Ghosts of old towns

I was having so much fun with my 1886 directory last week that I decided to come back to it, this time to list some of the 'towns' no longer found in Gippsland.

Of course, some were mere tent towns that disappeared easily, usually because the gold ran out. Some were little more than a shanty at a river crossing, but a few were more substantial.

Bald Hills had ideas about itself in 1866. It had a racecourse with a race meeting every Boxing Day. Most of these small courses had a Boxing Day meeting – it is lucky there were enough horses to go round. There was a Bald Hills police station with two constables. There was a Court house and a Mining Warden's Court was about to open.

Bald Hills, now Seaton, was on the 'road' to Woods Point from Stratford and the gold escort would change over here, bringing gold down from the Point, Black River, Jericho and the Jordan.

There was even a Bald Hills Prospecting Gold Mining Company just formed, with Robert Knox as the manager and George O'Malley and James Johnson as the two prospectors.

Bald Hills was also on the road to Stringer's Creek (Walhalla) before the road up from Toongabbie became more popular.

The use of McEvoy's Track would bring a traveller to a land where every new campsite was going to become a great township according to the owners but where, in most cases, the near-silent bush has now covered almost every trace. One of those places was Happy Go Lucky.

This column has visited Happy Go Lucky several times, It was a goldmining community perched on the ridges above Walhalla, on the road out to Toongabbie over the Thomson at Brunton's Bridge.

It is easy to find the site nowadays and the family car can make the trip, but there is little remaining of a township that was home to mining companies like the Castle Rosso, Happy Go Lucky, Lilydale and Homeward Bound. There was even a ballroom attached to John

Graham's Mountain Queen Hotel, often used for concerts,

Happy Go Lucky had most of the usual businesses though the most common employment listed, by far, was that of miner. Henry Baller, though, was a plumber and glazier, and those were relatively rare professions in the Gippsland of the time. Imagine moving panes of expensive glass by packhorse or dray.

The Springs has been long forgotten and, indeed, there was little to remember. Where the Toongabbie and Stratford tracks to Walhalla met Thomas Goldman had built his Halfway House, surely one of the most-used names for a hotel in those days.

Frederick Sherwood also had an accommodation house at The Springs and I gather this was the Frederick Sherwood who was a carrier on the road and owned the Happy Go Lucky stables.

Merton was om the road up to Rosedale from Tarraville, and that was an important road in 1886 because many of the miners heading into Gippsland's hills came in that way. The Shire of Alberton, including Tarraville, Palmerston, Port Albert and Yarram Yarram, was probably the most populous rural shire in Victoria.

Out on that road were Bayliss' Merton run and Lethbridge's Sydney Cottage, almost small towns in themselves.

At Merton itself there were Williams' stables and his Merriman's Creek House, William Shepherd, bushman, and Isaac Lear's accommodation house. The last entry was the one that caught my eye. Thomas H. Barker was listed as a 'chef de cuisine'. That is a very grand title for the cook at a bush inn.

The roads up to Woods Point from Healesville

in the west and from Stringer's Creek to the south also had their little settlements that have long since disappeared. Many were just wayside inns, with perhaps a small store and some stables, but each represented a dreamedof future.

Coming up from Healesville, which was a well-established town in 1866, one came to Glen Watts and perhaps stayed in Ewen Henry's Tri Bhean Hotel, one of only six buildings there. The next settlement was Fernshaw (Watts) with the Watts Bridge Inn and the Reefer's Hotel. It isn't really a ghost town, of course, but it didn't grow much, either.

At Black Spur there were William Hudson's Black Spur Inn, James Fahie's accommodation house and William Crole, described as a labourer.

Before you got to Marysville there was Fisherton, with a small sawmill, the Garibaldi Restaurant and Fisher's Hotel. The bridge over the Acheron was the site of John Robson's Acheron Bridge Hotel and Wolke's accommodation house.

These small and often rough accommodation houses were necessary when a day's travel was only as far as your horse could carry you, or your legs.

Marysville was a sizable little village and is still there, so it doesn't qualify as a 'ghost town'. Mount Grant does, though it had only William Pudleck's restaurant anyway.

The word restaurant is a little grand for the reality. The Ligar settlement consisted only of Henry Petty's accommodation house while Mount Arnold was relatively booming, with Henry Brockman's accommodation house and the Mount Arnold Hotel of Koehler and Schultz on one side of the track and Ewin's accommodation house and Smith's Halfway House on the other side.

At Big River there were three hotels and not much else. Davies had the Royal Mail, John Fahring had the Traveller's Rest and Walter Gray had the third – the name of which I don't know. The Springs had the St Clair Hotel of Mr Sinclair and Crawford Thomas' Spring Vale

Hotel. That left only one stop before Woods Point, the hamlet of Kelly, where one found Kelly's Alpine Restaurant and McDonald's Junction Restaurant (perhaps the first Big Mac in the hills?). Richard Hoskins was listed there as a dairyman. It must have been a terrible job keeping a herd together in that country, but his products would have been welcome, almost luxuries.

At Matlock one made a decision to turn north to Woods Point or continue east toward the goldfields on the Jordan and on down to Stringer's Creek. Towns like Jericho and Red Jacker we've visited before but I didn't know about Harper's Creek, Raspberry Creek or Raspberry Point, all 'well established villages'. Nor is there much to see now at Gaffney's Creek or Paradise Point, although both were "three-hotel towns".

There were small places along this rather desolate road, at Patterson's, at Flour Bag Hill and at Sailor Bill's Creek. There are dozens of others, such as the Toombon, based on goldmines that flourished and then failed, dotted throughout the hills.

Further east there were towns around Grant that we've visited before, like Bull town, Ramtown, and Hogtown, lively places that a no more.

In Grant there is a Ligar Street, which might have some connection with the little place near Marysville called Ligar. It is an unusual name but I don't know of anyone of that name, and the Directory did not help me.

We should remember all these little places because they were all part of the effort that went into opening up our country. Certainly, they were there so people could make a living, and sometimes a fortune, but we are lucky that we had people that could carve out a little of the wilderness and make a place for people.