Cairns Historical Society

The great upheaval at the Cairns Historical Society is continuing with both the museum artefacts in the store rooms and the research library books been boxed up for the move across to the temporary centre at the old Post Office building.  I attended a recent afternoon tea for volunteers in the old postal building where the Management Committee explained the plans for the operation of the Society during the period of the renovations to the School of Arts building.  There may not be enough room for a museum display area but there should be sufficient space for storage of the artefacts and for the history research centre.  Sadly, the turmoil appears to have affected this year's Society show display which could only be described as pitiful.  It was an embarrassment to be on duty at the display this year and it seem such a waste of a great opportunity to publicize the changes now happening.  It appears the Society will need to be out of the building by late September, so the next couple of months will be hectic and then it will take some time to set up again.  Hopefully they will have things sorted out in time for the annual general meeting in November.

Douglas Shire Historical Society

The folk at the Douglas Shire Historical Society must be congratulated on the presentation of their newly built internet website, the end result of which is very impressive and a great improvement over the original site.  At a recent heritage event, I found myself talking with a member of this group who informed me of her ambitious project to research the history of that districts old farm machinery.  I wish her well.  She also spoke of the Society's project to begin a database on the graves in the old historic Port Douglas cemetery.  It was pleasing to see that they are continuing to publish local history bulletins with the latest by Ken Keith on the building of the St David's church.  Good to see this group coming back to life after their long slow period.

Watsonville Pioneer Women Day

The annual Pioneer Women's Day was held recently at the small community shed in what was once the Main Street of Watsonville.  The crowd on the day was down a little on previous years but those in attendance enjoyed the usual bush poetry and songs from Sing Australia and the bush lunch.  The women that were featured this year were from the Borghero family.  Two of whom, Grace and Peg, took over their father's transport and taxi service in the early 1920's and were the first to introduce motor vehicles into the local service before moving their business down to Mareeba in the 1930's.  The members of the tiny Western Progress Association must be congratulated on their efforts to organize this heritage event each year and they announced a future project to erect interpretative signs at local historic sites of significance about Watsonville to ensure they do not disappear and be forgottem.  It was good to look over the crowd and see about a dozen members of my historical society in attendance and I will certainly be back next year.

John Atherton Memorial Day

After many years of planning, Mareeba historian Mrs Elwyn Troughton saw her memorial event to commemorate the centenary of the passing of the pioneer Mr John Atherton come to fruition.  I was lucky enough to be among the forty guests who were invited to attend this small private event held at the Atherton family cemetery at Emerald End.  A number of descendants of the Atherton family were present to hear the many tributes to the man after whom the town and Tablelands were named.  Even though there were a couple of long-winded speakers who bored the audience halve to death, (never let a churchman near a podium) it was an enjoyable day for local history buffs.  The local Lions Club organized the catering and Mrs Troughton launched her booklets on the Atherton family history.  It was good to hear that the owner of the private property on which this burial ground is situated is to make a Trust park for the cemetery.  It was a pity that the event wasn't open to the public as many local history buffs stated later that they would have liked to have attended the event.

THeN Meeting

The last meeting of the Tablelands Heritage Network (THeN) was held at the delightful Ravenshoe Mountains Institute with a good turn-up of about eighteen representatives from visitor and heritage groups from across the Tablelands.  The meeting Convenor, Gwyneth Nevard introduced Ms Suzanne Gibson from the Cairns museum who was the guest lecturer at this meeting and who conducted an excellent discussion in regards to all aspects of carrying out oral histories.  The morning closed with a tour of the adjacent Ravenshoe Visitor Centre and it was interesting to hear of their plans for the future of that Centre.

Atherton Family History Group

Gwen and the members of the small family history group at the Atherton Library were pleasantly surprised with the wonderful success of their recent researching workshop.  Some fifty family history buffs from all over the Tablelands attended the series of free lectures conducted by the professional genealogist, Mrs Judy Webster which was held at the Atherton Library.  The talks covered the fields of using indexes and strategies for researching relatives who had vanished or were the family 'black sheep'.  The final lecture was on the usefulness of the many internet website which is now available.  I only made it to the last of the three talks which covered the many useful internet websites for genealogical research and found the information presented most helpful.  Speaking afterwards with others who had attended, I found a general agreement that all had learnt something of value which would help them with their study of their family trees.  I recommend Mrs Webster's lectures to anyone interested in this field of history study.

Mungana's Shit and Scatter Hotel

The group of tried friends sat about the campfire to unwind after a hard day spent out in the Chillagoe heat and dust exploring the long abandon site of the old Girofla village.  Little is left now, with more then one hundred years having past since the township disappeared into history.  Its residence having moved the few hundred metres down the railway line into the new town of Mungana when that mining town boomed during the early years of the twentieth century leaving only a little rusting metal and broken glass to mark the site of the old village.  As the light of the campfire dimmed and the cold beer eased the discomfort of sore feet and sun burnt faces, Chillagokid spoke of the old days when the great Girofla mine and its nearby smelter promised bright days ahead for the little community.  All gone now like the eccentrically named 'Shit and Scatter Hotel' at whose bar none alive today would be able to recall having quenched their thirst.  Yankee Dove looked up from the flames, 'What a strange name for a hotel'.  'Oh there, I can fill you in on that' said Farnortherner, 'a tragic tale, that one'.

The shanty hotel was originally named the Cosmopolitan Hotel and was owned by one, Mr McGillicuddy but its unofficial name stuck after the events of the evening of the 6th November 1901.  About 11 o'clock that night, a shy servant girl named Hannah Tracey was gunned down by the morose coward, Richard Henderson.  It appeared to be a miserable case of revenge on part of Henderson because the girl refused to comply with a request he had made of her.  The twenty year old Hannah, known as Annie, had come out to Australia from County Killkenny, Ireland and was working at the hotel as a domestic servant.  A couple of evening earlier, Herderson had asked for a crib but she knew he wasn't going on the night shift and she told him he did not require it.  The six foot tall Henderson, who was known to be prone to take offence without cause became adusive, so much so that he hurt her feelings and she retired to her room weeping and another servant girl finished cutting the men's lunches.  Henderson was turned away by Mr Atherton and nothing more was thought of the incident.

Then on the Wednesday night, he again approached the girl while she was filling the tea cans of the men going on shift and asked for a crib.  Annie said 'you don't want to go to work'.  A young fellow named Evenden took his can from the girl and move to leave, at the same time Annie turned away, when Henderson stepped in front of her and at point blank range, fired a revolver hitting her in the right breast.  Evenden was in the passage and seeing what occurred, went for Henderson and hitting him on the jaw staggered him but recovering himself, Henderson covered Evenden with the revolver.  Fortunately the weapon misfired and Evenden got out of danger.  A group of men from the dining-room carried Annie inside and Constable Hoy quickly appeared and asked the Chinese cook where Henderson was.  The constable and a man named Myers went after him but Henderson was pointing his gun at the two and told them to keep back.  Hoy left to fetch his firearms and Myers watched Henderson but lost him about Lindsay's building.  A party of six men then went along the rail line for a mile searching the camps but could not find him.

When Henderson next appeared he was about fifty metres from the hotel and walking straight up to the front clicking his revolver.  Someone called upon him to put up his hands.  He replied, 'I am going to do it now', and lifted up the gun and shot himself in the head.  Simultaneously another shot rang out from the opposite side of the street hit him in the thigh, fire by a man named Bert Roberts who thought Henderson was going to fire at him when he put up the revolver to shoot himself.  Henderson fell and the crowd rushed him.  He died twenty minutes later where he fell while all round him, leaning on rifles, stood his pursuers, watching him.  The following day, his body was encased in a rough board coffin and buried without ceremony.  As for the poor victim, Annie suffered for six days before passing away in the presence of her brother who had rushed up from the Mulgrave railway where he had been working as a navvy on its construction.  She was engaged to be married to a miner named Thomas Stewart and the men of the town raised 60 pounds for them but after her death they refused to have her buried in the same cemetery as Henderson.  They used the money to organize a train to take Annie and 120 of the towns' folk into Chillagoe to bury her there and paid for a headstone.  And the name of the hotel, that night it was said everyone in the corrugated-iron walled hotel when the shot was fired 'shit themselves and scattered into the darkness'.  So eventually became the name of the establishment, the Shit and Scatter Hotel of old Girofla.
   

The site of the old hotel today           Hannah Tracey's grave          The Shit and Scatter Hotel