Tasmanian Bush Heritage
Guest writer Paula McCulloch Introduction Paula joins us again with the exciting news that she has found Stretcher Hut. She started her hunt years ago after reading a story by Simon Cubit. We all know Simon’s gift for weaving history and mystery together into a captivating story. He described a bushman carried to a hut … Read moreStretcher Creek Hut Found
A great find, but what now? The hunt started with a picture. Ian got excited. It ended when he found where the cottage had once stood. That was a long way from where it was supposed to be. Ian moved on to the next search. But there were way too many loose ends … Read moreLoose Ends – that ‘farm at Mount Agnew’
About 20 years ago my husband and I was speaking to a gentleman named Bob about Middlesex Plains and the shacks and mines in the area. He mentioned that he had spent some time up there as a seventeen-year-old in 1965. He would stay at the hut known by locals as the Ponderosa, which he … Read moreBob Duncombe’s (Middlesex) Hut
Another Heemskirk Adventure Introduction Like so many of our hunts, this one started with a photo. Nic had introduced us to Orient Mine near Trial Harbour. And what a story it had to tell. The team; Nic, Ian, Eddie, Jenny, Tim and I; visited it a few times looking at the remains of the mine: … Read moreA Mystery Photo of a little Farm House
Here are a few old and new snaps from searches that didn’t make it into our blogs. Maynes/Orient Tin Mine – Heemskirk Trial Harbour to Zeehan Wurragarra Creek, Mount Pillinger in the background – Mole Creek Track … Read moreThen and Now
In a previous blog, ‘Digging up Mrs Williams, or the phantom of the Heemskirk tin boom’, I pondered Con Curtain’s story of a woman who died at the Orient Tin Mine on Tasmania’s West Coast in 1882.1 Who was she? Where was she buried? Did she even exist? No one besides Curtain ever mentioned Mrs … Read moreDigging up Mrs Williams 2: a skeleton in the closet or just in an unmarked grave?
In May 1900 Major Frederic Hughes (1858–1944) might have been fighting the South African War. Only a month earlier the Waratah detachment of the Wellington Rifles had drilled in the main street ahead of camp in New Town, Hobart, where four of their number were selected for the Imperial Bushman Contingent.1 But it is possible … Read moreThe Hughes diversion, or when the major moved Savage River
In January 1908, Major Ron (RE) Smith, son of James “Philosopher” Smith, searched for an old hunter’s camp on the flank of Mount Kate. He wrote that Apparently the camp had been a hut, or a combination of hut and tent. The slabs of the skin drying chimney, which were of pine, were still mostly … Read moreLinnane’s Hut – Cradle Valley
On 28 May 1882 a woman died on Tasmania’s West Coast and was laid to rest nearby. No doctor attended her, no police constable, magistrate or registrar was notified.1 No priest officiated at her funeral. None of these positions existed on the Heemskirk Tin Field. There was nothing but a scattered population of mostly Cornish … Read moreDigging up Mrs Williams, or the phantom of the Heemskirk tin boom