Reminiscences of Queensland Part 7

At this time Winton was the rendezvous of some of the worst characters of the west; fights were frequent on the then unformed streets.

The rowdies threatened to take the grog in the store, and as there were no police nearer than Aramac, I deemed it best to dispose of all the liquor to Allen, the local publican, who jumped at the chance to obtain a supply.

A few residents formed themselves into a vigilance committee.

The late Mr. J. A. Macartney pa.s.sed through to visit his property, Bladensburg Station, and seeing how things were, wrote to the Home Secretary asking for police protection.

My teams had now arrived with the building material, and carpenters were put on to erect the hotel. This was not finished until the end of 1879, when it was opened under the name of North Gregory Hotel.

Great difficulty was experienced with the floors, there being no timber for them. We puddled the mud and got the black gins to tramp it down, adding a picaninny to their backs to increase their weight.

About July of this year, Fitzmaurice returned from Townsville with three horses and a light dray on which he had brought his wife and little girl.

Taking a plan of the hotel with me, I started for Aramac to interview Mr. Sword, the P.M. (afterwards member of the Land Court), to obtain a provisional license. This he refused to grant until the building was erected.

When I returned Winton was entirely out of liquor, and Allen did a great business in selling bottles of painkiller as a subst.i.tute. It was laughable to see men take a bottle out of their pocket, saying, "Have a nip, mate, it's only five shillings a bottle?"

About March, 1880, the Western River was in high flood, and ran miles wide.

Sub-Inspector Kaye, of the native police, and Mr. John Haines, the manager of Elderslie Station, were in town, and wished to get to the station 40 miles down the river.

We put our carpenter on to make a boat, which carried them and the troopers safely to their destination.

Shortly afterwards Sub-Inspector Fred Murray came out from Blackall, bringing with him Sergeant Feltham, who formed the police station in a small building which I rented to them.

There was only a log to which offenders were chained. One day Feltham went down to the store, leaving a prisoner chained up. Shortly afterwards he was surprised when he saw his prisoner (who was a very powerful man) marching into the public house carrying the log on his shoulder, and call for drinks. It took three men to get him back to the lock-up.

Fitzmaurice's teams arriving, we were enabled to complete the store building, stock it, and the hotel, and resume business, which had been suspended owing to running out of goods, etc. My teams had gone down empty, and were now on their way up with more loading.

The original name for the town--now known as Winton--was Pelican Water-holes. Bob Allen, the first resident, whom I have mentioned, acted as post-master. The mail service was a fortnightly one, going west to Wokingham Creek, thence _via_ Sesbania to Hughenden. There was no date stamp supplied to the office, but by writing "Pelican Water-holes" and the date across the stamps, the post mark was made, and the stamps cancelled. This was found to be very slow and unsatisfactory.

Allen was asked to propose a name, and he suggested that the P.O. should be called "Winton." This is the name of a suburb of Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, and Allen's native place.

We had kept one of Fitzmaurice's teams to haul in firewood, and posts to fence a paddock on Vindex run, the lessees, Messrs. Scott and Gordon, having given us permission to do so.

The manager of Elderslie also gave us permission to fence in a piece of ground at the Pelican Waterhole for a vegetable garden.

The team obtained employment at Bladensburg, where Mr. Macartney was building a stockyard. As I felt clerical work to be hard on me, I would take an occasional trip with the bullocks to relieve the drudgery.

During this year the member for Gregory, Mr. Thomas McWhannell, pa.s.sed through Winton, and opportunity was taken to bring under his notice the necessity for a water supply for the town. The disabilities we suffered under were pointed out. We had to procure water from a hole in Mistake Creek, two and a-half miles away, the water of which was frequently polluted by numbers of dead cattle. By his efforts a sum was pa.s.sed by Parliament for water conservation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WESTERN RIVER IN FLOOD. LOOKING SOUTH FROM RAILWAY STATION.]

The Oondooroo bullock team had come in for supplies, but the driver started drinking, and was unable to take the team home.

Not having forgotten my old avocation, I took his place, and thereby began a close friendship with the Schollick Brothers, who were completely out of rations when I arrived.

During this year the town and district were invaded by a plague of rats, travelling from north-east to south-west in hundreds of thousands.

The vermin would eat the b.u.t.tons off one's coat when camping out. Cats and dogs were surfeited from killing them. I told the Chinaman cook of the hotel that I would give him a pound of tobacco if he caught a hundred rats. That night, as I was sleeping on a stretcher at the back of the store, I was several times awakened by what seemed to be a stamping of feet. In the morning I found that the Chinaman had obtained an ironbark wooden shutter, and rigged up a figure four trap with bait underneath, and by this means had obtained a wheelbarrow full of dead rats.

These rats had bushy tails, and apparently lived on the roots of gra.s.s.

These devastated the country through which they pa.s.sed. It was unknown whence they came from or whither they went.

The rats were followed by a plague of dead cats in the water-holes. The rats had gone and the cats having had plenty, did not follow, but died in the water-holes.

Our team driver was James Gordon, one of two brothers who owned the selection which later became famous as Mount Morgan. We sold this team to Warenda Station, and James Gordon went with it.

During this year (1879), Vindex Station was purchased from Scott and Gordon by Chirnside, Riley and Co., of Victoria, who, like other investors, spent money lavishly to develop the country.

The manager was Mr. J. B. Riley. This gentleman died in 1889, but is still affectionately remembered throughout the district.

To those who knew him, his death was felt as that of a staunch personal friend. By none was his death more regretted than by those who worked for him, either as permanent or casual employees, and by whom a monument to his memory has been erected on Vindex.

Outside the property he controlled, J. B. had three personal hobbies, a good horse, the Winton Divisional Board, and the local Hospital. Of these three hobbies his princ.i.p.al one was the hospital and its sick occupants. On his death it was felt that the most appropriate monument to him would be a new ward for eye complaints to be added to the hospital.

This was generously subscribed to by all cla.s.ses, and the J. B. Riley ward of the inst.i.tution served to remind us of one who, by his charity, goodness and generosity, was a good man, but whose shyness did not allow of this being known. His brother, Mr. F. W. Riley, and Mr. R. L.

Chirnside, who were closely a.s.sociated with him, carried on his good work, and became as deservedly popular.

Throughout this year (1880) the town and district had made progress, and new people were coming in.

We were now doing a good business in both store and hotel, consequently we had to depend on drivers for our teams without supervision.

It was decided that I should follow the teams to Townsville to in some way dispose of them, and also to bring up a man to a.s.sist Fitzmaurice in the hotel.

When I reached Dalrymple I learnt that one of Fitzmaurice's teams had been swept over the rocks while crossing the Burdekin River, and that eight of the bullocks were drowned. It appeared that the river, though not a-swim, was running strong at the crossing.

The first team crossed safely, but on the other reaching the strong water, the driver of the team rode around to the off-side to keep the bullocks up the stream. His efforts were unavailing. With his horse he was carried into deep water, from which they were rescued in an exhausted condition. Not so with the team.

The bullocks were all drowned, and the waggon wrecked on the rocks.

Fortunately, being empty, only eight bullocks were yoked to the waggon, but they were the pick of the team. This accident strengthened our desire to dispose of the teams.

I sold Fitzmaurice's remaining team at Townsville at a satisfactory figure, and my own two teams were sold on their arrival to one of the drivers on terms.

The agreement was that we should provide him with loading from Townsville to Winton at the rate of 30 per ton, until he had paid the purchase money of it. This he did in a few trips.

These teams could not carry the whole of the goods I had purchased, so I left an order with Clifton and Aplin to forward the remainder by carriers as soon as they could despatch them. I engaged a suitable man to a.s.sist Fitzmaurice, and we left with saddle and pack horses for Winton, taking the shorter road _via_ Charters Towers.

This we left at Rockwood, to make a still shorter route across the Downs from Culloden Station, over which the road party had ploughed a furrow across to cut the head of Jessamine Creek, at the back of Oondooroo Station.

In crossing the divide between the Landsborough and Diamantina waters, we rode over virgin country which was infested with bush rats, and numbers of tiger snakes gorged after eating them.

In one place, which was 25 miles from water, the snakes were so numerous that we had a difficulty in getting our pack horses safely through them.

Yet it is argued that snakes are never very far from water.

In 1880, Cobb and Co. bought up a number of mail services throughout Western Queensland, and the general regularity and convenience of their coaches served to open up the country. Cobb and Co. carried out its contracts under great difficulty in times of flood, but more frequently of droughts, and their record is one of which the company and its servants might well be proud. Their coaches are now practically of the past, but the time was when Cobb and Co.'s name was a synonym for efficiency and, when humanly possible, for punctuality. There were many less enjoyable ways of realising life than by, say, to be leaving Barcaldine for Aramac in the dark of an early morning on the box seat of a coach behind a spanking team of greys, driven by a master hand with the whip and ribbons. And then if one stayed the night at a stage, where two or more drivers met, and exchanged experiences of the trip, their horses, but more than all of their pa.s.sengers, what an interesting time might be pa.s.sed.

It was remarkable how observant of pa.s.sengers the drivers would be, while the pa.s.senger all the time laboured under the impression that the driver's time was taken up with his horses.