Samuel Lovell and Elizabeth Smith

My last blog about Mary Rose, was a peep into the life of the fourth of my grandmother's grandparents. Having found no birth record for my Mary Rose nee Lovell, I now look backwards to find her parents.

I find their beautifully hand written  marriage document. Samuel Lovell age 20, a farmer, marries Elizabeth Smith, age 17 at the Huon Chapel on 20th April 1843. Witness are Joseph Lovell and John Smith, either brothers or fathers, and all parties sign their names with an X.

There are a few clues here. Firstly, they are in Huon. We are now getting into far earlier times of settlement in the Huon area. The X means illiteracy, common amoung convicts. The Rank, they call it Rank, not Profession, is Farmer. This could perhaps indicate a non-convict as even if free, convict status is usually recorded on a marriage certificate (the only Samuel Lovell on the convict register is a non-contender). Obviously I'll need to go further back to find Samuel's origins.

Huon Chapel is possibly the early church building at Franklin.

Five years after their marriage, a Census record lists Samuel and Elizabeth living at Huon River with two little kiddies, and again in 1851, at what is now listed as Franklin, with four children. Samuel is a settler, a farmer, a sawyer and a master mariner on each birth registry. Finally I find their 5th child an as yet unnamed female born on Christmas day 1852, this would be our Mary and would explain why I could never find her birth certificate under her name.

Sadly Elizabeth dies in 1854 at the young age of 26, with our little Mary only 2. Elizabeth is probably buried in the beautiful, but dilapidated old cemetery in Franklin.

Six years later on the 24th of December, Samuel marries again. Myra Thorpe is a widow and age 35 and their ceremony is witnessed by William and Louisa Scott. Samuel and Myra have four more children together.

Myra is easily researched because she was a convict. Convicts lives were so regulated and documented by the authorities that primary sources often abound. Myra came aboard the Cadet in 1847 as Myra Baggelly. Her conduct record shows he had an illegitimate son George in 1851 and applied for permission to marry Andrew Thorpe in 1853 which was granted as she married him 48 days later as Myra Bayley. Andrew and Myra had three children together. They lived at Cairns Bay where Andrew was a sawyer.

google images Cairns Bay. Old house on Scott's Road, probably named after William and Louisa, witnesses at Samuel and Myra's wedding.

I've found it interesting in my family research to get an overview of how convicts married and how they managed to integrate into a society with prejudices against them.

Martin Cupit, convict, married Sarah Murphy, daughter of a convict but with the added social disadvantage of having been an inmate of the Queen's Orphanage. Both building their lives from the social and cultural bottom-of-the-heap upwards. 

Charles Rose, son of a convict woman marries Mary Lovell, who is looking like she may have free settlers background, up a rung. 

And later, Kezia Rose, comfortably removed from her partial convict heritage, marries William Cupit, son of a convict.
The females of the place had the advantage. With an immense gender imbalance, women could afford to be picky and their choice of men seeking a wife was from a large potential pool. Plenty of fish in the sea.

So Myra did well in marrying Samuel. Myra also bucked the trend with her children. Well known historian (and my lecturer) Hamish Maxwell-Stewart is researching fertility and child bearing rates amoung convict women in Van Diemen's land. Surprisingly he identified convict women as on an average producing .9 children after arrival, that's less than one per woman. In other words, they had very few offspring. He explains this possibly because their lives were so regulated and when they did marry, they were older. This has certainly been the case for my two Irish forebears, by the time they married, children were a non event.

But for Myra, even though she married Samuel at age 38, she had four more children and with her previous four, she must have brought that average figure up considerably. Myra registered a couple of these births herself and named herself Mary and Maria.

Perhaps this explains why our Mary got married at age 15. Here was her father with his new wife producing more children and she needed to make her own way. She was married and out before their last daughter was born in 1869 when Myra was 47.

Visual Family Tree, with our Mary, born 1852, Mary being my maternal grandmother's maternal grandmother. Apologies to Samuel, Myra and the children. Elizabeth is a likeness taken from a photo found on a genealogy site:              http://www.mickjansen.com.au/page5.htm


So far no real answers as to who Samuel Lovell was and why he ended up in the Huon, and then there's Elizabeth, what of her parents? This means I've now got four more people to reseach, Mary Rose's grandparents. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment.

PS
My recent trip to Franklin found me walking the old cemetery. There are few graves sites intact and legible, but I came across some names I recognised from my research.
The very first grave I find is dear Lottie. She was David Cupit's fiancee. She nursed David until he died at age 30 from gassing in WW1, and was 'adopted' into the Cupit family and never married. She has no descendants, but is remembered.

Next I find Louie and Maria Diefenbach, Sarah Cupit's friend.

Female Convict Health Assignment

Our last utas unit was one of the most challenging yet. Our final assignment was putting one convict in a greater context. I choose the topic of risks to convict health on the journey out to the Colony.

My previous research and blog on my ancestor, Mary Brien, had made me very curious about her mental health as her behaviour just seemed to reveal traces of depression, trauma and even bi-polar.

As I began my research into my chosen topic, having no idea whether I'd get anywhere close to assignment material, a fascinating insight into female convict mental health unfolded. Hysteria, as it was then called, was pretty rife, as you would indeed expect in such traumatic circumstances these women found themselves in. 

This essay discusses health risks of female convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land between 1822 and 1853. The key aspect presented is that of mental health. Mental illness even today can be difficult to diagnose and quantify. The circumstances such as these convict women found themselves in, such as desperate social and economic conditions, imprisonment, exile and forced separation from their children, must have been fertile ground for anxiety, depression, trauma and to use an outdated term, a nervous breakdown.

An example of a typical convict was Mary Brien. Mary arrived in VDL on the Blackfriar in 1851, age 30, with her ten-year-old daughter. She was reported as being troublesome in the Irish prison but quiet on the voyage out. [i] Upon arrival her daughter was taken to the Orphanage, mother and daughter separated.[ii]  Mary is not mentioned by John Moody, the Surgeon Superintendent on the Blackfriar, so she obviously suffered no illness severe enough to be hospitalized or logged. Nevertheless, Mary’s subsequent life in the colony was not particularly trouble-free.

When Mary’s postings began, the first lasted less than two weeks. Mary was then shunted between Brickfields Hiring depot and the House of Correction five times until her second hiring a year later. It seems Mary’s first year didn’t go so smoothly. Examination of Mary’s record reveals a pattern. Each year for the next six years, she had short stints of hiring followed by more time at Brickfields, two court appearances and even more time at the House of Correction.[iii] Clearly, she was a difficult one. Mary was continually reprimanded, namely, for insolence, misconduct and neglect of duty. It seems Mary had an attitude problem. Was Mary just a fiery Irish woman, or did her mental and emotional issues run deeper?

                                                        portarthur.org.au

Evidence of convict women’s mental states after transportation is scant, and Mary’s mental state is speculation only, however evidence is prevalent as to the mental health of women such as Mary on the long voyage out. John Moody commented that it was not an easy thing to assess the physical and mental states of so many who have come to him from the confines of a difficult prison situation. With so many temperaments to manage, making on the spot diagnosis of mental health would have been impossible. It didn’t take too long before John Moody had a mental heath issue to deal with though. The night before sailing, John describes treating Catherine Walsh, a Lunatic who was lucid upon embarkation. As it was too late to disembark her, the poor girl was strait jacketed. Again, after two months at sea, he describes Anne Torpey, a ‘stout girl of nervous temperament’, one night jumping out of bed screaming and running about in a frantic state. She was hospitalized for several days.[iv]

                                        Surgeons reports give fascinating insight into the voyage out.    blogs.ancestry.com.au

The terminology used at the time, was Hysteria. By the 1800’s Hysteria was being seen by professionals as less of a disease of the uterus or demon possession, and more correctly as a mental condition. Symptoms described by these surgeons were seizure like paroxysms, fainting, irrational behavior and unresponsive and hyper responsive conditions, symptoms that would now be recognized as depression in all its forms, traumatic stress and anxiety.[v]

Indeed, on closer examination of Surgeon’s reports from female transportation ships, Hysteria pops up regularly. It had to be quite disruptive and severe to make a Hospital admission. Of these reports, some are brief and to the point, while others are extremely detailed and give fascinating insight to day to day life on board. Some Surgeons comment predominantly on weather, while others, conditions of cleanliness and routines of the women. Frequently Hysteria is listed on the summary only and some surgeons make mention of its prevalence only in their remarks written at the end of the voyage. Hence, cases of Hysteria were possibly far more common than is reported, as many needed no treatment.  

Surgeon Superintendent Charles Smith gives an insight into the psychological state of the Irish females in his charge. The Duke of Cornwall sailed in July 1850, immediately preceding the Blackfriar. Charles had a huge caseload of twenty-six cases of Hysteria to deal with. His opening remarks stated that the Irish were a highly susceptible race and that the women ‘suffered much from Grief and depression of Spirits at leaving their friends and native Country’. He states many of the women were not put on the sick list as their paroxysms were of short duration and their general health was good. He describes varied symptoms such as loss of power of speech, paralysis and ‘extravagant hallucinations’.[vi]

                                                                                                                                                                        ourfamilypast.com

In 1849 John Moody, then surgeon on the Lord Auckland, also refers to the spirits of the women on board. He treats them with ‘kindness, at the same time with firmness’ to restore their spirits, noting its no easy matter where Irish convicts are concerned.[vii] Surgeon A.F. Macleroy (Phoebe 1845) reports of seasickness, ‘accompanied as usual in females with Syncope <[fainting]> & Hysteria in various degrees & shapes, many cases being very troublesome tho’ not placed on the Sick List.’[viii] Surgeon James Clarke’s (Greenlaw 1844) general remarks comment almost entirely on food and diet, but he does generalize about the extreme mental depression of women on his Sick List and how this is generally the case amongst the lower and ignorant Irish class.[ix] Signs and symptoms of  mental suffering are also scattered throughout the English female ships, even with several suicide attempts mentioned.[x] Most Surgeons report they handle their cases successfully with treatments ranging from ‘constant employment’ to shaving the head and cold-water ablutions, blood-letting, enemas and various dosages of substances such as Submuriate of Mercury, aloetic pills and Laudanum.

  

                     Surgeon Superintendent James Hall on 4 ships 1820-1833, Aust Convict & Convict Ships Board, pintrest

Examination of sixty-four Surgeons reports of both Irish and English female ships which landed in VDL, twenty-nine made mention of one or more cases of Hysteria, an indication of the mental and emotional stress of women undertaking a voyage with incredible risks and uncertainties.[xi] Given the series of traumatic events these women endured, it would be highly likely that many of them would indeed have their mental health severely compromised. Likewise, the development of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder would be a high possibility, hence affecting their ability to reintegrate successfully with an extremely high probability of developing alcohol dependence.[xii]

Mary Brien gained her freedom and married George Gray in 1859. [xiii]  Whether married life settled her, is also unknown, but in 1875 Mary Brien-ex-Gray, died a pauper in a residence on the corner of Molle and Golbourn Streets in Hobart.[xiv]

To conclude, that Mary Breen suffered from any ill mental health is pure conjecture. She had times of compliance and times of turbulence.  Why was she a difficult woman? Perhaps she suffered from mental illness and was damaged by a system which intended to force conformity, limit personal freedom and ‘reform’ the wild ones, but had little understanding of emotional and mental suffering, treatment and subsequent personal and societal cost.

                                                                                                                                convict love token   sydneylivingmuseum.com.au

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[i] librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au  NAME_INDEXES:1375061 accessed 8 August 2018

[ii] www.orphaneschool.org.au/show orphan accessed8 June 2018

[iii] Female convicts in VDL database, Female Convicts Research Centre Accessed 16 June 2018

[iv] www.femaleconvicts.org.au/convict-ships/convict-ship-records

[v] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480686/ Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health accessed 1 Aug 2018

[vi] www.femaleconvicts.org.au/convict-ships/convict-ship-records

[vii] www.femaleconvicts.org.au/convict-ships/convict-ship-records

[viii] www.femaleconvicts.org.au/convict-ships/convict-ship-records

[ix] www.femaleconvicts.org.au/convict-ships/convict-ship-records

[x] www.femaleconvicts.org.au/convict-ships/convict-ship-records, Emma Eugenia1846, East London1843, Mary Ann 1822, Tasmania 1844

[xi] www.femaleconvicts.org.au/convict-ships/convict-ship-records

[xii] www.healthdirect.gov.au/symptoms-of-ptsd accessed 9 September 2018

[xiii]librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au   

[xiv] "Australia, Tasmania, Miscellaneous Records, 1829-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (Cemetery records > Burials and cremations, Cornelian Bay Cemetery > Feb 1875-Jul 1876, AF70/1/2 no 699-1186 > image 101 of 510; Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Hobart. Accessed 20 July 2018

Mary Rose, a 'beautiful lady'.

Having begun on the convict trail that wends its interesting journey back through the family trees that are my heritage, I take another detour through the forest.

I've looked into three of my maternal grandmother's grandparents and been  amazed at what I've found. Her father William Cupit with his father Martin, the convict from Derbyshire, and her mother Kezia Rose with Kezia's father Charles Rose, son of an Irish female convict and being born in the Female Factory.
Then there's Martin's wife, Sarah Murphy, coming out on the ship at age 10 with her convict mother from Ireland. Finding such a rich and diverse heritage has widened my knowledge of Tasmanian history greatly. 

I knew my grandmother well. When I now look back, I realise how tangibly close our early colonial history really is. In our last Convict UTas unit, we heard one historian's tale of  her grandfather, who she remembers well too. When he was a lad, he witnessed the final day at Port Arthur when he watched the last convicts file out of the precinct in the mid 1870's. This colonial era was in living memory of living memory. I feel like I can almost touch the memories of these ancestors in  my own mind, particularly when we can visit so many intact sites in and around Hobart.


I was in Grade 4 when we celebrated the Bicentenary of Cook's 1770 landing. We learned the story at school and studied the convict system.

 "Nanna, do you have convicts in your family?" her curious 9 year old grandaughter asked. Nanna squirmed and told me that perhaps there might have been one way back and dropped the subject quickly. 
I now know this "one" was her grandfather Martin, goodness, she could have actually known the man. The "one" was also her grandmother's mother and her grandfather's mother. She was too close to them in history to have been free of the dreadful convict legacy- shame. Van Diemen's Land changed its name and did everything possible to hide that legacy. The convict sons and daughters became loyal subjects to Queen Victoria and a collective amnesia settled over the population like a heavy, silent blanket. Our convict sites were ignored, left to decay, and re-purposed.

My final research was with Nanna's maternal grandmother. Mary Rose was Charles Rose's wife. Nee Lovell, her mother was Elizabeth Smith. With a name like Smith, I had been putting this research off.
Turns out the Lovells have been hard too, there's an awful  lot of them.
Mary Lovell first appears when she marries Charles Rose at the home of John Smith, Castle Forbes Bay. Charles is 21 and Mary is 15, very young. Doing the maths, Mary was born 1853ish. Castle Forbes Bay is just south of Franklin. Its my, unsuccessful so far, aim to find out how and why my ancestors ended up in the Huon. By the early 1850's, farming was well established in Castle Forbes Bay, but it was in the timber industry that the work existed. Men came here to work and this is probably what drew Charles to the area where Mary was already living. The Victorian Gold Rush meant extremely high demand for timber, and this was coming from the Huon. Local papers advertised. In 1856 and 57 Dr Crowthe and James Scully advertised plenty of employment for sawyers, splitters and bushmen at Castle Forbes Bay.

Charles and Mary started their large family with Kezia born in 1869. Charles was a farmer at Castle Forbes Bay then. In 1871 he was a farmer/settler in Franklin and with each birth register he was a bushman, a labourer, a farmer or a carpenter at Fleurty's Point, still at CFB. So clearly life for the man of the house meant working at whatever you could when it was available.
By the 1890's when Mary and Charles had their last two children, they had relocated to Port Esperence. Lillian Lockley registered her youngest brother's birth and stated her mother's maiden name incorrectly as Smith. On registering her youngest sister's birth she called herself Mary Lockley. It seemed christian names were interchangeable. Indeed, most of her 11 siblings changed, shortened, misspelt and used their middle name. It seems Percy Rheuben ended up being Luther Charles Garnet known as Charley. And Nalta Rummond ended up Charlie Jackson (these are the WW1 stories in a previous blog). So while Charles was working, Mary was child rearing.

 two of the Rose sisters, Eva Christie born 1875, and 

Kezia Cupit born 1869

Charles and Mary  lived out their lives in Dover where the youngest of the children went to the local school. They had many grandchildren and happily lived to see them.

In her latter years, Mary Rose joined the Salvation Army, which was active in Dover early in the 1900's. 

A group of Salvo's, taken from A History of Dover & Port Esperence by Norm Beechy & Dorothy Baker. Seated 2nd from right is Harry Schnell. Harry was born in 1874, so this photo would be right for Mary's era, in fact, I'd hazard a guess that that could even be Mary standing on the right.

She and her youngest son Ted both became officers. A War Cry indicates the Army presence in Dover as early as 1906 referencing Envoy Milsom, Brother Page, Treasurer Rose and Lieutenant Percival Stafford. In the early 1920's, Sister Mary Rose is listed as holding a post amoung 11 other women. 

In 1915, Dover Salvation Army opened, built, painted, fenced and completed out buildings in record time, their own new hall, 20 feet by 40 on a stone foundation. Now a private residence.

In August 1924, when Mary was aged 74, she accidentally drowned. My maths says she would have been 71, anyway, it seems at 6:30 Saturday evening a small fire started in a wooden part of her chimney. Mary went outside with a dipper of water. As she hadn't returned in 10 minutes, Charles called for her. The night was dark, Mary was very shortsighted and there was no answer. Eventually neighbours and police found her body in the water at the foot of the twenty foot drop behind their house. Charles, son Frank and granddaughter Connie gave evidence at the inquest.

Mary's death in the War Cry

 So poor Mary had a sad end, but she had reached a good age and Charles stated at the inquest that he had been happily married for 54 years, my maths says 56 years, but we won't quibble.

Charles and Mary Rose's house on the waterfront at Dover

behind the house down to the bay........

           .....and again, the drop behind the house, now safely fenced off

Aunty Rene, one of  Kezia's daughters said grandmother Rose was a 'beautiful lady'. Charles died 17 months later at age 81. They would both be buried in the cemetery which is now the War Memorial where their son Charley is now commemorated.

The cemetery can be seen centre at the front in this pic on what is now the War Memorial.

Cover of Dover history Group's leaflet.

A History of Dover & Port Esperance, Norm Beechy & Dorothy Baker
Caroline Haigh- transcript UTas Convicts in Context Unit
Librariestas: Tasmanian Names Index
Lydia Nicholson-Convict Heritage Sites transcript UTas Convicts in Context Unit
Trove: Huon Times, 5 August 1924 article136038628
Trove: Tas Daily News 19 August 1857
War Cry, unknown source

Martin Cupit and the Headless Corpse

Martin Cupit

Before I embarked on the two UTas Convict study units, I knew I had one convict ancestor, namely Martin Cupit. My maternal grandmother was a Cupit before she married, and Martin was her grandfather, only a mere four generations back from me.

 Martin arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1852, the tail end of criminal transportation to VDL. The abolition of slavery by the Wigg political party  in England was to increasingly influence the abolition of transportation as awareness grew of a need to overhaul punishment and conditions for these convicts. Their crimes certainly didn’t begin to match their convictions. Martin and a group of his friends were caught poaching game and were all transported aboard the “Equestrian”. Martin was 5’ 11 ¾” tall, dark complexion, black hair. His height indicates he would have probably had a childhood free from malnourishment. Martin had his right arm tattooed with a mermaid and his left with a bird and heart. He left behind a wife and daughter in Derbyshire.

  

At least 37% of males and 17% of women were inked by their arrival to the colony with secret codes and images laden with meaning. The mermaid symbolised peril at sea, beauty and fear. The bird and heart no doubt symbolised love lost, flown away. 

Martin’s record isn’t particularly long winded. He was assigned to the Douglas River Coal Company, was fined for being drunk in Feb 1853, gained his Ticket of Leave in December 1853 and was again fined on Dec 26^th, 1854 for being drunk and disturbing the peace.[i]

When he married Sarah Murphy in Franklin in 1862, his marriage certificate stated he was a laborer. How Martin ended up in Franklin, I don’t know. Franklin had plenty of convicts serving and working there, many of whom stayed on after their freedom was granted, bought or leased land and often did quite well for themselves. Martin must have made the choice to move there.  He probably labored for the many sawyers and timber workers in the Huon Valley. It was appealing work for many ex-convicts, hard, physical work they were familiar with, but with freedom from chains, gangs and masters. Records exist of women working hard with their partners carrying shingles, posts and palings on their shoulders to the beach.[ii] It was probably this kind of work that the Coroner’s verdict stated that killed poor Sarah in 1876. (previous blog)

The bare facts I have of Martin’s life after his marriage are that he and Sarah had two children William born in 1867, and Martina born in 1870 and they lived in a house owned by E.A. Walpole, Esq., P.M.

One snippet existing on Martin is a rather gruesome tale that was reported in Hobart’s Mercury newspaper. It involved Martin as a witness. In September 1866, a James Esson was accidentally drowned at Glaziers Bay. The body was placed in the police boat shed, and as was the norm, local doctor William Lee Dawson was summoned to examine the body as a medical witness. William Lee Dawson was a respected member of the Franklin community. He was a highly qualified Medical Practitioner who treated all the medical needs and emergencies including the dreadful injuries and deaths which ensued from the timber felling industry. He was appointed Deputy Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for Franklin in 1856. He conducted inquests and his normal duties included examining victims of crime, both dead and alive. He was appointed Surgeon of the Huon Rifle Company, Southern Tas Volunteers and was nominated as a candidate to serve as a Member of the House of Assembly in 1861.[iii]

 On the 15th of October 1858, Dr Dawson and E.A. Walpole signed off on the deaths of Peter McEwan age 45, James Watson age 19, Annie Montgomery age 12, John McEwan age 5 and William Willgrave age 50, all killed by a fallen tree. 

Before E.A. Walpole, Esq., P.M., at the Police Office in Franklin the story was told. On the 9^th of August, local farmer William Lovell and local undertaker Henry Newell both watched on in the boat shed as Dawson cut the head off the body and screwed the lid of the coffin down. The head was then taken away by a man known as “One-eye’d Jack”. As the plot thickens in what’s sounding quite like a Dickensian tale, John Whitemore was then employed to carry the man’s head (then in a bag) to Langford’s public house and show it to “Ratty” meaning Martin Cupit and also to Mr. Langford. John did as instructed and held the head up for the men to see. Two other witnesses were at the pub when Dawson came in, took the head and placed it in a waterhole near his home, then subsequently buried it. Martin and Mr. Langford collaborated the testimony adding that the head was decomposed and very offensive. The matter was then reported to the chief district constable

The next day Dr Dawson’s servant Henry Douglas, testified that Dawson opened the coffin and replaced the head back with the headless corpse. Dawson was fully committed for trial on this evidence. [iv]

image:  libraries tas

I don’t quite know what to make of this story. I’d love to know why this occurred and the backstory. How much of an insight does it give into Martin, or Ratty as he was known?

Was it a dare, a drunken promise or a threat? And if so, who was threatening or daring who? Why would Dawson risk his career and social standing? I reckon I’d be pretty safe in surmising that a fair bit of alcohol consumption could have been involved throughout the unfolding of the whole ordeal though. Without delving deeper into criminal records, I can’t say what happened to Dawson, except he does not appear in local newspapers again until five years later on the 28^th June 1871 in the death notices at age 53. He died and was buried in Franklin.[v] 

His obituary in The Mercury on 30th June 1871 says of him that he was a benevolent, but rather eccentric practitioner (who) had been the favourite medical advisor to all persons in the Franklin district....His nature was of the true character of charity - universal, and consequently embracing all objects and persons, poor as well as rich. His skill as a surgeon and operator was not surpassed in this colony. He had his failings like other men, but they were unlike those of most colonists "written upon his sleeve" and exposed to public criticism. His virtues preponderated over what are called failings, and the attentions paid to his wearying sick bed show that he was beloved by those who laughed at his eccentricities, while they believed in his inestimable value as a citizen.

                                                                   google search William Lee Dawson: Sharon: Tree of Me genealogy blog

His Obituary doesn’t gloss over the fact that William Lee Dawson had very public eccentricities and failings, with this event probably being one of them. He sounds like a fascinating man and one that when I get a Time Machine, I’d love to pop back and have dinner with in his Franklin house. Maybe he was an 'on the spectrum' intelligent eccentric who din't quite know social boundaries, Franklin's Doc Martin? Researching Dawson and these colourful Franklin characters just makes me wish I could have been a fly on the wall.

 Martin’s life ends sadly and prematurely too. After losing Sarah on the 24th December 1876, I would hazard a guess that Martin’s probable alcohol dependence saw him through the next two years of his life until he died of dropsy and liver disease the day before Martina’s 8^th birthday in November 1878, leaving the two children orphaned.

What became of William and Martina requires further research and a future blog post.

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[i] Librariestas name Search convict record

[ii]North of Dover & Point Esperance : Police Point to Cairns Bay : how earliest settlers changed their lives / by Dorothy Baker. Page 4

[iii]     http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8797120; http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8798879;  ttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202389235

[iv] http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8841810

[v] http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8866482

A Ghost Story

This story was read by firelight on a dark and stormy night at our house on Victoria Parade. We had a Show and Tell evening and this is what I shared:

This ghost story is a tale of tragical love and, like all good ghost stories, untimely death.  The setting was the town Devonport, Tasmania, the former then was named Formby. Ship building was conducted on the shores of the Mersey River in the late 1800’s. 

                                                      The launch of the Lizzie Taylor, East Devonport Inlet 1891.Shifting Sands, Faye Gardam

One day a shipbuilder’s son fell in love with a beautiful girl. Their eyes met at the Regatta in 1898. 

                                        Mersey Regatta. Shifting Sands, Faye Gardam

She was wearing a gown of Chantilly lace, she had a pretty face and a ponytail hanging down and a blood red rose with a blue ribbon pinned to her gown. They spent the afternoon together and vowed their undying love that night as a pale moon rose over the water and the celebratory fireworks exploded over their heads. She gave him the rose as they parted.

But alas, their love was ill-fated from the start. The young lass’ name was Jessie Drake and she came from the wrong side of the river. She was from Torquay (East Devonport) and the young man was from Formby (West Devonport) and back then a girl from the Downs of Pardoe would not be at all suitable match for a man of Victoria Parade . Jessie Drake was 16, only 16, oh but he loved her so and from then on the lad would row his little boat  over the river when he could, to spend precious moments together.

                                                                  Formby looking east to Torquay, Shifting Sands, Faye Gardam

When the lad’s father heard of these dalliances he was not happy. One evening after a meeting of the town’s founding fathers, he told of his serious concerns to Mr Oldaker. Mr McFie and Mr Fenton were listening on.

“Don’t worry old chap” interjected Mr Gunn, “leave it to me, I shall attend to the matter”

Mr Gunn was hoping for a marital pairing of his daughter with the shipbuilder’s son, but as she was a chunky, robust girl with several facial moles, this was never going to happen….as the shipbuilder’s son was gushingly gorgeous and psychological studies have proven overwhelmingly that similarly rated hotness always marries hotness of equal rating.

                                             Pintrest: Hot Vintage Men. The Handsome Victorian Gent

The next day Mr Gunn “announced”  the engagement of his daughter to the shipbuilder’s son within earshot of Mr Drake, Jessie’s father. Thinking nothing of it, Mr Drake retold the local news at his family dinner table that evening. Jessie went pale. Tears welled up and she felt ill, so excused herself quickly from the table.

Jessie went to bed and cried all night.

Before dawn she, beside herself with grief, ran down to the river bank. She called her sweetheart’s name, knowing he slept in the attic bedroom at the front of the house with the window open. The water was wide and she couldn’t cross o’er, if only he would come with his boat. But the lad slept soundly, hearing her voice weave its way into his dreams but not awakening. The tide was low and the pale moon illuminated a pathway across the river, but alas, as the sea mists rolled in, that pathway lured Jessie into its depths.

The next day news of Jessie’s death spread through the town. When the young man heard, grief stricken he went to the water’s edge, there at his feet he found a blood red rose and a blue ribbon.

The lad never recovered from losing Jessie, and certainly never married Mr. Gunn’s daughter. He put all his efforts into building a beautiful timber boat, which he named the Jessie Drake. He sailed it to Melbourne, where he bought one hundred blood-red rose bushes. That night he sailed home, and the weather was terrible. He was warned not to sail. He fought all night with the wild Bass Strait tempests, but finally when the wind was a torrent of darkness and the pale moon was a ghostly galleon, within knots of Port Frederick all was lost and the Jessie Drake went down.

The next morning dozens of blood red roses bushes were scattered on the shore.

And over the years, in the early hours of the morning when the sea mist rolls in and a pale moon shines a pathway over the waters, many have told of a ghostly ship sailing into Port Frederick with the ghost of a young man aboard calling his lost lover’s name, and, many an East Devonport residence has attested to hearing, as the fog thickens, the voice of a girl calling a name the same as was the young ship builder’s sons.

So as you walk through the streets of old Formby Town, if you see any blood red roses growing on old gnarled bushes, chances are they are from the young man’s cargo, as the locals salvaged them, and, as they were bare rooted and it was late August, they survived, because as any keen gardener knows its dashed near impossible to kill a rose, and they planted them in their gardens, and some still flower today.

Disclaimer:

                                                           Pintrest: Group portrait of Victorian gentlemen

 This story and characters are fictitious. Certain long-standing institutions, agencies, and public offices are mentioned, but the characters involved are wholly imaginary.