GOLD, GOLD, GOLD

JOHN CLARK IN HIS NINETIES. MY GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER BELL ON EITHER SIDE. 1900's. Source: Personal Collection.

When gold was discovered in the region in the 1870s, the canny Scot, John Clark seized an opportunity. Men were flocking from all over the world hungry for gold but also plain hungry. 

These mining men needed to eat, especially meat. John Clark quickly bought his first cattle station, Mount Pleasant, followed by Lornesleigh station, both inland from Bowen. He stocked them with strong and sturdy Shorthorn cattle.

The gold discoveries were happening further north, allowing the port town of Townsville to become busy while Bowen declined. John and Jane sold their carrying business and moved to Mount Pleasant. After the death of Mary Ann, Jane never had another child. It was probably just too painful for her to ever contemplate having another after already losing a child. John and Jane did adopt a baby girl named Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen’s parents had been killed on an outlying station (I’ve never found any records of how they died).

The Clark fortune was expanding; there was money in those hungry miners who lived in the squalid, filthy shanty mining towns in the bush, hoping to strike the mother lode. Most of them ended up with nothing to show for their efforts and they were the lucky ones. Frequently miners died from cholera, mining accidents and occasional fights in the grog shops selling rot gut alcohol. Even the alcohol could be dangerous; there were known instances of sly grog sending men blind.

GOLD MINERS. Source: strangecosmos.com

Mister Clark was now in his forties but he had the energy of a man half his age. He was hitting his stride. Everything was now in John and Jane’s favour when another tragedy struck. Jane took ill in 1877 from fever and quickly died. She was buried next to her young infant daughter, Mary Ann. How would John Clark carry on?   

   

DIARY OF A FIRST WOMAN

JANE CLARK DIARY. 1874. Source: Personal Collection.

The diary is Jane Clark’s from 1874. The picture on the cover is how Australia looked at the time.

 Then it was a loose collection of colonies, each running its own affairs but still overseen by Britain. Australia as a nation would not exist until 1901. The diary is a first- hand account of what it was like to live in primitive conditions on the frontier. Unfortunately, I can barely read it because of her scratchy handwriting style.

However, I did find another one of her diaries in a museum in Brisbane a few years ago written in 1871. I read it carefully waiting for a gem from the past. Unfortunately, most of it is taken up with mundane house duties. As I found out, Jane Clark was a fastidious cleaner (she especially liked cleaning curtains)  who liked to have a bath every second day.

 My great grandfather, John Clark is barely mentioned throughout the diary, probably due to his long absences operating the carrying business. When he is mentioned he is called Mister Clark or Johnny depending on her mood towards him.

At one point, Jane goes on a sea voyage to Sydney to visit her relatives. Most of the entries during the voyage just say, “seasick” or “seasick again.” Not actually riveting but it is a glimpse of the normal life for a woman in the 1870's.

It does get interesting reading in places. There is the mention of the murders of two men named Longfield and Lambton by Aborigines who had tried to recapture an absconding Aboriginal boy who had run away from their station. There is also an entry saying that she “hit Totty for not learning.”

 I don’t know who Totty is but I’m presuming she could be an Aboriginal servant girl. Poor girl. My impression after reading the diary is that the Australian frontier in the 1870's was a lonely and brutal existence.