrott and Moffat



were informed that part of their holding had been resumed. Perrott was given Meadowbank Station (which lies to the back of Mt Garnet) to compensate him for his loss. Moffat received a total of 177 acres (71.6ha) and promptly offered 150 acres (60.7ha) of his allocation to Bill Rogers, who’d worked with him for many years. Surprisingly, Rogers didn’t want the land, so Moffat gave it to Rogers’ wife instead.

It was while the surveyors were at work that the Cedar Creek settlement changed its name to Ravenshoe. In Back o’Cairns Ion Idriess tells us that Porter and Drew were responsible for the new name and they chose it after finding a copy of Henry Kingsley’s novel Ravenshoe lodged in a tree. This explanation, however, is unlikely to be correct. It probably contains an element of truth – Porter and Drew could well have had something to do with the town being renamed, and the name ‘Ravenshoe’ must have come from the title of the Kingsley novel, although not in the manner that Idriess suggests. As we saw earlier in the chapter, one of the pastoral runs that had been amalgamated to form Evelyn Station was called Ravenshoe and it included the site of what later became the town of Ravenshoe. It’s just possible the run owed its name to the chance discovery of a copy of the Kingsley novel somewhere

within its boundaries during the late 1870s, but even this is unlikely. One of the neighbouring runs was called Westward Ho, which is the title of a novel by Henry Kingsley’s brother, Charles, and it’s stretching the imagination too far to suggest that this also owes its name to somebody stumbling across a copy of a well-known contemporary novel. A more likely explanation is that the person responsible for choosing the names of the constituent parts of Evelyn Station (possibly Frank Stubley) was a Kingsley fan, so he named a couple of the runs after two of their books. When, almost 30 years later, Porter and Drew had to come up with an alternative name for the settlement next to Cedar Creek, they chose one that had a long association with the area.

Sometime in 1908 W. E. Kelly learned that the people who made up the West Australian Group were no longer interested in coming all the way across the continent to take up land on the Evelyn Tableland but he soon found replacements He suggested that some people who already lived in the district might like to take up the allocation instead. A number of locals – among them Bob Anderson, Bill Bain, Allan Bellamy, Harry Bevan, Fred Haigh, Charlie Hay, ‘Daddy’ Jarred, Jack Kidner, Bob Kipper, Ted Malone, the Mitchell brothers (Bill, Joe and Tom),

Cedar Creek Sawmill (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)



Dick Moss, Hughie Murdoch and Tom Phillips – took the opportunity and, as things turned out, their blocks were all close to Ravenshoe.

On the suggestion of Tom Mitchell, the land that lay between the Millstream and North Cedar Creek was set aside for the township. A town survey had earlier been carried out in the Chilverton district, but this was considered to be unsatisfactory so an alternative needed to be found.

Meanwhile the Charters Towers Number Three Group was showing no signs of flagging interest. In 1907 or 1908 three of its leading members – E. Gribben, John Rankine and Walter Soilleux – visited the district and were very impressed. On 18 April 1908 Mr Soilleux wrote to the Minister for Lands on behalf of the Charters Towers Group. This is what he had to say:

Sir,

I have the honour to address you and to apply on behalf of John Rankine and 29 others associated together under the name of the ‘North Cedar Creek Group’ that an area of not less than 5,000 acres of scrub land on North Cedar Creek in the Evelyn Scrub in the Herberton district be set apart for a group settlement and that such land be proclaimed open for settlement and selection by this group.

I also beg to ask that should you entertain favourably this request that an area of 320 acres be set apart, forest land on the border of the scrub if possible, for an agricultural township under Section 3 of the Special Agricultural Selections Act of 1901 and further that a reserve of about 20 acres of the 320 be set apart for public purposes such as School, Store, Butcher, Creamery, Sawmill and other general requirements of the community.

The Group intends to be co-operative so far as general requirements are concerned.

For our good faith I beg to refer you to Messrs Winstanley and Mullen, Members of the Leg. Assembly, with whom I will be obliged if you will communicate as they are in close touch with this group and its requirements and can possibly add much information you may require.

I estimate the group to number 158 persons viz 30 settlers, 22 wives and 106 children which body of people are prepared to leave their congested district as quickly as your department can make it convenient for you.

Yours, Walter R. Soilleux

Just over a month later further pressure was brought to bear on the Lands Department. It came in the form of a letter, written on 20 May by Mr Mullen MLA, which showed he was assisting the group and fully supporting its aims:

…59 persons mostly heads of families totalling about 260 souls have applied to be registered by me as desiring to form a part of the group. Now I have not advertised, nor have I or any other person canvassed for one member. The members are mostly mining now but by far the larger part of them have been in the past either farmers, dairymen or cattle and sheep hands and have only taken to mining as an alternative and if you can see your way to allow them to settle on the land you can be certain of bona fide settlers, the members are possessed by a large number of cows, horses etc. also drays, waggons and other property and are in a fair financial position.

Urgency of our case is the fact of the fearful depression in the mining market…

On 23 June 1908 the Assistance Under Secretary at the Lands Department wrote a letter to Mr Soilleux. It contained good news.

Dear Sir,

With reference to your letter of the 20th ultimo, relative to your request for the reservation of an area of land on Evelyn holding for selection by a group of Charters Towers residents to be known as ‘The North Cedar Creek Group’, I am directed to inform you that the Minister for Lands has approved of the formation of the group and of an area being set aside for selection by the members thereof. Until the designs of the Evelyn lands are received, however, no promise can be given as to what maximum area the members will be allowed to select, the price at which the land will be opened or the exact locality in which the group area will be situated.



The prospective settlers must have been delighted, although they still had to wait for Porter and Drew to finish their survey, and this took longer than expected. In fact it wasn’t until the dry season of 1910 that the move northwards got under way. The Wild River Times used to keep its readers up to date with what was going on. Here, for example, is an article that appeared on 26 August 1910 under the headline ‘Charters Towers Settlers for Evelyn’:

A correspondent at the Towers sends us the following: Charters Towers has lately been losing many of its best citizens. Some are making for Brisbane by reason of its increasing prosperity, many have left for the coastal sugar lands, but I think the largest number are making towards the Atherton and Evelyn Scrub lands. I witnessed the other day the departure from amongst us, surrounded by a host of wellwishing friends, a group of six of our best bound for the Evelyn Scrub. It consisted of Mr Phillip Strang, an old resident who has carried on an engineering business for many years and is a most capable man, but the love of rural life propels him forward. Mr C. Kerr, who has carried on a baking business for a number of years is bent upon trying his luck as a farmer. Mr J. Rankin’s two sons, who have gained renown as amateur gardeners, are abandoning mining for a toil more congenial to their taste; and two sons of Mr R.N.Witherspoon, who, by the way, is curator of the Charters Towers racecourse, and there is no doubt that having been brought up amongst such floral beauty as that place, they will have the passion for culture strongly instilled in them.

Their equipment consists of a dray and seven horses, loaded up with provisions and implements necessary for scrub work, two dog-carts and about a dozen cows. They expect the overland trip to take about five weeks to accomplish and they ought to be an acquisition to the district.

The Wild River Times correspondent doesn’t appear to have realised it at the time, but the event that he (or she) had witnessed was the start of one of the most significant organised migrations in Queensland’s history. The men who’d been the focus of attention at the gathering were the first members

of the North Cedar Creek settlers’ groups to set out for their new homes on the Evelyn Tableland. Their journey, similar in many respects to those undertaken the previous century by the Boers in South Africa and the American pioneers who’d crossed the prairies to seek a new life in California and Oregon, was relatively trouble-free and they arrived at their destination on 10 September 1910. Eight men made the journey: John Rankine and his three eldest sons (George, Bill and Alec), Bob and Harry Witherspoon, Charlie Kerr and Peter Strang. While they were getting established they all lived on Peter Strang’s block and helped clear scrub from his land but the arrangement didn’t last for long. The group were anxious to develop their own blocks and prepare the way for the arrival of their families.

In February of the following year Mr and Mrs G. Norman and their sons Harry, Ben and Cecil left Charters Towers, and began their long trek north to the Evelyn Scrub. If they’d come during the dry season the journey would probably have taken about a month, but when they arrived at the Valley of Lagoons the Burdekin River was in flood and they were forced to stay there for six weeks. At one stage they were down to eating one ‘Johnny cake’ a day each, but eventually the river subsided and they arrived in the Ravenshoe district in May 1911.

Other members of the Charters Towers group also arrived in the Ravenshoe district in 1911. Among them were A. J. Bolton and his large family, Maurice Bryan, George de Vis, Mr Dickenson, Alec Grigg, Norman Hope, Jim Kerr, Gilbert Maggs, Tom Mathieson, Lars Samundsett, the Smith family, Alec and Bob Strang and J. J. Williams. They were joined in the middle of the year by the Major Group. This was made up of Mr Major, his sons Charlie and Jim, his daughters Eva, Marion and Martha, Mrs Black and Tommy Merrin.

Most of the women and children who came to the Evelyn Tableland from Charters Towers were spared the rigours of an overland journey in a bumpy wagon. They came instead by train – from Charters Towers to Townsville, and from Cairns to Atherton or Herberton – and one of the ships that used to ply up and down the Queensland coast would take them from Townsville to Cairns. It was meant to be a safe, as well as a comfortable, way of getting to the Tablelands, but a few of the Charters Towers settlers were lucky not to be drowned. Several members of



the Rankine family sailed to Cairns on the Yongala. Their journey passed without mishap but on its next voyage the Yongala sank off Cape Upstart (near Bowen) with the loss of everyone on board.

On the day the Yongala went down Jim Witherspoon, later a well-known and respected figure in the Ravenshoe district, was on board a similar vessel in approximately the same area. He’d left Charters Towers a few days earlier and was on his way to join the rest of his family on their farm just outside Ravenshoe. His ship, the Wiarema, was hit by the same cyclone that sank the Yongala, but it weathered the storm and Jim survived to tell the tale (he told it to me in September 1972). The cyclone had, however, caused Tunnel Number Ten on the Cairns Railway to collapse so the final leg of his journey took far longer than it should have done. He went by train to the scene of the cave-in, and then he and his fellow passengers were told to walk to the far end of what remained of the tunnel where a train, made up of box wagons, was waiting to take them to Mareeba.

In the course of writing this book I frequently had to travel hundreds, even thousands, of kilometres, to obtain information; but when the time came for me to turn my attention to the Rankine family, I didn’t have to go very far at all. My next door neighbour, Bella Gillespie, had been a Rankine before she married and often used to talk to me about her family. As her father had played such a prominent role in one of the most significant events in Ravenshoe’s history I was anxious to hear the full story. We finally got together one evening and she passed on a great deal of interesting information. I had hoped to tape our conversation, but that proved to be impractical because, at the very time I was interviewing her, Princess Anne was getting married to Captain Mark Phillips and Mrs Gillespie wanted to watch the ceremony on television. So instead of preserving Mrs Gillespie’s voice for posterity I had to content myself with scribbling down a few notes on the back of an old envelope.

The founder of the Rankine dynasty in North Queensland was Mrs Gillespie’s father, John Rankine. He spent the first part of his life in Falkirk, Scotland, and worked as a fruit merchant before coming to Australia sometime around the turn of the century. He brought with him his Alloa-born wife and their two children, George and Mary. They went first to

Townsville, where Rankine found a job with Burns Philp, but they soon moved to Charters Towers. John and George both worked in the mines and all the other Rankine children, including Mrs Gillespie, were born there. But by 1907 it had become clear that Charters Towers’ days as a major mining centre were numbered, so the Rankines started to look for somewhere else to live.

When Rankine had first arrived in Australia he’d had his heart set on buying some land on which he could grow fruit and vegetables. This hadn’t been feasible at the time, but when he heard that the Evelyn Tableland might soon be opened up to closer settlement he decided to visit the area and see what was on offer. As we’ve already seen, he and the two men who went with him were very taken with what they saw. For the next couple of years Rankine channelled most of his energy into trying to convince the Queensland Government that it would be in everyone’s interest if they were to allow the closer settlement of the Cedar Creek district. When, in 1910, the first of the Charters Towers group travelled overland to take up their blocks, exactly half those who went were members of his family.

Clearing the scrub and building somewhere to live took the Rankines much longer than expected, so when their wives and children arrived early in 1911 they had to rent a house next to the bridge in the centre of Ravenshoe until their new homes were ready. One of the main problems the Rankines had to contend with was isolation. Their properties, which were situated beneath Mt Fisher in the Chilverton District, were at least 10km out of Ravenshoe. At first their only link with the outside world was a path that wound its way through the scrub to Ravenshoe, but on 7 March 1911 the Herberton Shire Council contracted George Rankine to clear a track from Chilverton to Ravenshoe. Once he’d finished the Rankines were able to bring building materials and farm equipment in by wagon, and it was much easier to take logs and cream to town. But, at only four metres wide, the track was little more than a tunnel through the scrub, and for much of the wet season was unusable.

As time wore on one branch of the Ravenshoe family went into the timber industry and acquired many of the mills that J. M. Johnstone had once owned. The land below Mt Fisher, however, continued to



be owned by the Rankines and eventually passed into the hands of Harry Rankine. Harry was a very impressive man and it’s difficult to think of anyone who contributed more to North Queensland in the latter part of the 20th century. Besides being one of the North’s most successful dairy farmers, Harry worked tirelessly for the community and for many years was Chairman of the Herberton Shire Council. Early in 1987, however, as he and a number of other North Queensland local government leaders were returning home from a conference, their plane lost its way in appalling weather and crashed into a mountain near Mareeba, killing everyone. Harry’s funeral, which was held just a couple of hundred metres from the house where several of his relatives had lived when they first came to Ravenshoe, was one of the biggest ever held on the Tablelands and emphasised the high regard in which he was held. The Tumoulin Road, which is the highest road in Queensland, was subsequently named ‘Harry Rankine Drive’ in his honour.

The real force behind the Charters Towers settlers group was a middle-aged accountant named Walter Soilleux. In fact it’s probably true to say that if it hadn’t been for the enthusiasm, dedication and affability of this man, it’s likely that the organisation would have fallen apart, forcing its members to go off and do something else, which is what happened to the West Australian Group. Unfortunately, I was unable to track down any of Soilleux’ descendants (and there must be some, because he had at least five children) and as a consequence I know very little about him. He couldn’t have practised his profession after moving from Charters Towers to the Evelyn Tableland – at least not on a full-time basis – because he was always fully occupied doing something else. He’d spend most of each day working on his farm, then in the evenings and at weekends he’d attend to community matters. During the 18 years that he lived in the Ravenshoe district he was at one time or other secretary of three important organisations – the Progress Association, the School of Arts and the Show Committee – although today he’s probably best remembered for the role he played in bringing about the construction of the Palmerston Highway.

When John Rankine and his three eldest sons went on their epic journey from Charters Towers to the Evelyn Tableland, they had as one of their travelling companions Peter Strang. Christie Samundsett knew

Strang well and was able to tell me a little bit about him. He grew up in Glasgow, but opportunities there were limited so he came out to Australia and ended up working as a gunsmith in Charters Towers. His brothers, Alec and Bob, had also emigrated – Alec to the USA and Bob to South Africa – but they kept in touch, and when Peter began to think seriously about moving to the Evelyn Tableland he asked his brothers to join him. They agreed and took up their blocks in or around 1911.

The selectors soon discovered that establishing a farm in the middle of a rainforest involved a tremendous amount of hard work and physical discomfort, and if there were to be any financial rewards they’d come in the long term rather than in the immediate future. Most of them found little difficulty in coping with venomous snakes, leeches, ticks, scrub-itch, lawyer vines and stinging bushes. But try as they might, they were unable to find a way of weather-proofing their homes and this led to no end of frustration. Anyone who lived on the Evelyn Tableland during the early years of the 20th century will tell you that the climate used to be much wetter than it is today. A sturdy corrugated iron roof was sufficient to keep the rain at bay, but the people who lived in the scrub around Ravenshoe were powerless to prevent moisture-laden air from entering their homes and penetrating every room. They simply had to get used to sleeping in damp beds and periodically throwing-out curtains, clothes and books – all of which deteriorated rapidly in the soggy conditions. Eventually, however, they discovered that adding ceilings to their homes considerably reduced the moisture level, and their lives became more tolerable.

The newcomers to the scrub had come to the district with the intention of making a living from farming, but before they could start growing crops they first had to clear their land. Some of the trees could be sold to local mills and this provided a useful source of income, but they certainly didn’t get rich on the proceeds. According to Henry Condon, they’d only receive 2/6d a hundred super feet for their logs, and that was after they’d been cut into manageable lengths. Most of the felled trees were simply burnt once they’d dried out (this normally happened in October or November) then, after the ashes had cooled, grass seed was applied in preparation for dairy cattle. While the grass was getting established the



selectors and their families would spend a lot of time yanking out inkweed and other unwanted plants.

As William Mazlin had discovered over a quarter of a century earlier the red volcanic soils that overlay much of the Evelyn Tableland and the moist tropical climate combined to create an environment ideal for growing fruit and vegetables. The settlers who came to the Ravenshoe district at the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century weren’t slow to take advantage of Mother Nature’s bounty and before long most of them were able to supply many of their own needs. Several newcomers, in particular the Rankines, went in for fruit and vegetables in a big way and their produce was sold over a wide area of North Queensland. But the selectors were primarily concerned with producing cream, and their viability depended on whether they were able to build up a herd of healthy, productive dairy cattle and manage it effectively. If they could, they prospered. If they couldn’t, they went out of business.

It’s hard to know precisely how many people took up land in the scrub around Ravenshoe in the period immediately preceding the First World War, but in an article that appeared in the Wild River Times in December 1913 it was estimated that there were over 300 selectors in the Ravenshoe–Evelyn area. This figure, which presumably only takes into account

heads of families, would include those who’d taken up blocks in the Evelyn Scrub from the early 1880s onwards, though the majority would have come into the area after 1910. In a letter to the Lands Department that was dealt with in Brisbane on 9 July 1908, Walter Soilleux informed the minister that the North Cedar Creek Group represented 307 people, including 65 adult males. Some would have dropped out but they’d have been replaced by others (there was, for example, no mention of any Strangs on Soilleux’s list) so we can safely assume that the transfer of population from Charters Towers to the Ravenshoe district must have involved 300 people at the very least. One also has to remember that the Major Group came into the area at this time and a number of former mill employees, who might otherwise have left the North altogether, took up blocks close to Ravenshoe and became farmers. All in all, it was development of the utmost importance and was to have profound consequences for the environment and economy of the entire Evelyn Tableland.

When the Charters Towers settlers first began arriving on the Evelyn Tableland there was only one retail outlet in Ravenshoe – a store owned by Mr A. Snellman – but in 1911 Tommy Merrin, who’d come to the area with the Major family, opened a rival establishment. At approximately the

Dairy farms in the Chilverton district c1973



same time Charley and Jim Kerr, both of whom had been members of the North Cedar Creek Group, established the town’s first bakery. Then in 1914 Francis Alfred Grigg moved to Ravenshoe from Tumoulin and set up a general store. The town’s first hotel, the Club, began trading in 1912 (it was built by T. B. O’Meara of Cairns on behalf of Billy Gordon) but, rather surprisingly, Ravenshoe had no butcher’s shop for a number of years. The town’s residents, and the people who lived in the nearby rural areas, relied on Patrick Toohey of Tumoulin to keep them supplied with meat. Normally he was able to do this without any problems, but occasionally he’d run into difficulties. Early in 1913, for example, he was unable to reach Ravenshoe because the Millstream was in flood, but he managed to ensure that his customers weren’t forced to resort to vegetarianism. A report in the Wild River Times explains why:

Mr Toohey, our butcher, came down to the opposite bank of the Millstream with our beef, and much fun was indulged in whilst his customers were getting from bank to bank, they having to battle against the flood and many duckings resulted. The lookers were full of advice especially so when one individual fell down with a bag of beef in each hand when, as he went under, was advised to keep the beef dry and stick to the bags etc.

When these words were written one of Patrick Toohey’s neighbours was the man who was destined to have Ravenshoe’s main street named in his honour. Francis Alfred Grigg was born in 1869 in Linkinhorne – a small village in south-east Cornwall with a long tradition of mining copper and tin. He turned up in Herberton sometime in the 1880s and spent several years working as a tin scratcher. Grigg got married in Herberton in 1893 and he and his wife had five sons (Francis Alexander, William Ernest, Edgar Percival, John Wilfred and Basil Godfrey) and a daughter (Irene Violet). Sometime around the turn of the century he decided to invest his savings in a general store at Wondecla, and it was while he was there that he encountered the celebrated author Ion Idriess, who immortalised him and his store in Back o’Cairns.

In 1912 Grigg left Wondecla and took his family to Tumoulin. It was now the terminus of the Cairns Railway and he evidently saw a great future for the district. He opened a store across the road from the

station and built a home, which he called Gunween, on a block of land beside Log Gully. According to Wilfred’s youngest son, Robert, it was named after Gunwen Farm in Cornwall. This lay close to a hamlet called Gunwen and a couple of kilometres away from Grigg’s father’s birthplace, Luxulyan. In 1914 Grigg established a store in Ravenshoe, but his Tumoulin business continued to operate for a few more years. Alex, the oldest of his five sons, managed it for him, while another of his sons, Wilfred, eventually inherited Gunween and lived there until 1982.

Grigg was greatly respected by the community for his wholesome lifestyle, and for the hard work and dedication he put into local politics. Like many Cornish people Grigg was a devout Methodist. He was also a teetotaller, a devoted husband and father, and a staunch supporter of the Australian Labor Party. For a time he was chairman of the party’s Tablelands branch and gave Labor supporters a voice on the Herberton Shire Council. He was elected to the council in August 1911 and in February 1915 became chairman. Apart from a short break in the late 1920s, he held onto the position until 1936 when he was defeated by his arch-rival and fellow storekeeper, John Ledlie.

Having the main street in Ravenshoe named after him and being mentioned in Back o’Cairns has ensured that Grigg hasn’t been forgotten in Australia, but in the late 1970s and early 80s Francis Alfred’s great-grandson, Peter, brought the family name back into the limelight and made it famous throughout the world. Peter Grigg was a superb Rugby Union player and represented his country on numerous occasions.

When the Charters Towers settlers started arriving in the Ravenshoe district, there were few amenities for them. There was, for example, no community hall, no school and no annual show. The situation soon began to improve, however. As one might expect, several of the major developments that took place did so because of the drive and community spirit of the Soilleux family. A branch of the School of Arts was formed sometime in 1912. A committee was elected and arrangements were quickly made to build a community hall. The local council paid for all the timber and the Ravenshoe Mill processed it free of charge. Joe Mitchell and Bill Bew did most of the construction work, apart from putting on the roof which was done by Bob Anderson.

On 5 February 1912 a school began operating in Ted Mawby’s house. There was just one teacher –



Miss Cecily Soilleux – and by all accounts she did a good job. But trying to run a school in somebody’s home isn’t a particularly satisfactory arrangement and it was only ever regarded as a temporary measure. Fortunately the people of Ravenshoe didn’t have to wait long for a purpose-built school – it opened its doors for the first time on 3 March 1914, with Joe Wolfe as principal. Over the years it’s served the community well, and has also provided hundreds of teachers with a wonderful environment in which to start learning the skills of their chosen profession.

1914 was also the year in which Ravenshoe held its first agricultural show. Jim Kerr was president of the show committee and Walter Soilleux was the secretary (they held exactly the same positions on the School of Arts committee). The first show on the present showgrounds took place two years later, but the event nearly had to be called off because one week before John Newell was due to open the show the site still hadn’t been cleared. A dedicated band of volunteers, that included Ted Malone and Syd Smith, worked around the clock, however, and the show was able to go ahead.

After the First World War Ravenshoe didn’t suffer the same fate as the mining towns on the Walsh–Tinaroo Mining Field: far from contracting in size it actually grew. The timber industry continued to be the largest employer, but a a co-operative butter factory was built close to the railway station in 1926 and

this helped diversify the economy. The people who lived on the Evelyn Tableland relied heavily on the railway for most of the inter-war years but during the mid 1930s the Kennedy and Palmerston Highways both opened. This meant that it was now relatively easy to go by road to other parts of the Tablelands and travelling times to and from the south were greatly reduced.

Earlier in the chapter I referred to an inscription that’s adorned a wall inside the Red Fort in Delhi since the 17th century. Its words were meant to encapsulate the Emperor Shahjahan’s pride in the environment his architects, builders and craftsmen had created for him on the plains of northern India. But I thought they were equally appropriate to describe the view from the hill on which Old Daddy Keough built his Bellview homestead. On reflection, perhaps I should have used Shahjahan’s words in the context of the whole of the Evelyn Tableland rather than just a small part of it. With its majestic mountains, its rivers and waterfalls, its rich and varied flora and fauna, and fascinating history, this out-of-the-way corner of Australia fully merits the simple but highly evocative words that so appealed to the man who built the Taj Mahal:

If on earth there be an Eden, It is this, It is this, It is this.


Chapter 5 – Yungaburra, Malanda and Millaa Millaa

Chapter 5Yungaburra, Malanda and Millaa Millaa

In the south-eastern part of the Tablelands is a belt of undulating dairy farming country that’s only been settled by Europeans relatively recently. At the dawn of the 20th century the area – which fell within the boundaries of the now defunct Eacham Shire – was covered with dense rainforest, which Aborigines inhabited and through which few Europeans had ever passed.

Today this part of the Cairns hinterland must be among the prettiest parts of Australia. ‘Pretty’ isn’t a particularly good word to describe most places – it would be highly inappropriate to use it in connection with Cape Tribulation or Mt Mulligan, for example – but in this case the word seems tailor-made. The little village greens surrounded by stone cottages in the Cotswolds, and the hedgerows and neat field patterns of the South Downs in England are pretty in a similar way to the Eacham Shire.

It’s best to see this area of loveliness on sunny days which, unfortunately, aren’t very common, especially

in Millaa Millaa, where, according to sceptics, it rains in summer and drizzles in winter. The view from the Millaa Millaa Lookout on a cloudless day reveals the southern part of the area in its true glory. Most of the country has been cleared for dairy cattle, so grass-covered undulating paddocks dominate the view. However, the frail-looking farmhouses, the town of Millaa Millaa, the patches of scrub and the mighty mountains – Bartle Frere and Bellenden Ker over in the distance – blend together to form a glorious panorama.

Before looking at the area’s history, I’ll just mention a few of the dozens of natural wonders within a few kilometres of Malanda and Millaa Millaa, The area boasts some of Australia’s finest waterfalls, the most spectacular being the Cannonboolan Falls, which drop a considerable height. Luckily, in one way, they’re almost impossible to find, unless you have a local guide, so they’re rarely visited. Closer to Millaa Millaa, just off the Palmerston Highway to the east

The Lake Eacham Hotel in Yungaburra



of the town, are the Millaa Millaa and Zillie Falls, both of which cascade over volcanic lava flows.

Around Malanda are several examples of the area’s turbulent geological history. To the east, close to Yungaburra, are the relatively recently formed cinder cones called the Seven Sisters. Near these neat little hills are the famous volcanic lakes, Eacham and Barrine. Both still have natural rainforest around their shores. West of town is a similar feature called Bromfield Swamp. It too was a volcano which ‘blew its top,’ but a swamp rather than a lake has formed at the bottom. It’s well worth walking down to the swamp to inspect the flora and fauna, but beware of the Jersey bulls that might still graze the rim of the crater.

With its heavy rainfall and rich, red volcanic soil this part of the country used to have dark, mysterious scrub vegetation and this deterred early European explorers. The basalt that masked the underlying rocks made it worthless to miners, while timber men had plenty of more accessible stands of trees on the coast to worry about the fine cedars, walnuts and kauri pines that grew in the great Tableland rainforests.

As the areas to the north and west of the Eacham Shire were opened up by miners and graziers, it was obvious that some of the more adventurous among the European settlers would penetrate the forest looking for tracks to the coast, or simply to roam the scrub in the spirit of adventure. In this way the secrets of the region were slowly revealed, but it wasn’t until the early 1900s, when the Tablelands had a rail link to the coast, that the timber men and farmers began to settle here and build communities.

Mulligan, in his expedition of 1875, never touched the area: he veered west at what is now Atherton. Messrs Atherton, Robson and McCord were probably the first Europeans to venture into the northern part of the Eacham Shire in 1878, when they cut Robson’s Track along a route that roughly corresponds with the present-day Gillies Highway. Eventually, Robson’s Track extended from Herberton to Redbank via Boar Pocket and the Little Mulgrave River. This brought many Europeans through the area. The first record that we have of Europeans in the Millaa Millaa area is in May 1882, when Sub-Inspector Douglas attempted to blaze a track between Herberton and Geraldton.

In 1886 Christie Palmerston, George Clarke (one of the original prospectors who started the Charters Towers rush) and Willie Joss discovered gold in the upper reaches of the Russell River, further upstream from where Palmerston later terrorised the Chinese on another goldfield. About 200 hardy diggers lived in the scrub between Boonje and Towalla, working the alluvial deposits under the gaze of Mt Bartle Frere. Supplies were brought in on Robson’s Track to Allumbah (today’s Yungaburra) where a smaller track led to the diggings. Some of the miners’ needs were met by J. M. Roseblade, who ran a store and post office at Allumbah after 1893, and whose son, C. W. Roseblade, packed supplies out to the diggings, but Fred Brown operated a store and hotel right by the workings at Boonje.

Robert Logan Jack made a report on the field in 1888:

The Russell River goldfield is centred about six miles west of Mt Bartle Frere. The gold is found associated with fine-grained stream tin ore in a gravelly wash beneath basaltic flows, about 2,500 feet above the sea level. This basalt forms part of the Tableland which

Millaa Millaa Falls



extends from the heads of the Russell, Johnstone and Mulgrave to the basin of the Barron, near Herberton, and is covered with dense tropical jungle and intersected by plentiful running streams. It probably dates, like the Victorian basalts overlying auriferous drifts, from Miocene times, but of this no direct evidence has yet been observed. Wairambar Creek, on the west and Coopooroo Creek on the east, have cut through basalt, exposing the underlying auriferous drift and the ‘bedrock’ of slates, schists and greywackes. Extensive preparations for sluicing the drifts have recently been made, and as the area covered by the basalt is enormous, and the drift has been exposed owing to the accident of denudation merely on the fringe of the deposit, almost unlimited possibilities are before the field.

Some 160km of water race were built before 1914. Fred Brown had more than 5km of water race supplying his Astronomer claim by 1890, and he had many Aborigines helping him. In his book Tropic Coasts and Tablelands, well-known journalist J. W. Collinson describes a visit to one of the largest operations on the field:

Next day we went to Coopa to see the big sluicing claim the Caledonia, worked with its three mile head-race and galvanised piping and hose to the face. It seemed to be like a huge quarry, filled with basalt boulders and tree stumps washed down by hydraulic power. I watched the ‘panning off ’ at the tail race, gold, black sand, and stream tin, which had to be separated as much as possible afterwards by the ‘blower’, the heavier gold was recovered, but the residue had to be sent to Dapto in New South Wales for treatment.1

By 1914 production had all but ceased. Most of the accessible gold-bearing deposits had been worked out, and the field became less of an economic proposition as the miners had to dig deeper below the basalt to get at the gravelly wash. Once the wash was brought to the surface, the problems weren’t over as it was difficult to secure enough water for sluicing – even though the goldfield had at least 250cm of rain a year.

The abandoned water races must still be visible. They’d obviously be overgrown, but couldn’t have been obliterated. I did make some enquiries to see if anybody knew the exact location of any of the old workings but was unsuccessful and I didn’t relish the thought of exploring the scrub alone. If I’d become lost it’s unlikely that a modern equivalent of Christie Palmerston would have appeared to rescue me!

As early as 1886 the areas around Yungaburra and Lake Eacham were surveyed by Edward Rankin but weren’t opened for selection until 1890. The original plan was for the settlers to live on 1/10 hectare blocks in the town of Allumbah and travel to and from their 15 hectare blocks of farmland on a daily basis; but they built their homesteads on their farm blocks and not in Allumbah to protect their crops from bandicoots, possums and other pests.

The first selectors to take up land in 1890 in the Allumbah district were Walter Barker, William O’Donnell, the Roseblade brothers and John Stewart. Alexander Bremner, Ernest Konzalmann and Charles Rossler did likewise at the Lake Eacham settlement. As mentioned above, J. M. Roseblade became Allumbah’s first postmaster and storekeeper around 1893, but prior to the early 1900s the town was a struggling community of hardy pioneers who sold their produce to miners working on an insignificant goldfield and packers on Robson’s Track – a route that was being used less and less after 1893. They probably sold beef and crops such as maize in Cairns and Herberton but other areas were better placed to supply these markets.

Somebody who saw a future in Allumbah was Henry Williams (see Chapter Six). During the 1890s he purchased some land in the area and by 1900 had erected a general store which sold, among other things, fresh meat. Soon after he put up a hotel which was later moved and enlarged to form the Lake Eacham Hotel. It still stands today.

By the mid 1900s it was obvious that Allumbah and the unsettled (by Europeans) Malanda and Millaa areas to the south had a great future, as it was only a matter of time before the railway would open up the region. It had reached Mareeba in 1893 but that remained the terminus for many years because of the bank crash of that year. By 1907, however, the branch line from Tolga had begun to take shape and

1 Collinson, J. W., Tropic Coasts and Tablelands, Brisbane, W. R. Smith and Patterson. P19.



with the imminent end of its isolation, Allumbah (which changed its name in 1910 to Yungaburra) and the whole of what became the Eacham Shire was at the dawn of a new era.

Slowly the railway was extended to Peeramon, Yungaburra, Kurreen, Malanda, Tarzali and finally Millaa Millaa. While Peeramon and Kurreen were at the rail head, small townships appeared as timber gatherers dragged huge logs to the railway and settlers came into the district to start clearing their selections. Today little is left at Peeramon and nothing remains of Kurreen: it was the town of Malanda that became the centre of the northern part of the Eacham Shire.

From 1907 onwards the first European settlers began arriving. One of them, James English, became very well known. He has many descendants in the Malanda area and, as I’ve some information about his pioneering experiences, I’ll devote a few paragraphs to him and his family…

English grew up in the Richmond River area of New South Wales but was unable to make a decent living there because all the choice farming land had already been occupied. He came to North Queensland early in the 20th century after hearing exaggerated tales of the money to be made in the

timber business, but by the time he appeared on the scene most of the accessible stands of red cedar had already been cut down. Before heading back to his wife and nine children he decided to look for alternative ways of providing for them and hit upon the idea of becoming a dairy farmer in the Malanda area. He returned to New South Wales and discussed the matter with his wife, then came north again. He arrived in Atherton in July 1907 and, along with two pals, Percy and Stan Davis, made his way along a roughly marked track to his selection. On his first night he and the Davises camped by Lake Eacham, but because the local Aborigines were scared of the ‘debil-debil’ there was no danger of their being attacked. Incidentally, the Aborigines’ fear of the lake suggests that volcanic activity was still going on when the first humans arrived on the Tablelands.

The three men found the selection and they began to brush and fell 12 hectares of scrub just outside what today is Malanda. English left his two mates to continue the work and went south to sell his farm in New South Wales, and bring his wife and children to their new home. The family arrived on the Tablelands in 1908 and lived for a year in Atherton as they awaited the completion of their homestead, Oakhill, on their selection. It was finally finished

The view from the Millaa Millaa Lookout in the 1970s



in February 1909. Meanwhile the family’s cattle were being railed up from New South Wales. James English’s son Patrick can tell the story:

I drove nineteen head from Mullimbimby in NSW to Tallebudgera, near Burleigh Heads on Queensland’s Gold Coast. It was on the railway linking Tweed Heads with South Brisbane. They were railed to Woolloongabba and rested in the Albert Yards. The only way to get cattle across Brisbane in those days was to walk them. A permit was granted on condition that a year old bull had to be led.

He then took them over the Victoria Bridge and down Queen Street. He camped for three days at Petrie Bight near the Customs House while he waited to load his cattle on board a boat bound for Cairns. It’s difficult to imagine anybody taking cattle down Queen Street today. There’d be quite a commotion – even if someone were leading the bull! Another early selector, James Emerson, wasn’t so fortunate in trying to transport his cattle north. He bought 1,026 top quality cattle and arranged for two drovers to take them overland to the North Johnstone River. The poor man must have felt pretty sick 16 months later when a mere 560 of his original herd struggled on to his selection on the Merragallan Road. In 1911 and 1912 he brought more cattle from the Northern Rivers but this time they came by ship.

With the arrival of the English’s cattle at Oakhill, the Malanda area’s dairy industry was born. What a humble, and recent, beginning to such an important economic activity! The cows were milked out in the paddock, then the milk was separated and made into butter, initially for sale in Blackley’s store in Atherton. A separator was picked up from the railhead at Yungaburra in 1909 but was so heavy that it took several men two days to complete the 11 kilometre journey.

By December 1910, when the railway at last reached the English selection, there were several settlers with blocks in the area. Among them were Jack Mundey (an ancestor of the well-known Builders’ Trade Union leader), Alec Ross, Mick Lynch and the Heales at Kurreen. James English’s mates, Percy and Stan Davis, had land as did James’ son, Patrick. The selectors came from many parts of eastern Australia, including a large percentage from northern New

South Wales and a significant number from the Bundaberg area. A portion of Patrick English’s property was resumed for a township and the Railway Department decided to call it ‘Malanda’ – a local Aboriginal word thought to mean ‘waterfall’.

The farmers cleared portions of their selections, then around October when the felled timber was reasonably dry, they’d burn it and sow grass seed – usually Paspalum, Rhodes or White Dutch Clover – brought up from Richmond River. Slowly but surely the forests were cleared and cattle began to graze on the lush grass.

As more cattle were shipped up from the south the herds grew in size and there was a marked improvement in their quality. The English family acquired several hundred head of cattle in the years immediately prior to the Great War. Many were Jerseys and Ayrshires but they much preferred Illawarra Shorthorns. To satisfy their needs various family members toured dairy farming districts in New South Wales and sometimes bought stock at the Sydney Exhibition. Some of the bulls thus acquired were very costly, but they were determined to build up a top notch herd and in this they undoubtedly succeeded.

So, the English family and the other selectors in the Malanda area had, by the end of the First World War, cleared a lot of land, their cattle herds were feeding in the paddocks and overall progress was rapid. One serious problem remained, however. The dairy farmers didn’t have an adequate market for their cream. Initially, when the only dairy herd in the area belonged to the English family, the small amounts of butter produced were sent to Blackley’s store in Atherton; and when the railway was being constructed, the navvies used to purchase butter, increasing the market somewhat. Then, in 1910, with the completion of the railway line to Malanda, cream could be railed to the Cairns Butter Factory and the Golden Grove Butter Factory built by W. C. Abbot just outside Atherton.

As the Malanda area’s dairy herds were increasing so rapidly, a branch of the Atherton factory was set up in Malanda in 1919. Ten years later, when it became obvious that the Atherton factory’s position was inferior, the headquarters of the business was moved to Malanda. The local dairy farmers at last had an assured market for their cream.



Soon after the completion of the railway to Malanda in December, 1910, the township began to take shape. In January 1911 work commenced on the English family’s hotel and it opened on Boxing Day that year. A special train brought visitors from Cairns and Tableland centres to a sports meeting and dance.

Malanda’s first two stores were humble galvanised huts located near the railway. One was owned by Sid Whereat, the other by John McMahon. After the sale of the township lands in 1911 several business premises were erected and by 1914 Malanda boasted a variety of shops. Mrs N. Burke ran a refreshment room while her son, Ned Burke, looked after a combined butcher shop and billiard saloon. Sid Whereat and Adam Tweed had a store and Williams Estate ran a butcher’s shop, a store and a bakery. Several other retailers opened premises prior to the Great War and the town also boasted three banks, a post office and a school.

Today Malanda produces a wide range of dairy products and sends them as far away as Mt Isa, Darwin and New Guinea, as well as supplying the Tablelands and the cities of Cairns and Townsville.

Before moving south to Millaa Millaa I should mention that the timber industry was extremely important in Malanda’s early days. Some of the prominent sawmill owners prior to 1920 were E. H. Heale at Kurreen, Mr Brotherton at Millaa Millaa, the Williamson Brothers at Yungaburra and John Prince and James English, both at Malanda. The area’s two most important mills at the start of the 21st century are J. M. Johnstone’s former mill in Millaa Millaa and the mill at Peeramon, both now owned by Rankine Brothers.

The Millaa Millaa area was settled later than Malanda, mainly because the railway didn’t arrive until 1921. As early as 1909 settlers were taking up selections in the Glen Allyn, Tarzali and Merragallan areas between Malanda and Millaa. These early pioneers included the Hogans, Arthur Skennar, W. Stevens and Tom Turner. They cleared their land, taking the marketable timber to Malanda and burning the rest.

In 1909 a team led by Herbert Rowland Maguire began to survey the farm blocks around Millaa Millaa and camped in a clearing on Palmerston’s track, right by the Millaa Millaa Falls. What a

glorious experience this must have been… at least when it wasn’t raining!

The blocks around Millaa Millaa were made available for selection in 1911 and over the next few years many settlers arrived. Several individuals – among them Nat Witham, Len Compton (from New Zealand), Bob Griffiths (from Victoria), Jim Clarke (from Maryborough) and Harvey Jard – had worked for Maguire and had been so impressed by what they’d seen that they took up land in the Millaa Millaa area shortly before the outbreak of the Great War.

A residence clause was included in the contracts for these blocks of land so the scrub was generally felled by the selectors themselves. Exemptions were granted if a specified amount of improvements were carried out annually. Fortunately, this arrangement was administered with a degree of leniency, as selectors had no source of income in the early days, apart from the sale of trees from their land. Felling scrub, at £2 an acre at least, wasn’t cheap but by 1913 the area was gradually being opened up. Several homesteads, usually made out of pit sawn timber with a corrugated iron roof, had been built and decent-sized herds were grazing the cleared areas.

In 1913 the Millaa Millaa Progress Association was founded to look after the selectors’ interests. They had two main grievances, the first being the lack of an all-weather route to Malanda and Atherton. During the dry months Harvey Jard took the farmers’ cream by dray to Malanda, where it was put on cream carts at the railway station bound for the Golden Grove Factory in Atherton. In the wet season the cream was carried on horseback to Malanda, and when the Ithaca River and other creeks were in flood it had to be hauled over the swollen waters by an improvised ‘flying fox’ (an aerial ropeway). As Millaa Millaa’s annual average rainfall exceeds 250cm, the tracks to Malanda were usually in a dreadful state and often the cream from the Millaa Millaa area was rotten by the time it reached Atherton. Therefore, the first aim of the Millaa Millaa Progress Association was to have the railway extended into their midst.

The Millaa Millaa Railway League was founded in or around 1912 and it too pressed for a railway connection to the outside world. In 1914 the Government finally agreed to extend the line



from Malanda, which had been the railhead since December 1910. The war interrupted its progress and it wasn’t until 1921 that it finally reached Millaa Millaa. The new stretch of line was officially opened in 1922 when Nettie Smith and Siddy Thompson (respectively the first European girl and boy to be born in the Millaa Millaa area) held a ribbon for the train to go through.

The farmers’ second major grievance was the distance between them and a butter factory. Until 1919 the cream had to be taken by packhorse to Malanda, then wait overnight to be put on the train to Abbot’s Golden Grove factory in Atherton. After 1919 they simply had to cart the cream to the Malanda factory but this was an expensive and difficult job along the muddy, sloppy tracks. Even when the railway came to town the weather often disrupted services, so the dairy farmers in the Millaa Millaa district wanted a butter factory of their own.

The people of Millaa Millaa quickly raised £2,000 through a share issue and they proposed to build a butter factory under the auspices of the Atherton Co-operative Company. At a meeting in 1917 in Malanda it was suggested that a sizeable factory be built. But when the costs were added up it became clear that a large butter factory wasn’t feasible, mainly because of the high freight costs

involved in constructing the building and bringing in machinery. Consequently, Millaa Millaa’s butter factory wasn’t built until 1929.

Piecing together the history of Millaa Millaa wasn’t easy. There were a few bare facts about the town’s early days in J. May’s pamphlet about the Eacham Shire, but I was anxious to discover more about the area’s pioneering days. The settlement of the wet, misty scrub seemed a fascinating episode in the North’s history, while I must admit to having a soft spot for Millaa Millaa, where I attended the local Rural Youth Club for two years and met lots of fine young people. Unfortunately, none of the youngsters knew much about Millaa Millaa’s past, but luckily Chris Mansfield, an expert on the North’s Aborigines, put me in touch with Mrs Knudson who was one of the first settlers in the area. Despite her advancing years, she had an excellent memory and gave me a great deal of information about Millaa Millaa’s early days, along with biographical details of herself and her well respected husband. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation…

‘Mr Knudson and I came to Millaa in September 1914. For five years he’d been Ambulance Superintendent in Atherton; but when the war broke out he took a serious view of things, and

Millaa Millaa in its early days c1925 (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)



decided to leave Mr Browning in charge of the Ambulance Centre in Atherton so we could move onto our selection.’

‘Where was your husband from? Was he from Norway?’ I asked.

‘No, he was born and raised in Gympie, although his father was from Norway. Incidentally, my father, Mr Hanson, was Norwegian too and when he heard I knew a man whose name everybody pronounced “Nudson”, he quite rightly said “It’s not Nudson, it’s Kernoosen”.

‘After leaving school at the age of thirteen, Mr Knudson drove horse teams in the Gympie area and also learnt carpentry; but he decided that he’d like to see something of the world, so he headed north and arrived in Charters Towers in about 1902. He never stayed there long. The mines were just about finished by then, so in 1903 Mr Knudson went to Mossman and worked in the sugar mill until 1906.

‘It was while he was in Mossman that he decided to make ambulance work his life. One Sunday an Italian called Lorronseppi was cleaning out the boilers, but somebody had forgotten to turn off the steam so the poor man was scalded from head to toe. Mr Knudson and a few mates put him in a breeze and tried to help him, but none of them really knew what to do and the poor chap died. My husband was moved by this tragedy to such an extent that he vowed to learn first aid, so if he ever witnessed a serious accident again, he’d be able to offer help.

‘In 1906 he went to work as a carpenter for Hansons, the Cairns contractors, but all the while Mr Knudson was studying and learning first aid in his spare time. The ambulance people in Cairns appointed him to their staff, then in 1909 he was given the job of Ambulance Superintendent in Atherton.’

‘What was there in 1909 in Atherton, Mrs Knudson?’

‘Nothing much, only a lot of Chinamen. They used to fell the scrub, climb over the logs and plant maize with their big toe and a hoe. There were very few white people living there at the time. There was certainly no hospital, so Mr Knudson had to take patients to Mareeba or Herberton.

‘We moved to Millaa in 1914. We’d bought our block of land earlier, but it was only after the outbreak of war that we were ready to move onto

it. Our homestead was already built. We’d taken the first iron there in 1912 on horseback. We had to roll it up like a ‘roly-poly’ and more or less drag it from Malanda to Millaa through the thick scrub. Our block was just out of town on the Innisfail Road, by what they now call Knudson’s Hill. In those days it was all standing scrub with huge maples and walnuts that would be worth a fortune today.’

‘Were there many Aborigines here, Mrs Knudson?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes, lots of them. They were wonderful people too, so kind and honest. You could leave all sorts of things lying around and they wouldn’t touch anything but today, why you can’t leave one single thing around without it getting stolen and it’s mainly white people who are responsible.

‘Many of the Aborigines worked for the white people felling scrub. The Farlow brothers, from Clarence River in New South Wales, had a place near us and they used to have a whole mob working for them. The Farlows cleared a lot of the scrub around here in the early days, not just on their own selection but on other people’s places too, including ours. Terrible to relate, however, both the Farlows were killed on Gallipoli and never returned after the war.’

‘Who were some of the other pioneers, besides yourselves and the Farlows?’

‘Let me see. There was Scholottenberg, Archer, Fraser, Amiss, Thompson, Mears, Bradley, Mansfield, Small, Kennedy, Brooks, Witham, Campbell, Dick Smith and many others besides.

‘Well, that’s quite a list. Could you tell me something about these people? Who, for example, was Mr Mansfield and where was he from?’

‘Both Mr and Mrs Mansfield were from England. He was from Birmingham and she came out from Staplehurst, Kent, in 1924. Mr Mansfield had spent some of his early life on the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in Africa. In the early 1900s he came to Queensland and worked on the railway at Kuranda, then he settled here in about 1912. When the war began he didn’t join the proper army, but was in the Home Guard or some sort of Army Reserve. He was even sent to New Guinea for some time. After the war he came back to Millaa and lived here until he died.



‘Mr and Mrs Mears’ children went overseas and later became entertainers. Maurice Mears was a great violinist and Gwen became an actress under the name of Christine Adrian.

‘Nat Witham had a block of land on the Palmerston Road. He was one of the men who surveyed the district and had the pick of the blocks, but rather surprisingly he ended up with one of the poorest pieces of land around here.

‘Dick Smith had his own block of land, but he also used to run the mail out from Malanda by pack-horse in the early days. Dick, incidentally, owned the first car in Millaa and did marvels with it, helping all manner of people in different ways.

‘Mr Brooks came to Millaa when he was an old man and was very good to the blacks, buying them blankets in winter and doing various other things for them. They, in turn, used to work for him felling scrub and building fences.

‘Of the other pioneers I can remember, Mr Schlottenberg was a German bachelor; Mr Layton came from Newcastle, New South Wales, where he’d been a miner; and the Kennedy brothers were a couple of really broad Irishmen.’

Mrs Knudson sat back and changed the tone of her voice before saying, ‘It’s a funny thing you know, people on the Palmerston Road wouldn’t get to know selectors in other areas around Millaa even though they were so close. People would come into town and shop and there were dances in different places, but each of the settlements would have its own hall and school so they’d be quite independent. Mr Knudson and I, however, got to know people all over the area in the course of our work.’

‘Oh, yes, your work, that’s what I was going to ask you about next. What type of ambulance did your husband have in the early days?’

‘None at all. He never had a proper ambulance for a long time because there weren’t any roads. At first most of the sick and injured had to be carried on a litter, but the settlers were very good and were always prepared to rally round and help, so if anybody was really bad it was never difficult to find volunteers. When the railway came to Millaa, we used a pump-car to take people to Malanda.’

‘I believe that you were a nurse, Mrs Knudson. Did you have any unusual experiences?’

‘Oh, yes, lots. I’ve delivered babies on the road and I vividly recall bringing a little mite into the world on the pump-car at Minbun. We were trying to rush the mother to Malanda, but she couldn’t wait so we stopped the pump-car and one of the men rushed over to old Mrs Clarke’s place to borrow dishes and towels. It was very hectic, but the mother and baby both came through the experience.’

‘To change the subject, what were the first buildings in the township of Millaa?’ I asked.

‘Well, the original township wasn’t located in the same place as present-day Millaa. Did you know that?’ asked Mrs Knudson.

‘No, I didn’t. Where was Millaa situated in the early days?’

‘Before the coming of the railway the few buildings that made up the town were located just opposite where we’re talking now, about half a mile out of the present town on the left hand side of the Palmerston Highway.’

‘What buildings were there?’ I asked.

‘There was the school, the Progress Hall, a store and a bank.’

‘Who ran the store?’

‘Sid Whereat, a splendid old pioneer who carried stores out here by mule in the very early days. He’d have about ten or twelve in a team and would have to keep an eye on them all the time, particularly when they were crossing the Ithaca and Dirran Rivers. Those cunning old mules would try to roll over in the water to get the packs off their backs and Sid couldn’t have them doing that, particularly if they were carrying flour or sugar. He could hardly allow them to have a drink for fear of them spoiling the stores. When Millaa became more settled, Whereat moved here and built a store, and on one side of the building he made a ‘lean-to’ which was occupied by the Bank of New South Wales.’

‘When was the town relocated?’

‘When the railway came to Millaa, it couldn’t be built up the hill here. So the terminus was put right next to Bob McHugh’s Hotel and the bank and store moved to the town’s present site.’

Mrs Knudson told me a great deal about Millaa Millaa’s origins and I was delighted to have been



able to tape her reminiscences. By the time I arrived on the scene in the 1970s nearly all the area’s pioneers were already dead so if it hadn’t been for her much of its history would have been lost forever.

To conclude this section about Millaa Millaa I‘d like to quote an article, written by Mr J. McMahon, which appeared in the Cairns Post on 22 December 1922. It shows how much the town had grown in its ten or so years of existence:

Although really a brand new town, Millaa Millaa has commenced very well, as all the business and residential buildings are of a first class and very substantial nature. There is a very nice little railway station with a running and goods shed, timber loading ramps etc. The Millaa Millaa Hotel is a fine building, electrically lighted, and unless under the strain of exceptional occasions such as a show, capable of accommodating a large number of visitors. There are two stores (Whereat Bros and Wallace’s); a splendidly stocked newsagency and billiard room (N. Moses); two restaurants (Mrs Bulpit and Mrs Wattig), which also accommodates boarders; a plumber and tin-smiths (A. C. Jessop); a bank, the NSW; a boarding-house (Mrs Wight); two auctioneers’

officers, Messrs C. Harding (Captain J. S. Bartlett – Manager) and The Eacham Pastoral Agencies (Mr B. Francis – visiting Manager); two timber offices (The Maple Timber Ltd., – Mr J. Parkinson, Manager); and the Amalgamated Sawmillers; two butcher shops (Messrs Buck and Wilson and Arthur and Dayes); a blacksmith shop (Mr E. Styles); a baker (J. M. Brown); two saw and planing mills (Brotherton’s, right at Millaa Millaa and Phillip’s Proprietary at Moregatta). There is a fair sprinkling of residences in the town, with others going up and inquired for.

Since those early days what was until recently the Eacham Shire, with its two main towns of Malanda and Millaa Millaa, has prospered thanks to the dairy, timber and tourist industries. Now with good roads and comfortable houses, life isn’t the struggle it was in the first half of the 20th century. The prospects for the timber industry in this part of the North mightn’t be too bright, but Australia’s only tropical dairy farming region should continue to provide a good living for the farmers and factory workers in the dairy industry. It’ll also continue to delight tens of thousands of visitors, for this lush, green paradise has everything a discerning tourist could possibly wish for.


Chapter 6 – Atherton – a town of which ‘Old John’ would be proud

Chapter 6Atherton – a town of which ‘Old John’ would be proud

Shortly after the discovery of the Great Northern tin lode in April 1880 Christie Palmerston, Bob McLean and a man whose second name was Mullens, Miller, or perhaps Mueller, entered the great rainforest that lay between the Wild River and the Port Douglas–Thornborough Road intent on finding a route along which a highway capable of taking wheeled traffic could be built. As usually happened whenever Palmerston became involved, the venture was a success: within a few weeks the track the men blazed had been transformed into a major highway. Initially, it only went as far as Herberton (the town that grew up next to the Great Northern lode) but it was subsequently extended to the Gulf Country.

While Messrs Palmerston, McLean and Mullens were travelling through the scrub they passed through a patch of wooded savannah adjacent to a tributary of the Barron River. At the time it was the exclusive preserve of the Ngatjan Aborigines,

but over the next few months a number of dramatic changes took place. First came the Port Douglas–Herberton Road and a bridge across the creek; then, soon after, a number of European settlers, most of whom were timber-getters, moved into the area and built shacks to live in. One of the first to arrive was Thomas Prior and before long the locality had become known as ‘Priors Pocket’. Another of the newcomers was William Mazlin and the creek next to the settlement was named after him.

Palmerston and his two pals were by no means the first Europeans to set eyes on Priors Pocket. It’s possible, even likely, than an unknown timber-getter, or even a miner on his way from Cardwell to the Palmer River, could have strayed into the area during the early 1870s; and on 4 June 1875 James Venture Mulligan and five travelling companions passed through or very close to it. We cannot say precisely where Mulligan went at this particular stage of his celebrated Fifth Expedition;

Atherton Main Street c1900 (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)



but immediately after becoming the first known Europeans to see the future site of Mareeba, he and the other members of his party rode south through the rainforest, part of which can still be seen just outside Tolga, eventually emerging somewhere in the vicinity of Priors Pocket. They then crossed the Herberton Range and became the first to note the presence of alluvial tin in the Wild River.

Mulligan was first and foremost a prospector but, having been born and raised on a farm, he also knew a thing or two about soil. In his autobiography he expresses the opinion that the basaltic tableland upon which Priors Pocket is located had been blessed with ‘the best description of soil we have come into contact with’.1 The soil he was referring to now produces large quantities of maize, potatoes and peanuts. Other Europeans who’d have seen Priors Pocket while it was still in its pristine state include John Atherton, and at least some of the hardy souls who went to Tinaroo in search of alluvial tin. Atherton’s Emerald End home, which he established in 1877, was less than 40km to the north, while Tinaroo, whose brief burst of mining activity lasted from about 1878 until 1880, was even closer – only 18km to the north-east.

European settlers began to arrive in Priors Pocket within months of the opening of the Port Douglas–Herberton Road. The first homes were built by William Bernard Kelly, William Mazlin, Thomas Prior and three gentlemen whose first names are not known, but whose surnames were Loder, Nixon and Thomas. With the exception of Kelly, all these people were timber-getters. Kelly opened a store and a hotel and later became chairman of the Tinaroo Divisional Board (the predecessor of the Atherton Shire Council). Unfortunately, I know nothing about Loder, Nixon and Thomas, and not much more about Thomas Prior. As mentioned in the chapter about Chillagoe in Volume Two, I did interview one of Thomas Prior’s sons in Mareeba in 1974, but I became so engrossed in what he had to say about his own life that I completely forgot to ask him about his illustrious father. Luckily, I didn’t make the same mistake when I met Percy Mazlin and his daughter, Mrs Wylie, of Aspley, Brisbane.

They gave me a lot of information about William Mazlin and I’m very pleased they did because William Mazlin (Percy’s father) played a prominent role in the economic development of Far North Queensland, and no history of this part of the state would be complete without a few paragraphs devoted to his many achievements.

William Mazlin came into the world on 25 May 1856 in the Sydney suburb of Pennant Hills. His father, Thomas, was a sawyer; while his mother, Catherine, had the distinction of being born into the family that opened Sydney’s first bakery. The two of them exchanged vows at Kissing Point Church in 1842 and by the time William came along they already had seven children – Catherine (born in 1842), Sarah (1844), Thomas (1846), James (1848), Martha (1849), Mary (1852) and John (1854). But for Thomas Mazlin the joy of becoming a father for the eighth time soon gave way to deep despair. Only three months after giving birth to William his wife died. Luckily his sister-in-law, Jane Cook, volunteered to look after the baby and during the ensuing years she treated William as if he were her own son.

While he was growing up Mazlin managed to maintain close contact with his brothers and sisters, and when he reached the age of 13 he ran away from home to join Thomas Junior and either one or both of his other brothers. They’d followed their father into the timber industry, and at the time Mazlin set out to find them they were searching for red cedar in the valleys of the North and South Johnstone Rivers. From them he learned the rudiments of bush life and how to identify, fell and market red cedar, which in those days was the only species of tropical timber in demand.

Mazlin must have arrived in Priors Pocket soon after the discovery of the Great Northern tin deposit in April 1880. He began by clearing a patch of ground next to where the Atherton Ambulance Station now stands, then enclosed it with a simple dog-leg fence to prevent his bullocks and horses from straying. He also put up a house which he shared with Thomas Junior and maybe one or both of his other brothers. The Mazlins had chosen an ideal location for their logging operations. Priors Pocket was surrounded by rainforest and there was a seemingly insatiable demand for timber – especially red cedar and kauri pine – in Herberton and the other mining

1 Mulligan, J.V. ‘Exploring Expeditions and Prospecting Experiences 1859–1903’ Queenslander, 31.9.1904.



towns that appeared on the Walsh–Tinaroo Mining Field during the early 1880s. They cut down the giant trees themselves, then hauled the logs out of the scrub to a pit saw which they’d erected at nearby Carrington.

The Mazlins were employed by the Burns Philp Company and worked alongside George Alley, Jack Fallon, Thomas Purcell and the Prior brothers, Thomas and Walter. Phil Garland and Tom Thomas were under contract to supply logs to a rival enterprise – Blain and Co. of Melbourne. Both firms planned to float logs down the Barron River in times of flood but their efforts ended in failure.

In 1883 Mazlin left Priors Pocket to take up a farm on the Evelyn Tableland (see Chapter Four). At the time of his departure there were still only a handful of shacks in Priors Pocket but it was quite a hive of activity. In 1882 Cobb and Co. coaches had began to stop there, while many of the packers and teamsters who used to go backwards and forwards between Port Douglas and Herberton used it as a camping ground.

By the mid-1880s it had become clear that the Priors Pocket settlement was destined to grow in importance, so in 1888 a town survey was conducted and a few months later the first allotments were offered for sale. It was around this time that the decision was made to give the fledgling community a more appropriate name. Before the survey, when only a few people had lived there, Priors Pocket was as good a name as any. Now that it was on the threshold of becoming a major regional centre an alternative had to be found and Atherton was chosen. It’s somewhat ironic that the man after whom the town was named lived just outside what later became Mareeba. But, as we saw in Chapter Three, ‘Old John’ made a great and lasting contribution to the North’s development and fully deserves to have one of Queensland’s loveliest towns named in his honour.

Throughout the 1880s most of the permanent inhabitants of Priors Pocket/Atherton were employed in the timber industry. Later agriculture became increasingly important. In most cases the farmers were newcomers to the area but one or two were former timber-getters who’d lived in or near Atherton since its Priors Pocket days. One such person was Thomas Purcell. He first came to the

district when he was a young man but, unlike Prior and Mazlin, he never left. He worked for 20 years in the timber industry but had always wanted to become a farmer and once he was in a financial position to make his dream come true, he built himself a home just outside Atherton and spent the rest of his life growing a variety of crops and raising beef and dairy cattle.

Purcell came originally from Ireland. He was born on 2 January 1856 and grew up in a small place called Moathill in County Kilkenny. When he was 18 he migrated to Australia, coming out on the Toowoomba and arriving in 1874 in Rockhampton. He worked for a short period putting up fences in outback Central Queensland, but gave that up for a job with a railway construction gang somewhere near Rockhampton. Acccording to an article about Purcell in Fox’s History of Queensland: Its People and Industries, he later did the same sort of work in Townsville and Cairns. In 1882, while employed on a railway construction project in Cairns (Les Pearson thinks that it’s most likely to have been the tramway connecting Swallow’s Sugar Mill to its Smith’s Creek wharf ), he visited the Atherton area and was so impressed with its potential that he immediately left his job on the coast and returned to Atherton. He arrived sometime during the early-to-mid-1880s, and it was there that he and his wife Mary (whom he’d married in 1881) raised their four children – Bridget, James, John and Patrick.

Purcell worked in the scrub for over two decades. It was a hard and dangerous way to earn a living, and it kept him away from his family for longer than he’d have liked. But it provided him with the wherewithal to fulfil his lifelong ambition – to become a farmer. He took the first step towards achieving this goal soon after his arrival on the Tablelands, purchasing 64 hectares of virgin rainforest. As time went on he acquired much of the adjoining land and in 1907 he and the rest of the family moved into a spacious and elegant home which he’d build on the original block. He called it ‘Dunmore Park’ and he was to live there for the rest of his life.

While they were getting established the Purcells went in for dairy farming but that didn’t pay so they decided to raise beef cattle instead. They also became more adventurous with their choice of crops. At first they grew mainly maize, but



subsequently experimented with arrowroot, lucerne and sugar cane (which they used as fodder). According to Les Pearson, Purcell also owned a sawmill which was located on the straight section of the Gillies Highway just outside Atherton

Introducing Purcell at this stage of the proceedings might suggest he was one of the first farmers on the Atherton Tableland. This, however, is clearly not the case. Some anthropologists would argue that by selectively burning great swathes of grassland and open forest country, the Aborigines were in fact practising a type of farming – ‘firestick farming’ is the term most commonly used. As far as we know, the Aborigines never set fire to the rainforest, but presumably they used to burn off the dead grass in the more open parts of the Atherton Tableland like, for instance, the area next to the Herberton Range. But even if the Aborigines weren’t really ‘farming’ in the generally accepted sense of the word, people like Purcell and contemporaries such as William Marnane and H. S. Williams still cannot be regarded as the first farmers on the Atherton Tableland.

That honour has to go to a group of enterprising individuals from Canton, in southern China. They began arriving in the district in the early 1880s and by 1900 there must have been several hundred of them living within a 10km radius of Atherton. Most were farmers – they leased small patches of land and grew maize and a variety of vegetables and animal feed – but at one time there

was also a fair-sized urban community of people (mainly men) from Canton. It was situated midway between Atherton and Carrington and had about 40 buildings. Most were simple wooden dwellings but there were also several shops, a joss house and at least one opium den. Details of this fascinating episode of North Queensland history are extremely sketchy. It would appear, however, that a majority of the Atherton district’s Cantonese inhabitants were former miners who’d come to Australia at the time of the Palmer River Goldrush. Once the alluvial gold had run out they’d moved down to the Hodgkinson Goldfield, but that was never an alluvial field and they realised they were left with a stark choice: return to China, or do something else in Australia. Of those who chose the latter, several dozen decided to grow crops on the rich, red volcanic soils of the Atherton Tableland and sell their produce to the inland mining towns and the coastal communities of Cairns and Port Douglas. By the time the First World War broke out most of the Cantonese had left the Atherton area, either to return to China or to go to other parts of Australia. A few, however, remained and of those who did, one family – the Ju Sus – have done exceptionally well for themselves. They’ve an electrical business in the heart of town and also own a lot of property.

Another of the early European settlers on the Atherton Tableland was William Marnane. He was born in 1848 in Morpeth, in the Hunter Valley

Atherton Chinatown c1918 (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)



district of New South Wales, and was brought up on his parents’ farm just outside the town. When he was old enough to leave home he took a job as a jackaroo in the Liverpool Plains area (the belt of fertile agricultural land that surrounds Tamworth and Gunnedah). Then in the 1870s he tried his luck in two New South Wales gold mining towns – Gulgong and Parkes. He didn’t stay long in the former but he thrived in the latter. During the five years he lived in Parkes he made enough money to buy 100 horses which he transported to Cooktown.

For the next 10–15 years Marnane was constantly on the move: buying and selling horses and mules; operating a pack team between Cairns and the Hodgkinson Goldfield; and acting as a tin dealer, both on the Tablelands and in the mountains behind Ingham. According to Fox’s History of Queensland, Marnane was for many years the principal tin buyer at the Lancewood and Kangaroo Hills mines. He’d purchase bags of tin oxide from the treatment works, then take them by pack team to Ingham where they’d be loaded onto ‘flatties’ (small boats with a shallow draught). These would go as far as Dungeness, at the mouth of the Herbert River, and from there the tin would be loaded onto coastal vessels to be transported to Sydney.

In 1888 Marnane bought himself a farm. It was located next to Mazlin Creek, about 3km outside Atherton, and he called it ‘Coombra’. Five years later he married the woman who was to be his life-long companion. Her name was Bessie McLuckie and, like Thomas Purcell, her roots lay in County Kilkenny. By coincidence, Marnane’s parents were from the same part of the world (both had been born and raised in Tipperary). According to the words of the famous First World War song, It’s a long way to Tipperary, but from Kilkenny it isn’t far at all – the two counties are right next to each other. The Marnanes were later blessed with four sons – Maurice, John, Robert and Malcolm. The two eldest (Maurice and John) fought in the Great War, and in the course of duty they’d have had numerous opportunities to sing about the place where their paternal grandparents had once lived!

Marnane turned out to be an enterprising farmer. He was responsible for bringing the first pure-bred strains of dairy cattle into the Atherton district, and

was the first person in the North to use panicum grass (subsequently most of the other dairy farmers on the Atherton and Evelyn Tablelands followed suit). He also devoted a tremendous amount of time to community affairs: he served on the Tinaroo Council for 15 years, 12 as chairman, and was a member of the Cairns Harbour Board for approximately 10 years.

During the three decades that preceded the First World War many other European settlers came to the Atherton district. Among the most prominent were Charles Ballinger, the Belson brothers, Thomas Blackley, C. Bromfield, Patrick Courteney, J. Cross, James Doyle, Mr Fletcher, Fred Grau, Mick Halloran, W. B. Kelly, Mr Lisha, A. Loder, the Logans, Neal McGeehan, W. M. McGraw, George McKeown, Mr Morrison, Tom Peake, Charles Tucker, William Ure, G. G. Windhaus and Robert Young. Several, including Grau and Loder, were dairy farmers, Windhaus was a coffee grower; while Tucker tried unsuccessfully to raise sheep. Most of the others lived in town. Kelly and Peake both had hotels (Kelly’s Hotel was the very first building in the entire district, while Peake built and operated the original Barron Valley Hotel). Blackley, Doyle and Lisha all ran general stores, Fletcher and Morrison were butchers and Young doubled as Atherton’s first plumber and tinsmith.

William Charles Young Harding also played a leading role in Atherton’s early development. He owned a general stock and agency business, the main branch of which was in Atherton, but his business activities were by no means restricted to just one place. Harding came originally from Dorset – an English county, parts of which bear more than a passing resemblance to the Atherton Tableland. His parents owned a farm near the village of West Stour. Located some 10km west of Shaftesbury, it was also the boyhood home of the father of William Hann, whose story was told in Volume One. The part of the world where Harding grew up has been immortalised in the novels of Thomas Hardy. As it happens, Hardy and Harding were born at roughly the same time, and the former was already a celebrity when the latter arrived on the Tablelands.

Harding emigrated to Australia around 1881. Back in England he’d had a lot to do with horses, and this led to his being employed by Brown Brothers – a company that, among other things, bought



and sold horses. This position lasted for about a year, then Brown Brothers gave him the job of field manager at the Antigua sugar plantation, near Maryborough. Two years later Harding came to North Queensland, first to Cooktown then, after a spell in Croydon, he settled in Herberton.

It didn’t take long for Harding to make his mark in Herberton. He arrived in 1888 and within a few years was one of the town’s leading businessmen. Some of his ventures – like the pack team he operated between Herberton and Cairns, and the livery stable that he and Arthur Keeble established in Herberton – involved horses whereas others were in fields in which he’d no previous experience. For example, he participated in the floating of a number of mining companies and, of greater significance, he founded a general stock and produce agency. Initially, this appears to have been a Herberton-based enterprise but later the Atherton branch grew to such an extent that it became the centre of the business. Other branches existed at Malanda and Millaa Millaa.

Harding also displayed a great sense of civic duty. For several years he was the chairman of the Herberton Divisional Board, and once served as the town’s mayor (one suspects, therefore, that if he had a particular favourite among Thomas Hardy’s so-called ‘Wessex Novels’, it’s likely to have been The Mayor of Casterbridge!) In addition, he was president of the Pastoral, Agricultural and Industrial societies in Herberton and Atherton, a co-founder of the Atherton Agricultural Show and played an active role in promoting horse racing on the Tablelands. He was also a family man. His wife, Mary, whom he married in 1898, was a member of the Dillon family (they were among the earliest European settlers in Cairns) and they had four daughters – Mona, Doreen, Ursula and Isobel.

During the early part of the 20th century the Atherton district was served by two local papers – the Tableland Examiner and the Barron Valley Advocate. When I began researching for this chapter I intended to make extensive use of both these sources, but sadly this proved to be impossible. The relevant issues of the Tableland Examiner appear to have suffered the same fate as the Tasmanian Tiger, which is a shame. As for the Barron Valley Advocate, there are hundreds of copies – perhaps even a full set – in existence somewhere, but I could never

find them. In the 1960s, when Geoffrey Bolton was writing A Thousand Miles Away, they were held by the Atherton Shire Council. When, in May 1974, I went to the council offices in Atherton and sought permission to read through them, I was told they’d recently been donated to James Cook University. However, upon my arrival at the university I was informed that the Advocates had in fact been sent to the State Archives in Brisbane. When eventually I managed to visit the archives I was told that the Advocates were not, nor had they ever been, in the State Archives and that no one had any idea where they might be. Even though my efforts to get hold of copies of the early Atherton papers failed, I did manage to obtain a copy of J. W. Collinson’s book Early Days of Cairns. He used to work for the Tableland Examiner and includes quite a lot of information about his time there in the book.

The Examiner was founded in 1908 by Zenas N. Vaisey. Initially, it was run along co-operative lines, but by 1910 (when Collinson joined) the original shareholders had severed their links with the paper and it was owned by a consortium of J. R. Dowling, John Mann, G. E. Martin, F. A. Muller, Fred Stewart and F. C. Williams.

When Collinson started with the Examiner he did so as a reporter, although he was also expected to look after the books. They turned out to be in a terrible mess and, to complicate matters, the manager at the time, James Dowling, was deaf, which in those days was even more of a handicap than it is today. A few months after Collinson arrived in Atherton matters came to a head. Dowling resigned and Collinson was offered his job. He accepted, and on 10 November 1910 began ‘what proved for three years a difficult and discouraging career’.2

The most serious difficulty Collinson faced during his tenure of office was the low level of support he received from the local business people. The main reason for their reluctance to patronise the Examiner was the paper’s close identification with the Australian Labor Party. Well-known North Queensland politician William Neal Gillies (who later became Premier of Queensland and after whom the Gillies Highway is named) made a number of

2 Collinson, J.W. (1930) Early Days of Cairns Brisbane, p. 93



financial contributions and these enabled the paper to keep going, but his generosity wasn’t enough to offset the lack of advertising revenue from Atherton’s business houses. One problem that Collinson didn’t need to worry about, though, was trying to devise ways of maintaining cordial relations between his book keeper, canvasser, collector, editor, principal reporter and standby machine hand – because he did all these jobs himself!

Like Atherton, the town of Tolga started out as a timber camp then gradually developed into a service centre for local farmers. Collinson lived there for several months in or around 1907. He began by working in the local branch of Carthew and Smith’s general store but Morrison and Fletcher, who owned the butcher’s next door, persuaded him to become their book keeper. Collinson remained with them for three years, firstly in their Tolga branch and subsequently in their larger Atherton premises.

When Collinson was living there: ‘Tolga was a busy place, timber was coming into the station daily, two sawmills, Martin Bros. and Morrow Bros. (Heale’s) were in full swing, much activity was going on in farming, and the Tolga–Johnstone Railway was under construction. Williamson Bros. were timber hauling to the mill with a traction engine.’

During its early days Tolga was known as Martintown. Contrary to what one might expect, the person after whom the town was named wasn’t either of the Martin brothers mentioned above, but another early Tolga resident whose name was also Martin. Among the other Europeans who came to the district prior to the First World War were John Grogan (a hotelier who also managed the local Cobb and Co. mail change), James Macdonald, the Carrs, Ebensons, Halfpapps, Jacksons, Lesprits, Morrows, Turnbulls, Walkers and Wimbles.

A few kilometres south of Atherton, and just a little further along the Herberton Road than Chinatown, there once existed a bustling little community called Carrington. At one time it boasted several houses and an impressive array of businesses, the most important of which were a hotel, a general store, a bakery, a butcher’s and a blacksmith’s shop. Today all the buildings have vanished and it’s difficult to believe there was ever a town there at all.

The person primarily responsible for Carrington’s initial development was Robert Gordon. He came

to the area sometime in the early 1880s and set up a butcher’s shop, a bakery and a hotel. These ventures appear to have flourished, but after a couple of years Gordon thought he’d like to try his hand at the road haulage business, so he divested himself of all his business interests in Carrington and used part of the proceeds to buy a pair of bullock teams. For the next two years Gordon was a familiar sight along the Port Douglas–Herberton Road. It was a very different way of life from the one he’d been used to in Carrington but he certainly wasn’t a novice when it came to working with animals. His first job, which had lasted for nine years, was on a grazing property called St Ann’s in the Suttor River district. Subsequently he spent some time on Dalgonally Station in the Gulf Country, then in 1876 he drove a herd of bullocks to Cairns and a few months later shipped some cattle to Cairns and started up a dairy farm. All of this, however, took place when Gordon was a young man (he’d been born on 17 August 1852 in County Antrim) but in 1884 he married Elizabeth Page, a Herberton girl whose father, Thomas, owned a number of bakeries. Evidently, Gordon wished to spend more time with her, so he disposed of his bullocks and wagons, established a butcher’s shop and worked in it for many years.

Gordon remained in the Atherton district for the rest of his life but never allowed himself to fall into a rut. Eventually, he sold his shop and went to work for the celebrated North Queensland firm of Munro and Gordon. They were station owners and meat vendors and one of the partners, John Gordon, was his cousin. It wasn’t the first time the two had worked together. In 1879 Gordon had left his dairy farm near Cairns and gone into partnership with John at Goldsborough (a gold mining community in the mountains behind Gordonvale). They ran a small store and also sold meat to the miners. While he was working for Munro and Gordon, Robert Gordon was manager of the company’s stock department.

As he grew older, Gordon did less work, but he and his wife kept a few dairy cows on their property on the outskirts of Atherton and sold cream to the nearby butter factory. Gordon called his farm Glen Villa, possibly as a reminder of the Glens of Antrim, which he’d have known as a child.

The hotel that Gordon once owned in Carrington was called the Carriers Arms and the person to



whom he sold it, Henry Sydney Williams, later became one of the most successful businessmen in the North. Williams was born in 1844 near the English port of Southampton. He set out for Australia when he was in his late teens – or perhaps early twenties – and, after working as a horse dealer and spending time on the Palmer and Hodgkinson Goldfields, and in the Bowen district, he made his way to Townsville to establish an auctioneering and land agency business in Flinders Street. This made him a lot of money and enabled him to diversify his interests, but he made a number of unwise investments, causing him to lose most of his assets. Seeking a fresh start, he, his wife and six children left the North and went to live on a farm in the Bairnsdale district of eastern Victoria, but five years later Mrs Williams became seriously ill. She was advised that her chances of recovery would be greatly enhanced if she were to move to the tropics. As it happened, her brother, Edward Campbell, lived just outside Mt Garnet on Strathvale Station, and he was perfectly happy for the Williams’ to come and stay with him while they were looking for a suitable farm or business. They returned to the North in 1889 and the following year took out a lease on a farm at Carrington. They remained there throughout the 1890s and, although it didn’t make them a lot of money, the climate or way of life, or perhaps a combination of the two, restored

Mrs Williams’ health to such an extent that she gave birth to three more children.

In 1897 Henry Williams opened a general store and a butcher’s shop in Carrington, and soon after bought the Carriers Arms Hotel from Robert Gordon. These all turned out to be worthwhile investments, but the main impetus for his spectacular success in the business world came as a result of his purchase of a block of land at Allumbah Pocket (today’s Yungaburra). He foresaw a great future for the area: the soil was fertile; the climate ideal for growing a variety of crops; and plans were afoot for a railway to be built from Tolga. Williams’ hopes were fully realised. The Allumbah Pocket district prospered and, as well as owning a lot of valuable land there, he built a hotel, store and butcher’s shop. The hotel, which is still there today, is a large and impressive-looking timber building, full of old world charm. Originally it was known as the Allumbah Hotel but now it’s called the Lake Eacham.

Looking after his business interests and helping his wife bring up ten children took up most of his time, but Williams managed to play a significant role in community affairs. He was president of the Carrington School board and also served on the local council.

Atherton



In 1916 the Williams’ business empire was made into a limited liability company. Three of Henry’s sons – Albert, Edward and Frederick – were chosen as managing directors, but other members of the family also played leading roles in the company’s affairs. One of the girls, Marion, and her husband, John Kehoe, ran the Lake Eacham Hotel; the eldest son, John, (born in 1878 in Townsville) owned Woodleigh Station, between Ravenshoe and Mt Garnet; Henry Junior was managing director of the Eacham Pastoral Agencies; while Alfred, or ‘Paddy’ as he was known, (the only one of the Williams children to be born in Bairnsdale), was manager of the family’s interests in Herberton and later Malanda.

The Williams family are still at the forefront of economic development in the North. The town of Carrington, where all the second generation of Williams’ spent at least part of their childhood, is now known as Nyleta. It used to be a thriving little place, but there’s not a lot to see nowadays, apart from a small cemetery. It’s on the right hand side of the road as you drive out of Atherton and a number of the district’s early European settlers are buried there including Mr and Mrs Henry Williams.

Initially, Atherton only grew slowly but when the railway reached the town in June 1903 the pace of development increased significantly. Starting in 1907 several thousand hectares of land to the south and east of the town were opened up for selection, causing a large influx of people. Many newcomers were former miners from the Walsh–Tinaroo Mining Field, but an even greater number came from the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales.

In 1909 the Atherton area received a shot in the arm with the opening of W. C. Abbott’s Golden Grove butter factory. This served the local dairy farmers for a few years, then in 1914 a large co-operative butter factory costing £17,000 was built next to the railway line on the northern outskirts of Atherton.

Many people were involved in its establishment, the most prominent being W. C. Abbott, C. J. Belson, P. Campbell, J. Emerson, J. English, F. Grau, A. Loder, M. Lynch, W. Marnane, E. N. Neale, C. Roseblade, W. J. Sloan and E. Styles. Soon after the First World War the organisation decided to build a butter factory at Malanda. It was completed in 1919 and was such a success that it replaced Atherton as the main centre of the Tableland’s dairy industry.

For much of the 20th century Atherton has been one of the largest towns in the Cairns hinterland. Unlike many of rural Queensland’s other regional centres its population has been steadily increasing and all indications are that this trend will continue. The prospects for the local timber industry appear bleak and it’s difficult to know what the future holds for the region’s farmers, but the tourist industry has been growing rapidly and will doubtless continue to provide employment for many hundreds of people. Atherton has also become a very popular place in which to retire and this has made a significant contribution to the town’s economic wellbeing.

When John Atherton first learned that the settlement in Priors Pocket was to be named in his honour, he must have been a proud man. By the time of his death, which occurred in 1913, the town had taken on an air of permanency and it was obvious that it wasn’t about to suffer the same fate as some of the nearby mining towns that had flourished for a few years and then disappeared. However, if Atherton could have foreseen what the place would have looked like 50 years later he’d have been prouder still. It really is a lovely town: it’s clean and well cared for, the climate is very agreeable and it’s set in a part of the world that‘s every bit as green as the village in England where he spent his childhood years. There’s also a wealth of glorious scenery nearby while Cairns, with its myriad attractions and facilities, is close at hand and easily accessible thanks to the Gillies Highway.


Chapter 7 – Mareeba – its pre-tobacco days

Chapter 7Mareeba – its pre-tobacco days

In many parts of Australia it’s possible to travel hundreds of kilometres without seeing any perceptible change of scenery. But this certainly doesn’t apply to the North Queensland Tablelands. There the only constant feature of the landscape is changeability. Even the towns are very distinct, which is surprising when one considers how close they are to each other and that they were founded at roughly the same time.

The two largest towns on the Tablelands, Mareeba and Atherton, are a case in point. Both came into existence following the discovery of the Great Northern tin lode in Herberton, and for a time their main function was to serve the needs of travellers on the Port Douglas–Herberton Road. They’ve both had a long association with the timber industry, and for most of the 20th century their economic well being has largely depended on farming. However, despite having a similar history and being less than

40km apart, the two towns are very different in character. Atherton is hilly (although not nearly as hilly as Herberton) and glories in a profusion of lush tropical vegetation. Mareeba on the other hand is flat and its vegetation much less luxuriant.

Before the coming of the Europeans the site of what today is Atherton was a relatively small patch of open forest in a vast expanse of rainforest, whereas the trees that grew where Mareeba now stands were smaller and sparser than those at Priors Pocket and there was no rainforest in the immediate vicinity. The contrast was largely due to the fact that the Atherton Tableland receives a higher rainfall than the Mareeba Tableland (the mean annual total for Atherton is 1413mm and 928mm for Mareeba), but this isn’t the sole reason. Most of the soils on the Atherton Tableland are the product of weathered basalt and extremely fertile. There’s also a tongue of basalt protruding into the Mareeba Tableland,

Byrnes Street Mareeba in 1916 (courtesy of Cairns Historical Society)



as anyone who’s ever driven along the main road between Tolga and Mareeba would know only too well, but the bulk of the soils in the Mareeba district are sandy, having been derived from the nearby granite mountains. They’re not particularly fertile and support a wooded savannah type of vegetation.

Atherton and Mareeba also differ in ethnic composition. At the beginning of the 20th century the former was one of the most cosmopolitan towns in Australia. Many of its inhabitants had their origins in the British Isles but hundreds of Cantonese lived nearby and they were frequent visitors to Atherton. Mareeba’s population, by contrast, was largely English, Scottish and Irish. Today, however, the position has been completely reversed. A majority of those who live in Atherton have their roots in the British Isles and other parts of Northern Europe, whereas Mareeba’s population is a mixture of long-established families of largely British stock, Croatians, Italians and even Albanians. There are also many more Aborigines in Mareeba than in Atherton.

As far as anyone knows, the first Europeans to set eyes on what is now Mareeba were Peter Abelson, Jimmy Dowdall, William Harvey, Jack Moran, James Venture Mulligan and Frederick Warner. They, along with an Aborigine whom they called ‘Charley’, made up Mulligan’s so-called Fifth Expedition. As we saw in Volume One, this particular foray into the unknown was sponsored by the Queensland Government and took place in the middle of 1875. It began in Cooktown on 29 April and it wasn’t until 15 June that the seven explorers finally arrived at their final destination – Ezra Firth’s sheep station at Mt Surprise.

By the end of May Mulligan and his companions had reached the headwaters of the Mitchell River, and on 24 May they came across a huge north-flowing river. As they’d been travelling across flat country they naturally assumed the river must be the main tributary of the Mitchell, which led Mulligan to remark in his report to the Queensland Government that the Mitchell was ‘undoubtedly the river of Queensland’. Later he realised he’d made a mistake. The river he and the men with him had seen was in fact the Barron, which turns east just north of where they first came across it and eventually empties into the Coral Sea, a few kilometres north of Cairns. Mulligan’s error of

judgement, however, is quite understandable. Throughout Eastern Australia, rivers that flow west are normally separated from those that run into the Pacific by a range of mountains, but immediately to the north of Mareeba the Mitchell and Barron share the same plain. This phenomenon soon became apparent to the packers and teamsters who operated on the Port Douglas–Herberton Road. They used to say that during the wet season, as they were travelling between Mareeba and Biboohra, water from one wheel rut would flow into the Gulf of Carpentaria while water from the other would end up in the Coral Sea.

Mulligan’s expedition reached the Barron close to where it swings east. Two days later, on 26 May, the men crossed the river and pitched camp on its eastern bank a couple of kilometres from what is now Biboohra. Over the next few days they travelled slowly south, and on or around 29 May passed close to where Mareeba was subsequently built.

In 1877 John Atherton arrived on the Tablelands, and established his Emerald End homestead next to the confluence of Emerald Creek and the Barron River. He and his family were the first Europeans to settle in the area, but they were soon joined by others. In 1880 a road was pushed through to Herberton from the existing Port Douglas–Hodgkinson Goldfield Road and it passed close to Atherton’s home. A bridge was built to take the road across Granite Creek and a small township grew next to it. As one might expect, the first building was a hotel. It was called the Royal Mail, and Messrs Eccles and Lloyd ran it on behalf of the Atherton family who owned it. The hotel was located on the south bank of Granite Creek. It’s long since disappeared, but its position is marked by a cairn perpetuating the memory of John Atherton.

A number of other buildings were also erected next to Granite Creek during the 1880s, including a hotel owned by a Mr Freeman. He started trading in 1885 but a few months later his hotel was burned to the ground. Before the coming of the railway the Granite Creek settlement was only small, but there were always plenty of people passing through and they’d usually stop to refresh themselves before continuing. Cobb and Co. coaches used to pull up outside the Royal Mail, and if it was late in the day the passengers would spend the night there. In the evenings they’d be joined in the bar by at least some



of the packers and teamsters who used to camp on the grassy flat next to Granite Creek.

By the 1890s the Athertons weren’t the only graziers living in the northern part of the Tablelands. The Jacksons, Marnanes, Mastersons and Ords had all come into the area and established cattle stations. The presence of these and other pastoralists provided the business people of Granite Creek with an extra source of income, but of far greater significance were two developments that took place in 1893 – the discovery of gold and the arrival of the railway.

The first person to come across payable gold in the vicinity of Granite Creek was Duncan Finlayson. He made his discovery in 1893 and a minor rush ensued. In the same year gold was also found in Davies Creek and another goldfield came into being. It was called the Clohesy, because in those days Davies Creek was known as the Second Clohesy. One person who wouldn’t have been at all surprised at either of these discoveries was that doyen of North Queensland prospectors, James Venture Mulligan. On 27 May 1875, while on his Fifth Expedition, he’d camped just to the north of Granite Creek and in his diary had made this prediction: ‘Payable gold will be got not far from here. This piece of country is highly auriferous’. As things turned out, neither the Mareeba nor the Clohesy fields lived up to expectations. On the former, the Queen Constance was the pick of the leases, while on the latter, the Waitenata Mine made a lot of money for a certain Mr Mackenzie. But he was an exception. By and large the miners who came to Granite Creek hoping to find gold went away poorer than when they’d arrived. The other major development, however – the coming of the railway – more than made up for any disappointment the people of Granite Creek may have felt at the rapid demise of the Mareeba and Clohesy Goldfields. It gave their community a tremendous boost at a time of great hardship – the onset of the economic depression that hit Australia in 1893 – and more than any other single factor enabled the town to become what it is today.

The contractors Sutherland, Mackenzie and O’Rourke had begun work on extending the line from Myola (near Kuranda) to Granite Creek in 1891 and it took them two years to complete it. The first train pulled into Granite Creek on 1 August

and people came from far and wide to witness the event. It was felt that the town was about to enter a new era – hopefully one characterised by prosperity and economic growth – so it was decided to give it a more appropriate name. Mareeba was chosen – a local Aboriginal word thought to mean ‘meeting place of the waters’.

When the Myola–Mareeba section of the Cairns Railway was opened to traffic, everyone assumed that work would soon begin on extending the line to Atherton but, because of the straitened economic conditions the Queensland Government had to rein in expenditure. No further construction took place until the start of the new century, which meant that for several years all goods going from Cairns to places like Atherton, Herberton, Irvinebank and Watsonville had to be offloaded at Mareeba and taken on by road. This was very inconvenient and made everything more expensive but it helped tide Mareeba’s hoteliers and storekeepers through what was a very difficult period.

During the first two decades of the 20th century hundreds of kilometres of railway track were laid in the Cairns hinterland and, as the Dimbulah–Chillagoe and Atherton–Herberton–Ravenshoe lines met at Mareeba, the town became the hub of the whole system. Its central location caused a number of railway employees to settle there. Sam Cameron, Harry Fuelling, Jim Riordan and Mick Woods, all of whom were drivers on the Chillagoe line, lived in Mareeba. So too did Mareeba’s first station master, Laurence Courtney.

In 1887 a German-born surveyor named Charles Alfred Starcke conducted a town survey and suggested that Granite Creek be renamed ‘Abbott Creek’. Starcke was a truly remarkable man: he was very good at his job and spent the bulk of his career in the bush, more often than not labouring away in very taxing conditions. After qualifying as a Licensed Surveyor in 1878, he came North and did a lot of work in the Cooktown area. During the 1880s and 1890s he undertook a number of surveys in western Queensland. Then, in 1899, he was appointed Crown Lands Commissioner in Rockhampton and stayed in the town until he died in 1916.

Besides being as tough as old rope, Starcke had a great sense of humour and wasn’t afraid to speak



his mind. In their book Surveying in Queensland 1839–1945, authors Bill Kitson and Judith McKay quote a jaw-dropping remark he made after being instructed to draw up plans for a settlement in the headwaters of the Russell River. In his opinion, if it were given the go-ahead its inhabitants would be divided into three classes – viz., those who died from fever, those who died from starvation, and those who were drowned. 1 As things turned out the town was never built, so we don’t know if his doom-laden prediction was accurate.

On another occasion Starcke had a set-to with his boss in the Surveyor-General’s Department, after submitting an expenses claim for work done during one of his bush surveys. He wanted £2 a mile plus 100 per cent, but as he normally only asked for 50 per cent he was told to justify the extra payment. He did this in a follow-up letter, using language not generally used in official correspondence – not even

by bush surveyors: When the crocodiles are 3 feet long and the water is up to my knees I add 50 per cent, but when the crocodiles are six feet and the water is up to my arse I add 100 per cent. 2

The response to Starcke’s colourful explanation was a sniffy comment that in future he should restrict himself to ‘decent and courteous’ language when writing to head office on official business. Far from being contrite, Starcke shot back with yet another forthright remark: I presume you refer to my use of the word ‘arse’. If you look in Webster’s Dictionary you will find that it means the buttocks of a man.3

By this stage of his career Starcke presumably felt that, given his level of expertise and the fact that he was prepared to work in the most inhospitable places imaginable, the chances of being fired were pretty remote.

Starcke didn’t have as much impact on Mareeba as he’d have hoped. His suggestion Granite Creek should be known as ‘Abbott Creek’ didn’t come to anything and the town survey he drew up was never acted upon. He did, however, have a river in the Cooktown area named in his honour, and this should guarantee he won’t be forgotten.

1 Kitson, B. and McKay, J. Surveying Queensland 1839–1945 A Pictorial History Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water and the Queensland Museum, 2006 p. 122.

2 Ibid p.183.

3 Ibid.

A typical day in the life of Charles Alfred Starcke



Another town survey was drawn up in the early 1890s – this one by Edward Rankin – and it was adopted. The dominant feature of the plan was three parallel roads intersected at right angles by seven shorter roads. It was simple yet effective and Rankin’s reward was to have one of the roads named after him. As for the others, Atherton, Eccles, Hort, Lloyd, Middlemiss and Walsh Streets were named after prominent pioneers; Constance Street perpetuates the memory of Constance Hort; the main thoroughfare was that of the Queensland Premier, T. J. Byrne; while Herberton Street is said to have acquired its name because it was the road closest to Herberton. Later on, as Mareeba expanded, a number of other roads were named after pioneer families. Those to be so honoured were the Doyles, Emersons, Kilpatricks, Quills and Troughtons.

As the 19th century drew to a close Mareeba had a number of hotels. Eccles and Lloyd continued to operate the Royal Mail on behalf of the Atherton family, but they had to compete with a variety of other establishments, including Mick Carroll’s Carriers Arms, Tom Dillon’s Mail Exchange, George Walton’s Federal, Paskin’s Terminus (the lease of which was later acquired by Tom Fitzgerald) and Peter Byrne’s Imperial. This last named watering

hole burned to the ground shortly before the turn of the century and was replaced by Dunlop’s Hotel. Mareeba also had two Royal Hotels, although they didn’t operate at the same time. The first, located on Mareeba’s southern outskirts, was run by a Mr Sullivan, and later by someone called Brown. Eventually, this establishment was demolished and parts of it used to build another hotel of the same name in the centre of Mareeba.

There were several general stores in Mareeba. As one might expect it didn’t take long for the Herberton-based retailers, Jack and Newell’s, to open premises in town, and for a time their manager was John Moffat’s former business partner Robert Love. Two Cairns companies – John Walsh & Co. and G. R. Mayers – opened branches in Mareeba. Further choice was provided by a storekeeper called Hunter and two Chinese whose names appear to have been lost to posterity.

There was also a wide variety of more specialised retail outlets in the town. These included Peter Berglund’s shoe shop, Dickson’s bakery, Danks’ pharmacy and Smith’s drapery (which was later taken over by H. Castor). Dan Collins sold camping equipment, Mr Jacobson (an old Swede) repaired broken watches and sold new ones, Jimmy Richards cut people’s hair, while Mr Scherning (formerly of

Mareeba Railway Station c1974



Port Douglas), R. S. Cummings (who’d previously lived in Cairns and Redbank) and Mr Gates each had a saddlery. W. Middlemiss was the town’s leading butcher, until he sold out to Munro and Gordon, John Fenwick and his mate Norris were blacksmiths and Albert May set himself up as a cabinet maker.

The first newspaper to appear in Mareeba was the Express. Its owner, Octave Lanney, had previously lived and worked in Port Douglas, whose demise broadly coincided with the rise of Mareeba. He was assisted at the Express by George Martin and Jim Riordan, but for reasons that could have been financial or personal, Lanney decided to leave Mareeba. He sold his printing press to G. M. O’Donnell, who started up the Mareeba Herald. This was replaced in due course by the Walsh and Tinaroo Miner, in which Ned Martin had a controlling interest.

Most of the buildings that went up in Mareeba during the 1890s – including the railway station, the town’s first church and a branch of Jack and Newell’s – were the work of William Alexander Hastie, who was born in 1853 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He also helped build the railway line from Myola to Mareeba and later the Mossman Sugar Mill. In conjunction with James Kemp Lawson, Hastie established Northern Builders Hardware and this thrived for many years. Hastie had a large family, and four sons (Arthur, Bert, Ralph and Willie) worked alongside him. The other major builders in Mareeba were Fred Grau, Albert May and Bill Vaughan.

During the latter part of the 19th century there were far more secondary industries in Mareeba than there are today. Of these the most important were Bechtel’s soap factory, Couper’s iron and brass foundry, Rudolph Hampe’s cordial factory, Tom Mann’s brickworks, Pearce’s maize-crushing mill and the nearby Biboohra meatworks, which were opened in 1897 and managed initially by Bill Smallwood. At one stage Mareeba looked set to become a major manufacturing centre. John Moffat believed that, because of its rail connections and seemingly inexhaustible supplies of fresh water, the town would be an ideal place to locate a copper smelter. He purchased a block of land for that purpose, but a combination of low copper prices and poor yields from his copper mines scuttled the idea which, from

an environmental point of view, is probably just as well. One shudders to think what effects effluent from such a plant would have had on the Barron River and the Barrier Reef!

One industry that did take off in a big way in the long run was timber. In the days when Mareeba was a railhead, logs and sawn timber would be brought to the station by bullock wagon and traction engine (like, for example, the rip-snorters that Walter Prior owned). Initially, the timber mills were erected close to where the logs were cut. This was done for good reason. Whenever a log is processed approximately 50 per cent is discarded in the form of bark, scrap and sawdust. Most of the timber that was bought and sold in the late 19th century came from the rainforests, and Mareeba was surrounded by open woodland. Given the high cost of transport, it would have made no sense to bring in a great log from somewhere like Tolga, only for half of it to end up on a waste heap.

At the beginning of the 20th century, however, a railway line was built from Mareeba to Chillagoe and this created a huge demand for sleepers. These were made from hardwood and there was plenty of that on the Mareeba Tableland so Walter Jamieson built a timber mill, the first in the district, next to Granite Creek. He sold it at the beginning of 1905 and took a holiday in his native Scotland, but he didn’t stay long. According to the Cairns Morning Post of 10 February 1906, he was in the process of building a mill at Tolga, having ordered much of the required machinery in Victoria. In 1908 Lawson and Son established a mill close to the intersection of Byrnes and Rankin streets. This later expanded and is the forerunner of the giant timber complex that straddles the railway line just to the south of the town centre.

On 9 August 1893 the Mareeba State School opened with Dennis Horan the principal and Miss Coman his assistant. James Dowie was later put in charge and he retained the position for 25 years. The town’s present post office is an elegant, modern building, but there’s been a post office on the site since 1897. Prior to that anyone in Mareeba wishing to post a letter or parcel had to do so at the railway station.

In 2001 Mareeba’s population stood at 6,883, making it the largest town on the Cairns hinterland (in the same year second-placed Atherton was



home to a mere 5,800 people). One might have thought that because of its current size and importance, Mareeba would have a correspondingly large amount of space devoted to it in any book that purports to be a history of the North Queensland Tablelands. Yet this clearly hasn’t happened in Up the Palmerston. The Mareeba chapter is considerably shorter than the one about Ravenshoe, even though Ravenshoe’s population is less than a quarter of that of Mareeba. Even more surprising, the Tate River Township, which now lies abandoned, received far more attention in Volume Two than Mareeba does in this book! The good people of Mareeba deserve an explanation…

Firstly, it should be pointed out that the first European settler in the Mareeba district, John Atherton, has already had his story told in Chapter Three. If the few pages about him and the other members of his family had been incorporated into this chapter, it wouldn’t have been quite so short. Secondly, even though Mareeba is the most populous town on the Tablelands today, this hasn’t always been the case. Most of its growth has occurred since 1920, and Up the Palmerston only attempts to deal with what happened before that date. The biggest single factor behind Mareeba’s rise to pre-eminence in the Tableland population

stakes was the phenomenal success of the tobacco industry and that didn’t become important until the inter-war years. A number of bold individuals did experiment with the crop prior to this. For example, someone called Burdett was growing tobacco next to the Clohesy River as early as the 1890s but this was very much an isolated case.

Thirdly, while I was searching for material for this book I often succeeded in locating documentary evidence, some of it previously unseen by other historians, that related to the topics I needed to cover; and I was also privileged to meet a number of old people who’d seen at first hand some of the events about which I was writing. In the case of Mareeba, however, I didn’t come across any letters, diaries or even contemporary newspapers and I didn’t find anyone who’d lived in the town before 1920. If I’d been lucky enough to run into a Mareeba equivalent of Johnny Bowe, Darby Macnamara, Mike O’Callaghan or Mary Wardle, this chapter would have been considerably longer. Hopefully though, my account of Mareeba’s history, inadequate as it is, will provide a basis for others to work on. Perhaps one day somebody will read through what I’ve written, then consult a number of other sources and eventually produce something that does justice to what really is a delightful town.


Postscript

Postscript

Well, that just about wraps it up. My history of the Cairns Hinterland is now complete. When I began writing Up the Palmerston I was in my mid-20s and had only recently begun my teaching career, but now that I’ve all-but-finished I’m well into my 60s and appear to be retired.

I completed the first draft of the book in 1976 and submitted it to a couple of publishers, but they were highly critical of the approach I’d taken. The main problems, apparently, were the personal touches and the humour. They hinted that if I were to rewrite large chunks of the book and make it dull and unreadable (not their exact words!) they’d take another look at it. Their advice was doubtless well-meant, but when the time came for me to rewrite the entire book I made a conscious effort to increase the number of personal anecdotes and include more in the way of humour.

I began reworking Up the Palmerston in the late 1970s to incorporate a large amount of new research – much of it conducted in the UK – and eventually decided to publish it myself to give people all over

Australia the opportunity to read about the likes of Richard Baldickie, the Icu, James Venture Mulligan, Walter Jervoise Scott and Mary Wardle.

As things stand at the moment I’ve only recouped a tiny fraction of my expenses, and the chances of actually making a profit from the book appear fanciful, but if I hadn’t gone ahead and self-published it would have continued to collect dust. In my darker moments I’d conjure up images of Up the Palmerston finally making it into the shops long after I was dead and gone, thus ensuring that my efforts remained unrecognised by anybody – apart from my friends and students – during my lifetime. Even if that had happened I’d have continued to believe that piecing together the history of the Cairns hinterland was the most worthwhile and exhilarating experience of my life. Let me try to explain why…

To begin with, the area I wrote about is one of the loveliest parts of the planet. While I was doing my research I visited tropical islands and coconut-fringed beaches; I climbed up and down jungle-clad

Ernie Edwards of Ravenshoe


Postscript

mountains; I swam in volcanic lakes and under waterfalls of many different sizes and shapes; I explored ghost towns, mine workings and limestone caves as spectacular as any in Australia; and best of all, I spent dozens of hours riding my trail bike through the wild, inhospitable mining country that lies to the back of Herberton, exploring places where few people ever go.

Living and working in such a wonderful physical setting was a rare privilege, but just as enjoyable, and of greater value to me, was the education I received from the people who assisted me in my venture. Just about all of them were kind, friendly and helpful, and many struck me as being highly intelligent, perceptive and well-informed. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I went along to interview somebody expecting to stay for an hour or so to discuss one particular industry or town, but ended up by staying for hours and going back on several occasions to talk about all manner of things, many of which were totally unrelated to history. Ernie Edwards of Ravenshoe, whom I first met in 1973, was just such a person. His delightful granddaughter, Wendy, had told me that he knew a lot about tin. He did indeed. He’d spent much of his life working as a tin-scratcher, so he was able to pass on a lot of useful first-hand knowledge to me about the tin industry. He’d also been a timber-getter, had managed and built hotels, and somewhere along the line he’d grown tobacco. Over the next few years I visited Ernie on numerous occasions and whenever we met we’d talk for hours about politics, education, conservation, the weather, boy–girl relationships, the state of the tin industry and, of course, the latest town gossip. He’d had practically no formal education, but in my opinion he was better educated, and certainly more intelligent, than the average university lecturer or, dare I say it, schoolteacher. When my parents came out to Australia in 1978 and accompanied me on a trip to the North, Ernie was one of the first people we visited.

The thing that impressed me most about Ernie Edwards, however, was that he, like so many other elderly North Queenslanders I got to know, was open-minded. In the eyes of many southerners – usually ones who’ve never ventured north of the Tweed River – the people of Queensland are a bunch of bigots. Those who live within a 50km

radius of Brisbane aren’t too bad, but once past Nambour the inhabitants become progressively more narrow-minded and ignorant. In my experience, however, nothing could be further from the truth. I lived in the Far North for two years and subsequently returned on more than 20 occasions, and of the hundreds of people I met, most appeared to be fair-minded and tolerant, and none seemed to mind the fact that I was once a bloody Pom!

But the aspect of my research that brought me more satisfaction than anything else was the way in which it helped me to develop a close relationship with my students, and when the time finally came for me to leave the North, the hardest thing of all was saying goodbye to them. I’d like to conclude by describing a couple of incidents that took place in December 1973 to give you an idea why this was so.

A fortnight before the end of the school year I gave all our year eight students a three-hour geography lesson. The boys had theirs on a Wednesday afternoon at the Army Pool, while the girls had theirs the following morning at our very own Millstream Falls, which Ion Idriess once described as a fairyland cascade, a vast curtain of sunlit water and sparkling foam tumbling down to a pretty little lake.

The Army Pool is situated on the Millstream, a couple of kilometres above the main falls. During World War Two many of the Australian and American soldiers who were camped nearby used to swim there, hence the name. The Army Pool is one of the finest swimming holes in the North. Luckily, very few tourists know of its existence, but all the boys did – they’d been there many times so they knew exactly where to go.

We left school at the same time, me in my car, and they on their bikes. I went ahead and parked as close as I could to our destination, then awaited the arrival of the keen geographers. It wasn’t long before they began to appear. As soon as they saw me they’d skid to a spectacular halt, yell something unintelligible, and then rest their bikes against a nearby tree. Once they were all there I quickly explained the geographical significance of the Army Pool and the nearby Millstream Falls, then for the next couple of hours we just enjoyed ourselves, and why not?

Two of the boys, Dougie and Paddy, went straight to a high rock next to a waterfall and promptly


Postscript

threw themselves off it. As they plummeted downwards they beat their puny little chests, screamed ‘Geronimo’, and then disappeared beneath the swirling waters of the Millstream. I nearly had a fit when I saw what they were doing, but their classmates assured me that they were quite safe, and sure enough their little heads soon reappeared. They let the current carry them downstream for a few metres, before seizing hold of a basalt rock and hauling themselves back onto dry land. They then returned to the high rock for another go, but this time they had to wait their turn in a long line. For the next couple of hours the boys had a whale of a time. They were terribly noisy and ran around like demented savages, but they never did anything mischievous so I didn’t have to yell at any of them.

Shortly before we were due to leave, young Angelo came running over to me. As always, he had a big smile on his face, and on this occasion he was beckoning me to come with him.

‘Here sir, this way. I’ll show you some bats.’

‘Oh… er… I’d like to, but I should really stay here and supervise this lot.’

‘Oh, they’ll be all right. pYou don’t have to worry about them. But you’ll have to hurry otherwise we won’t have enough time.’

‘Oh, blow it! OK, I’ll come.’

So I followed Angelo up the bank and he showed me the bats. Luckily none of his classmates drowned in my absence, and if his guided tour was merely a ruse to get me away from the Army Pool so that some of his friends could play a prank of some sort, I was never any the wiser.

The following morning it was the girls’ turn for a watery geography lesson. I met them next to the tourist facilities in the Millstream Falls National Park, then took them down to one of the lookouts. They crowded round and listened while I pointed out the two lava flows over which the Millstream tumbles and told them about the hexagonal jointing and the gas bubbles in the basalt. The girls tried to look as if they were paying attention, and perhaps they really were – it was impossible to tell – but they weren’t put to the test for very long. It took me only a minute or so to get through what I had to say, and for the next few hours the girls did as they pleased. As each of them had been to the Millstream Falls many times before, I thought that our trip might have seemed a little tame to them, but not all. They kept saying things like: ‘Oh, this is wonderful’ and ‘Can’t we stay all day?’ Admittedly, the falls looked at their very best – there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and, because a lot of rain had fallen recently, the

A typical geography lesson at the Ravenshoe State School in the early 1970s


Postscript

grass was green and there was a plentiful supply of water coming over the falls – but the girls’ enthusiastic remarks and their happy faces still came as a pleasant surprise.

Perhaps now you can begin to understand why it was that I became so fond of my students. They weren’t always such little angels, of course. In fact scarcely a lesson went by without my having to tick off at least one of them for some misdemeanour or other, but most of the time the overwhelming majority were friendly, co-operative and helpful. I don’t know for certain why they had such a wonderful attitude, but one of the main reasons, I believe, was the fact that I was passionately interested in the history of the area in which they lived. The kids all knew this – in a small town everyone soon gets to know everything about everyone else – and one would assume that they felt flattered, or even honoured, that an outsider should have gone to so much trouble to preserve the history of their part of the world. In addition, many of them had had their lessons brightened up by the fruits of my research – in particular the slides I took and the wonderful stories I collected from the likes of Mrs Wardle and Johnny Bowe – while others had come away on historical trips where they’d learned a bit of history and had a lot of fun.

On Thursday 13 December 1973 the time had finally come for me to leave Ravenshoe. The Queensland schools didn’t break up until the following day, but the roads down to the coast had been cut by heavy rain and I had to be in Sydney on the 15th to get on a plane bound for London, so I was forced to take the last day off and catch Thursday’s railmotor to Cairns. I rushed down to the railway station straight after school and found myself a seat beside the ticket office. I put my chin in my hands, rested my elbows on my knees, stared at the platform and began to think about all the wonderful times I’d had during the previous two years. But my thoughts were soon disturbed by a strange noise which gradually grew louder and louder. It was the kids! They’d come down to the station en masse to say goodbye. Young Donna acted as their spokesperson. She stepped forward and presented me with a stubbie, followed with a little

speech in which she told me how much she and the others had appreciated my efforts and assured me that I’d be greatly missed. I just didn’t know what to say, and I suspect that if I’d tried to address the throng, my emotions would have got the better of me and I’d have made a fool of myself. So I shook as many hands as I could in the time available, then jumped onto the train just as it was about to leave.

As the train began to move, I briefly contemplated flinging open the nearest carriage door, leaping onto the platform, and announcing that I’d changed my mind and would be staying after all, but such a course of action wasn’t practical. Instead I comforted myself with the thought that I’d be able to return to the North during the school holidays. I might even be able to bring a few busloads of kids from my next job further south and show them some of the places that I’d come to know and love. Yes, that’s what I’d do. And as the train passed the Chesters’ farm at Tumoulin and I saw young Judy and Brian waving to me for all they were worth, I remembered some lines from the poem Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service, which summed up my feelings perfectly:

There are hardships that nobody reckons, There are valleys unpeopled and still,

There’s a land, Oh it beckons and beckons, I want to go back, and I will.

Perhaps one day somebody might ask you to write a little pamphlet about your town, suburb or family. If so, let this book be a warning to you, because unless you have several years in which you’re prepared to do little else, and unless you have the time and money to travel all over the world, spend dozens of hours talking to old people and hundreds of hours wading through documents in libraries up and down the country, then such an undertaking is not for you. But if you do agree, you’ll be doing something useful, you’ll broaden your mind, you’ll meet a great variety of people, visit lots of fascinating places, and best of all, you’ll have a lot of fun.

Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex February 2010


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Australian Dictionary of Biography, Various Articles, Melbourne University Press, 1966

Australian Encyclopaedia, Various Articles.

Badger, G.M. (1988) The Explorers of the Pacific, Kangaroo Press, Sydney

Beale, E. (1970) Kennedy of Cape York, Rigby, Sydney

Birman, W. (1979) Gregory of Rainworth, University of Western Australia Press, Perth

Blainey, G. (1975) Triumph of the Nomads, Macmillan, Melbourne

Bolton, G.C. (1972) A Thousand Miles Away, Australian National University Press.

Burkes Peerage Baronetage and Knightage, Burkes Peerage Ltd.

Chisholm, A.M. (1973) Strange Journey, Rigby, Adelaide.

Collinson, J.W. (1939) Early Days of Cairns, Brisbane

Cook, J. (1955) The Voyage of the Endeavour 1768–1771, Edited by J.C. Beaglehole, Cambridge University Press, London

Cumpston, J.H.L. (1972) Augustus Gregory and the Inland Sea, Roebuck, Canberra

Farnfield, J. (1968) Frontiersman, Oxford University Press, London

Fox, History of Queensland: Its People and Industries

Harslett, J. and Royle, M. (1972) They Came to a Plateau, Girraween Publications, Stanthorpe

Herbert, R.G.W. (1977) The Queensland Years of Robert Herbert, Premier: Letters and Papers ed. B.A. Knox, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia

Holthouse, H. (1967) River of Gold, Angus and Robertson, Sydney

Idriess, I. Back o’Cairns

Jack, R.L. (1921) Northernmost Australia (Vol. 1 and 2) Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co., London

Jones, D. (1961) Cardwell Shire Story, Jacaranda Press, Brisbane

Kelly, K. (2000) Hard Men Hard Country – In the Footsteps of Gregory Hale and Iremonger, Sydney

Kerr, R.S. (1986) Chillagoe – Copper, Cattle and Caves J.D. & R.S. Kerr, St. Lucia

Kerr, R.S. (1979) John Moffat’s Empire, J.D. & R.S. Kerr, St. Lucia

Kerr, R.S. (1986) Irvinebank: Mining Community and Centre of an Empire J.D. & R.S. Kerr, St. Lucia

Kitson, B. and McKay J. (2006) Surveying Queensland 1839–1945 – A Pictorial History Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water and the Queensland Museum

Leichhardt, F.W.L. (1847) Journal of an Overland Expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, London

Lumholtz, C. (1980) Among Cannibals, Australian National University Press, Canberra

May, J. (1959) Eacham Shire Historical Data, Eacham Shire Council, Malanda

Murphy, D.J. and Joyce, R.B. (ed.) (1978) Queensland Political Portraits 1859–1952, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia

Pike, G. (1951) In the Path of the Pioneers, Cairns

Roderick, C. (1988) Leichhardt the Dauntless Explorer, Angus and Robertson, Sydney

Thorne, A. and Raymond, R. (1989) Man on the Rim Angus and Robertson, Sydney

Newspapers and magazines

Business Archives and History

Cairns Post

Cummins and Campbells Monthly

Hodgkinson Mining News

Queenslander

Records of the South Australian Museum

Wild River Times

Unpublished works

Beale, E. Kennedy Workbook

O’Callaghan, M. A History of Irvinebank, A History of Montalbion, A History of Stannary Hills, A History of Watsonville

Woodward, O.H. John Moffat of Irvinebank


INDEX

AAbbott, W. C., 98Abbott Creek, 101, 102Abelson, Peter, 100Abergowrie district, 53Aboriginal place names Malanda, 84 Mareeba, 11 Tumoulin, 14Aborigines, 82 Atherton, 90, 93 attacks by, 52, 62 cannibalism, 27, 42, 43, 46 Evelyn Tableland, 62 firestick farming, 93 Lake Eacham, 83 Mareeba, 51–2, 100 Millaa Millaa, 87, 88 Mitchell Vale, 28–9, 53 Native Police, 55 relations with Mary Hull, 64, 65 Tumoulin, 14 Woodleigh, 54, 55–6Aborigines and Palmerston, 26, 27, 46, 47,

48, 49 attacks on Palmerston, 25, 30–1 Geraldton to Herberton expedition, 36,

37, 38, 39 gold prospecting expeditions, 40, 41,

42–3, 44 Holthouse’s description, 27 killed by Palmerston, 27, 30, 38, 45 King River, 27 Mitchell Vale, 28–9 Palmer River, 25, 27 Pompo, 29, 30, 31, 32, 38; death, 33–6Adair, Cec, 69Adelaide, 24Adrian, Christine, 88Africa, 76, 87Agiston, 66agricultural shows, 62, 84 Atherton, 95 Herberton, 55–6 Ravenshoe, 79agriculture, 50–6 Atherton, 91, 92–4, 95, 97 Eacham Shire, 82–4, 85, 87–8 Evelyn Tableland, 58–68, 71–9 Kuranda, 54 Mareeba, 105; maize-crushing mill, 104 Tumoulin, 14 see also pastoral industry and pastoralists;

sugarAh Due, 47aircraft propellers, 70Albanians, 100alcohol, 10, 11 see also hotelsAlingham and Co, 47Allen’s Hotel, 7Alley, George, 92Allumbah, see YungaburraAlmaden, 8, 14, 15, 53Alston’s store, 64

Amalgamated Sawmillers, 89Amos, Owen Livingston, 10Anderson, Dr, 33, 35Anderson, Bob, 72, 78Antigua sugar plantation, 95apiarists, 62Archers Creek, 62Army Pool, 107–8Arthur and Dayes, 89Astronomer claim, 82Atherton, 83, 90–100, 104–5 Ambulance Station, 61, 86–7 Blackley’s store, 84, 94 butter factory, 84, 85, 86, 96, 98 Herberton Road, 7, 30, 68, 91, 96 Malanda route, 85 Mazlin family, 61, 91–2 railway, 11–12, 15, 16Atherton, John, and family, 30, 50–3, 62, 81 Emerald End, 51–2, 53, 91, 100 Royal Mail Hotel, 100–1, 103Atherton Agricultural Show, 95Atherton Co-operative Company, 86Atherton Shire Council, 95Atkinson, Edward, 60Atkinson, James, 53auctioneers, 54, 89, 97Australian Dictionary of Biography, 51Australian Encyclopaedia, 24Australian Labor Party, 78, 95Ayr district, 66

BBack o’Cairns, 12, 22, 62, 72Bailey, Jack, 68Bain, Bill, 72bakers, 91, 96 Malanda, 85 Mareeba, 103 Millaa Millaa, 89 Montalbion, 8 Ravenshoe, 77Bald Blair, 51Ballard, Robert, 10, 39Ballinger, Charles, 94Bamoya Station, 51banks, 85 1893 crash, 55, 82 New South Wales, 60, 88Barcoo Jack, 59Barker, Walter, 82Barrett, Hubert, 69Barron Falls, 10, 41Barron Gorge, 32Barron River, 11, 82, 90, 92, 100 Emerald End, 51–2, 53, 91, 100 Palmerston’s search for gold, 41Barron Valley, railway route using, 9, 10,

32–3, 39–40Barron Valley Advocate, 95Barron Valley Hotel, 94Barronville (Kamerunga), 10Bartle Frere (journalist), 23Bartle Frere (mountain), 20, 41, 44, 80, 81Bartlett, Captain J. S., 89

basalt, 81–2, 91, 99–100, 108Basalt Downs, 51batteries, 8, 30, 32Beadle, 55–6Bechtel’s soap factory, 104beef cattle, see pastoral industry and

pastoralistsBeenleigh area, 54, 66bees, 62Bell, Jim, 12Bell, Willie, 10Bellamy, Allan, 72Bellenden Ker, 32, 80Bellview homestead, 67–8Belson, C. J., 98Belson brothers, 94Berglund, Peter, 103Bevan, Harry, 72Bew, Bill, 78Biboohra, 11, 15, 100, 104Bimrose, Albert, 8Biographical Register of the Queensland

Parliament, 58Black, Mrs (Ravenshoe district), 74Blackley, Thomas, 94 store run by, 84Blackrod, 50–1blacksmiths, 58, 89, 96, 104Blain and Co., 92Boar Pocket, 7Boko, 62Bolton, A. J., and family, 74Bolton, Geoffrey, 95Boonje, 81Boonmoo, 8, 15Bouerji, 55–6Bowen, 60, 63, 75, 97Bowen Downs, 14Brandon, Thomas, 29, 35Bremner, Alexander, 82Brian O’Lynn Mine, 59brickworks, 104bridges, 24, 75, 100 railway, 10Brisbane, 25, 32, 45 droving cattle through, 84 Mazlin family, 61, 62Brisbane Courier, 32, 39Briton, 51Broadsound District, 24, 25Broadwater, 51Bromfield, C., 94Bromfield Swamp, 81Brooks, Mr (Millaa Millaa), 88Brotherton’s saw and planing mills, 85, 89Brown, Mr (Mareeba), 103Brown, Fred, 81, 82Brown, J. M., 89Brown, John, 29Brown Brothers, 94–5Browning, Mr (Atherton), 87Bruce Highway, 20, 37Bryan, Maurice, 74Buck and Wilson, 89builders, 65, 69, 78, 104buildings, 76


Atherton, 61, 92, 98; Chinatown, 93 batteries, 8, 30, 32 Bellview homestead, 67 Carrington, 96–7 Charters Towers Stock Exchange, 59 community halls, 78, 88 Evelyn Station, 61 Malanda, 83–4, 86 Mareeba, 99, 100–1, 103–4 Millaa Millaa, 85, 86, 88, 89 smelters, 32, 69, 104 Yungaburra (Allumbah), 82 see also butter factories; hotels; stores and

storeowners; timber industryBullock Swamp, 14bullock teams and drays, 51, 65, 71, 104 teamsters, 56, 68, 71, 96bullocks, 14, 51, 54, 61, 91Bulpit, Mrs (Millaa Millaa), 89Bump Road (to Hodgkinson Goldfield), 7,

8, 11, 27–8Bundaberg area, 84Burdekin area, 52, 66Burdett. Mr (Mareeba), 105Burgess (Carandinis), Mary (Maria), 23–4,

25, 45Burke, Mrs N., 85Burke, Ned, 85Burnie, Dr, 66Burns Philp, 61, 75, 92Burton, Isobel, 48–9bushfires, see firesbushrangers, see Palmerston, Christiebutchers, 52, 54 Atherton, 94 Biboohra meatworks, 104 Carrington, 96, 97 Herberton, 63 Malanda, 85 Mareeba, 104 Millaa Millaa, 89 Montalbion, 8 Palmerston Camp (Lower Russell), 46, 47 Tolga, 96 Tumoulin, 14; deliveries to Ravenshoe, 78 Yungaburra (Allumbah), 97butter, 62, 66, 84 see also dairy farmingbutter factories, 84, 85, 86, 98 Millaa Millaa, 86 Ravenshoe, 79Byrne, Peter, 103Byrne, T.J., 103

CCairns, 8–11, 16, 100, 103, 104 Dillon family, 95 Evelyn Tableland settlers from Charters

Towers, 74–5 Gordon’s dairy farm near, 96 Knudson, Mr, 87 market for tableland products, 14, 51,

82, 85, 93 O’Meara, T. B., 78 police, 27 Purcell, Thomas, 92 roads and tracks to and from, 7, 27; pack

teams operating on, 94, 95Cairns Butter Factory, 84Cairns Divisional Board, 39

Cairns Harbour Board, 52, 94Cairns Morning Post, 104Cairns Post, 40, 89Cairns Railway, see railwaysCalifornia Creek, 8Cameron, Sam, 101Camp Oven Creek, 10Campbell, Edward, 97Campbell, P., 98camping grounds, 7, 92, 101cannibalism, 27, 42, 43, 46Cannonboolan Falls, 80Cantonese, see ChineseCape Palmerston, 24, 25Cape Upstart, 75Carandini family, 23–4, 25, 45Carr family, 96Carriers Arms Carrington, 96–7 Mareeba, 103Carrington (Nyleta), 66, 92, 96–8Carroll, Mick, 103Carthew and Smith’s general store, 96Cashmere, 51, 55Castor, H., 103cattle, see pastoral industry and pastoralistscedar, 61–2, 67, 68, 70, 83, 91Cedar Creek, see RavenshoeCedar Creek Saw & Planing Mills, 70cemeteries, 62, 98 Chillagoe, 52 Cressbrook, 65–6 Herberton, 35 see also gravesCentral and Northern Railway, 39Charley (Geraldton), 36, 37Charley (Mulligan’s Fifth Expedition), 100Charters Towers, 40, 87 Evelyn Tableland settlers from (North

Cedar Creek Group), 71, 73–7, 78 Eventide Home, 66 Northern Miner, 21n Stubley, Francis Horace, 9, 58–9Charters Towers Herald, 59Charters Towers Stock Exchange, 59Chatfield, Harry, 8cheese-making, 64Chillagoe, 8, 52–3 railway line from Mareeba, 101, 104Chillagoe Company, 15Chillagoe Shire Council, 52Chillagoe Smelters, 69Chillagoe Station, 52Chilverton (Tumoulin), 14, 60, 68, 73, 77 track to Ravenshoe, 75Chinese, 22–3, 26, 27 Atherton district, 87, 93 employed by Mazlin, 51, 62 Johnstone River, 40 Mareeba, 103 Russell River, 46–7Chistie’s Pocket, 26Christian, Mark, 24, 25Christian, William, 25Christie Palmerston, Explorer, 24–5, 32, 45churches, 45, 50, 70, 91, 104Churchward, J. S., 70Clark, Arthur Temple, 53Clarke, Mrs (Millaa Millaa), 88Clarke, George E., 40, 44–5, 59–60Clarke, Jim, 85

Cleveland Bay Express, 25–6Clohesy goldfield, 101Clohesy River, 11, 52, 105Cloncurry, 53Club Hotel, 78coach drivers, 8Cobb and Co. and other coaches, 7–8,

11, 100 mail changes, 56, 96 Priors Pocket (Atherton) stop, 92coffee growers, 94Collins, Dan, 103Collinson, J. W., 82, 95–6Colliver, F. S., 24Coman, Miss (Mareeba), 104community halls, 78, 88Compton, Len, 85Condon, Henry, 71, 76Condon’s mill, 70Cook, James, 24Cook, Jane, 91Cook Dingo Board, 52Cook Highway, 7Cooktown, 94, 95, 100, 101, 102 Palmerston in, 26 supplies to Hodgkinson River through, 27Cooktown Herald, 26Coolgardie, 53Coolgarra, 8, 54Cooma, 55Coombra, 94Cooper, F. A., 9Cooppooroo Creek, 42–5, 46, 82copper smelter, Mareeba, 104cordial factory, 104Corney and Smith’s mill, 70Cornwall, 12, 78Cory, Thomas, 59Couper’s foundry, 104Courteney, Patrick, 94Courtney, Laurence, 101Craiglea, 7Crawford’s Lookout, 20, 27Cressbrook, 62, 65–6Croatians, 100crocodiles, 102‘Crooked Mick’, 14Cross, J., 94Crowe’s coach change and camping

ground, 7Crown Lands Commissioner, 101Croydon, 7, 14, 59, 95CSR Company, 66Culloty, Gerry, 35Culloty, John, 57Cummings, R. S., 104Cummins and Campbell’s Magazine, 28, 60cyclones, 51, 75

DDaintree area, 7 Palmerston expeditions, 29, 30–1, 41dairy farming, 24, 96 Atherton district, 92, 94, 96, 98 Eacham Shire, 80, 81, 83–4, 85–6, 89 Evelyn Tableland, 58, 64, 68, 76, 77Dalgonnally Station, 96Dalton, 59, 60Dank’s pharmacy, 103Darwin, 14, 85


Davidson, Sam, 69Davies Creek, 101Davis, Percy, 83, 84Davis, Stan, 83, 84Dawson, Mrs Winnie, 63, 64, 66de Vis, George, 74deaths, 10, 14–15, 23, 87 from accidents, 60, 64, 66, 87; plane

crash, 76 Atherton family, 52, 53 Beadle (Bouerji), 55 Carandini family, 45 First World War, 14, 62, 87 Garbutt, Charles, 54 Grant, Franklin, 56 Hull (McAuslan), Mary, and family, 64,

65 Mazlin family, 62, 91 Palmerston, Christie, 48–9 Pompo, 33–6 Starcke, Charles Alfred, 101 Stubley, Francis Horace, 59; Sydney

Bulletin obituary notice, 58 see also murder and homicideDempsey family, 60, 61Devaney’s Paddock, 64Dickenson, Mr (Ravenshoe district), 74Dickson’s bakery, 103Dillon, Mary, 95Dillon, Tom, 103Dimbulah railway, 14, 15, 101doctors, see health workersDouglas, Sub-Inspector, 27, 33, 81Dowdall, Jimmy, 100Dowie, James, 104Dowling, James R., 95Doyle, James, 94Doyle family, 103dray roads, see roads and tracksDrew, Frederick, 71, 72, 74Drysdale, John, 66Dunbar Station, 54Dungeness, 94Dunlop’s Hotel, 103Dunmore Park, 92–3

EEacham Pastoral Agencies, 89, 98Eacham Shire, 80–9 Russell River Goldfield, 41–8, 81–2 see also Malanda; Millaa Millaa;

YungaburraEarly Days of Cairns, 95Ebenson family, 96Eccles and Lloyd’s Royal Mail, 100–1, 103education, see schools and schoolteachersEdwards, Mr (hotel owner), 14Edwards, Ernie, 106, 107El Arish, 60Emerald Creek, 100Emerald End, 51–2, 53, 91, 100Emerson, James, 84, 98Emerson family, 103 Sandy Tate, 8engine drivers, 10, 12, 14, 101engineers, 69, 70, 74 railway, 10, 14, 39, 54

England, 80 Blackrod, Lancashire, 50–1 first cricket team to visit Australia, 51 Palmerston, Second Viscount (Lord), 24 Palmerston, Third Viscount (Lord), 21,

23–4; family name, 25England, migrants from, 100 Atherton family, 51 Burgess (Carandini), Mary (Maria), 23 Evelyn Tableland settlers, 58, 64 Garbutt family, 53–4 Harding, William Charles Young, 94 Hastie, William Alexander, 104 Mansfield family, 87 Williams, Henry Sydney, 97English, James, and family, 83–4, 85, 98English bees, 62Escape Creek, 30Etheridge Goldfield, 25–6 railway line to, 14Etheridge River, 36Eve Linn East, 59Evelyn Scrub, 19, 61, 73, 74 name, 58road through, 68Evelyn Station, 12, 58, 59–61, 68, 71–2Evelyn Tableland, 12–15, 57–79 see also RavenshoeEventide Home, Charters Towers, 66

FFallon, Jack, 92Fardon, Mrs Edith (Hazel), 63, 64, 65, 66Farlow brothers, 87farming, see agricultureFederal Hotel, 103Fenwick, John, 104Finlayson, Duncan, 101Finnegan’s Hotel, 7–8fires, 30, 35 hotels destroyed by, 14, 100, 103 sugar cane pre-harvest burn, 20firestick farming, 93First World War, 13, 14, 86–7, 93 aircraft propellers, 70 Malanda settlement, 84 Millaa Millaa settlement, 85, 87 servicemen, 54, 62, 87, 94Firth, Ezra, 100Firth, Ted, 69Fitzgerald, Tom, 103Fletcher, Mr (Atherton), 94Flinders River, 40floods, 74, 78, 85Forsayth, 15Fox’s History of Queensland, 92, 94Foy’s bakery, 8Francis, B., 89Franklin, Sir John, 55Fraser, Alexander, 66Fraser, Henry (Harry), 28, 30–1, 53Fraser, John, 28–9, 53 account of Pompo’s death, 34, 35, 36Fraser, Robert, 53Freeman, Mr (Mareeba), 100Frew, Archie, 15fruit growers and sellers, 54, 62, 65, 75, 77Fuelling, Harry, 10, 101Fullarton and Lord, 53

GG. R. Mayers, 103Gallipoli, 62, 87Garbutt family, 52, 53–4Garland, Phil, 92Gates, Mr (Mareeba), 104general stores, see stores and storeownersGenninges family, 13–14Georgetown, 8, 25Geraldton, see InnisfailGermans, 88, 101Ghana, 87Gillespie, Betty, 75Gillies, William Neal, 95–6Gillies Highway, 7, 14, 93, 95Glacier Rock, 10Glen Allyn, 85Glen Villa, 96Glutton Gully, 70gold and goldfields, 40–8, 101 Chinese miners, 22–3, 26, 27, 40,

46–7, 93 Croydon, 59 Etheridge, 25–6; railway line to, 14 Mulgrave Valley, 8–9, 41 New South Wales, 94 Russell River, 41–7, 81–2 see also Hodgkinson Goldfield;

Palmer RiverGold Coast (Ghana), 87Golden Grove Butter Factory, Atherton, 84,

85, 86, 96, 98Goldsborough, 96Gordon, Billy, 78Gordon, John, 96Gordon, Robert, 96–7Gordonvale, 7, 96Grainger (Atherton), Catherine, 52, 53The Grange, 63, 64Granite Creek, see MareebaGrant family, 54, 55–6grasses and grass seeds, 62, 84, 93, 94Grau, Fred, 94, 98, 104graves Atherton family, 52, 53 Hull (McAuslan) family, 65–6 Keogh, Henry and Kate, 68 Mazlin, William, 62 Pompo, 35 Williams, Mr and Mrs Henry, 98graziers, see pastoral industry and pastoralistsGreat Northern, 22, 30, 31–2, 99Great War, see First World WarGreen Creek, 59Greenfields, 63–4Gribben, E., 73Griffiths, Bob, 85Griffiths, Sir Samuel Walker, 9Grigg, Alec, 74Grigg, Francis Alfred, and family, 12, 78Grogan, John, 96Groves’ Wetherboard Station, 7Gulf Country, 54, 90, 96Gulgong, 94gunsmiths, 76Gunween, 78Gurrumbah, 52, 54

Gympie, 28, 87


HHaigh, Fred, 70, 72Halfpapps family, 96Halloran, Mr (Evelyn Station), 60Halloran, Mick, 94Halpin’s butcher shop, 8Hamilton, Jack, 47, 49Hampe, Rudolph, 104Hann, William, 41, 94Hannam, Willoughby, 10, 14, 39Hanson, Mr (Mrs Knudson’s father), 87Hansons contractors, 87Harding, William Charles Young, and

family, 94–5Hardy, Thomas, 94Hargreaves, Frank, 8Harris, Bill, 51Harris, H., 10Harry Rankine Drive, 76Harte, Ned, 62Harvey, Perry, 17–18Harvey, William, 100Hastie, William Alexander, and family, 104Hay, Charlie, 72Hay, Nat, 69, 70Hay, William, 69Heale, E. H., 84, 85, 96health workers, 65, 66, 86–7, 88 Herberton Hospital, 33–4, 35Hepburn’s property, Geraldton Road, 65Herbert River, 53, 54, 63, 94Herberton, 7–8, 40, 57, 62, 87, 98 butchers, 63 Great Northern, 22, 30, 31–2, 99 Griff, Francis Alfred, 78 Harding, William Charles Young, 95 Innot Hot Springs road, 54 Page, Elizabeth, 96 Pompo’s death, 33–6 railways, 9–15; from Geraldton

(Innisfail), 9, 32–3, 34, 36–40 Robson’s Track, 5–7, 8–9, 52, 81, 82 see also Evelyn Scrub; Palmerston

Highway; Port Douglas–Herberton Road

Herberton Deep Lead, 62Herberton Hospital, 33Herberton Range, 30, 91Herberton Shire Council/Divisional Board,

75, 76, 78, 95Herberton Show, 55–6Herberton Street, Mareeba, 103Highbury Station, 54Hobart, 24Hodgkinson, W. O., 28Hodgkinson Goldfield, 21n, 93, 94, 97 Bump Road, 7, 8, 11, 27–8 meat market, 51, 54, 61 Port Douglas–Hodgkinson Goldfield

Road, 7, 100Hodgkinson River, 27, 44Hogan family, 85Holdcroft, ‘Bricky’, 69Holthouse, Hector, 22, 26–7Homebush Mill, 66Hope, Norman, 74Hopkins, Jim, 14Hopson, Henry, 25Horan, Dennis, 104horse breakers, 63, 64

horse dealers, 94–5, 97horse racing, 74, 95horses, 7, 71 Atherton, John, 51 coach teams, 8, 56; Bump Hill, 7 Evelyn Station, 60 saddleries, 104 stolen/illegal use, 25, 26; Mitchell Vale,

28–9 team drivers, 87, 95Hort, Constance, 103hotels and hoteliers, 7–8, 10, 107 Atherton, 7, 94 Boonje, 81 Carrington, 96–7 Herberton, 7–8, 33 Innot Hot Springs, 54 Malanda, 85 Mareeba, 100–1, 103 Millaa Millaa, 88, 89 Mt Garnet, 69 Ravenshoe, 78 Tolga, 96 Townsville, 45 Tumoulin, 14 Yungaburra (Allumbah), 80, 82, 97, 98Hughes’ Shanty, 7Hull, Mary, and family, 62–6, 70Hunter Mr (Mareeba), 103

IIdriess, Ion, 12 claims about Mazlin, 62 description of Millstream Falls, 107 name ‘Ravenshoe’, 72 portrayals of Palmerston, 22, 45, 49Illawarra Shorthorn cattle, 84Imperial Hotel, 103Ingham, 64, 94Innisfail (Geraldton), 54, 81 Cantonese community, 46–7 railway to Herberton, 9, 32–3, 34,

36–40 see also Palmerston Highway;

Russell RiverInnot Hot Springs, 54insolvency, 59, 60, 64Ireland, 88, 100 Atherton, Catherine, 52 Keogh family, 66 Marnane, Bessie, 94 O’Kane, Mr and Mrs Thadeus, 21n Purcell, Thomas, 92 railway labourers, 10, 14 Rooney, Teresa (Therasa), 23Irvinebank, 8, 15, 59Irvinebank Mining Company, 7 see also Moffat, JohnItaly, 54 migrants from, 10, 23, 87, 100Ithaca River, 85

JJack, Willie, 29Jack and Newell’s, 103, 104Jackson family, 96, 101Jacobson, Mr (Mareeba), 103James Cook University, 95Jamieson, Walter, 104

Jard, Harvey, 85Jarred, ‘Daddy’, 72John Walsh & Co., 103Johnson, Mrs Virge, 54, 55, 56Johnston, Allingham and Co, 47Johnstone, J. M., 70, 75, 85Johnstone River, 20, 40, 82, 91 Emerson’s cattle drove overland to, 84 Palmerston’s prospecting expeditions,

30–1, 41 Palmerston’s track (from Herberton to

tidal reaches [Geraldton]), 33, 34, 36–9, 85

Johnstone River Divisional Board, 33, 39Joss, Willie, 25n, 44–5, 61joss house, 93Ju Su family, 93Jumbo, 7

KKaban, 61Kalunga, 13Kamerunga, 10Kane, George, 8Kangaroo Hills Mine, 94Karingia, 55kauri pine, 58, 69, 70, 91Keeble, Arthur, 95Kehoe, John, 98Kelly, W. E., 71, 72Kelly, William Bernard, 91 hotel owned by, 7, 94Kennedy (electorate), 51Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 66Kennedy, Joseph, 66Kennedy, Patrick, 66Kennedy brothers (Millaa Millaa), 88Kennedy Highway, 79Kenny, Eric, 71Keough family, 14, 66–8Keough’s Mill, 70Kerr, Charlie, 74, 77Kerr, Jim, 74, 77, 79Kidner, Jack, 68, 69, 72–3Kilgour’s Hotel, 33Kilpatrick family, 103King River, 27, 28, 29Kingsborough, 7, 8, 27Kingsley, Charles, 72Kingsley, Henry, 72Kingston, Mr (draughtsman), 71Kipper, Bob, 72Kissing Point Church, 91Kitson, Bill, 102Kitty, 62Knudson, Mr and Mrs (Millaa Millaa),

86–9Knudson’s Hill, 87Koah, 11Konzalmann, Ernest, 82Kulara, 7Kuranda, 15–16, 54, 87 Myola, 10–11, 101, 104Kurreen, 83, 84, 85

LLake Barrine, 81Lake Eacham, 82, 83Lake Eacham Hotel, 80, 82, 97, 98


Lambert, Arthur, 8Lancashire, 51Lancewood Mine, 94land selection, see agricultureLangtree, Jack, 8Lanney, Octave, 104Lappa, 15Lawson, James Kemp, 104Layton, Mr (Millaa Millaa), 88Ledlie, John, 78Lee Cook, 47Leighton (Layton/Lakeland), Mr, 27Lesprit family, 96Lisha, Mr (Atherton), 94Little Mitchell River, 7Little Mulgrave River, 81Loder, A., 91, 94, 98Log Gully, 78Logan family (Atherton), 94Logan Jack, Robert, 15, 47–8, 49, 81–2Lok Hin, 46Lorronseppi, Mr (Mossman), 87Love, Robert, 103Lower Herbert, 53, 63Lower Russell Goldfield, 46–7Lower Trebonne Creek, 64Lowther Castle, 10Lucey’s Hotel, 69Lukin River, 28, 29Lynch, Mick, 84, 98

MMabel White, 10McAuslan, Anna, 63, 64, 65–6McAuslan, Duncan, 63–4McAuslan, Maria, 63, 64McAuslan (Hull), Mary, 63–6McBride and Co., 10McCord, William, 52, 81McCrae, Rod, 8Macdonald, James, 96McDowell, W., 51McGeehan, Neal, 94McGraw, W. M., 94McHugh, Bob, 88McHugh Bridge, 24Mackay, 51, 66McKay, Judith, 102Mackenzie, Mr (Clohesy Goldfield), 101McKeown, George, 94McLean, James, 59McLean, Mr (Port Douglas–Herberton

Road route), 29–30, 90McLeod River, 30McLuckie, Bessie, 94McMahon, J., 89McMahon, John, 85Macmillan, Jack, 71Macnamara, Darby, 26Macnamara, Paddy, 8Macrossan, John Murtagh, 9Maggs, Gilbert, 74Maguire, Herbert Rowland, 85Maida Vale, 66Mail Exchange Hotel, 103Mailchange Gully, 56maize, 14, 68, 91, 92, 93 Mareeba crushing mill, 104Major, J. M., 15Major Group, 71, 74, 77

Malanda, 80, 81, 83–6, 88, 95 Johnson, Mrs Virge, 54, 55, 56Malaya, 48Malone, Ted, 69, 72, 79Malone brothers, 8Mandalee (Woodleigh), 53–4, 55–6, 98Mann, John, 95Mann, Tom, 104Mansfield, Mr and Mrs (Millaa Millaa), 87Mansfield, Chris, 86Maple Timber Ltd, 89maple trees, 67, 68, 70, 87Mareeba (Granite Creek), 53, 54, 87,

99–105 Emerald End, 51–2, 53, 91, 100 first Europeans seeing future site, 91 name change, 11 plane crash near, 76 Port Douglas–Herberton Road coach

change, 7Mareeba District Mining Pastoral,

Agricultural and Industrial Association, 52Mareeba Express, 104Mareeba Herald, 104Mareeba railway, 10, 16, 101, 103, 104 lines beyond, 15, 82–3, 104 road beyond terminus, 68 Tunnel Number Ten collapse, 75Mareeba State School, 104Marnane, William, and family, 93–4, 98marriage Atherton, John and Catherine, 52 Beadle (Bouerji), 56 Garbutt, Charles and Lucy, 54 Gordon, Robert and Elizabeth, 96 Grigg, Francis Alfred, 78 Harding, William and Mary, 95 Hull, Mary and John, 64 Marnane, William and Bessie, 94 Mazlin, Thomas and Catherine, 91 Palmerston, Christie, 45; certificate,

23–4 Purcell, Thomas and Mary, 92Martin, George, 95, 104Martin, Ned, 104Martin Bros., 96Martintown, see TolgaMaryborough, 85, 95Masterston family, 101Mathieson, Tom, 74Mawby, Ted, 78May, Albert, 104May, J., 86Mayers, G. R., 103Maytown, 27Mazlin, William, and family, 61–2, 65,

91–2 Ernest William (Bill Junior)’s sawmill, 70 tracks built by, 62, 68Mazlin Creek, 30, 61, 94Meadowbank Station, 72Mears family, 88Melbourne, 24, 45, 59 Blain and Co., 92Men of the Jungle, 22Merragallan, 85Merragallan Road, 84Merrin, Tommy, 14, 77Meston, Archie, 39Metropole Hotel, 45Middlemiss, W., 104

Mill Creek, 65Millaa Millaa, 57, 58, 80–1, 85–9, 95 railway, 15, 16, 85–6Millaa Millaa Falls, 62, 81, 85Millaa Millaa Lookout, 80, 83Millaa Millaa Progress Association, 85Millaa Millaa Railway League, 85Millanje Station, 24Miller (Muller, Mullins, Mueller), William

A., 29–30, 34, 35–6, 90Millstream, 70, 73, 107–9 Cedar Creek, 60, 68–9 flood in 1913, 78 Kaban, 61Millstream Falls, 57, 107, 108–9Millstream Times, 3Minbun, 88Miners Arms Hotel, Montalbion, 8mines and mining towns, 5–16 Charters Towers, 59, 75 Herberton Deep Lead, 62 Poor Stroller, 34, 36 see also gold and goldfields; Herberton;

railways; roads and tracks; tinmining share speculators, 59Mitchell, Bill, 72–3Mitchell, Joe, 69, 70, 72–3, 78Mitchell, Tom, 69, 70, 72–3, 73Mitchell River, 7, 11, 31, 53, 100Mitchell Vale (Fraser brothers), 28–9,

30–1, 53 John’s account of Pompo’s death, 34,

35, 36Mitchell’s Mill, 69, 71Moffat, John, 7, 29, 32, 58, 103 Cedar Creek, 68–70 Evelyn Station, 68, 71–2 Mareeba copper smelter, 104Molloy, Pat, 8Monk, George William, 9, 10, 39Montacute, 62, 65Montalbion, 8, 59Montgomery, Laurence David Alexander,

33–4, 35Moore, Mick, 12Moran, Jack, 100Moregatta, 89Morgan, Sir Arthur, 12Morrison and Fletcher, 94, 96Morrow Bros. sawmill, 96Morrow family, 96Moses, N., 89Mosman, Hugh, 40Moss, Dick, 73Mossman, 7 sugar mill, 87, 104Mossman River, 32Mt Bartle Frere, 20, 41, 44, 80, 81Mt Bellenden Ker, 32, 80Mt Carbine, 26Mt Fisher, 75Mt Garnet, 8, 15, 54 Archers Creek, 62 Glutton Gully, 70 Lucey’s Hotel, 69Meadowbank Station, 72Mount Hedlow Station, 51Mt Isa, 19, 85Mt Molloy, 7, 15, 30, 53 see also Mitchell ValeMt Mulligan, 53 railway to, 14, 15


Mt Surprise area, 8, 61, 100Mourilyan, 32, 33, 36, 39 police magistrate, 47Mowbray River, 7, 27mule teams and teamsters, 10, 88, 94 using Bump Road, 7, 8Mulgrave River, 9, 41, 42, 81, 82Mulgrave Valley, 7 discovery of god, 8–9Mullavey’s Hotel, 7Mullen, John, MLA, 73Muller, F. A., 95Muller (Mullins, Mueller, Miller), William

A., 29–30, 34, 35–6, 90Mulligan, James Venture, 30, 47 description of tableland soil, 91 diary, 29, 101 discovery of gold, 27, 40, 101; Palmer

River, 25, 41, 42 discovery of silver, 31 Fifth (1875) Expedition, 90–1, 100, 101 King River, 27 relationship with Palmerston, 23, 25, 28,

32, 49Mundey, Jack, 84Mungana, 15, 52Munro, W. J., 52Munro and Gordon, 56, 96, 104murder and homicide, 25, 52 cannibalism, 27, 42, 43, 46 by Native Police, 55 by Palmerston, 27, 30, 38, 42–3Murdoch, Hughie, 73music teachers, 23, 45musicians, 23, 45, 88Mutyeroo, 55–6Myola, 10–11, 101, 104

NNative Police, 55Neale, E. N., 98Neilson, Hans, 69Nettle Creek, 54New Guinea, 85, 87New South Wales, 45, 62, 63, 82 Atherton settlers from, 91, 93–4, 98 Cooma, 55 Grigg’s store customer, ‘Jack’, from, 12 Malanda settlers from, 83–4 Millaa Millaa settlers from, 87, 88New England, 14, 29, 51New Zealand, 63, 85Newell, John, 11, 29, 35, 79 Jack and Newell’s, 103, 104Newell Beach, 5newsagencies, 13, 89newspapers, 95–6 Mareeba, 104 Northern Miner, 21n see also Wild River TimesNgatjan Aborigines, 90Nigger Creek (Wondecla), 12–13, 14,

64, 78Nixon, Mr (Priors Pocket settler), 91Noel, Judge, 59Norman, Mr and Mrs G. and sons, 74Normanton, 14, 59Norris, Mr (Mareeba), 104North Cedar Creek (Charters Towers

Number Three) Group, 71, 73–7, 78

North Johnstone River, 20, 37, 84, 91North Queensland maple, 67, 68, 70, 87North Queensland Register, 23Northern Builders Hardware, 104Northern Miner, 21nNorthern Territory, 14, 85Norwegians, 87Nychum Station, 52Nyleta (Carrington), 66, 92, 96–8

OOakhill, 83–4O’Donnell, G. M., 104O’Donnell, William, 82O’Donohue, Mr (police magistrate), 47OK, 52, 53O’Kane, Mr and Mrs Thadeus, 21n‘Old Daddy’, 66Old Identity Mine, 59Oliver Twist, 55O’Meara, T. B., 78Orange Grove, 61–2Ord family, 101Orient Camp, 8

Ppack teams, see teamsters and carriersPage, Elizabeth, 96Paisley, Will, 69Palmer, Edward Hudson, 23Palmer, George Charles Frederick, 25Palmer (Carandini), Rosina, 23, 45Palmer River, 21n, 50, 51, 63, 93, 97 clashes with Aborigines, 52 Palmerston at, 23, 25–7, 32Palmerston, Charlotte, 36Palmerston, Christie, 9, 17–49, 62, 90Palmerston, Rosina, 45, 48Palmerston, Teresa (Thereas), 23, 45, 48–9Palmerston, Second Viscount (Lord), 24Palmerston, Third Viscount (Lord), 21,

23–4, 25“Palmerston” as surname, 24–5Palmerston Highway (Geraldton Road),

19–22, 24, 29, 76, 79 Hepburn’s property, 65 Millaa Millaa, 80–1, 88 Palmerston’s track (Geraldton (Innisfail)

to Herberton), 33, 34, 36–9, 85Parkes, NSW, 94Parkinson, Mr (engineer), 14Parkinson, J., 89Parliament, 46, 47, 48, 49 see also politiciansPaskin’s Terminus Hotel, 103paspalum grass, 62Pastoral, Agricultural and Industrial

societies, 52, 95pastoral industry and pastoralists, 50–6 cattle drovers, 14, 25, 51, 53, 63, 84, 96; at Pompo’s death, 34, 35 Eacham Pastoral Agencies, 89, 98 Evelyn Station, 12, 58, 59–61, 68, 71–2 Mareeba, 100–1 Mitchell Vale (Fraser brothers), 28–9,

30–1, 53; John’s account of Pompo’s death, 34, 35, 36

see also dairy farmingPeake, Tom, 94

Pearce’s mill, 104Pearson, Bill, 60, 69, 70Pearson, Les, 62, 63, 65, 70n, 92, 93Peberdy, Dakin, 14Peeramon, 56, 83, 85Penguin Dictionary of Surnames, 24Pentland, 15Perrott, Bob, 60, 61, 70, 71–2Peterson, Matt, 7Philippines, 69Phillips, Tom, 73Phillip’s Proprietary, 89Pike, Glenville, 60pine, kauri, 58, 69, 70, 91plane propellers, 70Plant and Jackson, 8plumbers, 89, 94police, 26–7, 52 Native Police, 55 Pompo’s death, 33–4, 35–6police magistrates, 8, 46, 47politicians, 9, 67, 73, 103 Gillies, William Neal, 95–6 Hamilton, Jack, 47, 49 Stubley, Francis Horace, 9, 59 Woods, Mick, 12politicians, local government, 52, 76, 91, 97 Grigg, Francis Alfred, 78 Harding, William Charles Young, 95 Marnane, William, 94 Meston, Archie, 39 Stapleton, H. M., 33, 39Pompo, 29, 30, 31, 32 death, 33–6Poor Stroller Mine, 34, 36Pope, Mr (Evelyn Station), 60Port Douglas, 5, 7–9, 53, 54 Bump Road to Hodgkinson Goldfield,

7, 8, 11, 27–8 former name, 28 Mareeba residents from, 104 market for tableland products, 51, 93 railway, 10–11, 32, 33, 39Port Douglas–Herberton Road, 29–30,

31–2, 90 journeying by coach, 7–8, 92 packers and teamsters using, 62, 68,

92, 96 settlement along, 11, 91, 92 wet season, 31, 100Port Douglas–Hodgkinson Goldfield Road,

7, 100Port Salisbury, 28Porter, Tindal Pearson, 71, 72, 74post offices, 7, 81, 85, 104 Millaa Millaa mail run, 88potatoes, 14, 58, 68, 91Prince, John, 85Prior, Thomas, 90, 91, 92Prior, Walter, 92, 104Priors Pocket, see Athertonprisoners Palmerston, Christie, 24, 25, 26 Stubley, Francis Horace, 59 see also trialsProgress Associations, 70, 76, 85prospectors and prospecting, 59–60, 101 Palmerston, Christie, 29, 30–1, 40–5, 48 see also Mulligan, James VenturePurcell, Thomas, and family, 92–3


QQuartz Hill, 8Queen Constance Mine, 101Queensland Figaro, 23, 41Queensland Heritage, 24Queensland Parliament, 46, 47, 48, 49 see also politiciansQueensland Police Gazette, 35–6Queensland Railways Department, 15, 84Queensland State Archives, 95Queenslander, 47, 60 Mulligan’s diary, 29 Palmerston’s Daintree Dairy, 30, 41 Palmerston’s Geraldton to Herberton

expedition, 36, 38Quill family, 103Quingai, 55

Rrailway workers, 10, 12, 87, 92 Mareeba, 101railways, 9–16, 74, 78 to Eacham Shire, 82–3, 84, 85–6, 87,

89; pump-cars, 88 Geraldton (Innisfail) to Herberton, 9,

32–3, 34, 36–40 map, 6 Swallow’s Sugar Mill to Smith’s Creek

wharf tramway, 92 Tolga, 82, 96 Turulka to Evelyn Central tramline, 62 see also Mareeba railwayRailways Department, 15, 84rainfall, 10, 20, 42, 85, 99 Port Douglas–Herberton Road in wet

season, 31, 100rainforests, 20–1, 30, 93 Atherton district, 90, 91–2 Eacham Shire, 80, 81 Evelyn Tableland, 58, 61–2, 65, 67–8,

70–1, 76 Mareeba, 99, 104 Palmerston’s descriptions, 37–8, 41 Palmerston’s guiding service to Russell

River Goldfield through, 46–7 see also timber industryRankin, Edward, 82, 103Rankine, John, and family, 73, 74, 75–6,

77, 85Ravenshoe (novel), 72Ravenshoe (Cedar Creek) district, 1, 57–79 Edwards, Ernie, 106, 107 railway, 12–15, 101 Woodleigh, 53–4, 55–6, 98Ravenshoe Progress Association, 70, 76Ravenshoe Roman Catholic Church, 70Ravenshoe School, 60, 78–9 author’s time as teacher, 1, 13, 17–19,

26, 57–8, 107–9 Robinson, Brian, 1, 3red cedar, 61–2, 67, 68, 70, 83, 91Red Fort, Delhi, 68Redbank, 7, 104Redlynch, 10 Station, 9Reed, Jerry, 57–8religion, 45, 66, 78restaurants and refreshment rooms, 14,

85, 89

retail outlets, see stores and storeownersRichards, Jimmy, 103Richards, Ted, 8Richmond River area, NSW, 83, 84Rifle Creek, 29Riordan, Jim, 101, 104River of Gold, 22, 26–7roads and tracks, 4–9, 15, 79, 81 Bump Road to Hodgkinson Goldfield,

7, 8, 11, 27–8 Chilverton to Ravenshoe, 75 cut by Atherton, 51, 52 cut by Mazlin, 62, 68 Harry Rankine Drive, 76 Herberton to Innot Hot Springs, 54 Hobson’s Track, 5–7, 8–9, 52, 81, 82 map, 4 Mareeba street names, 103 Mareeba to Cedar Creek, 68 to Millaa Millaa, 85, 87 Ravenshoe’s main street, 78 see also Palmerston Highway; Port

Douglas–Herberton Road; teamsters and carriers

Robb, John, 10robberies, see stealingRobinson, Brian, 1, 3Robinson, Fred, 70Robson, James, 52, 81Robson’s Track, 5–7, 8–9, 52, 81, 82Rockhampton, 14, 25, 51, 92, 101 Yaamba, 52Rogers, Bill, 72Rooney, Rosina, 45, 48Rooney, Teresa (Therasa), 23, 45, 48–9Roseblade, C.W., 81, 98Roseblade, J. M., 81Roseblade brothers, 82Rosenfeld and Sons, 70Ross, Mr (hotel owner), 14Ross, Alec, 84Ross, William, 69Rossler, Charles, 82Royal Hotels, Mareeba, 103Royal Mail Hotel, Mareeba, 100–1, 103Russell River, 41–8, 81–2settlement planned for headwaters, 102

SSt Ann’s, 96St Helena Prison, 24, 25St Joseph’s Church, Townsville, 45St Patrick Mine, 59Sam (Etheridge River), 36Sam (Flinders River), 40, 41Samundsett, Christie, 69, 70, 76Samundsett, Lars, 74Samundsett’s timber mill, 70Sandy Tate, 8Savage, Paul, 24–5, 32, 45sawmills, see timber industryScherning, Mr (Port Douglas and Mareeba),

103–4School of Arts, 78, 79schools and schoolteachers, 85, 88, 97 Mareeba, 104 Pearson, Bill, 60 Townsville, 60, 64 see also Ravenshoe SchoolSchottenberg, Mr (Millaa Millaa), 88

Scotland, migrants from, 55, 75, 76, 100, 104

Scott, Walter Jervoise, 63Scrubby Creek, 7Searston, Ivan, 29–30, 35Seaview Range, 51Second Clohesy, 101Second World War, 70n, 107secondary industry, 104See Poy, 46, 47Seven Sisters, 81Severin, Louis, 10Shahjahan, 68, 79sheep farming, 53, 94, 100ship-brokers, 58shipping, 74–5, 84, 94 Port Douglas, 7, 10–11 Trinity Bay, 10, 27 White Cliffs port site, 27–8shipwrecks, 75shops, see stores and storeownersshows, see agricultural showssingers Carandini, Mary (Maria), 23–4, 45 Palmerston, Christie, 23, 25–6Skase, Christopher, 11Skennar, Arthur, 85Sloan, W. J., 98Smallwood, Bill, 104smelters, 32, 69, 104Smith, Bill, 27Smith, Dick, 88Smith, Nettie, 86Smith, P.C., 10Smith, Rowley, 69Smith, Tom, 68Smith family (Ravenshoe), 74, 79Smith’s Creek wharf, 92Smith’s drapery, 103Snellman, A., 77soap factory, 104Soilleux, Walter, and family, 73, 76, 77,

78–9soils, 91, 99–100South Africa, 76South Australia, 24, 53South Johnstone River, 91South Sea Islanders, 36, 62speculators, 58–9SS Great Britain, 51St Ann’s, 96St Helena Prison, 24, 25St Joseph’s Church, Townsville, 45St Patrick Mine, 9Stamp, Mr, 37Stanley (Keogh), Kate, 66–7, 68Stannary Hills, 15Stapleton, H. M., 33, 39Starcke, Charles Alfred, 101–2State Archives, 95stealing, 28–9, 51, 53, 55 by Palmerston, 22, 25, 26, 27 from Palmerston, 37, 47Stevens, W., 85Stewart, Fred, 95Stewart, John, 82Stewart’s mill, 70Stewarts Nob, 44stock and agency businesses, 54, 94, 95stockmen, 63 Aboriginal, 55–6


Stone, Henry, 63, 64, 66, 69 Montacute, 62, 65Stone Hur, 63Stone River, 63Stoneleigh, 64Stoney Creek Bridge, 10stores and storeowners, 7, 10, 64 Atherton, 84, 91, 93, 94 Boonje, 81 Carrington, 96, 97 Kuranda, 54 Malanda, 85 Mareeba, 101, 103–4 Millaa Millaa, 88, 89 Montalbion, 8 Nigger Creek (Wondecla), 12, 78 Palmerston Camp (Lower Russell), 47 Ravenshoe, 13, 77–8 Tolga, 96 Tumoulin, 14, 78 Yungaburra (Allumbah), 81, 82, 97 see also butchersStraits Development Company, 48Strang, Alec, 74, 76Strang, Bob, 74, 76Strang, Peter, 76Strang, Phillip, 74Strathvale Station, 97streets, see roads and tracksStuart, John, 39Stubley, Francis Horace, 9, 58–60, 61, 72Styles, E., 89, 98sugar, 11, 20, 54, 66, 93 Antigua plantation, 95 carried by mule, 88 Mossman Mill, 87, 104 Mourylian, 39 Swallow’s Mill tramway, 92Sullivan, Mr (Mareeba), 103Sun Chang Shin, 46Surveying in Queensland 1839–1945, 102surveyors Maguire, Herbert Rowland, 85 Porter and Drew, 71, 72, 74 railway routes, 9, 10, 39 Rankin, Edward, 82, 103 Starcke, Charles Alfred, 101–2 Sutherland, Mackenzie and O’Rourke

(Sutherland and Mackenzie), 10, 101Suttor River district, 96Svensson, H., 41, 42Swallow’s Sugar Mill tramway, 92Sydney, 45, 51, 62, 84 Mazlin Family, 91Sydney Bulletin, 58

TTableland Examiner, 95–6Tachappa Creek, 47Tait, Jim, 8Tarzali, 83, 85Tasmania, 68, 69, 70 Carandini family, 23 Grant family, 55, 56 Palmerston’s birthplace?, 24teachers, see schools and schoolteachersteamsters and carriers, 8, 11, 14, 62, 94, 95 camping grounds, 7, 92, 101

see also bullock teams and drays; mule teams and teamsters

Tepon, 64Terminus Hotel, 103theft, see stealingThomas, Mr (Priors Pocket settler), 91Thomas, John, 59Thomas, Tom, 92Thompson, Siddy, 86Thornborough, 31, 38 roads to coast, 7, 11, 27–8timber industry, 14, 65, 68–71, 72, 76,

78, 79 Atherton, 91–2, 93 Cressbrook, 62, 65 Eacham Shire, 83, 85 Kamerunga mill, 10 Mareeba, 104 Mazlin family, 61–2, 91–2; Bill Junior’s

mill, 70 Millaa Millaa, 85, 89 Tolga, 14, 96 Tumoulin mill, 14 see also rainforeststin, 61, 78, 107 Great Northern, 22, 30, 31–2, 99 Gurrumbah, 54 Russell River, 81, 82 Wild River, 29, 31, 32, 91 see also Herbertontin dealers, 94Tinaroo, 52, 91 see also Walsh–Tinaroo Mining FieldTinaroo Divisional Board/Council, 91, 94tinsmiths, 89, 94Tirrabella, 54tobacco growing, 64, 105Tolga, 14, 91, 96 railway, 82, 96 road, 30, 100 timber mill, 104Tolga Scrub, 30Toohey, Patrick and Toohey family, 14, 78Toowoomba, 14Toowoomba (ship), 92tourism, 15, 20, 59, 89, 98Towalla, 81Townsville, 51, 74, 75, 92 Garbutt Brothers, 54 Palmerston’s visits, 35, 45, 47, 48 schools and schoolteachers, 60, 64 Williams family, 97, 98tracks, see roads and trackstrains, see railwaystramways, 62, 92Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal

Geographical Society, NSW Branch, 41transport, see railways; roads and tracks;

shippingTrebonne Creek, 63, 64Trezise, John, 8trials, 11 Palmerston, Christie, 25, 47 Stubley, Francis Horace, 59Trinity Bay, 10, 27Tropic Coasts and Tablelands, 82Troughton, Ted, 8Troughton family, 103Trousers, 36Tucker, Charles, 94Tullochgorum, 55

Tully Falls, 62Tully Falls Road, 70Tumoulin, 12, 13–14, 78, 109Tumoulin Road, 76tunnels, 10 collapse of Number Ten, 75Tunnie, Jack, 8Turnbull family, 96Turner, Tom, 85Turulka, 62Tweed, Adam, 85

UUna, 55United States, 66, 76Upper Burdekin, 52Upper Mitchell River, 31, 53, 100Ure, William, 94

VVaisey, Zenas N., 95Valley of Lagoons, 15, 63, 64, 66, 74Van Diemen’s Land, see TasmaniaVaughan, Bill, 104vegetable growing, 75, 77, 93 potatoes, 14, 58, 68, 91vegetable sellers, 14, 66Victoria, 45, 53, 85, 104 Blain and Co., Melbourne, 92 Palmerston’s birthplace, 24 Stubley, Francis Horace, 58, 59 Williams family, 97, 98Victoria Bridge, Brisbane, 84Vine Creek, 70violinists, 45, 88volcanoes, 81, 83 basalt, 81–2, 91, 99–100, 108

WWabaredory Station, 52Wade, Harry, 8Wadetown, 8Wairambar Creek, 82Wairuna Station, 63Waitenata Mine, 101Walker family, 96Wallace’s store, 89Walsh, Bob, 8Walsh, William S., 47Walsh and Tinaroo Miner, 104Walsh–Tinaroo Mining Field, 79, 98 railway, 11, 32 timber market, 62, 68, 91–2 see also HerbertonWalton, George, 103Ward, Mr (Cedar Creek sawmill), 69Wardle, Mary, 7Warner, Frederick, 100Warner, Jack, 8Warrnambool, 58water races, Russell River, 82waterfalls, 62, 80–1 Millaa Millaa, 62, 81, 85 Millstream, 57, 107, 108–9Watson, Mr (Cedar Creek sawmill), 69Watson, George, 103Watson, John, 54Watson, Lucy Elizabeth, 54Watsonville, 8, 61


Wattig, Mrs (Millaa Millaa), 89West Australian Group, 71, 72, 76West Hill, 51Western Australia, 53Westward Ho, 59, 72Wheeler Island, 17–18Whereat, Sid, 85, 88White Cliffs, 27–8Wiarema, 75Wieland, Hans, 8Wilangi (Woolangie) Station, 25Wild River, 29, 31, 32, 91 Devaney’s Paddock, 64 tributaries, 12Wild River Times reports and articles, 15 Evelyn Tableland, 61, 74, 77, 78 Herberton Railway opening, 12Wilkinson, E. B., 48Williams, Edward P., 62, 64, 65Williams, F. C., 95Williams, Henry Sydney, and family, 82,

97–8

Williams, J. J., 74Williams Estate, 85Williams family (Woodleigh), 56Williamson Bros., 96Willie (Geraldton, Pompo’s successor), 36,

37, 38, 40, 41Wimble family, 96Windhaus, G. G., 94Winstanley, Vernon, 73Witham, Nat, 85, 87Witherspoon, Bob, 74Witherspoon, Harry, 74Witherspoon, Jim, 75Witherspoon, R. N., 74Wolfe, Mr (Tumoulin), 14Wolfe, Joe, 79Wondecla (Nigger Creek), 12–13, 14,

64, 78Woodleigh Station, 53–4, 55–6, 98Woods, Dan, 14Woods, Mick, 12, 101Woolangie Station, 25

Woolston, F. P., 24Wooroora, 70Woothakata, 12World War I, see First World WarWorld War II, 70n, 107Wright, Mrs (Millaa Millaa), 89Wyandotte Station, 64Wylie, Mrs, 61Wyloo, 36

YYaamba, 52Yeppoon, 51Yongala, 75Young, Robert, 94Yungaburra (Allumbah), 7, 81, 82–3, 84, 97 Lake Eacham Hotel, 80, 82, 97, 98 sawmill, 85

ZZillie Falls, 81

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