Gwen Trundle's The Early Days of Caloundra 1960

see also  Caloundra, Gem of the Sunshine Coast by Gwen Trundle 1961

See below for the 2026 AI transcript

Cook, Flinders, Oxley, Convict Bribie

Another view is that Caloundra comes from Cullawanda meaning place of beech tree in the local dialect from times of change A History of Caloundra City Gary McKay 2007 p24

I suspect the pumice that Flinders saw floated in from some undersea volcano, and were not from the 25-27 million year old Glass House Mountains - in fact Mt Beerwah was the only one to break through the sandstone.  The sandstone has since eroded away revealing these volcanic cores.

Durundur, Cape Moreton Lighthouse

Thomas King shipwreck, aboriginal frontier wars, Queen of the Colonies shipwreck

Queen of the Colonies, aboriginal, shark attack

The rescue party

Queen of the Colonies tree

The Westaway Story, Landers, Maddock

Alexander Archer, middens at Bells Creek, indigenous, oysters,

The Mooloolah murder

first residents

Campbellville, steamers, Mavis,

First land sale, Observatory, Lighthouse, Tripconys

Sea Glint, Sir Thomas McIlwraith, Alder's Hotel, proposed railway, Wreck of the Dicky

The second Tripcony was Andrew Buchanan Tripcony. He had a boat on Pumice Stone Channel and transported all the timber and materials for the two Bribie lighthouses and the Cal. Lighthouse and for the three keepers’ dwellings. It came from Brisbane as far as Coochin Creek by steamer and he took it the rest of the way.

Lord Lamington, Thomas Welsby and JC Moffat

In 1896 Lord Lamington, the Governor of Qld and Capt. Pennefather, who had explored the fever ridden rivers of the eastern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria and was then Governor of St Helena Prison in Moreton Bay, went to Caloundra for a fishing holiday. They travelled to Landsborough by train and then endured a three hour juorney in Allen King’s horse coach over thirteen miles of corduroy and sandy road to the beach.  They stayed at “Sea Glint”. At this time there were only eleven dwellings at Cal.  Bulcock’s cottage; Wilson’s Sea Glint, the hon./ Wm. Vannick’s cottage that became the Hotel Francis in 1906; Allen Kings guest house at “Wickham House” (he represented Cal. For a year in the Landsborough Shire Council. King’s Beach was named after him.) a bark humpty on Black Flat belonging to Sam Leach; G. L. Bury’s two cottages near lighthouse, one of which became the first school around 1899;  Jas. C. Moffat’s house on the edge of the cliff at the Headland; the lighthouse keeper’s cottage; Alder’s boarded up Hotel; and Jack Plummer’s hut at Bell’s Ck. (he bought supplies once a month to three lighthouses from Bne.) Wm. Landsbourough’s deserted house had been destroyed by bush fire.

In 2026, with the help of AI, I am able to produce a transcript

The Early Days of Caloundra. (1900

The aborigines aptly named Caloundra, which meant “Beautiful Headlands”.

When I spent my school holidays at this seaside resort I heard some Americans say “If we had all this beauty in the States, we’d tell the world about it”. In all my travels I have never seen a more magnificent view than the one from the Hotel Caloundra roof-garde

The development of Caloundra was centred about the intriguing Glass House Mountains and Pumice Stone Channel, the island-studded salt-water of beauty and romance that separates the Mainland and the island that is now known as Bribie Island. Please do not call this arm of the sea Bribie Passage. There is no such name. It is “Pumice Stone Channel”, one of the oldest names historically in our state. It behoves us to use the correct name.

Captain Coo

In May 1770 Capt. Jas. Cook saw the Glass Houses as he called them, off Cape Moreton. He was entranced with the majestic beauty of these ancient, eroded volcanoes and devoted considerable space in his Log Book to their actual location, so that others, who might follow him, would be guided to these conspicuous land-marks.

Matthew Flinders

In 1799 Flinders was sent from Pt. Jackson to examine “Cook’s Glass House Bay” for a possible large river. Glass House Bay was marked on his chart between Cape Moreton, Caloundra and Bribie Island, in a line with the peaks. Flinders landed at the s.w. point of the Island, not the s.e. point as maps now show. This s.w. point he named Skirmish Point, for, although he had the Sydney native, Bongaree, with him to act as a friendly agent, the fierce Joondoburri Tribe attacked the new comers, with disastrous results to themselves.

Flinders named the narrow strait between the island and mainland Pumice Stone River, because he thought it was a river and because of the large quantities of pumice stone lying on the shore. This had been belched forth as hot ash from the Glass House Mtns. but, of course, Flinders had no time to go into such matters. Flinders rowed up a small creek that he named Glass Mtn. Ck. — Tiderburn being the aboriginal name. He rowed as far as he could go and walked the rest of the way to Beerburrum Mt.

(Note: not true that the pumice came from the Glass House Mountains)

After climbing it, he walked over the rough trachytic shingle to Mt. Tibrogargan. He was not able to climb the almost perpendicular eastern side. He sailed away without finding the big river

John Oxley

It was John Oxley’s good fortune to visit Pumice Stone River 24 years later (1823). He was met on the beach by Thos. Pamphlett, one of 3 castaways who had wandered over the coast with the natives and had discovered the big river which was later named Brisbane. This lead to the settlement of the penal establishment at Redcliffe in 1824. This was shifted a few months later to Brisbane, or Moreton Bay Settlement, as it was called. The convicts were under military rule, very strict and cruel rule.

Convict Bribie

One of the prisoners was a man named Bribie. It is not known why or when he was transported to Australia but we do know that he was at Moreton Bay when Andrew Petrie arrived in 1837. As he was a basket weaver, he was allowed to row up the Brisbane River to collect lawyer cane in the scrubs that lined the banks.

Bribie was allowed to take two natives with him and eventually he was allowed to row down stream to collect cane from the islands in the Bay. He diplomatically brought luscious oysters and fish for the Prison Officials. He visited the well-known landmark, Skirmish Pt., Bay side. He promptly absconded and lived blissfully with the natives.

So the island was referred to as Bribie’s Island. It was known as such in 1856 for Lieut. Chas. Otter wrote to Capt. Fryans, the Commandant at Moreton Bay, on Monday 8th August of that year that he “proceeded (from Lytton) for a day at Briby’s Island, at the north end of the Bay.”

When Bribie’s sentence was up, he reported back to the Commandant “with the expectation of gaining his freedom”. But the Commandant reminded him that he had run away before his sentence was completed, so he still had time …

One small historical note: Gwen’s statement that the pumice “had been belched forth as hot ash from the Glass House Mountains” reflects a common local belief of the time, but modern geology indicates the pumice found along Pumicestone Passage was largely rafted ash and pumice from distant volcanic eruptions rather than directly erupted from the Glass House Mountains themselves. 

(2)

…to do, plus a penalty for absconding. He remained in the precincts of the Settlement, doing his cane-work until the cessation of convictism when he returned to Bribie and his native consort.

DURUNDUR

No free settlers were allowed to visit the convict settlement without a permit and no one was permitted to establish a station within 50 miles of it. Consequently when the Archer Brothers drove their flocks from Wallerong in N.S.W. in 1841 in search of good country, though they fancied the Mt. Brisbane area, they did not squat there, as they were not sure if it was 50 miles from the military controlled Moreton Bay Settlement, where convicts were still housed, although no fresh ones were being sent there

Archers went through the range (now called the D’Aguilar Range) and founded Durundur Station in the present Woodford area. The Durundur blacks were just as fierce as the Bribie Island blacks. I know that from stories that my maternal grandmother used to tell me of the Waraba blacks of the period 25 years after the Archers settled at Durundur.

After 5 yrs experience of them the Archers managed to tame them considerably but kept them at a distance. The following extract that Thomas Archer wrote to his father in Norway on 22.3.1846 showed his opinion of the blacks —

“They are all lazy, independent and migratory but the blacks in the Castlereagh District are not so thievish, fierce or numerous as here, although I think they are braver and, in short, a more elevated breed than those here, though they are all evidently of the same family. What I mean by elevated is, that their habits are not so brutal and degraded, such as eating their particular friends and children, after they are dead, whether by chance of war or disease — as our friends here invariably do. This I could not credit for a long time till convinced by indisputable proof.”

The fierce Bribie Island and Ninghi Ninghi tribes hated the Meanchin or Brisbane tribe as they suspected them of helping the white men to capture black murderers. If they managed to seize a Brisbane tribesman, they chopped his head off and then cut him up into little bits and enjoyed the job.

The explorer, Leichhardt, stayed with the Archer Bros. for 9 months in 1843–4 and went with John Archer to the Bunya Festival upon the Range where Maleny now stands. He explored Cook’s Glass Houses,

“Those remarkable mtns. that rise out of the plain like needles, like castles—”

He and Archer visited the southern end of Pumice Stone Channel and ate roasted wood grubs and enjoyed them. In all these travels, Leichhardt collected botanical and geological specimens.

In early 1847 Mr. Mossman visited Durundur — naturalist, entomologist, botanist, musician and composer. These two gifted men, Leichhardt and Mossman, publicised the district but little settlement took place, due to the ferocity of the natives.

CAPE MORETON LIGHTHOUSE

In 1842 Andrew Petrie and his party sailed up Pumice Stone Channel and over the Caloundra Bar on his way to the Wide Bay area to search for the wild white men, Duramboi and Wandi. Petrie felt safer in the Channel than out in the Bay, as it was full of reefs and unsurveyed

In late 1847, Capt. J.C. Wickham, a marine surveyor and Police Magistrate at Brisbane, charted the northern portion of Moreton Bay and named Caloundra Headland Wickham Point. This was the first name bestowed on the Caloundra area.

This survey was carried out after the wreck of the Sovereign at the South Passage with heavy loss of life on March 11, 1847. The people of Moreton Bay were angry with the Parsimonious N.S.W. Govt.’s delay in yielding to the clamour of the northern settlement for a lighthouse at the northern entrance to Moreton Bay. More wrecks occurred before the Cape Moreton Lighthouse was opened in August 1857. This brought shipping past the Caloundra

(3)

Caloundra had also been in the news in 1852 when some of the survivors of the wrecked “Thomas King” were killed and eaten there by blacks. The 1840’s and early 1850’s were marked by intense aboriginal antagonism towards the whites, following the Kilcoy poisoning in 1842 of a number of blacks with arsenic and flour. So fierce was the black men’s hatred that Dundalli, the slayer of white men, was a hero to them. On the scaffold, Dundalli appealed to his brethren to avenge his death.

“The QUEEN OF THE COLONIES”

 Six years after the Cape Moreton Lighthouse was opened a cyclone brought Caloundra into the news. On 6.4.1863 a steamer from England, the Queen of the Colonies, Capt. Robert Cairncross (a name well known historically in Brisbane now) gained the comparative safety of Moreton Bay after being battered by a fierce s.e. gale and heavy rain squalls.

There was another reason for desiring the shelter of the bay, for a passenger, Mrs. Barnsfield, had died and had expressed a wish to be buried and not consigned to the sea. The captain arranged a burial party to row over to Moreton Island in the gig. The party, clad in oil coats and hats, consisted of deceased husband, Dr. Barnsfield, some passengers and some crew, with Mr. Edridge, the first mate in charge, thirteen men altogether.

Their mission completed, they were rowing back to the ship when a particularly heavy gale and torrential rain struck them. The downpour was so thick that in a few minutes they could not see the ship. They were powerless against the wind and were driven towards the north-west.

Wm. Durrant, a passenger who had volunteered to row in the gig, later told this vivid story. The men “laboured for 18 hours at the oars against the savage wind and blinding rain. Of course they knew that the Queen of the Colonies was to windward and they struggled to get back to her. When they were utterly exhausted, Edridge improvised a sail by knotting two oilcoats together and allowed the gig to run before the wind.”

“With much skill and coolness”, Durrant wrote, “Edridge succeeded in beaching her in a small bay about six miles to the North of Bribie’s Island.”

Quickly the weary men scrambled ashore and dragged their precious boat up the steeply-shelving beach. They thought that the little cove was Moolulu Bight (now spelt Mooloolah) but it was not so far north as the Mooloolah River area. They landed on what is now called Moffat Beach at Caloundra.

The castaways had struggled so long and so dangerously against the cyclone that they thought they were further away from Bribie’s Island than they really were — a mere mile or so, not six miles. They left conclusive proof that Moffat Beach was their landfall by carving the name of their ship and the date on a pandanus tree on the northern slope of the high headland beside the cove. This is now known as Moffat Head.

The castaways first need was drinking water. Fortunately they found it in a spring just a few yards up the hill, as they clambered up the rocky headland to reconnoitre. This spring was the only good water they found in all their wanderings in that area.

(Fifty years later campers used this crystal-clear water and one regular visitor to this sequestered spot sent a cask below the spring — a miniature tank, as it were. Many a drink I had from this spring. The scrub surrounding it has now been cleared away and the water supply had almost vanished. The land is now owned by a member of the Grigor family, of which we shall hear later).

The castaways ate oysters and other shell fish that they found on the rocks. Fortunately they had a few dry matches and were able to coax a fire to burn, sodden though the timber was. They hoped to attract shipping as well as to warm and dry themselves. But they waged a losing battle as the rain teemed down on them and they were obliged to conserve …

(4)

…their matches. Exhausted, cold and hungry, they lay on the wet sand, sprayed by the thunderous surf.

Next day they radiated from their camp in search of settlers or aborigines but they found no signs of human beings. At sunset they lit a bonfire on the headland, hoping that the staff of Cape Moreton Lighthouse, only fifteen miles across the sea, would see it. The union Jack was taken from the gig and, fastened to a boat hook, was hoisted to the top of a pandanus tree to guide any rescue party that might come that way. This was the tree on which they carved the name of their ship.

Two days after landing they started to walk south to Brisbane Town along the coast. After dragging themselves along for “about ten miles” as they estimated, they came to a “river of considerable depth and width”. This was Toorinegoor Creek, now known as Bell’s Creek. In vain the stranded men searched for a fordable spot in the flooded creek. Darkness overtook them, so did hordes of mosquitoes between violent rain squalls.

After a night of torture, the hungry men turned inland in an attempt to cross the creek, only to become bogged in a swamp that seemed endless. (Without being flooded, this swamp consists of 800 acres.) They became entangled in reeds, mangroves and flooded melon holes.

Reluctantly they returned to Moffat Beach. It was a nightmare struggle for these men, weakened by cold and hunger. On the eighth day of their plight, the raging south-easterly wind shifted. The rain ceased. The castaways were jubilant. They decided to leave at once by sea.

In their inexperience of cyclonic conditions, these Englishmen launched the boat at once, instead of waiting a few days for the sea to calm down. The waves were mountainous, as they generally are on that beach. The gig was heavily laden with thirteen men. It climbed up the side of three successive waves and thudded down into the troughs, shipping water to the thwarts. It could not climb up the wall of water that the fourth wave presented and turned end-over-end.

All was confusion. Captain Hill, a “Queen of the Colonies” passenger, was swimming fifty yards off shore and saw Dr. Barnsfield’s body being dashed about by the waves and “two large sharks in pursuit of it”. The water seemed to be full of the man-eating monsters. All the men regained the shore but the doctor’s body was not seen again.

The future looked bleaker. They had lost all they possessed. Only their shirts and trousers remained and four pairs of boots between twelve men. Captain Hill had lost a vest and a silver Bible clasp with his initials engraved on it. Later they were washed ashore. Although he valued the vest for its warmth and the clasp for its family associations, he would gladly have exchanged them both for one lucifer.

These men did not know how to make fire. They were from the cities of England and knew no bushcraft. If there had been any aborigines in the area, they would probably have fed them and showed them how to find food in the bush, as the natives, though fierce, were very compassionate towards the sick and unfortunate.

But the aborigines had wisely left the cyclone-lashed coast, where fishing was impossible, and gone to the sheltered country beyond the range (later known as the Blackall Range). They could hunt game there.

Hope surged through the hearts of the emaciated men when they saw a trim schooner approaching their beach. Nearer it came as if in response to their frantic signals, when about one mile from shore, it veered away. This was the “Spitfire”. It was sharply criticised later by the Brisbane press for not making a more thorough search. The crew defended their action by declaring that they thought the men were natives, as they were black, which they were — from exposure.

In despair the sea castaways built a frail shelter of boughs and bark on the beach near the bluff headland where water and shell fish could be obtained without much exertion. They sat down …

(5)

…to await rescue, as they were then too weak to walk to Brisbane. Most of the men were suffering from dysentery. Capt. Hill abstained from drinking much water and ate sparingly of the wretched food available. He maintained the best health of the party.

Edridge, the mate, with Durrant and Grant decided to try to reach Brisbane by walking in a s.w. direction in order to avoid the mouths of the tidal creeks. The upper reaches of the flooded creeks would be more fordable. This was sound reasoning. Hoping to reach some settler’s hut, the three men left the camp at day-break on Thursday, taking with them a few shell fish. They were back at the camp on Sunday afternoon.

After floundering in the flooded country to the south of what is known as Little Mountain (which was really part of the 800 acre swamp) they were forced to abandon the project. Wearily they dragged themselves back to their companions on the beach. Consternation! There were no companions there! Durrant later wrote:

“Our fellow-sufferers were gone and the miserable hut, we had erected, was down. After a search we found a written paper which informed us that they had been relieved by the Water Police on 18th.”

That was the day before. By just a few hours the three travellers had missed the rescue party. It was a bitter disappointment to the three sick men. Heavy rain and gale force winds returned. The ground was sodden. If they had the means of lighting a fire, they would have been happier. Their clothes were in tatters.

Laboriously they re-erected the bough and bark shelter at the foot of the headland where it was slightly sheltered from the south easterly gale. At “the Queen of the Colonies” pandanus tree they erected a broken oar. The Water Police would return, they felt sure, to see if their message had been received. We must leave them now and consider the trials of the rescue party.

THE RESCUE PARTY

In blinding rain the “Queen of the Colonies” had searched in vain for the burial party and had steamed to the mouth of the Brisbane River where Capt. Cairncross had reported the loss of thirteen men to the Pilot Station, which was just inside the sandy bar of the river

As a result, Water Police Insp. John McDonald left the station in the tug steamer “Brisbane”, Capt. Cameron, to search for the missing men. The Queen of the Colonies was obliged to await her absent passenger and crew

The “Brisbane” landed the rescue party on Bribie Island which was combed as thoroughly as possible in its flooded state. The lagoons and wallum country were awash. No clues being found, Insp. McDonald decided to steam to the northern end of Pumice Stone Channel.

There he and a small party rowed through the treacherous Caloundra Bar, being almost swamped. They landed on the mainland at a flat spot. This later became Caloundra’s first recreation area and was named Black Flat because of the colour of its soil.

One of McDonald’s men, named Truson, knew the passage for boats among the islands in Pumice Stone Channel and guided the rowers down to the southern end. The western shore of Bribie Island was then scoured with no success.

They rowed again the full, tortuous length of the Channel, about twenty miles at least. They landed on the mainland and pitched a tent on Black Flat. The crew were very footsore and fatigued and rested while McDonald and a crew member named Campbell started to walk around the rocky coast.

In heavy rain the two men stood on the precipitous headland and scanned the beach to the north. Visibility was almost nil but they saw something on the beach. They found Capt. Hill, three other passengers and five sailors. They were almost naked and “in a pitiable condition”.

After they had eaten the scanty food that McDonald and Campbell had been able to carry, the party slowly made their way to the tent on Black Flat. There hot tea was given to them but there was no food for the rescued or the rescuers.

Next day at noon the party left in the gig for the southern end of Pumice Stone Channel. Loaded almost to the gunwale, the party made slow progress in drenching rain. They arrived at the southern end of Bribie Is. at 4 a.m. on Sunday. They landed and lit a fire at once and stayed beside it until daylight. Then, hungry and cold, the crew assisted the sick castaways …

(6)

…across the island to the ocean beach. There they lit a fire to attract the notice of the tug “Brisbane”. Anxiously they scanned the horizon for some sign of her but it was nine o’clock before they saw a faint smudge of smoke from her funnel.

The sea was boiling and the wind was behind the “Brisbane” so she did not venture any nearer to the island. Something had to be done, thought McDonald, as the rescued men were in a dangerous condition and he feared that they would die, if succour was not soon obtained.

The crew of his gig were exhausted, hungry and cold. They had rowed the whole length of the channel three times and had eaten no food for two days. McDonald, grand leader that he was, decided to take Capt. Hill and two others in the gig to the “Brisbane”. The remainder were ordered to keep the fire going and to stay beside it.

With great skill the four men rowed through the swirling sea, narrowly averting capsize. After four hours the rowers reached the steamer, where they were given succour by Capt. Cameron.

McDonald called for volunteers from the crew of the “Brisbane” to row to Bribie Is. to bring back the rest of the party. All were safely on the tug by 6.30 p.m. 19th April. This was an excellent piece of seamanship.

On board the “Brisbane” the sick men relaxed among blankets and were given sips of fluid food. As the night was dark, the vessel remained in the Bay all night. Next day she took the nine castaways up to their ship which was still anchored outside the Brisbane River Bar.

Capt. Cairncross welcomed them with the utmost consideration and care. McDonald left at once in the same tug to look for Edridge, Grant and Durrant.

Arriving at Toorbul Point, the rescue party transferred to the gig. Then began the long row to Caloundra. They again pitched a tent on Black Flat. It was dark — Wed. 22nd April. There was no time to rest. McD. and a man named Simpson walked round the rocky headlands at great risk of injury from the slippery rocks.

They arrived at the old encampment at Moffat Beach at 8 o’clock. The only sounds were the roar of the sea and the shrieking of the s.e.ly gale. They called the men by name but received no answer.

Groping about in the dark, they found that the bough and bark shelter had been re-erected since they were there on the previous Sat. They knew then that the three men had returned. They could not be far away.

They were found asleep on the sand. When awakened they seemed to be wandering in their minds. Durrant was so ill from dysentery that he could not stand alone. McD. sent Simpson back to the gig (round the rocks in the dark again) to bring the crew, as the rescued men had to be carried to the gig.

Clothes were given to them to cover their suffering almost naked bodies. At first they could not eat but they soon improved.

“Their whole subsistence”, wrote McD., “for sixteen days had been shell-fish picked from the rocks. They were almost at death’s door and could not have lasted many hours. Want of food, fire and clothing and the natural consequences of these wants — disease — having entirely prostrated them. Their mental powers were beginning to fail.”

Next day, 23rd April, the party left Caloundra to the seagulls and, having rowed all day, reached the “Brisbane”. The crew of the gig were so fatigued that they could not have gone any further.

In a raging tempest they arrived at the “Queen of the Colonies” where they received medical care.

Thus ended the ordeal of the twelve surviving castaways, the first known, though involuntary, white residents of Caloundra.

Insp. McD. was honoured in Brisbane for his “gallant rescue” of the men.

THE QUEEN OF THE COLONIES TRE

This pandanus palm was cared for by Mr. David Rooke of the Hotel Francis. He kept the lettering carved and painted and the ground about it cleared.

When the Landsborough Shire Council was formed in 1913, it fenced the tree and maintained it.

Unfortunately it succumbed to old age in 1949. The portion bearing the ship’s name was sent by the Council to the Historical Society. It is now in this very building.

The Landsborough Shire Council has named the street that runs the length of the headland past this tree Queen of the Colonies Parade.

After the removal …

(8)

Westaway occupation as late 1863. Thus Wm. and Richard Westaway were the first white residents in the near Caloundra area which was only two miles from their boundary. What is now called Little Mountain near Caloundra was marked on Wm. Landsborough’s map in 1882 as “Westaway’s Hill”. The Westaway families still live on this property but it is now called “Meridan Plains”.

ALEXANDER ARCHER

It was Alexander Archer who stimulated interest in Caloundra itself two years later (1865). This adventurous, thirty-seven year old banker was so stirred by the pathetic experiences of the “Queen of the Colonies” castaways and the long rowing voyages of the crew of the “Brisbane” that he organised a visit to Caloundra (which he spelt COLOWNDRA).

He and three friends rowed — yes rowed — from Brisbane to Caloundra and back. There were still no settlement there but a few oyster-gatherers visited the northern end of the Channel. The oysters were so numerous and so large that it paid them to take them sixty odd miles to Brisbane in their little boats, propelled by oars when wind power failed them.

On 1st October, 1851, pearls had been found there but that did not induce settlers to go there. One oyster gatherer named Gray had been murdered by the blacks at the Toorbul end in July 1849.

The natives, implicated, quickly decamped to Caloundra, a safe retreat in those days. With some trepidation Archer’s party approached the shores of Bribie Is. They had been told in Brisbane that:

“the Bribie Is. blacks have a very bad name which is partly the reason why this part of the Bay is visited less than others but they had done nothing very bad to white people for awhile”.

Archer was also told in Brisbane to ask for Jimmy Beerwah and his brass plate, if the blacks wanted to eat him!

Jimmy had been an honoured associate of Andrew Petrie and later of Thomas Archer when they each climbed Mt. Beerwah, the highest of the Glass House Mtns. Jimmy would not go to the top as he had been told that there was a debbil-debbil up there that would eat him.

For his services to white people, he was given a brass plate to wear suspended from his neck. The very mention of this well known aborigine would ensure Archer’s safe passage through the ferocious Bribie Is. tribe.

The little party slept at the White Patch where Matthew Flinders careened his ship, the Norfolk, in 1799.

Ten or twelve miles to the west Archer saw:

“a wonderful group of mountains called the Glasshouses that he knew to be near his brother’s former station, Durundur.”

This sight delighted him and he wrote:

“In the early morning light it was a beautiful sight with the morning rays of the sun lighting them up like a fairy scene. They were the most curious mountains I have ever seen, some of them like huge sugar-loaves standing up grandly out of the plains”.

From Toorimgoor Creek almost to Caloundra Archer found delectable oysters. He estimated that there were enough in one bed to fill three ships.

“(To-day there are not many there but they are being farmed).”

Recently I made an interesting discovery on the Caloundra side of the mouth of Toorimgoor or Bell’s Ck. A few feet from the edge of Pumice Stone Channel there are some middens or refuse heaps. They were overgrown with grass but can be easily located by the presence of bleached shells.

As a member of the Anthropological Society of Qld. I recognised them as aboriginal middens

So I dug down with a sharp shovel in an effort to unearth some aboriginal stone axe-heads.

So far, all I had got was a lather of perspiration and amused but pointed remarks from spectators, such as:

“Isn’t she crazy, digging for gold there? and

“Must be an archaeologist. A crack-pot, as the lady tapped her brow suggestively.”

Another enthusiastic enthusiast turned up to axe heads, but I unearthed literally thousands of large oyster shells representing many feasts held there by the blacks.

Just south of Toorimgoor Creek, Archer met a lone white timber-seeker who was not interested in the party but rowed in the opposite direction.

The bar at the northern end of the Channel was very rough, the waves being feet high. The four men had a bathe on what is now called King’s Beach and were severely dumped by the rough surf.

(9)

They were probably the first white men to surf at Caloundra. Archer liked the landscape very much with its bold headlands and park-like countryside with trees dotted here and there (lantana being unknown there then).

He wrote to his niece,

“This place is called Caloundra. It would make a capital sea bathing place as there are beautiful sites for houses and there is good garden soil but it is too far from Brisbane to be much frequented for such purpose for many years to come.”

On their way home, the party was enjoying a meal of delicious roasted golden lip oysters when a seven foot 6in high kangaroo jumped among them from nowhere. Naturally there was a scattering of men and food but the bounding visitor left as hurriedly as he arrived.

THE MOOLOOLAH MURDER

These facts are taken from the press of the times.

On 23.2.1866 Wm. Stevens, a “botanical collector in the employ of the Govt. Gardens in Bne” entered Jas Low’s store at Mooloolah which was then on the present site of Alexandra Headlands. There he bought simple stores and received the change from a sovereign in silver coins.

Standing nearby was an aborigine, Tommy Skyring, whom Stevens had hired to guide him to the native Mounted Police Camp at Durundur Stn, also two other natives Capt. Piper and Johnny Griffin.

Stevens camped the night at a well known camping spot near the present Caloundra Turnoff from the Bruce Highway. It was never dry, and surrounded by palms, tree ferns, etc.

Stevens was sitting on the stem of a crooked Banksia tree mixing a damper on a sheet of bark, when Piper and Griffin stepped from the bushes with cat-like tread.

Piper struck him on the back of the head with a waddy. Skyring and Griffin later deposed that Piper forced them to hack the botanist’s head and neck with tomahawks.

In fact, Griffin, a mere youth, said that Piper held his hand and forced him to chop.

The three aborigines then ate the murdered man’s food and divided his money and swag between them. They threw the body into the deepest part of the waterhole.

Since then this pool has been called Deadman’s Waterhole. To-day it is just a shallow waterhole. It is part of a Scenic Reserve of 32 acres.

The State Govt. intends to develop it as a tourist attraction. As the scrub has been preserved a very large cedar tree in its centre has survived. The Rustic Cabin is at the eastern end of this Reserve.

After Piper and his mates had shared the loot, they walked to Mellum Creek (now Landsborough) and sought John Lander. To him they told a tale that “wild blackfellows kill white man.”

Suspicious, Lander hurried to Low’s store to check the native’s statement. There he met Thos. Maddock, one of the men who had arrived with Westaway Bros.

He was then living at Maroochy, now Yandina. He offered to ride to the Police at Durundur for help. Steven’s body was found.

Tommy Skyring was promptly arrested at Buderim. He divulged in broken English that he, Piper and Griffin had planned the murder but that Piper had struck the first blow.

He was put in Boggo Road Gaol where he pined and died. Griffin does not appear to have been punished.

Piper was eventually captured but escaped with the hand-cuffs still on his wrists. From old-timers I have learned that he roamed in the shadows from the Maroochy River to Bribie Island but he was hampered by the bracelets he wore.

They chafed and marked him but he could not manage to dislodge them.

But a lucky day arrived, for he found a rusty file in a hollow stump at Mellum Creek not far from a saw-pit. He did not know at first what it was, so he approached it cautiously.

Eventually he held it in his strong teeth and freed himself.

The natives had fed him, as it was a tribal custom to share all food and assist the helpless.

The Brisbane Courier called this the Mooloolah Murder.

Because Piper was at large and was known to be dangerous, a detachment of the Native Mounted Police was stationed at Cobb’s Camp or Middle Camp, as it was called, as a half-way point between Brisbane and the Gympie diggings.

It is now called Woombye.

James Nash had discovered gold at Gympie on 16th October 1867. This brought prospectors and miners flocking along the rough tracks to the Diggings to try their …

(10)

One of the routes followed the Mooloolah River, round Buderim Mt. to the Maroochy River. This brought settlers to these rivers.

In 1878 Thomas Maddock selected “Koongangoom” (Koo-ang-um) on the Mooloolah River near present Glenview.

In late January 1879 he was at Middle Camp on business when he saw a native near the Police STATION. He was clad in a filthy and tattered shirt. (For natives by that time tried to get clothes by any means at all).

Maddock thought he knew the native who was begging for food. So he pounced on him and looked at his wrists. He saw there the tell-tale marks made by the hand-cuffs.

Peter Stevens of Maroochie helped him hold the writhing native until Constable Smith arrived to arrest Piper.

He had been at large for thirteen years; he was imprisoned in the Brisbane jail. He was visited by Duramboi in Boggo Road. Eleven times he was remanded by the three Magistrates being J.H. Wheelwright, the Police Magistrate, Robt. Bulcock and T. Illidge, both the last two well known in Caloundra.

Owing to the difficulties of obtaining witnesses, Piper was acquitted. The men of his own tribe feared him and said:

“I’m bad fellow”.

He was devoted to Mrs. Maddock and would guard her children like a watch dog, particularly when they were in the water

Once he was soundly thrashed with a horse whip by a woman, Mrs. Wm. Westaway, for what reason I do not know.

Piper led (later) a life of debauchery and violence and died at Kedron Brook from poisoned rum administered by a native.

FIRST RESIDENTSThe Land ACT of [unclear] 1868 allowed the Govt. to subdivide 50% of a pastoral run for closer settlement.

John Westaway’s run was cut up in 1869, the Crown Land Ranger, Chas. Ballinger, securing Portion 1 and 12 in the Parish of Bribie.

Ballinger seems to have been a Quaker, for he soon had a number of the Society of Friends about him in 1870.

By 1871 they were crushing their own sugar cane in a mill that they had made themselves on Portion 1 which was between the Mooloolah River and Currimundi Lake.

Ballinger’s Portion 12 was on the northern shore of Pumice Stone Channel and extended from Black Flat to King’s Beach.

So Chas. Ballinger was the first landowner in Caloundra but he did not occupy the land.

The record of this land in the Strong Room of the Survey Department reads,

“Conveyed to the Crown”.

A new deed was issued to R. Bulcock on 8th Nov. 1875 — 277 acres 1 rood 32 perches for which he paid £70/15/-.

Bulcock built the first house in Caloundra in 1878 on a knoll facing the beach that now bears his name, called the Homestead.

Bulcock, Member for Enoggera in the Qld. Parliament, used it as a retreat from the political world.

Portion 12 is now the business section.

At the northern end of present day Caloundra, Chas. Ballinger’s son, Thomas John, selected Portion 44, just south of Currimundi Lake, in 1881.

His early settlers type hut was the first permanent dwelling in Caloundra.

There he grew sheep which used to sleep (camp) at night on a high hill about ½ mile from the beach, known as Ballinger’s Hill.

When Ballinger needed to go to Brisbane for supplies every six months, he drove two draught horses in a covered van.

During his return journey he sold dishes, buckets, camp ovens etc. to isolated settlers.

In the Russian scare of 1882 Ballinger’s Hill was fortified and named Battery Hill.

Last year, 1959, the Landsborough Shire Council was asked by the residents of the area between Dicky Beach and Currimundi Lake to give it a name.

The Council was pleased to call it Ballinger Beach.

The second resident was Samuel Leach who came in early 1882 to live on Portion 26 at the junction of Pumice Stone Channel and Bell’s Creek.

This is at the extreme southern end of Caloundra.

As a watch dog Leach had a galah on a perch.

No stealthy aborigine could creep up to this little homestead.

Leach arrived at Bell’s Creek a few months before Hon. Wm. Landsborough who became the third resident.

Landsborough was a descendant of King Ethelred of England, dating back to 968 A.D.

He became Qld.’s greatest explorer.

In 1881 he took up land at Loch Lameroo which was between Bulcock’s and Leach’s lands.

He and his second wife had spent their honeymoon at …

(11)

Wm. Grigor’s accommodation house at Glass House Mtns. eight years before. Grigor deserves the credit of opening a sawmill at Peachester. He then selected 160 acres in 1868, to the west of Mt. Tibrogargan.

When Cobb & Co.’s coaches began plying to the Gympie Diggings he opened his slab home to travellers. The coaches stopped there for meals and a change of horses. Part of this old home on the old Gympie Rd. still stands.

Grigor’s daughter, Mrs. Clementina Burgess, has lived all her life in the second home there and has lent me this drawing of the home executed by an artist in 1875.

Mrs. Grigor was a very good natured woman and was one of the grandmothers of the bush.

Landsborough and his bride “penetrated” — notice the word he used — the vine scrubs on horseback and reached the northern end of Pumice Stone Channel.

He loved the place and longed to live there.

Consequently when Sir Thos. McIlwraith’s Govt. granted him £2000 as a reward for his explorations in Qld., he at once selected Loch Lameroo on Pumice Stone Channel and grew wool.

Everyone grew sheep beside the sea at that time.

The Great Explorer, as he was referred to in Parliament, revelled in the beauty of the place as well as in the sheep work.

He was then 56 years. His wife, poor soul, hated the place.

She had been happy at Toowong and had been reconciled to living at Humpy Bong because her husband loved the sea.

It was quite far enough from civilisation but Caloundra, to her, was the Back of Beyond.

Landsborough died there in 1886 and was buried beside the water.

A stone cairn now marks the spot.

His selection is now Golden Beach.

The street along the esplanade is called Landsborough Parade.

It passes two fig trees that Mrs. Landsborough planted in 1884.

One tree is now on the footpath with a seat under it.

The other is in a front garden but the owner has cut the tree back severely — hoping it would die.

To my joy it is now shooting vigorously.

In one part of this estate, the streets have been named after explorers.

CAMPBELLVILLE

It was Jas Campbell and Sons who made closer settlement at Caloundra attractive.

The country west of the Channel was dotted with men seeking cedar logs, which were cut in the uplands, chuted over the cliffs into the valleys, floated down the creeks, to the sea and rafted to Brisbane.

Jas. Campbell & Sons saved them an arduous job by establishing a sawmill four miles south of Coochin Coochin Creek in 1880.

Bulcock teams then brought the logs to the mill, and the sawn timber taken to Brisbane by the Co.‘s two little tug steamers, the Mavis (Capt. Tutty) which was launched on New Year’s Day 1883 and the Leonie.

On the return journey they brought passengers and merchandise.

This valuable service broke the isolation.

The Co.’s “Bribie” then plied to Black Flat, Caloundra, with passengers, mail and stores.

It brought the timber from Campbellville for Landsborough’s second home, built opposite the bar, and considered palatial at the time.

The first manager of Coochin Coochin Mill was a man named Bartholomew, the second manager George Peter Campbell, a son of Jas. C.

The manager’s house was near the mill and had a steeply pitched shingle roof.

The pet of the establishment was a monkey.

When some defective shingles were being removed from the roof, the monkey climbed to the other side and out of sight, tore off good, sound shingles, and threw them to the ground, just as the workmen were doing on the other side.

Alas he fell from a pontoon and was drowned.

At the mouth of the Coochin Creek, John Dunmore Campbell, another son of James, built a holiday house on 898 acres that he owned there; always referred to as the Bar House.

The kitchen was 60 ft. from the house and in flood times this presented a problem.

He then put square paving blocks under the Bar House and had the kitchen there.

This land is now owned by the Roy family who run a prosperous citrus orchard there.

J.D. Campbell later lived in an historical house in Brisbane, “Maryview”, the home that Patsy Durack built at Albion in 1886 and named in honour of his wife, Mary Costello.

This was considered a mansion.

The land alone cost £8,000 and extended to the …

(12)

…to the Brisbane River. Durack had many horses there. On J.D. Campbell’s death his son Victor, sold the house to the C. of E. for a school, Mt. Margaret’s.

J.D. Campbell was a member of the Caboolture Divisional Board and used to drive a buggy and pair up to Caboolture every month for the meeting.

In 1899 he became member for Moreton which he held until his death in 1909.

His sister Elizabeth married Don Petrie of “Murrumba”.

FIRST PUBLIC SALE OF LAND

The first public sale of land, under the supervision of that witty Irishman Hon. Patk. Perkins, the Commissioner for Lands (R.J. Smith) and the Postmaster General, Hon. H.D. Morehead, was conducted on 9.4.1883

The Govt. hired the “Mavis” for three days for £30.

They reached Loch Lameroo via Pumice Stone Channel early on the 9th, took Landsborough on board and then went to Shelley Beach where most of the allotments were for sale.

They stayed with the Landsborough family but slept on board the Mavis that was anchored in front of the house.

They left next morning (10) crossing the Bar to return along the east coast of Bribie.

These are the names of some who bought blocks:-

Edmund Lander, Jas. Campbell, G.P. Campbell, W.L.G. Drew (Auditor General), C. Bowman (Mt. Brisbane), W. Butter (Kilcoy), J.R. Dickson Snr., J. D. Campbell, and A. McCallum (on whose land the Convent is about to be built this year 1960), Capt. R.W. Leftwich, Capt. J.W. Swain, W. Markwell, T. Heaslop, Robt. Cribb, R. Rendle and others.

THE OBSERVATORY

During the Russian Scares, the electric telegraph was extended to Campbellville and to Caloundra.

The office at Cal. was in a four-roomed house with a kitchen connected to it by a covered way.

THIS was one of two built by G.I. Bury who had opened an hotel near the present day Mooloolah township.

Cobb & Co. coaches passed it on their way to Middle Camp.

Later Bury moved to Nambour and the site of his hotel was marked by a large clump of bamboos in which literally thousands of bottles had been dumped by visitors to the hotel.

Robt. Bulcock had devoted the highest part of his Portion 12 to the erection of an Observation Platform, at his own expense, merely one rail round it and 30 ft. from the ground, and manned voluntarily by the few settlers day and night in all weather during the Russian scare.

THE RAILWAY 1890

The railway was opened from Caboolture to Landsborough on 1st Feb. 1890 and it captured the timber and goods freight.

Campbell’s closed the Campbellville mill and shifted the plant to Albion.

Some of the staff houses were shifted to Caloundra.

W. Westaway bought the manager’s house and re-erected it at the corner of King St. and Edmund St. at King’s Beach.

He named it Wickham House.

In the month of May this year it was demolished, the timber still in excellent order, to make way for a block of luxury flats.

It is to be re-erected at Caboolture.

Another building was bought by Mr. Mawson of Coochin Ck.

This is also still in use.

A coach service carrying mails, passengers and goods were then started by the Govt. with Allan King as contractor.

He had arrived at Cal. in 1888 via Campbellville.

CALOUNDRA LIGHTHOUSE 1896

The lighthouse was built a few feet above the Observation Platform in 1896.

It is a circular tower 38 ft. high, 171 ft. above high water and the light is visible 16 miles.

The first light keeper was Carl Bernard Waldemar Edlundh, a Swede, who was married to a German — a combination which would take some beating for thoroughness.

They had several daughters who were born at Cal. and given Caloundra as their second name.

TRIPCONY FAMILY

This family was of Spartan endurance.

Thomas Martin Tripcony was employed at George Raff’s sugar plantation near the mouth of the Caboolture River.

Raff was a politician and lived at Gregory Terrace, Brisbane.

When Tripcony needed to go to Brisbane he and his young wife, from Stirling, Scotland, walked all the way in 1859 — he carrying the swag and she their young son, named Constantine James Abercrombie Buchanan Tripcony.

T.M. Tripcony took up “Cowie Bank” near Glass Mtn. Ck. in the early 1870.

The turpentine tree that Matthew Flinders marked in 1799 was …

(13)

…on their property. (It was burnt down sometime after 1900).

The second Tripcony was Andrew Buchanan Tripcony. He had a boat on Pumice Stone Channel and transported all the timber and materials for the two Bribie lighthouses and the Cal. lighthouse and for the three keepers’ dwellings.

It came from Brisbane as far as Coochin Creek by steamer and he took it the rest of the way.

His wife was also Scottish, from Saltcoats, near William Landsborough’s birthplace.

A.B. Tripcony moved to Black Flat, Caloundra, in 1909, and opened the first shop in 1914.

Black Flat has been named in their honour, Tripcony Park.

SIR THOS. McILWRAITH

The beauty of Caloundra and its peaceful isolation so attracted Sir Thos. McIlwraith that he spent long holidays at “Sea Glint”, the first accommodation house at Caloundra.

It was kept by Mr. & Mrs. Wilson at Wilson’s Lake, now Two-Way Creek, Moffat Beach.

Sea Glint welcomed other distinguished guests — the merry hard driving Sir A.H. Palmer, the wise cracking B.D. Morehead and in 1896 Lord Lamington, the Governor.

McIlwraith was so charmed with the place that he had the telephone brought to the guest house so that he could keep in touch during his long holiday there.

ALDER’S  HOTEL

Almost at the same time the first hotel was built in Victoria Tce., Shelley Beach, by Nathaniel Alder, a relative of our popular Rhondda Kelly.

He was a taxidermist and had his shop in George St. Bne., full of stuffed birds and fish most of which he caught at Caloundra.

Alder’s Hotel lasted only a few years as there was not enough people travelling or resident there to keep it going.

It has been referred to as:

“the white elephant of the late 1880’s”.

When the foundations were being dug for the Police Stn. in 1930’s the ground was found to be full of beer bottles.

PROPOSED RAILWAY

Sir Thos. McIlwraith was always very railway-conscious and when Premier he was undecided whether to build a line from Beenleigh to Southport or give Caloundra a line.

The Caboolture to Landsborough line was then being built and it would be an easy matter to swing a line out to Cal.

He allegedly went to Cal. to pick a site.

The residents were very eager to please him and a post was driven in to mark the spot.

I was told by the Premier, Hon. Frank Nicklin, some time ago that a post was put in to mark the end of the proposed railway but he did not say when.

He told me where the post was but did not want the location divulged for fear of vandals.

Whether it was put there to mark the end of McIlwraith’s proposed line I do not know.

There is no documentary evidence of his intention to build this line.

The railway was built to Southport (opened 25.1.1889).

The railway station at Landsborough was built on land originally owned by Robert Cribb later transferred to Jas. Campbell.

The main street is Cribb St.

WRECK OF THE “DICKY”

On 1st Feb. 1893, the steamer “Dicky”, Captain Beattie, 144 tons, left Rockhampton for Brisbane, having waited there for a cyclone off Gladstone to abate, the wind raging at 100 miles per hour.

(I have read in press cuttings that the “Dicky” was 133 tons, 4,000 tons and 10,000 tons. So I checked with the Harbour Master’s Report to Parliament).

Scarcely had she left Rockhampton, when she ran into a hurricane of 90 miles an hour, changing from north to east with dense rain.

The gallant little ship battled as far as Noosa.

There she stood off the Heads to clean the pumps which were choked with sand.

The wind increased and the ship was being driven towards the shore.

The Capt. decided to run for shelter of Moreton Bay.

She struggled past Mooloolah Heads with all sail set and coal running short.

The captain could not see the coast, and ordered him up just in time to clear some rocks.

He did not know where the coast was, nor what part of the coast was near them.

Five minutes after clearing the rocks, the ship was unmanageable and became stuck in the sand a quarter of a mile from the beach,

“where a terrible surf was running”,

reported Jas Watson the mate.

“The Captain standing to the wheel, keeping the ship head on. To this fact we are indebted for our lives for, had the Capt. presence of mind failed …”

(14)

…loss of life must have ensued. Through all the trouble he kept a cool head and we were thankful we had Capt. Beattie in command.

The tremendous surf soon beat the ship higher up the sand and orders were given to put on life belts and every man for himself.

In spite of the heavy surf, R. Milligan A.B. volunteered to swim ashore with a rope but failed because the rope was too short. He managed to reach shore in safety.

H. Kutty A.B. then swam ashore with a lead-line and hauled a coir rope by means of which we were able to drag ourselves ashore through the heavy surf

The Capt. remained on board until low water when he landed and went in search of some means of communication.

This wreck happened on what is now called Dicky Beach.

The captain found John Wilson’s house later on and met with good shelter from the storm.

The mate’s report to the Press continued

“We all went to Mr. Wilson’s house later on and met with good shelter from the storm and every consideration from that gentleman. The roads were blocked by water and I am sorry to say the telephone had been cut off from Mr. Wilson’s house, which might do good service in the case of ship wreck on this wild coast. The crew are all well and housed in Mr. W.’s store room. Days were lost in sending the news owing to the roads being impassable and the removal of the telephone.

This was the telephone that McIlwraith had installed when he was Premier in 1888.

The news of the “Dicky” was received in Brisbane on 14th Feb. — 10 days after the event.

The whole country was awash.

The Crohamhurst still holds the record for the whole of Aust. for rain for a day, for a month, and for a wet period.

When the flood waters from the Stanley River reached the Brisbane area, they created chaos.

The Indooroopilly Railway Bridge was washed away, also part of Victoria Bridge and the gunboat “Paluma” was deposited in the Botanical Gardens.

LORD LAMINGTON’S PREDICTION

In 1896 Lord L., the Governor of Qld. and Capt. Pennefather, who had explored the fever-ridden rivers of the eastern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria and was then Governor of St. Helena Prison in Moreton Bay, went to Caloundra for a fishing holiday.

They travelled to Landsborough by train and then endured a three hour journey in Allen King’s horse coach over thirteen miles of corduroy and sandy road to the beach.

They stayed at “Sea Glint”.

At this time there were only eleven dwellings at Cal.:

* Bulcock’s Cottage;

* Wilson’s Sea Glint;

* The Hon. Wm. Vannick’s cottage that became the Hotel Francis in 1906;

* Allen King’s guesthouse at “Wickham House” (he represented Cal. for a year in the Landsborough Shire Council);

* King’s Beach was named after him;

* a hut on Black Flat belonging to Sam Leach;

* G.L. Bury’s two cottages near the lighthouse, one of which became the first school about 1899;

* Jas. C. Moffat’s house on the edge of the cliff at the Headland;

* the lighthouse keeper’s cottage;

* Alder’s boarded up Hotel;

* and Jack Plummer’s hut at Bell’s Ck. (he brought supplies once a month to three lighthouses from Bne.)

Wm. Landsborough’s deserted house had been destroyed by bush fire.

THOMAS WELSBY AND J.C. MOFFAT

These two men and another procured a vast parcel of land, Portion 13A, that included the whole of Moffat Beach and headland and stretched to the head of Two-way Ck.

Welsby needs no introduction to the Women’s Historical Society, I am sure.

Moffat was a wealthy chemist who built “Hunting Towers” at Annerley.

The three partners drew lots for the choice beach and headland portion.

Moffat won.

In spite of my efforts nothing yet has been named after Welsby.

He was very generous to the school.

Welsby was an ardent admirer of Cal.

So was Lord Lamington who said that Caloundra was:

“destined to become the premier watering place in the northern state.”

Gwen Trundle, Annerley