WOWAN IN THE EARLY DAYS

The following is an article from Rockhampton's The Morning Bulletin, Saturday December 30, 1922, titled: WOWAN IN THE EARLY DAYS, REMINISCENCES OF MR. O. J. BEAUMONT. By "SEAGEE."

The thriving town of Wowan is the centre of the famous Dawson Valley cotton district.

Wowan is situated on the old Calliungal Station taken up about 1857 by Mr. Hugh Rebison.

Culliungal was then a most extensive property embracing all the country lying between Mount Morgan and Gogango, including Rannes and running to within about ten miles of this side of Prairie Station in to the bend of the Don River. Some idea of its size may be gathered when it is mentioned that the station carried from 30,000 to 40,000 sheep and about 10,000 cattle. Later the number of cattle was increased to 20,000 head.

A station stocked to this large extent in those old days when fences were unknown, necessarily employed a very large number of hands, most of whom were engaged in shepherding the stock and protecting them from the attacks of the wild myalls or blacks.

Mr Beaumont's father and mother were employed as a married couple at the station and it was the old head station on the Dee River near Dululu only seven miles from the railway town of Wowan, the present prosperous cotton centre, that he first saw the light of day some fifty-one years ago.

In Mr Beaumont's boyhood days, the blacks everywhere were very numerous and the Dee River tribe, although not as treacherous as their murderous neighbours, the Dawson tribe, were not to be trusted and at times killed and plundered the white and speared sheep, cattle and horses while Mr Beaumont's father and mother were employed on the station the blacks on two occasions made attacks on the homestead.

Most of those early day pioneer homes were constructed with embrasures walls so the defenders received some protection from attackers while a battle was raging. Calliungal house was built in accordance with the prevailing custom. The first time a mob of blacks, about 100 strong, armed with spears, nullahs-nullahs and boomerangs, attacked the homestead, choosing a time when the only white man and two women - one of them being Mr Beaumont's mother, who had four young children with her - were the only white persons in the house, the others being all out on the run.

Two gins who occasionally worked at the station risked their lives by coming in an informing Mr Beaumont's mother of the coming attack saying “Blackfellow kill ‘em all about here today.”

A number of old-time double-barrelled pistols were quickly loaded in readiness for the advancing horde of savages, who soon appeared. As fast as the pistols were fired by the white man, the two women reloaded the weapons, and, after a hot time, the blacks retired defeated, much to the relief of this small body of defenders. The blacks also attacked the homestead another time but were again beaten off.

The numerous murders and outrages committed by the Dawson tribe, the Dee tribe, and other tribes in Central Queensland at last induced the government to station mount troopers including many black trackers, in numerous districts for the protection of settlers and their stock.

One of these detachments of native police, as they were called, consisted of several white men and a number of black trackers was located at the crossing of the Dee River two miles from where Wowan now flourishes. This crossing was long known as Dundee, but the name has in recent years been changed to Deeford.

The native police camps did a great deal of good getting quickly on the tracks of offenders, keeping the blacks from congregating on the main traffic routes, and affording protection to lonely settlers; so that in time the Central district came pretty free from murderous attacks. Of one blackfellow – a murderer for whose apprehension a reward was offered by the Government, Mr Beaumont relates as follows:

He came into the station and later a sergeant of police and some black troopers happened along on his tracks, and having an idea that his quarry was inside the house. The sergeant, leaving his four troopers at the hay shed cautiously advanced to the kitchen within which the outlaw was sitting. Rushing suddenly inside the brave sergeant drew his revolver and placed it close to the desperado’s head at the same time calling upon him to surrender. Nothing daunted the outlaw, a big powerful native, cooly snatched the revolver out of the officers’ hands and dashing off, and entering the water of the Dee close by, he swam across holding the revolver high up so that he had his pursuer covered and so go clean away.

Gulliver’s Waterhole, situated about four miles from Wowan towards Mount Morgan, and close to the railway line, is of historic interest.

In 1860 four black troopers of the native police named respectively Sergeant Toby and Troopers Gulliver, Johnny Reid and Alma were arrested at Rockhampton for the diabolical murder and outrage of a pretty girl named Fanny Briggs.

The tragedy occurred in the scrub just a few miles out of Rockhampton. It was a most brutal affair, the poor girl’s body being mutilated and left tied naked to a tree. Gulliver escaped from custody and was followed by Lieutenant Powell of the native police and three troopers, who tracking him to Westwood and from there in the direction of Rannes. His camp was discovered on the Dee, but he saw the police approaching and got away, leaving behind him a packhorse load of provisions, blankets, tomahawks, old pistols and other things which he had stolen from a shepherd’s hut as he went along.

The party camped for the night, and next day were informed by Mr Robison, the owner of Calliungal Station that Gulliver had been captured near the crossing over the Dee River. The Government had set a price on his head but attracted by the presence of another blackfellow with the teams, Gulliver came to the camp, where he was given liquor to drink and when make drunk was securely bound by the teamsters. 

Gulliver, who had confessed to the other blackfellow that he had killed a ‘white Mary’ at Rockhampton, knew what fate lay in store for him, and, refusing to walk, be begged the troopers to shoot him, saying ‘Shoot me here’. But a buggy was commandeered and he was taken to the waterhole now bearing his name, and there in trying to escape he was shot dead by the troopers.

When the railway to Rannes was being constructed a few years ago, some of the navvies were camped close to Gulliver’s waterhole, but hearing noises amongst the bushes at night, they came to the conclusion that the place was haunted and hurriedly shifted camp. Teamsters also have been known to pass the place but for the same reasons refuse to get water there at night. Wallabies running about in the grass and amongst the bushes are no doubt responsible for these supposed supernatural noises and not the spirit of the departed murderer Gulliver.

Mr Beaumont in his young days often saw the Dee blacks holding corroborees, in which several hundred would engage. One part of the ceremony consisted in scarring with sharp knives certain male members – and sometimes females – of the tribe across the back and breast. Deep incisions were made laying the flesh wide open. Terrible gashes were inflicted, and these were filled with clay by which means large, ridged scars which always remained were formed. The blacks looked up on these scars as honourable except in some instances where they were made upon females who had transgressed one of the few moral laws of the tribe.

Game in those days was in abundance. Fish, too, were much more plentiful in the Dee than now, as a couple of days supply could then be procured with rod and line in half an hour. The blacks’ method of catching fish was to make small nets about two feet wide out of kurrajong bark and a number of blacks would stand in a line stretching right across the stream at some spot where the water was not too deep. Each man would keep his legs close together holding a net down in the water to the bottom between his own and the next mans’ legs on either side. Thus an impenetrable fence of legs and nets would be formed extending from side to side of the steam. Two others of the tribe would then walk along the river bank and enter the water about two hundred yards higher up taking with them a couple of fair-sized stones each. These they would continue to knock sharply together under water and gradually approaching the extended line of fisherman would drive the fish down the steam and so into the nets. Mr Beaumont has witnessed the catching of fish in this manner at the Deeford crossing.

Kangaroos abounded in hundreds in those days, and emu also were plentiful. When a boy, Mr Beaumont and several other lads were spectators of the method by which the blacks captured emus. There were two of these large birds on the flat which is now the Deeford racecourse and about twenty-five blackfellows armed with spears, nullah-nullahs and boomerangs, creep from tree to tree and made a wide circle around the intended victims. The line of sable hunters gradually closed in by sneaking from tree to tree,  yelling and exciting the emus, getting them confused and heading them off when they tried to break through the armed circle. Finally when close to their prey both were speared and borne off in triumph to the camp to be cooked and eaten. No doubt kangaroos and other game were surrounded in the same way and early settlers’ poor harmless sheep, cattle and horses were done to death in a similar fashion.

The name ‘Wowan’ is said to be the native name for the scrub turkey which at one time were very plentiful in the neighbourhood; but most of the place names and rivers have a strong Scottish flavour, such as The Don, The Dee, The Dawson, The Mackenzie, Dundee etc. This is accounted for by the fact that a Mr McDonald made the original survey of the country over sixty years ago. At the Dee crossing he laid out the township, naming it Dundee.

At one time, sixteen families resided there on township allotments but nearly all of these folks and their homes have been removed. The Government built a large post office with residence attached. It too met a similar fate as it was sold for removal and taken to Rockhampton where it is still to be seen in the form of two nice cottages.

A Mr Carl Moller build a hotel at Dundee and kept a store in conjunction with it for many years. Afterwards his son kept it for some years and after several changes of ownership it passed into the hands of Mr Anderson who kept the hotel, store and post office there for several years until the railway was extended to Rannes which both the license and house were removed to Wowan. The building has since been replaced by a fine large structure from Mary Peaks.

The Wowan district has played its part too with regard to minerals. At Pheasant Creek, about fourteen miles from Wowan, towards Duaringa, alluvial gold was discovered in 1867, the diggings being known at the time as the Herbert’s Creek field.  One fine nugget of 20oz, was got there and many smaller ones. A good many Chinese worked on this rush, one party consisting of forty men. A man named Winston worked on Herbert’s Creek for upwards of twenty-five years and fossickers are still to be found there getting some of the precious metal.

About twenty miles away from Wowan a big low-grade quartz outcrop exists, carrying 16 dwt of gold. The formation is a great width and if it could be cheaply worked should give payable returns.

There is also a big lode of ironstone at the head of Alma Creek for about seventeen miles away. The outcrop is 40ft wide and in places the lode can be traced for about fifteen miles. Captain Richards, formerly General Manager of the Mount Morgan mine, is said to have remarked that if such a lode existing in England it would be worth at least GBP1,000,000. With coal so handy as the Callide Valley and Baralaba this immense body of ironstone should be enormous value in the years to come.

Copper exists about seven miles away, close to the railway and when worked in a small way some time ago, paid good wages and gave a bonus of 30s per man.

Mr Beaumont has large interest in the district, where he was resided practically all his life. He has always upheld the reputation of the Dawson Valley as an excellent farming and dairying district and now that cotton has come to stay and is giving such splendid returns he looks forward with confidence to the time when every available block of land will be put under cultivation and the district takes its rightful place as the premier cotton growing district of Australia.