The Pounding of and The Archer Brothers.

BY WILLIAM CLARK.

{Mead at a Meeting of the Historical Society of , on October 12'th, 1917.)

Of all the great maritime ports of entry in north-eastern Australia, the Port of Rockhampton is by far the most important, possessing a wonderful endowment of back country, rich in sources of mineral wealth and in fertile soil, its natural pasturage even surpassing the artifical cultured conditions of the meadow lands of older countries. On the fine black soil downs of Springsure and CuJlin-la- ringo, Fernlees and the Minerva country, the growth of the tussock grass, sheep fescues, wild carrot, wild eschalots, wild lucerne, wild melons and innumerable flowering herbs attest the truth of the statement here made. This immense tract of country is traversed and drained by no less than seven watersheds, forming the course of the Dawson*, Nogoa, Comet, Claude, Barcoof, Nive arid Thompson^ Rivers. Its great westerly range system, known as the Great Divide, turns its easterly waters into the Mackenzie**, which, with its affluent, the Isaacf f river, rolls down to the " Lordly Fitzroy," with its ocean gates at Keppel Bay, while the waters flowing from the Great

* Discovered by Leichhardt, 5th November, 1844, and naiaed by him after R. B. Dawson, of Black River, afterwards of Casino. t Discovered by Sir Thomas Mitchell, 13th September, 1845, and named the " Victoria "—" the future highway to the Indian- Ocisan." In August, 1847, E. B. Kennedy proved it to be the Cooper's Creek of Sttirt. Sabisequentiy called the Bareoo. I Discovered by E. B. Kennedy, second in command of Sir Thomas MitciieU's expedition to tropical Australia, on 13th August, 1847, and named after Sir Edward Deas Thompson, C.B., K.C.M.G., Colonial Sec­ retary (Chancellor of the University of Sydney, 1865-1878). ** Discovered by Leichhardt, 10th January, 1845, and named by him after Sir Evan'Mackenzie of jKilcoy, Bart. ft Discovered by Leichhardt, 13th February, 1845, and «amed by ^^ after Frederick Neville Isaac, of Gowrie, . Died, ^°"°' widow married John Watts, of Eton Vale. 328

Divide westerly, the Maranoa, Warrego and other streams, eventually join the great Murray river-system, with its outlet in South Australia. The City of Rockhampton has had unusual advantages to assist its development. It was opened as a port in the pastoral interests, but mining soon added its support. The Goldfield was opened.* , Ere it closed down. Archer Brothers, of Gracemere, by their liberality in rationing prospectors, had assisted the discovery of a large number of other local goldfields with the grand finale of Mount Morgan, while the discovery of copper by Manton Brothers, at Copperfield, led to the discovery of the Clermont gold- field. Thus the "City of the Three S's," as it has been called, significant of " sin, sweat and sorrow,"' had fortunate influences to consolidate its progress. In the year 1855 the Lower Dawson stations, in con­ sequence of the frequent occurrence of aboriginal outrages, were in a very unsettled state. Everyone was on the alert. Men carried firearms with them everywhere and slept with their loaded weapons within reach in case of night attack. Shepherds followed their, flocks with rifles slung over their shoulders. At that time the Lower Dawson was the frontier of settlements. Rockhampton was not. The Crown Land Commissioner for the Leichhardt, Mr. William Henry Wiseman,f a relative of the celebrated Cardinal Wiseman, of Westminster, lived in a stockaded tent at the Ramies J head station. Our late Under-Sec­ retary for Mines, Mr. P. Selheim, was also at Rannes. I remember the Commissioner for Crown Lands coming to Camboon station in 1856. He had received a mandate from Sydney to select and report upon a site on the south bank of the Fitzroy river on navigable water, to be called " Rockhampton."

* For an account of the discovery of the Canoona Goldfield and the subsequent rush, see Hogan, " The Gladstone Colony." London,, T, Fisher Unwin, 1898, Chapters IX., X., and XI. ^ t Appointed Commissioner for Crown Lands, Leichhardt District, 30th Dec, 1854. N.S.W. Government Gazette, 5th Jan., 1855. % On 28th February, 1855, the tender of James and Norman Leith Hay and Thomas Holt for Rannes and other runs in the Leichhardt Dis­ trict, was accepted. See N.S.W. Govt. Gazette, 9th March, 1855, p. 648. On 29th August, 1856, a Court of Petty Sessions was established at Rannes. (See. N.S.W, Govt. Gazette, 29th August, 1856, p. 2327). James Leith Hay was bom September, 1824 and died at St. Servian,- in France, on April 3rd, 1887. Nomian Leith Hay was lost in the SeabeUe, whicli left Port Curtis for Sydney on 7th March, 1857. It has been said that the SeabeUe was blown out of her course and wrecked at Emu Bay, and her pas­ sengers and crew murdered by blacks. There is an inscription in the Parish Chnrch at Kinnethmont, Aberdeenshire, recording his death, 829 The Fitzroy country was only partly explored when Messrs. Archer Bros.* had taken up Gracemere. The commissioner had received no assistance. He had only two orderlies. He was to " make bricks without straw." The owners of the Camboon and Rannes stations came to his aid. A shipping port was needed nearer than Mary­ borough. They were willing to help to get one. The party followed the Dawson to its confluence with the Fitzroy and formed their observation camp on a hill near what are still called Wiseman's Lagoons. The choice of a locahty for the town was limited. A bar of rocks in the river stopped navigation, and below the site chosen, the country was practically a salt-water swamp. The question of site being settled, it was necessary to provide a road to the port. Station hands cut a twelve- mile road through the Dee river scrub.

* There were nine brothers. Charles, who went to Norway about 1858, and died there two years afterwards from the effect of an accident. .John, who drove one of the drays up from New South Wales to Moreton Bay, in 1841. He was drowned going out from Sydney Harbour in his brig, the Uotuma, which was never heard of again. David, born 1816, went home in 1852, engaged in business in London, and did not come out again. Died in 1900. Father of Mr. R. S. Archer, now of Gracemere. William, bom 1 18. Archdeacon Glennie notes in his diary that when he first came to Brisbane in March, 1848, in the Tamrw, William Archer was on board. He managed Eton Vale for Sir Arthur Hodgson, and after­ wards Gracemere for many years. Went to Norway. Came out again in 1892, and published some Recollections of a Rambling Life in the " Queenslander." He returned to Norway and died there about 1900. Archibald, bom in Fife, 18th March, 1820, came out in 1842. After coffee growing and tobacco plantin:; in the South Seas he went to Grace- mere in 1862. Entered political life as member for Rockhampton, in 1867. Colonial Treasurer, Jan., 1882 to Nov., 1883, in Sir Thomas Mcllwraith's first administration. Died in England, 10th February, 1902. Thomas, bom 1823. For an account of his exploring expedition to Fitzroy Downs, see Hogan—" The Gladstone Colony," pp. 86-92, where, however, his name is not mentioned. He was Agent-General for Queens­ land, and was created a C.M.G. in 1884. A paper dealing with Queens­ land was read by him at the Royal Colonial Institute on 12th April, 1881. See Proceedings Roy. Col. Inst., Vol. XII, pp. 263-291. Thomas Archer died in England on 11th December, 1905. Alexander, born 1828. Married Louisa, daughter of Sir R. R. Maekenzio, of Coul, Inspector Bank of New South Wales. Drowned with his wife in the wreck of the Quetta, Torres Straits, 28th Feb., 1890. Colin, managed Gracemere for two or three years in the late " fifties." He then went to Larvic'<, in Norway, where he still lives. James, bom 1836, Managed Gracemere and afterwards Minnie Downs, near Tambo. Went to Larvick in 1882. There were two sisters, who did not come out to Australia, As the wool season drew near Messrs, Palmer and Friend, storekeepers, of Gladstone (Port Curtis), chartered the schooner Enierprise, Captain Phil, Hardy, to carry supplies up the Fitzroy and load up with wool, A native police boat party, under Lieutenant Freudenthal* passed down from Gladstone, through the narrows between Curtis Island and the mainland and met the Enterprise in Keppel Bay and piloted her up the river. A rough receiving store was erected on the river bank, and the wool for the first time was shipped from Rockhampton. Seven dray-loads were sent from the Dawson ; two loads from the Camboon ; two from Kelman's Gingandah station, and three loads from Rannes. Previously, however, Mr. of Gracemere, had built a light ketch at Maryborough, loaded her with supplies for his new station, and so was the first navigator of the Fitzroy. The firm of Archer Brothers became pastoral pioneers of Moreton Bay as early as 1841. The names of the famous brother-band were David, William, Charles, John, Thomas, Colin, James, Archibald and Alexander. Their stations were Durundur, Cooyah, Coonambula, Eidsvold and Grace- mere. They were especial friends of Dr. Leichhardt, who made Durundur station his home. One of his last letters before his last journey was written to John Archer, at Durun­ dur, from Newcastle, N.S.W. The writer of this paper recently saw it in a glass case at the Brisbane Museum and obtained permission to copy it. The original is now much faded. It was not known who had presented it. In the mid-fifties Mr. Colin Archer began to move sheep from the firm's Burnett stations of Eidsvold and Coonambula to their Rockhampton station. The route they travelled was by Rawbelle station on the No-go Creek to the head of the Burnett waters at the " J.P. Camp," through the Krombik Ranges, then an unknown land. In the ranges they were so hard up for water that they had to leave the slow-travelling sheep behind them m the waterless country and take the bullocks, horses and men ahead to find water, and had to pass through the ranges to find it. On returning to the sheep they presumed that these were all right and so they crossed the watershed on to the Dawson fall. On making a count they discovered they were a thousand sheep short. After searching the locality where the sheep had been left they recovered about five hundred of them, which they sold to Mr. James

* An officer of the old N.S.W. Native Police Force, afterwards in Queensland Police. Superannuated, 30th Sept., 1879, Died at Mackay, 18th June, 1«92, 331 Reid, of Camboon station. At the time men were very scarce in the Dawson district. 1 started, with a Myall blackfellow to help drive the sheep, and his gin to lead the packhorse, to take delivery of these sheep at Monto, an out-station of Rawbelle, distant thirty miles from Camboon, from Mr. Colin Archer, then a fair-haired, blue-eyed young fellow. I little thought then that in after years I should see in the " Windsor Magazine " a picture of my friend in a boat with his daughters at Larvick, Norway, farewel- Ijng Nansen and the famous ship Fram, of which he was ths designer and builder, when leaving his shipyards for the Arctic Circle ; or that I should receive a post-card from Norway with a group of James and Colin Archer and Amundsen, who carried the Fram to the Antarctic Pole, naming his winter harbour "Framheim." At length the sheep arrived at Monto. They were lambing. CoUn and his black-boy were laden with young lambs—tied to their belts ; slung, with legs tied, over their shoulders ; carrying them in their hands ; it was a sight to see. In travelling those sheep I gained an early experience in bushcraft. As they were lambing I could travel only short stages of three to four miles a day. My first stage was waterless ; no water at the night camp. At nightfall my sable assistants made me understand that they were going away to " napo " or sleep, at a " beppo" (mountain) some distance away, where there was " goong," or water. They took my quart pot with them to bring me back some water in the morning. However, at midnight, I heard a coo-ee, which I answered. Up came the blacks, the gin carrying the quart pot. Just before handing it to me she took a last drink out of it. The blackfellow did likewise. Finally my share was a short half-pint. Starting out at daybreak on the third day, we halted to rest the sheep. The blacks seemed quite elated, saying " Goong, goong, plenty," but I was doubtful of getting water, as desert sandstone country covered with gum- whipsticks was not promising. However, they went off, -declining to take my quart pot with them. Soon they returned, their arms filled with large bulbous roots as large as cocoa-nuts. Each root has a smallshoot or twig attached. On cutting them open I found they were filled with water, sweet of taste, clear as crystal. Two or three would fill a quart pot. They were young seedling growths of the bottle trees, that acted as natural reservoirs of moisture to support the yoxmg plants in that arid soil. The cavous nature of these roots will probably account for the fact 332 that bottle trees are always hollow. But I was to have^- further experience of aboriginal manners on that memor­ able trip. On starting from that mid-day camp I had to throw away a half side of mutton that was anything but inodorous. The gin roasted it and put it on the end of her yam stick. The blackfellow then mounted it on his- shoulder and began keeping the lambs going with hi& feet. Further on the gin killed a carpet snake and coiled it round the blackfellow's neck. The gin was doing the scouting. Presently she found a white ant's nest filled with larvae, of which the natives are very fond. She filled- a dilly-bag and put the string round her liege-lord's neck. He was fairly loaded with good things, but was not satis­ fied. A sugar-bag, or " howey," was discovered, and he left the sheep to go up the tree. It was 4 p.m., another- mile to water and a heavy, black storm cloud was looming' up. My patience met the breaking strain. I ordered him down. He descended, chanting a fighting dirge and run­ ning at me with his uplifted tomahawk. I drew my re­ volver and covered him. He dropped the tomahawk. and started driving the sheep. It was a wet night, but I kept my revolver dry in my coat pocket and did not sleep. We reached home all right, but just before arriving at the head station my friends vanished. They were afraid to- face it, as a party of native police were camped there. The Archer Brothers were practically pioneers. Most of them had learned trades or had commercial experience. For well-nigh eighty years they have helped to build up the State. They have been Queensland legislators, and Agents- General, and still, as represented by Messrs. Robert Short Archer and E. W. Archer, hold large pastoral and mining" interests in Central Queensland. Their record is worthy of being treasured up in the archives of the Historical Society. At present only Colin and James Archer remain of the old pioneers. Mr. Thomas Archer was a kindred spirit with his friend Leichhardt, as an explorer. With his black-boy, and guided by Sir Thomas Mitchell's report, he started out to find the Fitzroy Downs country. Leaving the Darling Downs, he travelled to the north-west, crossing Charlie's Creek and the Dogwood Creek, following Leich- hardt's trail in his 1844 journey as far as Dried Beef Creek. During the journey he discovered and named Mount Abund­ ance, Mount Deceitful and Mount Disappointment. He next explored the northerly heads of the Burnett. On that journey he discovered the Dalgangal country, Jacky Small's Creek and St. John's Creek. He retained. 333 the Eidsvold country, handing over the Coonambula country to the old firm of David Archer and Co. He also gave the Mundubbera coimtry to the Hon. E. Pleydell Bouverie. Jacky Small's Creek was named after his black-boy, who shortly afterwards accompanied Tom Archer to America, where Archer went mining. This black-boy was going ashore with his master in a boat at San Francisco at night when the boat capsized in a squall. Archer got on to the bottom of the boat ; Jacky vanished. Two years after­ wards Tom Archer found him. He had swum an incredible distance in the darkness to the shore. When out shooting in Califbmia, with Mr. Archer, Jacky came on tracks larger than a bullock's.. He left Archer to follow them into a thick-set bush. Presently he came out of it at full speed, shouting to Archer to go up a tree. As soon as they were up the tree, out came a grizzly bear and treed them all night and next day, until their mates at the mining camp came to their rescue, when the bear was shot and " bar- steaks " became the order of the day. The Archer family were of Scotch origin. The brothers brought their stock from Wallerawang, in New South Wales. The first of the brothers to come to Aus­ tralia was David Archer, who was joined in 1837 by his brothers, Thomas and William, at Wallerawang station, where he was then manager. Tom Archer was at that time only fifteen years of age. In 1839 David Archer resigned his managership and set out to find country on the Darling Downs, with five thousand sheep, -wdth his brother Tom as overseer. When they were about to start, scab broke out among their sheep, which so delayed them that they lost all chance of the Darling Downs country and had to be content with country east of the coast range on Stanley Creek, Upper Brisbane. Not long afterwards their brothers, John and Charles, joined them at Durundur. Soon after stocking that station, David Archer and his black-boy, Jimmy, explored the Bunya scrubs at the head of the Brisbane, and also crossed the Conondale Range on to the head of the Mary river. They followed it below where Gympie now is, examined the Maroochy country and found it " not fit to feed a bandicoot." Meanwhile Thomas Archer, with a black-boy named Jimmy Beerwah, ascended the Glasshouse Mountains and found at the summit a bottle containing a paper with, the names of Andrew Petrie and John Petrie on it. While the Archers were at Durundur the station's- communication was through Kilcoy, Cressbrook and Ips­ wich to South Brisbane. When Tom Archer and the^ 334 Mackenzies, of Kilcoy, Evan, afterwards Sir Evan, and his brother Colin Mackenzie, started to explore a direct road to North Brisbane, they first struck Mount Zion, the German Mission station. Following the missionaries' road to town, they met at Eagle Farm Stockade Governor Gipps, who asked them if they were settled within the fifty- mile prohibition radius of the penal settlement. If so, they must move further back.. All honour to the Archer brothers band and their pioneer confreres, the Campbells, of the ducal house of Argyle ; the Elliotts, descendants of Glasgae's " Gibbie o' the gowden breeks " ; Lord Stafford,* at his succession resident in a New England township ; the Hon. E. Pleydell- Bouverie ; the Spring-Rices ; the Hon. Louis Hope, uncle of our first Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun ; the Hon. Wriothesley ; Sir Evan Mackenzie, of Kilcoy ; Sir Robert Ramsay Mackenzie, of Coul—" Old R.R." as we used to call him ; scions of noble houses in the British fatherland, men of university antecedents, of high academic and intel­ lectual attainments, who, together with the Leslies, Hodg- sons, Murry-Priors, McConnels, Collins, Bigges, Norths, Stuart-Russells, and many others, gloried in the freedom of their environment. They would come from their bush solitudes to " The Settlement," as Brisbane was called, clad in moleskins, Scotch twill shirts, Blucher boots and cabbage-tree hats, plaited and sewn by their shepherds and hut keepers. At their station homes they were con­ tent to subsist upon damper, fat mutton and beef, with the mustard in a jam tin. Able to build their own huts, drive their own teams and defend their homes against hostile natives, they '"-broke their birth's invidious bar," forgot to be supercilious, but never forgot to be gentlemen. When their opportunity came, they entered our legislative arena and laid broad and deep the foundations of our State in the great principles of equity, personal right and public freedom. Such were our earliest pioneers, men of firm and steady step, worthy to be enrolled with Fennimore Cooper's " Pathfinders," to whose memory the govern­ ment and people of Queensland owe a debt of honour, the best acquittance of which would be substantial assistance to the Historical Society in the great work of collecting and calendaring Queensland historic data and traditions before the last eye-witnesses, the old pioneers, pass " O'er the Bar."

* William Stafford Perrott, see Campbell, " The early settlement of Queensland." 335 The following notes on Mr. Clark's paper have been kindly furnished by Mr. R. S. Archer, of Gracemere :— In April, 1853, Charles and William Archer left Eids­ vold on an "exploring trip to the north." Their friend having crossed the Dawson and Mackenzie rivers, told them that these rivers probably flowed into one stream, where, no doubt, they would find good country. Two white men. and two blacks made up the party. They followed the Burnett waters up through Rawbelle and crossed on to the watershed of the Fitzroy, at the head of what is now the Prairie run. They called at Rannes, which had just been settled by Leith Hay, and then followed up the Dee river, passing close to the now famous Mount Morgan, to the top of the coastal range whence they looked down on the valley of the Fitzroy, naming the river after the then Governor of New South Wales.

Extract from Charles Archer's journal. 1853. May 4th.-—Upon topping the range a most astounding view lay beneath us. Through a large and apparently open valley, bounded by table-topped, pryamidal diorite mountains, with here and there fantastic sandstone peaks, a large river wound its way towards the sea. We supposed this river to be the Dawson and Mackenzie joined, and the sea before us to be Keppel Bay. May 5th.-—-As our view to the southward and eastward was interrupted by a projection of the coastal range, we determined upon getting a view further to the southward in the hope of being able to determine our exact position with regard to Port Curtis, but we found the ground so impracticable to travel over, that we were obliged to abandon this plan and camped at 2 o'clock upon the highest point we could find in the Stunks.* Determined upon giving our horses e spall to-morrow before proceeding to examine our new dis- covery. May 6th.—Willie and I left camp after breakfast and rode to the range to take bearings and attempt a sketch of the valley of the Fitzroy, as we have named the river. The day was unfavourable for sketching. The following bearings were taken from the, range at the head of the Stunks : Table Mountain 309°, Lion Mountain 314°, Lake 344°, Etna 348°, Highest point of Fillefieldf 335°, Mt. Sleipner 24°, Island at mouth of river 64°. * Now the Doe River. f The Berseker Mountains. 336

May 7th.—Ran the Stunks up to the range and des­ cended into the valley of the Fitzroy. The range is very steep upon the northern side. About 4 miles from the foot of the range, in a N.N.W. direction, we came upon a chain of waterholes where we stopped for lunch and marked trees A over dagger. Three miles further, in a northerly direction, we struck the lake, which, to our astonishment was, for this country, a most magnificent sheet of fresh water, about two miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide, as near as we could guess. Near its western end we found a well watered creek with scrub upon its banks which extended itself for a few hundred yards to the edge of Farris, as we named the lake.* Camped on the lake. , May 8th.—At 2J miles N.W. from last camp, over a flat country, generally timbered with gum, we struck another lake which had more the appearance of a swamp. It was covered with wild fowl. From this lake, we rode 5 miles N.N.W. direction, over some beautiful Downsf Ridges, from the top of the highest of which the following bearings were taken :—• Farris Mountain 145° 7 miles ; Table Mountain 167"; Lion Mountain 198°; Mount Etna 7°; Pointers, 331°. IJ miles from Down Top brought us to the Fitzroy, a fine navigable-looking stream, with the tide running up strong ; water, fresh. Followed it up 1J miles W.N.W. Found a fine large lagoon and a kind of water-lily growing upon it, which, being of a pink colour, we named the lagoon. Pink Lagoon..

The explorers returned via Gladstone, experiencing difficulty in finding their way on account of the numerous uncrossable salt water creeks. The following year Eidsvold and Coonambula were sold, and in the middle of 1855, the four brothers, David, Thomas, Charles and William, having joined in partner­ ship as Archer and Co., the whole of their stock were travelled from the Burnett to Gracemere, arriving there in August, 1855. The mere was then dry, and a well had to be put down to get water for the camp. Meanwhile, the younger brother, ' Colin, was sent to Maryborough to superintend the building . of a five-ton cutter, the EUida. He loaded her with stores,

* Afterwards renamed Gracemere. t Now Alton Downs, 337 ;sind with a crew of two men, sailed her round to Keppel Bay, and found his way up the Fitzroy to the present site of Rockhampton, this being the first craft to navigate the river. James, the youngest brother, then a lad of 17 years, came across with the party from the Burnett, driving one of the bullock waggons. In 1856, Charles Archer made an expedition out to the Peak Downs, which had some years before been crossed by Leichhardt. He took up the whole of the country between Emerald and Clermont, including among others, the present stations of Gordon Downs, Emerald Downs, Peak Downs, Retro and Langton. He, however, could not face the great expense of stocking and developing -country so far from port, and shortly after sold the country "to Mr. Gordon Sandeman, from whom Gordon Downs "iakes its name. ROBT. S. AECHBE., Gracemere. August 8th, 1918.