AMERICAN PRESENCE ON GOLDFIELDS

The latest acquisitions list by Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne, included the  rare invitation to  mark the 80th anniversary of American Independence on the fourth of July  1856 in the Alliance Hotel, Woolshed, Victoria . It sold  quickly. 

Isaac Burnham Kirby (1830-1914), whose name appears as the invitee on this Fourth of July celebration invitation issued by the Alliance Hotel in the gold rush township of Woolshed, near Beechworth in northeast Victoria, was an American citizen

The bookshop says he was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in New London, Connecticut. After joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a young man, he accompanied the Mormon pioneers who made their way out west to settle in Utah’s Salt Lake Valley, arriving there prior to the end of 1850. He was re-baptised in Salt Lake City in June 1851 (LDS Church History Biographical Database).

Not long after this, Isaac emigrated to Australia with his young wife Mary Betsey (Cornell) (b.1837) to join the gold rush in Victoria. Evidently his older brother, John Kirby (1828-1900) emigrated as well, as he is probably the ‘J. B. Kirby’ that appears on the invitation card as a member of the organising committee for the Fourth of July event in Woolshed.

By 1855 Isaac had become the licensee of the Eureka Hotel in Yackandandah, east of Beechworth. (This was a highly unusual occupation for Isaac, since the Mormon faith encourages abstinence). No trace of this hotel remains, but it stood on a private allotment on the Yackandandah Creek known as Kirby’s Flat, where alluvial gold had been sluiced from as early as 1853 (Victorian Heritage Database Report).

Presumably, Isaac had initially enjoyed some success at alluvial prospecting which would have helped finance his business activities. He continued to run the hotel until 1858, when it was briefly taken over by George Rowe; he then resumed as licensee in 1859, staying on until 1862. He and Mary had a daughter, Mary Elizabeth (1855-1857), who died in infancy; their son, John Adams (1857-1913), was born around the time of his sister’s death; and a second son – Isaac’s namesake – was born in 1860.

Isaac returned with his family to the United States in 1862. With the Civil War still raging, they settled in Providence, Rhode Island. At the time this was one of the most prosperous cities in the Union, destined to soon become one of the wealthiest in the United States, so it is tempting to speculate that Isaac had perhaps returned to the land of his birth with a small fortune made on the Yackandandah Creek at Kirby’s Flat. Mary gave birth to two more children, Henry Arra (1862-1920) and Mary Elizabeth (II) (1867-1934). After Mary’s death, Isaac married Hannah Marshall Maxfield in 1886. He died in Providence in 1914 at the age of 83.

Although now virtually a ghost town, the gold rush township of Woolshed, situated a little to the north of Beechworth, was a boomtown in the 1850s which boasted its own theatre and racecourse. 

There were large numbers of American diggers in the area, and at various sites right across the Ovens goldfield; for example, Joshua Cushman Bigelow, the Woolshed storekeeper whose name (incorrectly spelled “Biglow”) appears as one of the organising committee on the invitation card, hailed from Maine, and he was the first to discover gold a little to the south-east of Beechworth in the district known as Snake Valley (later Upper Nine Mile).

 We believe it likely that most, if not all of the other Fourth of July celebration organisers at the Alliance Hotel were Americans, and we can imagine that they circulated their attractive invitations as far and wide as possible amongst the American community in the Beechworth district. For Isaac Kirby, well-known American publican at Yackandandah, to make the trip across to Woolshed to attend the event would have meant a full day’s journey on horseback.

(Americans .Goldfield. Victoria.)

SAINT SUCCUMBING TO GLOBAL WARMING

While the Great Barrier Reef has experienced extensive coral bleaching , it appears a prominent Townsville attraction, The Saint , on   the Castle Hill pink granite monolith , is also suffering due to the weather .

Our Shipping Reporter recently went looking for the 20 metre high figure   and found it had almost faded away. This, he said , is no way to treat a saint and a tourist attraction. It  clearly  needs  a  touch  up .

The Saint clearly  stood out in the above painting  and  a book was  written  about  the figure which was   drawn on  the north face of  Castle Hill by James Cook University  students  in March 1962. 

The Saint was inspired by the  figure left behind by Simon Templar in the British  detective series written by Leslie Charteris.

RURAL REBEL ROB BOOK UPDATE

Good to hear that  the book by   Darwin agronomist and  decorated  activist  Robert Wesley-Smith is at long last  with  the  printers and  could be available  in  mid-October.   An earlier work of his  is  shown here  . 

He  was  admired  by  the late  editor of the Northern Territory News, Jim Bowditch, who wrote him up in the paper on issues such as  the Vietnam War, aboriginal landrights ,the   East Timor struggle for freedom , and many other  matters, resulting in the Rural Rebel  Rob  title. 

During  the Timor  campaigning, another activist, Sam Kruger , said to have played a part in the  shooting  down of Admiral  Yamamoto's plane in WWll, received an intelligence tip that he and Wes would  be assassinated if they flew to Singapore. 

The shock  warning  given to Kruger specifically said it also applied to his  "four- eyed  mate"- spactacle wearing Wesley-Smith. The first president of  the  Northern Territory Civil Liberties  Council, formed just  after the l974  Cyclone Tracy , Wes  was involved with many other overseas and  local activists  , including one who opposed  uranium mining  and  changed his name  to Stuart Highway, the main  north south road.

Over the years  Wesley-Smith  built up a large filing  system, including one about  the Azaria  Chamberlain cases in  which  he  took an active  part  .

Nowadays Wes  continues to  raise  and comment  on  many  issues . He recently  dispersed  information about  a   West Australian  doctor who played an  important part with  Australian commandoes  in Timor during  WWll. 

His association with East Timor was so close that Timorese nuns  coming  to Darwin  were often picked up by him , transported  and even accommodated down on his  rural property, with his large   collection of protest T-shirts.

Seen driving by with the  nuns, it was  said that  it  was Father Wes with his flock.  

He also  tends  his melons in the hope  of  taking out first prize  again at  the  Darwin  Show .This is a dangerous pastime as a  friend of ours fell over and broke his wrist while picking  pumpkins. 

(Rebel. Book. Melon.) 

HELPFUL KOOKABURRA

Assisting  sort  out  Little Darwin's  jumbled  files  .

 (Kookaburra. Files. Blog.)

NO PLACE FOR A WOMAN AND MOKES

The   autobiography   of  Mayse Young  is  a   great insight  into and a tribute to  the  guts and enterprise of  so  many  families   in   tough   parts  of   Australia.

The blurb states  she was born in the bush , the daughter of  an itinerant railway worker , lived under canvas as a  child,  twice saw the  destruction of  her  home and all possessions, survived  the Japanese  bombing of  Darwin and   Cyclone  Tracy. 

By Peter Simon 

During  a   car trip  from Darwin to Alice Springs , I took award winning  author  Xavier  Herbert  into  the  Pine Creek Hotel and  told him about  the extraordinary  Mayse  and  her  husband . 

Herbert  had  been involved  with  several  feisty  women who  ran  pubs  in the Territory in  the  l920s and l930s who featured in his writing .  I also told him  about  the Territory's   "Death Adders"- gnarled, crotchety codgers ,  who could turn nasty ,but were not  really  bad old buggers , all generally having led  tough  lives.   

One of the  adders at Pine Creek was Cranky Franky Atkinson ,  an Englishman , who  lived in a tin shack , with whom I went   digging for bottles  and  Chinese  artefacts , which  included  part of  the  decorated  end  of  a joss  house  roof .

He said a lot of modern people regarded picking up a shovel and doing some hard  work as being like taking hold of a poisonous  black  snake. Franky  claimed   a person who gained a lot of publicity by making long distance  outback trips on a bicycle  faked photos in which he claimed to be  threatened  by  crocodiles.   

During a Royal Visit to Darwin , I informed the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh  about  the  Pine Creek  loyal  subject  Cranky Franky.       

 The   Pine  Creek  adders  included  a  Russian who used to drop into  Ah Toy's famous store on pension day and  shoot the breeze.   

A copy of the l991  book was  found in  Townsville recently  and discussed  with  veteran ABC Darwin journalist Richard Creswick who  played a major  part  in last December's Darwin Cyclone Tracy  50th  anniversary commemoration .

Creswick  pointed out  that  multi -skilled Mayse Young, apart   from  running  pubs and providing numerous other  services , had  been  the  ABC's  Pine Creek contact  for  news items .

He recalled  an episode  when his  schoolteacher  wife was in a party  which drove down to the UDP Falls in  the Kakadu National Park, which featured in the Crocodile Dundee movie,  Pine Creek a  distant drive away .

As  Richard had a few days off from the  ABC,  he decided to  drive  down in his Mini Moke  and call into  the Pine Creek Hotel  and  thank  Young   for her  help  as the  ABC  contact.

A stone smashed his windscreen  and   by the  time he drove back to  Darwin from Pine Creek   and  reported  for  duty,   his  workmates said  he looked like a lobster. 

(Outback. Pub. Adders.)

FENCE SITTER STUDY

Blue-winged  Kookaburra.

 (Kookaburra. Fence. Vallis.)

TROPICAL LIGHT DISPLAY

 

Cairns. Photos by Aeronautical Correspondent  Abra.

(Cairns. Lights. Abra.)