No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2016
Many places in North Queensland have colourful and interesting histories. Stories about the individuals associated with certain places have become part of the regional mythology; however, as errors and misconceptions creep into family tales and journalists' accounts, the mistakes are sometimes woven into broader historical accounts. This article, based on material gathered over a decade, sets out to correct some myths about the recorded history of China Camp, Bloomfield and the life of Robert Baird.
1 This article is based on a report compiled for the Community and Personal History Unit of the Queensland Government's Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy and the Wujal Wujal Indigenous Learning Centre for a forthcoming book on the life of Norman Baird, Robert Baird's son.Google Scholar
2 Attorney General to Challinor (14 February 1861), Attorney General's Letterbook, JUS/G1/61/16; Challinor to Attorney General (16 February 1861), Attorney General's Correspondence, JUS/A2.Google Scholar
3 The Queenslander, 21 May 1870: 2.Google Scholar
4 Feilberg, Carl to Sir Arthur Gordon, cited in Robert Ørsted Jensen, 'The Right To Live': The Troubled Conscience of An Australian Journalist (forthcoming).Google Scholar
5 Queensland Births, Deaths and Marriages.Google Scholar
6 ‘NB’, ‘Around the Campfire’, North Queensland Register, 19 October 1948.Google Scholar
7 Kerr, R. and J., ‘Some of the Mayors of Old Cooktown’, in Queen of the North: A Pictorial History of Cooktown and Cape York Peninsula (Mareeba: Glenville Pike, 1979), 102.Google Scholar
8 Baird family website, www.Bairdnet.com.Google Scholar
9 ibid.Google Scholar
10 Jack, R.L., Northmost Australia Vol. 2 (Sydney: George Robertson & Co, 1922), 703.Google Scholar
11 Anderson, Chris, ‘Aborigines and Tin Mining in North Queensland: A Case Study in the Anthropology of Contact History’, Mankind 13(6) (1983): 479; and Jack, Northmost Australia, 703.Google Scholar
12 A/45277/95/1397; ‘Kitty Pluto’, Australian Prospecting & Miners Hall of Fame, www.mininghall.com/minerals/people/database; Jack incorrectly gave the date of Bill Baird's death as 1896: Jack, Northmost Australia, 704.Google Scholar
13 Idriess, Ion, Men of the Jungle (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1932).Google Scholar
14 Francis, Nancy, ‘The Bloomfield River Before The Great War’, Cairns Post, 28 November 1939; and ‘Still The Bloomfield’, Cairns Post, 25 January 1940.Google Scholar
15 Birth details from Norman Baird in ‘Around the Campfire’, North Queensland Register, 16 October 1948; and 1841 Census data from Ayrshire Historical Society, Scotland.Google Scholar
16 Queensland Births, Deaths and Marriages.Google Scholar
17 Appointment to Post Office, Queensland Government Gazette 7 (1866): 100; Queensland Electoral Rolls, 1870–80.Google Scholar
18 ‘Shipping Intelligence’, Cooktown Herald, 10 June 1874 and 22 July 1874.Google Scholar
19 Queensland Births, Deaths and Marriages.Google Scholar
20 ‘Shipping News’, Brisbane Courier, 25 July 1876.Google Scholar
21 Appointment as Clerk of Petty Sessions, Queensland Government Gazette 47 (1889): 1228 and Queensland Government Gazette 64 (1895): 16; and as Police Magistrate, Queensland Government Gazette 65 (1896): 921 and 926.Google Scholar
22 Queensland Museum Correspondence, 81/74.Google Scholar
23 LAN/AG 230, Selections 129 and 130, Cooktown.Google Scholar
24 Kerr, John, Northern Outpost (Mossman: Mossman Mill, 1979), 22.Google Scholar
25 COL/E66/85/75 and COL/E8/87/111.Google Scholar
26 CPS 13F/S 1.Google Scholar
27 Queensland Government Gazette. Google Scholar
28 Ormston, Robert, The Rise and Fall of a Frontier Mining Town: Cooktown 1873–85, unpublished PhD thesis (St Lucia: University of Queensland, 1996), 319–20.Google Scholar
29 Baird, J.C. to Colonial Secretary, COL/A496/87/2969 and COL/A754/93/13867.Google Scholar
30 Pryde, V.C., ‘Some Cooktown Memories’, North Queensland Register, January 1958: 40.Google Scholar
31 IMM/113 (1869), 26 and ‘Shipping Summary’, Brisbane Courier, 26 January 1869: 4.Google Scholar
32 ‘The Ship Ramsey’, Brisbane Courier, 2 February 1869: 3.Google Scholar
33 LAN/AG 226, Selection 50, Cooktown.Google Scholar
34 Queensland Electoral Rolls.Google Scholar
35 Cooktown Courier, 1 February 1879.Google Scholar
36 Beverley Shay of Cooktown, personal communication, January 2006.Google Scholar
37 LAN/AG 233, Selection 280, Cooktown.Google Scholar
38 Dick, James, Mineral Resources of the Cook District (Port Douglas, 1910), 29.Google Scholar
39 Jack, Northmost Australia, 703.Google Scholar
40 Idriess, Men of the Jungle, 3 and 38.Google Scholar
42 Field, Dennis, Jakalbaku (Mossman, 1988).Google Scholar
43 ibid.Google Scholar
44 Unknown, ‘The Dead Man's Secret’, Cummins & Campbell's Monthly Magazine, April 1945: 25–27.Google Scholar
45 LAN/AG 233, Selection 281, Cooktown.Google Scholar
46 LAN/AG 233, Selection 281, Cooktown.Google Scholar
47 Commissioner for Lands to Department of Public Lands, 11 January 1886, LAN/AG 233, Selection 281, Cooktown.Google Scholar
48 N.B. [Norman Baird], ‘Around the Campfire’, North Queensland Register, 16 October 1948.Google Scholar
49 A correspondent for The Queenslander visited the Mount Windsor tin-field in 1895. ‘Four or five years ago, when tin was a bit higher in price, Mount Windsor was a flourishing place’, in ‘Some Northern Stations XIII’, The Queenslander, 25 January 1896: 166.Google Scholar
50 LAN/AG 233, Selection 281, Cooktown.Google Scholar
52 King, P.P., Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia, Vol. 1 (London), 208–09.Google Scholar
53 Hooper, Colin, Angor to Zillmanton (Brisbane: C. Hooper, 1995), 215.Google Scholar
54 COL/A192/74/394 and The Queenslander, 28 February 1874.Google Scholar
55 ‘Palmer News’, The Queenslander, 4 April 1874.Google Scholar
56 POL/4/553 and POL/4/583.Google Scholar
57 ‘Palmer News’, The Queenslander, 7 November 1874.Google Scholar
58 ‘Cooktown News’, The Queenslander, 3 April 1875.Google Scholar
59 A/38719/81/2303.Google Scholar
60 Meston Papers, JOL OM 64-17, Box 2, No 4 and DS Robertson, ‘When the Bloomfield was a Baby’, North Australian Monthly, September 1960: 44.Google Scholar
61 Louis Bauer of Viele Plantation, Cooktown, to Minister for Lands, 19 August 1884, LAN/AG 226, Selection 191, Cooktown.Google Scholar
62 The tragedy of Mary Watson led to widespread recriminations against innocent Aborigines; for details, see Falkiner, Suzanne and Oldfield, Alan, Lizard Island: The Journey of Mary Watson (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000).Google Scholar
63 Darling Downs Gazette, 2 March 1885: 3.Google Scholar
64 ‘An Opinion About Blacks’, Queensland Figaro (19 July 1884).Google Scholar
65 A/40172/86/6713.Google Scholar
66 LAN/AG 233, Selection 194, Cooktown.Google Scholar
67 Eykyn, Thomas, Parts of the Pacific (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co, 1896), 160.Google Scholar
68 ‘A Scrap of Aboriginal History’, The Queenslander, 9 June 1888: 901.Google Scholar
69 See Lynette Oates, ‘Norman Baird’, Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, edited by David Horton (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1995), 87.Google Scholar
70 See various issues of the Cairns Post in 1940.Google Scholar
71 Francis, Nancy, ‘Peter’, Cairns Post, 12 December 1934.Google Scholar
72 ‘NB’ (Norman Baird), ‘Around the Campfire’, North Queensland Register, 17 July 1948.Google Scholar
73 Hooper, Angor to Zillmanton, 94.Google Scholar
74 Farwell, George, Ghost Towns of Australia (Adelaide: Rigby, 1965), 152–53.Google Scholar
75 Hooper, Angor to Zillmanton, 211.Google Scholar
76 Pentzcke, T.M., to Colonial Secretary, 24 July 1887, A/41656.Google Scholar
77 The Queenslander, 19 July 1879.Google Scholar
78 The Olufsen family were still logging the Bloomfield during the 1930s: see ‘About An Outlet’ [for China Camp and Bloomfield], Cairns Post, 23 February 1934: 6 and ‘Cooktown Notes’, Cairns Post, 6 August 1934: 12.Google Scholar
79 Pohlner, Howard, Gangurru (Brisbane: Hope Vale Mission Board, 1986), 178.Google Scholar
80 A/69433.Google Scholar
81 See Guy, Russell, Baptised Among Crocodiles: A History of the Daintree Aboriginal Mission (Mossman: Assembly of God, 1999), 5.Google Scholar
82 Hooper, Angor to Zillmanton, 215 and 233.Google Scholar
83 Idriess, Men of the Jungle, 63.Google Scholar
84 LAN/AG 233/Selection 281, Cooktown.Google Scholar
85 Queensland Government Gazette 39: 651 and 46: 824.Google Scholar
86 Evans, Kay, ‘Marie Yamba, Bloomfield and Hope Vale: The Lutheran Missions to the North Queensland Aborigines, 1886–1905, Queensland Heritage 2(6) (1972); Chris Anderson, ‘A Case Study in Failure: Kuku-Yalanji and the Lutherans at Bloomfield River, 1887–1902’, in Tony Swain and Deborah Bird Rose (eds), Aboriginal Australians and Christian Missions (Adelaide: Australian Association for the Study of Religions, 1988), 321.Google Scholar
87 Inspector Aulaire Morisset to Commissioner, A/41656.Google Scholar
88 Eykyn, , Parts of the Pacific, 156.Google Scholar
89 Unknown, ‘Bill Baird's Last Claim’, Cummins & Campbell's Monthly Magazine, September 1946, 20.Google Scholar
90 LAN/AG 233, Selection 281 Cooktown.Google Scholar
91 Queensland Police Gazette 27 (1890): 226.Google Scholar
92 Queensland Police Gazette 27 (1890): 252.Google Scholar
93 A/69581.Google Scholar
94 Oates, ‘Baird’.Google Scholar
95 Police Magistrate, Cooktown, to Colonial Secretary, 14 November 1893, COL/A754/93/13791.Google Scholar
96 Inquest into death of Walter Wallace by drowning in Baird's Creek, JUS/N261/98/141.Google Scholar
97 The Queenslander, 8 February 1896: 262.Google Scholar
98 Meston to Colonial Secretary (13 December 1897), COL/142/97/15870.Google Scholar
99 Bloomfield residents to Colonial Secretary (29 November 1897), COL/142/97/16399.Google Scholar
100 Roth to Commissioner of Police (24 February 1898), COL/142/98/3046.Google Scholar
101 Roth to Commissioner of Police, COL/142/98/3254.Google Scholar
102 Roth to Commissioner of Police, COL/142/98/3455.Google Scholar
103 COL/142/98/3455.Google Scholar
104 COL/142/98/3046.Google Scholar
105 Anderson, ‘Aborigines and Tin Mining’, 488 and 493: Henry and Ruth Hershberger, ‘China Camp Oral History Notes’, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Library, 19.Google Scholar
106 COL/142.Google Scholar
107 Quoted in Field, Jakalbaku. Google Scholar
108 Field, Jakalbaku. Google Scholar
109 A/58782/01/15241.Google Scholar
110 A/58911.Google Scholar
111 A/58912: COL/142; Annual Reports for Chief Protector of Aborigines (1904 and 1905).Google Scholar
112 A/58750/2068.Google Scholar
113 Queensland Births, Deaths and Marriages.Google Scholar
114 The Bulletin, 9 April 1908: 15.Google Scholar
115 Queensland Government Mining Journal, 15 April 1915: 161; Sheraton, J.W. and Labonne, B., ‘Lode Tin Deposits Occur as Quartz Veins in Granite’, in Petrology and Geochemistry of Acid Igneous Rocks of Northeast Queensland (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1978), 21.Google Scholar
116 Yeatman, Mrs E., ‘Rossville and other Tin Fields’, Cairns Historical Society Bulletin 50 (1963).Google Scholar
117 Idriess, Ion, Prospecting for Gold (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1946), 141.Google Scholar
118 Dempsey, Frank, Old Mining Towns of North Queensland (Adelaide: Rigby, 1980), 50.Google Scholar
119 Eley, Barbara, Ion Idriess (Sydney: Editions Tom Thompson, 1995), 56–57.Google Scholar
120 ‘Gouger’, ‘Eel Fishing on the Bloomfield River’, The Bulletin, 27 February 1913: 13.Google Scholar
121 ‘Gouger’, ‘Overland from China Camp to the Mossman’, The Bulletin, 14 August 1913: 16.Google Scholar
122 Eley, , Ion Idriess, 57.Google Scholar
123 ibid., 57–59.Google Scholar
124 ibid., 63–64.Google Scholar
125 The Queenslander, 23 December 1917: 23; National Archives of Australia, B2455/1, 1234A and 7685A, and CRS J/1431; Rod Pratt, A Biographic Register of Queensland Aborigines Who served in the Great War (1999) and Lynette Oates, ‘Norman Baird’, Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia edited by Horton (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1995), 87.Google Scholar
126 Pratt, , A Biographic Register, 1.Google Scholar
127 Idriess, , Men of the Jungle. Google Scholar
128 ibid., 158.Google Scholar
129 ibid., 41.Google Scholar
130 ibid., 38.Google Scholar
131 ibid., 158.Google Scholar
132 Eley, , Ion Idriess, 58–59.Google Scholar
133 Idriess, Ion, Tin Scratchers (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1959), 175, 179 and 235.Google Scholar
134 COM 13/1.Google Scholar
135 LAG 13/18.Google Scholar
136 Saint-Smith, G.C., ‘Cooktown District Tinfields’, Queensland Government Mining Journal, 15 April 1915.Google Scholar
137 Queensland Government Mining Journal, 15 April 1915: 189 and A/8711.Google Scholar
138 ibid., 165.Google Scholar
139 Anderson, ‘Aborigines and Tin Mining’.Google Scholar
140 A/8711.Google Scholar
141 Unknown, ‘Another Alluvial Tinfield?’, North Australian Monthly, June 1957: 26.Google Scholar
142 Ivy, Charlie, Jimmy, Micky, Milgabee, Billy, Nicholas, Blucher, Walker, Nipper, Ruby, Minnie and Alma; see HOM/J182/15/9363,15/10709 and 16/00997.Google Scholar
143 HOM/B46 & HOM/B48.Google Scholar
144 A/59003/0990 Agreements.Google Scholar
145 Joe, Dave, Mick, George, Sandy, Willie, Lena, Sandy, Lilly, Molley, Tiger, Jacky, Jacky and Ogilbie, Removals Register; A/59006/23/209, A/59006/23/3006 and A/64785.Google Scholar
146 Inquest into death of Rose Ann Burchall at Bloomfield Scrub, 10 December 1919, JUS/N703/20/107.Google Scholar
147 Queensland Government Mining Journal 29 (1931): 342, 470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
148 Queensland Government Mining Journal 29 (1931), 337, 233 and Mines Dept file 4-6-10 Tin Cooktown.Google Scholar
149 Cairns Post, 5 January 1934.Google Scholar
150 Removals Register, A/64785.Google Scholar
151 Eley, , Ion Idriess, 57; Idriess, Men of the Jungle, 41.Google Scholar
152 Pohlner, , Gangurru, 178.Google Scholar
153 Mines Dept file 4-6-10 Tin Cooktown.Google Scholar
154 Mines Dept file 4-6-10 Tin Cooktown.Google Scholar
155 William and Lynette Oates, Gugu-Yalanji and Wik-Munkan Studies (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1964), 79.Google Scholar
156 Hershberger, ‘China Camp Oral History Notes’.Google Scholar
157 A/27838.Google Scholar
158 ‘Mossman Notes’, Cairns Post, 9 May 1935: 12 and Daintree–China Camp Road investigations in the 1959 and 1960 Cabinet Minutes Index, Decisions 1204, 1270, 1280, 1532 and 2257, A/53231.Google Scholar
159 ‘NB’ ‘Around the Campfire’, North Queensland Register, 16 October 1948.Google Scholar
160 ‘NB’, ‘Around the Campfire’, North Queensland Register, 1 May 1954.Google Scholar
161 ibid.Google Scholar
162 ‘Reinforcements’, The Queenslander, 23 December 1917: 23.Google Scholar