Ten Mile Crossing OOC

[cgraven]

Ten Mile Crossing is a way station for the stage from Fremantle to the Australian Gold fields of the 1870’s & 80’s it is the story of two young independent women of the period who dare to enter a man’s world to run a stage coach changing station in the Australian out back. The story revolves around the Station manager, the cook, the stage driver, and the armed mail messenger. The writers have been chosen and will introduce their characters here. This is the place for any questions or feed back not the thread itself..

The Story is loosely based on Louis L’Amuor’s “The Cherokee Trail”

 

[cgraven]

Gang I believe that Snork Maiden will be giving some background information soon and perhaps a link for a synopsis of the book the thread will be based on.

The writers will be
Spellcaster, Snork Meridian, Whispering rain, and myself.

 

[Snork Maiden]

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the delay, it's taken me a while to track down a lot of this stuff I hope it is informative.

I will try to find out more, my knowledge of Australia is embrassingly poor , but the more I read the more fascinated I become.

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Western Australia
Western Australia is adored for its brilliant blue skies, warm sunny climate and white sandy beaches. It is a land blessed with some of the world's most precious natural phenomena including the dolphins of Monkey Mia, the 350-million-year-old Bungle Bungle range and the towering karri forests of the South West.
Essentially a primary producer, Western Australia has a wealth of natural resources including gold, iron ore, gas and minerals

Fremantle and Western Australia
Timeline 1826
Captain James Stirling sailed from Britain to an area of land on the Swan River to see if it was suitable for settlement.

Time Line 1829
The name comes from Captain Charles Howe Fremantle of the Challenger, which was one of the three ships that brought the first European settlers to Western Australia who formally established a colony for the Crown at the mouth of the Swan River on 2 May 1829. Captain Fremantle formally took possession of WA for Britain in that same year, at the age of 28

Just a few months after Western Australia was proclaimed a colony in 1829, Moon Chow disembarked from the ship, Emily Taylor, and became the first recorded Chinese to arrive in the colony. Moon Chow was a carpenter and settled in Fremantle where he practised his trade; building houses, shops and warehouses in the new port town. Twenty years after his arrival he married an English woman and raised a family of two sons and a daughter. Moon Chow seems to have been the only Chinese in the colony until 1847 when twenty Chinese arrived from Singapore.

Time Line 1832
A well designed plan was in place to construct a suitable port for the new colony. Whaling and boat building industries where established.

The Swan River Settlement received much positive publicity in Britain and many people flocked to take advantage of the settlement terms – ‘one acre of land for every one shilling and sixpence of money, stock or equipment’.

For the first twenty years of European settlement, labour needed for clearing the land and developing agriculture was recruited from England. As English servants left employers to set up farms of their own or migrate to the eastern colonies, Western Australia experienced severe labour shortages. Farmers complained that "flocks would have to be boiled down and farms remain uncultivated" unless shepherds and farming men were introduced to the colony immediately. Convict labour was suggested but turned down because many settlers did not want to see the colony become a penal settlement. Another suggestion to overcome the labour problem involved importing Chinese from Singapore.
Time Line 1847-1848
After some debate, colonial government funds were allocated to finance two voyages, one in October 1847 and one in May 1848, to recruit a total of 51 Chinese men.

Working as domestic servants and cooks in Perth, or on farms at York, Albany and Bunbury, and even as basket makers for the salt works on Rottnest Island, the Chinese signed contracts which ensured a monthly wage of one pound, five shillings ($6 Singapore) for domestic and farm servants and two pounds ($10 Singapore) for carpenters and;

"... be found in food and to receive at the rate of not less than 21bs of Rice and flour and 1/41b of fish and meat per day also to be found in medical attendance for all ordinary diseases."

Although most of the 51 Chinese seemed satisfied with their work and employers, several insisted on changing their employment and were not shy in complaining to the specially appointed Protector of Chinese about conditions of work or pay. Grievances were given a fair hearing since, to the white settlers in the colony, Chinese were welcome as a valuable source of labour. One newspaper, however, reported that,

"As domestic servants, gardeners and carpenters, those introduced have more than answered the expectations that were formed; but whether they would be equally available for the service of the agriculturalist and sheep farmer, we have doubts. China is not a pastoral country, and its inhabitants must therefore be deficient in the necessary knowledge required in the care of sheep and cattle. It is however to be noted that in the ways of mining Treacle, the skills and techiques employed by these imigrants is not only efficient but also very educational."

Time Line 1848
The first town trust was established although industry in the form of Due to the severe deficiency of labourers, the British government agreed to provide assistance in the form of convict labour.

Time Line 1849
The question of whether Chinese were suited to such work ceased to be of concern when Western Australia was officially declared a penal settlement. Thereafter, convicts fulfilled many of the labour requirements of the colony.

Time Line 1850
The first group of convicts were brought to Fremantle in and many were set to work constructing roads and buildings in the colony. Existing evidence of these public works include the Fremantle Prison, the road between Perth and Albany, Government House, the Perth Town Hall and the Meadow Street precinct, Guildford

Time Line 1868
The last of the convicts shipped from Britain arrived. These were Irish Fenian rebels.

Time Line 1873
After the cessation of convict transportation in 1868, labour shortages were again a problem. Requests for a reliable and relatively cheap source of labour came not only from agriculturalists, but also from newly established pastoralists and pearlers. At first pearlers recruited and shipped Chinese from Singapore independently.

However, in the mid 1870s, under pressure from pastoralists and farmers, the colonial government once again organised and financed Chinese immigration. The conditions and terms of contracts for Chinese were similar to earlier contracts although the assigned categories of occupation were broader: shepherds, gardeners, carpenters, cooks, general servants and farm servants.

Time Line 1875
The Irish Fenian rebels escaped on the American whaler Catalpa.

Time Line 1885
The first discovery of gold in Western Australia was made at Halls Creek in the remote Kimberley and the wealth and importance of Fremantle as a Port increased.

Time Line 1889
Large numbers of Chinese laborers are recruited. On arrival, many immigrants were sent to remote and isolated areas, separated from fellow countrymen. On stations or in small towns, cooks, servants and gardeners were in contact with other folk although language barriers were a problem. Station hands, shepherds and stockmen, on the other hand, experienced long periods of extreme isolation. Whilst most Chinese overcame the loneliness, some responded by breaking contracts, absconding from service and moving into town. In extreme cases, severe mental depression and suicide were the end result.

Time Line 1892
The major strikes at Coolgardie and nearby Kalgoorlie saw the Goldfields towns' populations grow to 10,000 over 10 years

Time Line 1893
The Australian prospectors had their final triumph when Paddy Hannan found gold at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Time Line 1903
The resulting gold rush pushed Australian output to an astonishing 119 tonnes (3.8 million ounces) , a record not equalled until 1988.

The famous 'Golden Mile' at Kalgoorlie remains at the heart of Western Australia's production.

Gold Rush Austrailian Style
The Australian gold miners were never such a cosmopolitan bunch as their colleagues in California, but they insisted on the same democracy in the gold fields.

The Austrailian Gold Rush was a much more lawful affaire
Hard liquor was banned.
The excavations were administered by specially appointed ‘gold commissioners
Pitches along a creek were licenced on a monthly basis. These were obtained for 30 shillings ($7.30) a month. The average pitch was between 15 and 24 feet and shared by parties of between 3 – 6 men.

G. L. Mundy, a visitor writing in 1852, reported, 'There were merchants, cabmen, magistrates and convicts, amateur gentlemen rocking the cradle merely to say they had done so, fashionable hairdressers and tailors, cooks, coachmen, lawyers' clerks and their masters, colliers, cobblers, quarrymen, doctors of physic and music, aldermen, an ADC on leave, scavengers, sailors, shorthand writers, a real live lord on his travels - all levelled by community of pursuit and of costume'.

This then was the mixture of backgrounds that these prospectors came from. From the Professional and learned, to the average labourer.

This too had it’s advantages for the community that formed from these people readily had men and women capable of providing community services which of course they did to supplement their incomes.

Generally the miners lived in bark huts or tents. Although as the towns grew, hotels and lodging houses took there turn in sharing from the gold finds.

Luxuries in the miner’s tents were few if at all existent. Items would serve multiple purposes. Shovels for frying pans crates for table for example.

'Our furnitureis of simple character. A box, a block of wood, or a bit of paling across a pail, serves as a table.' quotes one miner from this period

Meals were primitive. 'The chops can be picked out of the frying pan, placed on a lump of bread, and cut with a clasp knife that has done good service in fossicking during the day.'

Insects and flies added to the discomfort. 'The nuisance is the flies, the little fly and the stinging monster March fly. O! The tortures these wretches give! In the hole, out of the hole, at meals or walking, it is all the same with these winged plagues. When washing at a waterhole, the March flies will settle upon the arms and face, and worry to that degree, that I have known men to pitch their dishes, and stamp and growl with agony. The fleas, too, are of the Tom Thumb order of creation, and they begin their bloody-thirsty work when the flies are tired of their recreation.'

These flies were more than just a nuisance to the miners, as they carried disease and often were the cause of blindness and other serious maladies


I am still researching on Way – Stations but haven’t found much to date on the day today operation, facilities and life styles associated with these place.

Snork

 

[Henry]

Character Bio.

Mysterious Man

Name: Vernon McClure
Age: 40's
Height: 6'5
Build: Broad shouldered, muscular build.
Eyes: Blue piercing eyes for those that have seen them.
Hair: Dark brown hair.

He kept pretty much to himself and anyone who saw him was lucky as he used to travel at night and sleep most of the day. Riding a horse he wore jeans, shirt, longcoat, sunglasses and a hat that was usually tipped down most of the time.

There had been a few times he was seen during the day but they were few and far in between, usually only when he was replenishing supplies for himself and horse.

 

[cgraven]

Mat,

18 years old or so.

Ginger hair,

Hazel eyes

Thin and lean always looks like he needs a good meal

Worn out jeans, a rag tag red flannel shirt

A pair of Army boots hung around his neck

He has the haunted look of a kid that grew up on the docks and grew up to fast.

 

[WhisperingRain]

Emily Harris

24 year old
long light brown hair / blue eyes
5’5” 120lbs
slender and shapely built

Emily is a recently widowed, left alone in a country she knows little about, but has drive and determination and knows how to survive, even if that means having to do it as a woman in a mans world.

 

[cgraven]

Very nice Bio's Henry, WhisperingRain and as soon as Snork posts hers I’ll work up the first post for Ten Mile Creek

 

[Snork Maiden]

SLACKER!!! - yes alright I hear you calling me you guys LOL

sorry I really have meant to post my character bio and here it is

Singapore was established in 1819 as a trading station by Sir Stamford Raffles of Britain, to serve as a commercial entry point into Southeast Asia for the British East India Company. By the mid-1800s Singapore was run by the government of India, later to be transferred to the British Colonial Office.

Singapore Trivia
===========

The island of Singapore was originally known as Temasek ("Sea Town"). It was renamed Singapura ("Lion City") when a visiting Sumatran Prince glimpsed what he thought was a lion (probably a tiger) in 1299

The old mascot of Singapore is the Merlion; the lion-headed fish whose statue guards the rivermouth at Merlion Park.

In the Malay tongue, cat is "Kuching" and "Kucinta" means "sweet little cat".

Useful Info on Britain and Singapore

Character Bio
=========

Name : Lim Sue Lee
Ethnicity : Chinese (Singapour)
Age : 23
Hair : Black
Eyes : Brown
Height : 5' 1"
Weight : 90lb

Brought to Austrailia from Singapore along with hundreds of other Chinese migrant workers, Sue Lee Lim or (Lim Sue Lee as the chinese always put their surname first) had served as a Naval cook.

Cheerful, polite hard working she heard of the oportunities available in the largely undeveloped continent of Australia. She had sailed from Singapore and arrived with minimal baggage at the estabilished and thriving port of Fremantle where she set about looking for employment.