Family tree bears bountiful fruit
MORE than 55 descendants of Far Northern mining pioneers Hugh and Johanna Reid converged on Edmonton during the May long weekend from around Australia to celebrate the life and times of their forebears.
Hugh Reid hailed from Glenravel in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland, and married Johanna Horan in Brisbane on January 13, 1885, at St Stephen’s Cathedral. Johanna was born in Brisbane on January 16, 1863, to Irish parents from County Tipperary.
“For their honeymoon they embarked on an epic 1800km trek on horseback from Brisbane to Port Douglas and then into the Herberton Hills, where they raised their eight children in the tin mining townships of Stannary Hills, Irvinebank and Watsonville,” says great-grandson Gregory Reid, who grew up in Cairns, but now lives in Sydney.
“Hugh was a long-time manager of the North Australian Mine (now the Baal Gammon Mine) outside Watsonville.”
He died in Cairns on January 14, 1925, aged 75.
“Sadly, it was one day after his and Johanna’s 40th wedding anniversary on January 13 and two days before her 62nd birthday,” Gregory said.
Johanna died the following year on December 19, aged 63.
The Reid family reunion was an all-day event at Fuller’s Sports Club in Edmonton and included descendants of Hughie (Jnr) Reid, Marion Turner (nee Reid) and Eli Reid. The guests of honour were Bernie and Maureen Reid, John and Marcia Reid, Honor Reid and Delma Turner.
Hugh and Johanna’s grandson, John Reid, aged 85, welcomed relatives and reinforced their common Irish roots.
Gregory outlined details of the book he and cousin Karen Hales (nee Turner) have written, A Blending of the Shamrock and the Wattle: The story of Hugh and Johanna Reid, due out this year.
The book contains a wealth of historical, genealogical and anecdotal sources and describes the pioneering story of the Reid family in the Herberton and Cairns region.
“Reid family descendants now number in the hundreds and Cairns is their epicentre,” Gregory said.
“A serendipitous outcome of the research for the book was the unexpected reconnection with distant cousins in County Antrim almost a century-anda-half after Hugh Reid emigrated to Queensland in 1873.”
The day after the reunion, descendants gathered at Martyn Street Cemetery for the blessing by Rev Fr McKenna of a commemorative plaque honouring Hugh and Johanna Reid and their eight children.
“Their lives were a reminder of the pioneering mining heritage that helped to build Cairns as the dominant northern port,” Gregory said.
“While Stannary Hills and Watsonville are ghost towns today, the wealth extracted from their mines helped to develop Cairns, where the ore was exported.
“The Reid family are proud of their pioneering forebears and what they and their children have achieved in helping to write an important page in the history of Far North Queensland.”