River of Gold: The Wild Days of the Palmer River Gold Rush.

© 1967

Angus & Robertson Classics Ed

Pymble, N.S.W, 1994.

143

“Another of Cooktown’s popular haunts was the Steam Packet Hotel, recently owned by a former beche-de-mer fisherman and smuggler named Bill Smith. … Bill had sold the hotel to go into business with a mule team packing stores to the Hodgkinson …”

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“Above the chattering blaze of Chinatown, above the roaring pubs, brothels and gambling dens, the Government officials, bank officers, and some of the more prosperous business men and their families formed an exclusive set of their own. From the high ground around Grassy Hill, aloof from the high-pitched squeals and lusty laughter of Charlotte Street, came the more sedate tones of their piano recitals, formal dances and sentimental songs.”

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“[Christie Palmerston] had never compromised in his hatred of the Chinese. … His depredations never slackened. Influential Chinese of Cooktown and the goldfields never ceased to lay complaints about hm, and the police were regularly out looking for him … for one outrage or another committed against Chinamen.

“Every so often … Palmerston would come into Cooktown for a spree. Always inclined to be dramatic, he generally rode in dressed in an old cabbage-tree hat, goggles, and shabby overcoat … . The disguise deceived no one, but the police were never known to interfere while Christie was being … feted in every bar in town.

“… it cost a good-sized nugget … to have Palmer Kate for the night – but she was Christie’s for the asking.”

160

By June 1867 Mulligan himself soon realised that his Hodgkinson discovery wasn’t fruitful so established a store which

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became the defacto headquarters of the various authorities on the Hodgkinson goldfield, named Thornborough (in honour of the Postmaster-General).

Thornborough lacked amenities and remained isolated. A group of miners, among whom was Bill Smith (old Bill) [who’d sold Cooktown’s Steam Packet Hotel to prospect on the Hodgkinson] scouted for a track that Jack Moran had used to reach the sea from the Hodgkinson].

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“Old Bill, who in his beche-de-mer days had covered the whole coastline from Bowen to north of Cooktown, told them about a deep creek that ran into Captain Cook’s Trinity Bay. It would make an ideal landing for stores, he said, and he was sure he could find a track down to it.”

The diggers passed around the hat and financed Old Bill to lead an expedition in search of a path. They ran out of supplies in the rainforest and turned back. A second passing of the hat saw Old Bill go to Cooktown in August and up [Smith’s] creek to the landing which became Smith’s landing – where Cairns was established when Old Bill reached it and found a track back up to the Hodgkinson field in September 1876.

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A government sponsored expedition had meanwhile set out from the coast to cut a track and at a location on the river they came upon Old Bill’s hobnail boot imprints. The river was named the Barron. The track they cut was steep and treacherous.

Old Bill showed them his track and 160 hopefuls followed him down [to what became Smithfield. presumably].

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Back on the Palmer during the Hodgkinson rush, the Chinese were extracting hoards of gold. “ ‘The amount of gold obtained by them was enormous, and thousands of ounces of gold were taken back to China privately,’ wrote Hill. ‘One of the … – Holthouse is quoting the following from warden William Hill:

“Only for the influx of Chinamen the Palmer would have given profitable employment to thousands of Europeans for many years. The hordes of Chinese, at one time about twenty thousand, absolutely worked out the bed of the river. The amount of gold obtained by them was enormous, and thousands of ounces of gold were taken back to China privately, as one of the Boss Chinamen told me he sent home at least one thousand ounces a month for some considerable time, and I believe him.”

173

Sellheim wrote to his superiors:

“Crime is becoming very prevalent among the Chinese, and I have thought it my duty to bring under the notice of the Colonial Secretary the absolute necessity of the employment of some Chinese detectives.”¹

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Holthouse cites Hill but I’ve taken the quote directly from the warden:

“Gambling was an awful curse on the Palmer. Chinamen were fleeced of their money and were then compelled to resort to crime in order to get an existence. We did our best to improve matters, and made several exciting raids on the gambling houses.”²

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“Before long many who had cursed the Chinese would be complaining that the north would be ruined because they were being driven away.”

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Smithfield, servicing Thornborough on the Hodgkinson, was the “ ‘wickedest town in Australia’.

Old Bill and his 160 followers who left Thornborough on September 27^th 1876 “arrived at Trinity Bay three days later”

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The diggers paid Old Bill 300 quid for his track from Thornborough to there but never warmed to it because of the muddy and mangrove-choked shore, dirth of horse fodder and lack of fresh water.

“They were still growling about it when William Barstow Ingham arrived “with his stern-wheel paddle steamer Louisa. He took Sub-Inspector Johnstone and his troopers back up the Barron River about eight miles, as far as the rocky rapids where the overland party had originally reached it. The police party scrambled ashore over the rocks, pushed through the scrub, and made camp on flat ground. Here was both good feed and water for any number of horses. They either ignored or did not notice the tufts of flood debris hanging high in the trees.”

Cairns was being built but the packers realised that they’d be better off based at the police camp on the Barron River

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where they could have their stores shipped and 180 lb per horseback carried up Old Bill’s track the 70 miles to Thornborough. Smithfield had overcome Cairns as the coastal town link to Thornborough by November 1876.

Police Magistrate and Warden, Howard St George, arrived aboard “the steam tender Fitzroy, lately purchased by Mr Ingham” and proclaimed the new Smithfield township.

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14000 pounds sterling was spent to upgrade Old Bill’s track to make it a “dray road [but] it never became more than a track for packhorses.”

Within a month, Smithfield “was the Las Vegas of the goldfields”.

Old Bill built the Beehive Hotel.

“Palmer Kitty came up the river in one of the paddle-steamers, summed up the prospects, and hired a team of Chinese workmen to build her a house of entertainment. Stores, banks, gambling dens, and shanties sprang up as fast as the cedar that lined Barron Gorge could be felled and sawn.”