A stroll through Franklin and Castle Forbes Bay in 1875.

Strolling through Franklin and Castle Forbes:

Its 1875. 

John and Mary Smith and Joseph and Mary Lovell are well into their 70’s and were still living in the area they had settled in 30 years previously. They had both produced large families and subsequently had lived to see their many grandchildren as well. Both men worked in the timber industry as did their sons and grandsons.

On his approach to Franklin in July of that year, the Mercury’s Special Correspondent writes:

Fruit gardens and orchards become less frequent as you go further south. The forest is more universal; the foliage is greener and more luxuriant; the trunks of the trees are more thickly clad with moss; the fern in all its beautiful varieties is met with in larger profusion; and at shorter intervals, creeks deep, clear and rapid, or shallow and turbid, according to the formation of the country, are more numerous. They were bold men who, from whatever cause, became the pioneers of progress and civilization in this particular part of the Huon district.

                                                                                                     wikimedia.org Huon

He describes a cleared fringe along the river bank, an average width of two to three miles, beyond which are trackless forests and tangled undergrowth which forms an impassable barrier.  Franklin has a population of five to six hundred, three churches, a Mechanics Institute, several stores which would not disgrace Hobart, three public houses and a number of substantial private dwellings, some quite well-to-do, he reports. Fruit is grown here, chiefly raspberries and blackcurrants.

Two miles south of Franklin as he passes through Castle Forbes Bay, he describes the surrounds. He describes 60 inhabitants, consisting mostly of children, some of whom were certainly John and Mary Smith’s grandchildren. The youngest of John and Mary’s eight children, Isaac, would have been 33 when he strolled through the district in 1875. The most remarkable feature of Castle Forbes Bay he describes is the four-mile tramway belonging to Messrs. Smith, running from the river into the forest. A subsequent Tour Through Tasmania in 1877 again describes the tramway as a work of art: it is taken over steep ranges on the zig-zag principle, and is about the quaintest, roughest, crookedest piece of civil engineering in the Australian colonies.

This tramway is again described in 1880 as a “wonderful tramroad seen through the timber, climbing the hill in some places apparently so steep that the mystery is how locomotion on such a road is possible”.

When John and Joseph began timbering, conditions were difficult. Mr Johnson Dean wrote about the early 1850’s in his book  “On Sea and Land”.  The rising ground behind Franklin was partly cleared, but the dry trees, hundreds of feet high, and bare of leaves and bark, some standing, some lying in all directions, suggested to the newcomer the scene of a great battle. And such indeed it was, for the early pioneers had to fight for every acre of land, against trees from one to twenty yards in circumference at the butt and filled in between with scrub 20ft high and so thick that the sun was only just visible through the foliage. The swamp gums and stringy bark when carefully selected could be split into shingles, or into pailings, 7 inches wide by 6 feet long, and half an inch thick. These often had to be carried on men’s shoulders long distances out of the bush to a ‘slab’ road whence they could be carried to the riverside.

                                                                               caravanword.com.au Huon Valley

Many of the settlers were then living in two roomed slab, or bark huts.

Early settlers grew potatoes, sufficient wheat to make grist for the mill, and the only other crops reported were barley and peas to feed the pigs. The principal work was splitting shingles, laths, posts, and rails. There were no horses to do the carrying, the prepared timber being carried by the splitters on their backs to the water’s edge and some astonishingly heavy loads were conveyed in this manner. Very few settlers employed labour, as the price of produce was so low, that there was little, if anything, left after the necessary groceries and clothing were paid for. Later, prison labour was availed of by settlers. These men were described as third class pass holders. They were paid 3s, 6d. per week. Most were boarded in the homes of their masters, the only distinction made, being the provision of a separate table at meal time. For a few years the gold rush in Victoria from 1851, caused a great boom in the timber trade of the Huon, with the banks of the river almost lined with sawpits. When this slowed a good many of the timber workers became permanent settlers, and most of them ultimately took up orcharding. In 1869 plenty of timber dealers, sawyers and splitters attended a meeting at the Alabama Hotel, Shipwrights Point to discuss the Governor-in-Council’s recent announcement that licensing fees for timber cutting were being hiked from 1s per week, to 2s.6d. for each person employed. Mr M Darcy of Castle Forbes Bay explained to the chairman that the splitters worked 4 miles back from the water’s edge, and were obliged to carry timber on their backs for a distance of ½ mile out of the bush; then have it carted 1 ½ miles on road made by the settlers themselves, next  have it sledged ½ mile, when it was finally trammed 1 ½ miles to the beach. It was resolved at the meeting that the levy was both unjust and oppressive and would thereby cripple the remnant of the timber trade now left.

                                                                         tasmaniantimbers.com Huon River

Life was certainly hard for the settlers of this district, and not just carting timber.

One month after the 1875 write up, the Tasmanian Tribune reported the loss of two little Castle Forbes boys to croup, the first a poor little fellow of about six years, a son of Mr. David Smith, John and Mary’s grandson, and the other a fine promising young fellow of about 10 years old, and an only son of Mr. Denis Reilley. Life was tough, there were plenty of losses and hardships for these families. Timber getting was dangerous and catastrophic losses from bush fire was a constant risk too. The Colonial Times in January 1854 reports that the Huon’s rapid progress and flourishing timber trade has made it one of the most noted if not the most valuable settlement in the colony; but the recent calamitous fire has awakened deep sympathy in the heart of colonists. Fundraising events ensued in Hobart to assist those who had lost everything. Again in 1858, another dreadful fire fanned by winds was burning in many miles of bushland. Castle Forbes Bay and Glaziers Bay bore the brunt of more fire in 1859, with loss of homes and crops. The very livelihood of these settlers was their greatest risk, and their greatest loss too with cut timber, sawmills, crops and homes all often lost to the devastating fires that this area was and still is, sadly susceptible to.

The Mercury reported in April 1878 of the sufferings of David Smith at Castle Forbes Bay, stating “misfortunes never come singly”. David lost pailings stacked in the bush and destruction of tramroad in prevalent bushfires which were only just eased by rain. ‘The same gentleman had a valuable horse killed the previous week whilst carting pailings on the tramroad. ‘The wagon drawn by two horses, coming down an incline, by some means, probably a defective brake- overpowered the horse in the shafts…killing it upon the spot, capsizing the wagon and injuring Mr Smith’s son.

John and Mary Smith had at least 8 children (and at least 27 grandchildren) : Sons John, David, Thomas and Isaac; daughters Elizabeth, Mary, Susannah and Martha.

Thomas and Amelia Smith seated front right. The other old gentleman is William Coventry, Amelia's father. Three of William's daughters married three of John Smith's sons. Amelia married Thomas, Margaret married Isaac and Mary Anne married David. 1904

sourced Ancestry.com Cooper Family Tree

Thomas Smith

                                         John Smith jnr, looking remarkably like his father, below

It was in November that year that John Smith’s death was announced in the newspaper. He must have been widely known as Victorian and New Zealand papers were advised to copy.

                                                 Aged 83 “His end was peace”.

                                                            John Smith snr

All sources trove newspaper articles.

Nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8969824  8961714  201736666  29809428  8856640  201488444  8938544  226506491