Old Memories

OLD MEMORIES.

By A. T. Saunders.

12 July 1913

On July 13, 1837--and that will be 76 years ago tomorrow— the ship Adam Lodge, 467 tons, arrived in Sydney from Londonderry, Ireland, having sailed thence on March, 29, 1837. In addition to her crew, the Adam Lodge brought 379 emigrants, of whom 195 were children. 

That the ship was overcrowded is apparent, and probably was the cause of the deaths of 29 children and five adults which occurred on the passage of 106 days. 

Among the passengers was my maternal grandfather with his wife, son, and four daughters, one of whom, Mrs. Sarah Allen, widow of Capt. Thomas Allen, and mother of Capt. Allen, who was master of and was lost in the Koombana, is now living at the Semaphore. Though she was only eight years old when she arrived in Sydney, Mrs. Allen's memory of events which happened since and before 1837 is good and clear. Last month I passed three days in the Public and Mitchell Libraries in Sydney looking up documents respecting Sydney and South Australia, and was thus able to test the accuracy of many of Mrs. Allen's recollections. 

Seventy-six years is a long time to look back, and seems longer when we remember that when the Adam Lodge sailed from Ireland that country had 6,000,000 inhabitants, half of whom died of hunger and disease in the potato famine, or were shipped to America and other countries. 

England was then, in March, 1837, a Protectionist country, every copy of every newspaper had to bear a stamp costing a penny and upwards, all advertisements were taxed, and printing paper was also heavily taxed. Quill pens were in general use, (Gillot's steel pens were slowly becoming known, perforated and gummed postage stamps were unknown, as were gummed envelopes for letters. 

In Ireland there was only one railway, from Dublin to Kingstown, 12 miles long, and my grandfather went to Dublin largely to see the new invention. Electric telegraphs were, of course, unknown. 

William IV. was King when the Adam Lodge sailed, and Victoria was Queen when the ship arrived in Sydney. Sir Richard Bourke was Governor of New South Wales, and Mrs. Allen heard him read the proclamation of the death of the King and the accession of the Queen. She says he was a small man with a deep scar down his face from a wound received in Spain. 

When Mrs. Allen arrived in Sydney it was not 50 years old. Melbourne was unknown — in 1839 there were only 3,000 people on the banks of the Yarra— Western Australia was eight years old, South Australia was not seven months old, and Port Adelaide did not exist. My grandfather, Willam Galway settled in Sydney, for a few years carrying on his trade of a builder, and then moved to Maitland, in the Hunter River Valley, but business become dull in New South Wales, and in 1847, as the copper discoveries were booming South Australia, he decided to make another move to Port Adelaide. 

In December, 1847, he and his son left Sydney in the steamer Juno for Adelaide via Boyd Town, how many South Australians ever heard of Boyd Town, Boyd's folly, and his death.

— Melbourne, Port Fairy, and Portland. — 

One of his fellow passengers to Port Adelaide was David Bower. In January, 1848, the Sydney Morning Herald records the departure of the Juno for Port Adelaide, and among the passengers "Mrs. Galway and the 4 Miss Galways." 

Port Adelaide was a curious place in 1848. It was built on a swamp from which the sea had been excluded to some extent by embankments, but was subject to wind by embankments, but was subject to inundations as late as 1865, connected to the dry land by a causeway built by the South Australian Company by digging deep holes in the swamp on each side of the causeway, and heaping up the spoil on it. To do this a deviation from Col. Light's original Port road was made from the site of the present Alberton Baptist Chapel to the present Commercial road. Corrugated galvanised roofing iron— that great civiliser — was unknown in Port Adelaide in 1848, so most of the roofs were made of shingles. Water was scarce, for of course, there could be no wells in Port Adelaide, so the Portonians depended on rainwater stored in barrels (there were no iron tanks then), or on water boated from Lefevre's Peninsula or brought from the Alberton sand hills.

In the early sixties I can remember the general, scarcity of water, and the sickly sweet tasting water pumped from wells in the Alberton sandhills near the present Alberton Railway Station. Often I have seen lime put into the water to clarify it. No shower baths in those days — a wash all over once a week with plenty of soda in the water was the usual programme. When I went to school each in the summer brought his bottle of water. For a few years my grandfather lived in Port Adelaide, building various places therein, his own house being in St. Vincent street, where Rawlings's store is now. Queenstown and Albert Town were named after Queen Victoria and her husband, and were laid out in the forties. My grandfather bought land in Queenstown and built a two-story house thereon. As timber was scarce and dear, he put a flat concrete roof on the house, but it was not watertight, so a tiled gable roof had to be put over the flat roof. There were only three houses roofed with tiles. Glanville Hall, then owned by Capt. Hart, the house inhabited by the Rev. Peter Mercer, later by Capt. H. D. Dale, and Mr William Gibb, and my grandfather's. My grandfather's four daughters soon married — there were not many old maids in Port Adelaide in those days. The eldest, my mother, married Thomas Saunders, master mariner, who was the first harbour master ot Port Elliot, where my brother, the present Town Clerk of Port Adelaide, was born. Port Elliot was a small and distant place then, though great things were expected for it, as it was to be the port for the Murray River trade. As late as 1870 the cutter Gem traded regularly from Port Adelaide to Port Elliot. 

My mother was often alone, except for the aborigines from whom she had no trouble: in fact years after some of the Port Elliot blacks would come to Queenstown to see her. I remember one old woman, 'Lady Grey,' coming several times. My mother often spoke of the blacks and their doings. When their babies were infants they had no violet powder, so they burnt some wood to a white ash and this answered the purpose. 

My father died in 1856, after being master of various vessels, one being the Margaret Brock, lost at Cape Jaffa, on the Margaret Brock reef. My father not then being in command.

 The second and sole surviving sister, who is now nearly 84, and whose mind and memory are as keen as ever, though her body is not as robust as one could wish, married Capt. Thomas Allen, who had some curious experiences. He sailed from Port Adelaide to California in 1849, and his crew deserted, his ship was seized and confiscated on an unfounded charge of smuggling, which was disproved, and for which compensation was paid. 

When taking Adelaide convicts to Tasmania after the disappearance of the Lady Denison, which was said to have been seized by the convicts, she was carrying from Adelaide to Hobart town, a plot to seize Capt. Allen's ship was discovered, so he passed the anchor chain through the 'tween decks of his ship, had the legs of the convicts chained to the anchor chain, and told them that if they made any trouble he would heave on the chain, and stand them on their heads. He had no trouble, and when the convicts were leaving the ship one of them handed him a 'Nories' book on navigation, which Capt. Allen. had for many years. 

For several years Capt. and Mrs. Allen sailed in and about Malaysia and the east, from Madras to Manila, from Sydney to Singapore, meeting various well-known men, Alfred Russell Wallace and Bully Hayes, the pirate, among others. Capt. Allen for years had his schooner manned by Malays, and was frequently chartered by Chinamen, who thought that, being a large man, he must have known more than a smaller man. Mrs. Allen was the first white woman to visit part of Cambodia.  In the fifties American sailing ships were numerous in the East, and Capt. and Mrs. Allen met many of them, one being the famous Live Yankee, Capt. Thorndyke. 

Several children were born, and buried in various parts of the world. One was born in Marmion's Hotel, Fremantle, in 1857, and was therefore named Marmion. A few years ago looked up his baptismal record in the Catholic Presbytery, Fremantle. It was written in Spanish Latin and Father Cox, who translated it to me, smiled at the Latin script. The worthy Spaniard had forgotten to record if the child was a boy or girl. The godfather was W. E. Marmion, afterwards the Hon. W. E. Marmion, of the Forrest Ministry, to whose memory a handsome  Celtic cross now stands in Fremantle. 

After leaving the Eastern trade, Capt. Allen bought a share in an unlucky full rigged ship, the Schah Jehan, and unfortunately took a cargo of coal to Wallaroo, then in its infancy. During the voyage from Newcastle, off Cape Northumberland, the Schah Jehan ran into a terrible gale and electric disturbance. "St. Elmo's" fire decorated the mastheads, yards, and booms, and in the worst of the gale Mrs. Allen gave birth to Mr. Seaborn Allen, now of Messrs. G. Wills & Co., Port Adelaide, the steward being the only one to give any assistance. Another terrible gale smote the Schah Jehan when along side the small Wallaroo Jetty, and after vainly trying to bring the ship up with anchors, she was scuttled. This saved the jetty and the ship, but ruined Capt. Allen. 

It did not suit William Watson Hughes and Thomas Elder to have Wallaroo condemned as a dangerous port for ships of 1,000 tons, so Capt. Allen was ruined. A Parliamentary paper, of 1863, I think, tells a part of the tale. Capt. Allen afterwards sailed various ships, and then joined the Pilot service at Port Adelaide, and had the ill-fortune to be pilot of the steamer Coorong when a boat was cut in two and a pilot was drowned. Mr. Sam Harvey, lately of the Customs, is a survivor of that boat's crew. 

Again, Capt. Allen went to sea in command of various ships with Mrs. Allen and their surviving children. One trip took the diggers to the Gympie (Queensland) gold rush, and after the Franco-Prussian war and the exile of the Communists to New Caledonia, many voyages were made to Noumea with bread stuffs. 

Capt. and Mrs. Allen then settled down in Port Adelaide, where Capt. Allen died, and Mrs. Allen still lives. It is a pity Mrs. Allen's reminiscences cannot be preserved. Not only is her memory a remarkable one, but she has many scrapbooks containing most interesting items of South Australian history and South Australian persons. 

Our next-door neighbour in Queenstown at one time was the clever J. M. Skipper, father of 'Hugh Kalyptus,' and grandfather of Mr. Stanley Skipper, of forensic fame. Mr. J. M. Skipper drew and painted well, and a specimen of his skill in painting on glass was in my grandfather's house for years, and may be there now. 

In the same house previously or after Mr. J. T. Creswell also lived. The late Jack Creswell, of Adelaide Oval fame, I recollect as a small, fat, bandy-legged boy. 

On April 3, 1867, I went to work in Port Adelaide, and that is more than 46 years ago, and the present generation have no idea and can have no idea what Port Adelaide was like then. Till 1872 work began at 6 a.m. and finished at 6 p.m., Saturdays 4 p.m. Drapers' and other shops were open till 9 p.m. all week nights, except Saturdays, when they were open to 11 p.m. Of course, there was no train to the Semaphore till 1877. A wooden bridge stood about where the Jervois Bridge now stands. It had a drawbridge in the middle, which to my knowledge was only once tilted up. That was when a sham-fight was held at the Semaphore. 

When in Sydney recently I met a man who served his time in the Irene, a small barque painted in chocolate and blue, commanded by Capt. David Bruce. Afterward he transferred into the Adamant, 813 tons, a white-painted barque commanded by Ben Lodwick, R.N., and was subsequently mate of the Verulam, 510 tons, Capt. Angel. How many Portonians can remember these three ships? 

Whene'er I think of all the friends once bound together I've seen around me fall like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one who treads alone a banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are sped, whose garlands fled,
and all but me departed.

OLD PORT MEMORIES.

A.T. SAUNDERS' LETTER WAKES A RESPONSIVE CHORD. SOME EARLY IDENTITIES.

(Written for 'The Mail' by 'P.')

The reminiscences by A. T. Saunders are always interesting. "Old Memories," in your issue of last week, were especially so to the writer, who, born at the Semaphore in the fifties, has been pleased to have had the acquaintance of A. T. S. for well on to half a century, and knew most of those mentioned in his article. "Old Memories" sent the writer's thoughts back to the time when Capt. "Barny" Allen took up his residence at the Semaphore, in a little weatherboard cottage, immediately below the present signal staff, and below the range of sand-hills which then ran along above high-water mark. The cottage stood about where the Esplanade is now built. The cottages facing the beach were but few. Capt. Allen's, the most southerly,then that occupied by the late G. W. Marshall, R.N.R. (one of the lifeboat's crew to the ill-fated Admella), then that of George Foulis on the hill above, Jagoe's, Lewis Thomas's cottage about where the Rotunda now stands, Pilot McPherson's where Capt. Creer's house now is, Manson's above on the hill, and John Dunn's. George Young's and the Chinese fish-curing house, opposite where Hall street now is, about comprised the residents on the frontage. The old telegraph office stood high up where the present railway station is built, and the late Mr. Tom Bastard was the officer in charge. (I mind he was also a fiddler.) Afterwards Mr. Will Hopkins, a local boy, was telegraph master. Mrs. Carroll kept a toffee shop above the second cutting. This was afterwards made the nucleus of the hotel, and is now part and parcel of the Federal, but must be part of the upper works, as the sand-hill was cut away, and the whole thing underpinned, thus forming the lower rooms. The only other shop was a small galvanised-iron building kept by Daddy Ward on the corner now occupied by Warn's grocery. The land now occupied by Warn's, the shops adjoining, the Baptist Church, and the Masonic Hall were afterwards laid out as a tea garden, but were not a success. 

As pen glides on paper come up the forms of the old pilots, sailors all— Capts. John Melville, Tom Wellsneau, "Jerry" Marten, Robert Woolnough, Thomas Pickhaver, Senr, John and Ben Germein, Henry Wright Harris, Barrett, and others— and the old boarding boats, the Minerva, Royal Peri, in which we used to swing the 14-ft. oars in calm weather, boarding the ships in the gulf; and, when sufficient wind, the Unity, Corsair, Stormy Petrel, Darke, and Lurline, or the junk, as she was termed. Fine, seaworthy boats they were, and good men who handled them. 

Many of us had good lessons in the art of boatsailing in our vacations and on Saturdays in these boats. Then came the launches — first the Abeona, which George Medland brought round from the east. Then followed the Era, Troton, and later the rest of the fleet. 

The writer started "graft" some time after A. T. S. in Port Adelaide, and well remembers your previous correspondent at Levi's office, while your humble servant tallied wheat into a large iron ship at Levi's wharf. 

Then come to mind the ships. As I write there hangs on the wall a print of the old Orient, and the inscription reads: —"Clipper ship Orient, 1,032 tons, Captain Lawrence; builders, Messrs. Bilbe & Co.; owners, Jas. Thomson & Co." This picture used to hang in my father's house. To my left hangs an oil painting of the S.S. Euro, foundering off Penguin Island. Many will remember "Jock" Osborne bringing out this ship, and also the Jane Bell, which he previously owned and sailed, and a photo, of which hangs in his house at Osborne. "Jock" Macdonald's fleet of barges laid on the mudbank, where the sugar works now stands, and from which we used to swim. 

Further along near the old bridge, of which A. T. S. writes, stood the Pelican Rowing Club's shed. Good sports were the Pelicans. Some of them still hang out near Salt-water; Mr. W. H. F. Bayly, of the Semphore, and Mr. Tom Brock, of the Dock Company, were among them. Crossing the old wooden bridge, where in the sixties Mr. W. Goldsworthy, late landlord of the Sussex Arms, saved Charlie Turner from drowning by catching him in a crabnet and keeping him up till taken into a boat, Mr. F. Bucknall kept the clubhouse and boatsheds on the Port side to the south. 

To the north of the bridge we find the ships in about the following order: — The Hesperus, Aurora, Hesperides, Pakerau, Orient, Darra, White Eagle, St. Vincent, Craigendarroch, Carnoquheen, Moualtrie, Torrens, South Australian, City of Adelaide, Barossa; then the Star of Peace, Hydaspes, the city liners British Ambassador, and other oversea ships; the local colliers and sugar ships, Moonta, Kadina, Wallaroo, Kohinoor, Hannah Nicholson, Elizabeth, Jean Tierrl, Odalisk, Emily Smith, Prospero, Coorong, Lavinia, Joliba, Nile (with a crocodile for a figurehead), and many more. The old tugs Adelaide, Young Australian, Leo, Sophia, and the Eleanor, with Capt. Jimmy Craigie in charge, and now moored above the bridge. 

Writing of the ships brings to mind the men who sailed them, the agents, merchants, importers, and tradesmen, who did so much for the making and governing of the chief port. The grand men of an older generation — Anthony Hall, John Formby, David Scott, Capt. J. W. Smith, Peter Le Messurier, John Bickers, Henry Simpson, John Hart, Drs. Duncan, Gething, Forwood, Todman, and Chatterly, Messrs. James E. Dempster, H. W. Thompson, Charles Hains, James Rawlings, Ed. Phillips, George Paqualin, S. Mocatta, and many others might be mentioned. Would that we had more of such men in these times.

Getting along down stream we reach the Government coalshed, which stood near where the entrance to the S.A. Company's new dock has lately been constructed on Coalshed Creek. Getting back up this creek we reach the old gunpowder magazine; near by, a landing stage and steps for the loading and unloading of the powder. To those who remember this old magazine, it may be interesting to know that a portion of this building was standing but a short time ago, in the centre of the Globe Timber Mills yard, the land having been reclaimed. Crossing the river, at the lower end, we land at the steps, near Capt. "Jerry" Martin's house. Next Cruicksnank's slip (now the Tug Company's yard), then Swiggs's. Capt. John Walker's, and John Mitchelmore's ship yard, where the large cutter Flying Cloud was built many years ago, and afterwards purchased by the Government and sent to the Northern Territory. Then James Macallan's yard, Herbert Ring's yard, where the pilot, cutter Alternative was built, and launched in about 1862. George Jenkins now has this property. Then Fletcher's old slip, with the larger and more up-to-date slip on the next yard. It was a common thing to see two and sometimes three ships up at one time on these marine railways. 

Further west the Government residence. Here lived Mr. William Taylor, foreman in charge of the dockyard just across the Hawker's Creek. Off "the yard" lay the Jenny Cock, afterwards renamed the Flinders schooner, with Capt. Colin McLachlan a boy on board. Then the Gulnare, sent to the Territory ; s.s. Palmerston, to the same destination; the Admiralty's surveying schooner Beatrice, and still doing duty as a cargo carrier on the coast. In 1866 the first two lifeboats were built at the dock-yard, the Percy and Lady Daly — the one now rolling in the stores yard at Port Adelaide, and the other with a "stinker" installed puffing somewhere on the coast. 

Then the regattas of those days. The champions — Playfair brothers (3) and Harry Dalziel (now Inspector of Locomo-tive Boilers, S.A- Government). The youths' pair-oar races we built boats for, and rowed in them, too. The tub-and shovel races, duck hunts, greasy poles, diving. The swarms of goats which daily moved from the "village" (now part of Birkenhead) down to the Pinery, and the water barrels filled at Dewar's well and drawn home by teams of two or three goats. Billy Wright's unicorn team of three, bringing loads of firewood from the "bush," and the— oh, well; old times, old memories! Did you say — You write with ease to show your breeding, But easy writing's curst hard reading?