Chapter 3 ‘Doing a Good Stroke…’ 1852 January, 1852 – Back to the diggings on the Meroo. The gold escort brought just 459 ounces of gold to Sydney between Christmas and New Year. So many diggers were taking the opportunity of the festive season to return to their homes, that the diggings were said to be all but deserted. No doubt many took the opportunity to tell their stories, tall and true, and to get back to civilisation and their families. When the festive season came to a close, though, all available means of transport to the Western Goldfields were once again in strong demand. A little over six months had elapsed since the first canvas tents were pegged out along the western streams by miners, mostly men, in search of fortunes. Now those same men were making arrangements for more permanent settlement with wives and children being sent for to establish homes in more substantial slab huts at Sofala on the Turon diggings. Permanent settlement was not yet a feature of the Meroo Goldfields; however, miners were still eager to ply their trade at the various diggings on offer and over 100 were in operation at the beginning of 1852. Success stories continued to attract fortune hunters, and the Louisa Creek diggings were still living up to their reputation for large nuggets as news trickled out that a 90oz specimen of matrix gold had been uncovered. Miners arriving back in Maitland were a regular source of intelligence for those in the Hunter Valley curious about the diggings, and news of good returns travelled quickly. Average daily earnings were reckoned to be in the order of 15 shillings per man at the commencement of 1852, though, there were exceptions on either side of that yardstick. One party of nine from Port Stephens had made £700 each in a four-month stint on the Meroo Goldfields including a haul of 75 ounces of gold on one day alone. With good news on the prospects at the Meroo Goldfields reaching towns all over the colony numbers continued to swell, and, by the end of the first week in January, there was estimated to be 500 people at Meroo and its rich tributary, Long Creek, and another 1000 around the famed Louisa Creek. January, 1852 – A Correspondent at the Campbell’s Creek Diggings By January 1852 the Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser had heard enough from returning miners to justify sending a reporter to the Meroo Goldfields for first-hand reports on the conditions and prospects on offer to adventurous locals. It was in fact the correspondent’s second visit to the goldfields thereabouts and his intended destination was the Turon, but with a budget that didn’t extend to the purchase of a hole, decided instead to head to the Meroo where a 1 prospector could find his own means to wealth. Tossing up between World’s End on the lower Meroo and its tributary, Devil’s Hole Creek, he was ultimately enticed to the latter after hearing all about it during his overnight stopover at Mudgee. His Victorian sensibilities being enlivened to the horror with which his audience might receive such a moniker, the correspondent offered an apology, holding out hope that a local proposal to re-name the satanic Devil’s Hole Creek, ‘Kennedy’s Creek’, might yet prevail. From the correspondent’s descriptions of the diggings at Devils Hole Creek, Upper Meroo and nearby localities, a picture emerges of the increasingly established, though still growing, goldfields. The miner’s life as described by the journalist was one of monotonous drudgery for even the most successful of parties with a description of one party sufficing to cover the experience of any other save for names and dates. Nonetheless, upon arriving at Devil’s Hole Creek during a typically hot summer’s day he was greeted by the site of hundreds of white canvas tents erected all along either side of the creek with all the best places taken up. Claims were neatly pegged out on the bed of the creek from ‘one end of the settlement to the other’1 and deep holes were sunk into the creek bank or on nearby alluvial flats. On the slopes, ridges and higher flats, the dry diggings proliferated. Here the going was harder with the requisite supplies of water for washing spoil more distant and twelve to eighteen feet (4-6 metres) of hard white clay, quartz pebbles and shale needing to be extracted to find the precious commodity. Even among the rich pickings to be had among the Meroo Goldfields, the luck of individual parties varied considerably. Some at Devil’s Hole Creek were able to make 1 to 20 pounds per day whilst others were making nothing and going broke fast, though, luck was bestowed randomly and could strike anyone – the very motivation that spurred them on. The correspondent estimated that average clear earnings were at least 10 shillings both at the Devil’s Hole and Meroo but noted that many came away with nothing and a fortunate few with much more. One in five was his estimate for the holes adjacent to the creek that paid well. At the Upper Meroo, he again encountered numerous holes among the dry diggings and parties making small fortunes in the small auriferous tributaries of the Meroo River itself. Here, too, the dry diggings were an uncertain prospect requiring good fortune and perseverance. Betraying the social position and economic standing of many on the goldfields, the correspondent noted the dry diggings, despite their vagaries, provide ample opportunity for the poor man to better his position. The reputation of Louisa Creek was enough to encourage the intrepid reporter to make a pilgrimage of sorts to the site of Kerr’s Hundredweight’s discovery as well – complete with a kneeling search for any ‘nugget-picka-ninnies’2 that might be left behind. The gold found in Louisa Creek itself was described as angular in nature and not at all waterworn. Despite the goldfields being in operation for over six months and the requisite tools and work ethic by now well known, many were turning up ill-prepared to rough it on the goldfields – some were just plain ill-suited for life in the bush. The correspondent drily noted such men would do well to re-consider the comforts of home. 2 January, 1852 – The Chinese problem. The rush to the goldfields had created a shortage of labour that saw proposals developed to import a sufficient number of suitable immigrants. One such scheme involved the importing of ‘Chinamen’ for engagement in un-filled occupations. The Duke of Roxburgh had disembarked a number of Chinese at Brisbane at the beginning of January who remained unengaged. In a statement indicative of the poor opinion held by most in the colony of the Chinese, the Moreton Bay Courier suggested it had commented on their plight only in the hope they might be more readily disposed of, ‘consider[ing] them rather a nuisance’ and hoping it may ‘help to get rid of them’.3 Such racial prejudice would soon boil over into conflict on the goldfields. January, 1852 – Conflict on the goldfields between capital and labour. As January unfolded, and growing numbers of men organised in small parties of three or four men set to work on the alluvial flats and quartz rich ridges of the Meroo goldfields, disquiet was growing over the rumoured intrusion of capitalised joint ventures forcing them off their claims in the bed of Louisa Creek. The Great Nugget Quartz Ridge Crushing Company had enjoyed similar favouritism from regulators to the disgust of many, and there were fears the small man was to suffer again under the weight of moneyed privilege. Commissioner Hardy was quick, though, to placate the fearful miners assuring them their claims on the alluvial plains and creek bed were safe, but the quartz ridges would be made available to those operations best equipped to return a commercial yield. With the matter resolved, confidence was building that even more miners would flood the goldfield as yields continued to be profitable. The best returns were being obtained by those willing to sink deep, and new locations were being discovered regularly across the tableland and alluvial plains. The draining of waterholes all along the creeks was becoming a profitable business with 130 pounds of gold yielded from the efforts at one hole. Meanwhile, congregated parties were also reported to be turning a nice profit at diggings on Devil’s Hole Creek and Richardson’s Point. Richardson’s Point, today a wire bound series of quiet paddocks along the creek, was proving particularly remunerative in early 1852 with hopes high that it might match the Maitland Bar diggings for fame. Claims were being worked across the creek flat. One party had the good fortune to be on a claim with a vein about a metre below the surface. Being too afraid to tunnel in from the creek for fear of the loamy soil collapsing on them, they were forced to remove the overburden laboriously with pick and shovel. Once down, they had about half a metre of gravel and dirt to wash to find payable gold. On a nearby claim a man by the name of Solomon, later a gold buyer, was leading a party that was growing its yield from one and half ounces per day to three. Others were finding up to five ounces. With those yields, they were earning between fifteen shillings and one pound a day and could afford to employ men to labour for them at the rate of three pound a week and rations.4 For those without the start-up capital, this was their entrance into the gold rush.