Rosewood History

From the Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser, Tuesday 6 November 1877, page 3

THE ROSEWOOD SCRUB
DESTITUTION AMONG THE SETTLERS.
Families Starving!

The Editor of the Ipswich Observer has personally visited the Rosewood Scrub and we give below the result of his visit. It is a is a pitiable story truly, and from our knowledge of the writer our readers can rely upon the accuracy of his statements.

“Oh, woful day! Oh, day of woe!” said he;
 “And woful I, who live the day to see!” 

There needs no word-painting for the scenes I am going to describe, no dark imagining nor gloomy creations of the minds emotion to enlist sympathy and intention to the farmers of the Rosewood, nor make the picture darker than it is- for, heaven knows mournful enough is the unvarnished tale!

People of the towns have no conception whatever of the misery and destitution throughout the country, nor will but few realize the condition of the settlers when they hear it; for actual observation can only make the indelible impression which is stamped upon the mind by the extreme beauty or extreme horror. One half-hour on a battle-field would make an infinitely deeper and more lasting impression than volumes of the most perfect and most graphic description. And I say that no man can judge justly the present state of the Rosewood except he has actually seen it. 

It has long been but too well-known to me that hundreds of families here been ruined by the present season, that the savings and the labor of many years have been swept away in as many months, that no crops have been grown for two seasons, that dairy farmers milking forty and fifty cows have looked upon the skeleton of their last cow and have no milk even for their own tea, or that scores of men who put the economised earning of a dozen years into a few head of cattle have lost them all, stood powerless day by day and saw them dying one by one, that dozens of families have been for months without a pound of meat and barely able to obtain enough to eat, and that hundreds were without a drop of water except that which was drawn or carried for miles over rough roads under a burning sun. All this I knew and more, but was certainly not prepared for the scene which came before me on Wednesday last. For months had dismal accounts come from the Rosewood of the sufferings and privation of the people, some of tales as ghastly as to be incredible, for it was difficult to believe that such a thing could be within twelve mile of Ipswich. But farmers who had been eye-witnesses, and whose words were indisputable, came successively until at last the Rosewood and its people came before my fancy by day and haunted me at night. 

I determined to go out and see for myself, and started early last Thursday morning. After passing the Four-mile Gate, I turned along the road to Sally Owen’s Plains. After fairly entering the Scrub and being on top of a range which looked upon a long stretch of road, I was astonished to see a long line of vehicles coming towards me, and counted fifteen in sight at once, like a long funeral slowly travelling in single file down the hot and dusty road. As cart after cart passed me I saw that each contained one, two, and sometimes three casks; and for four miles these carts passed at various intervals until probably forty or fifty went by before I got to the store of Friedrich. All were going for water-some coming three, some six, and some eleven and twelve miles from the interior of the Scrub, and all going to a solitary waterhole from which at least four hundred human beings are obtaining water to keep themselves from perishing by thirst. 

When the dry season began, water was got in holes in the Scrub Paddock and Blacksnake Creek, but one by one the holes dried up until the last was gone and the poor people were compelled to go to the waterhole at Smith’s old sawmill, and even in that there is only two weeks supply left. All who passed me were Germans, driving in their quaint German waggons, some of the carts driven by women, some by boys, and now and then one or two little boys trudging along on foot with bare legs and bare arms browned by the scorching sun; poor children, glad to travel eleven miles to get a drink of water, and eleven miles back, for many had twenty and twenty two miles to travel before they reached home with their precious burden. Few of these Germans could speak English, but those who could give me reply, spoke as cheerfully and hopefully and contentedly as if they had no trouble or anxiety of any kind. Never did the German people stand so high in my estimation as on this occasion; and the more I contemplated their distress and their patient unmurmuring resignation, the more my admiration increased for this Teutonic race, with the courage and self denying resolution of the old Teutones of the days of Caesar. And I thought of the vile slanders so lately uttered in our Queensland Parliament, and felt at that moment I could have willingly shot the slanderers and had them buried at my own expense. 

It was eight in the morning, and some of them had then come seven and eight miles, and had three or four miles more to go before reaching water. The day was oppressively hot-not to me, for heat affects me very little; and it was truly a sad picture to see that long array of water-carts driving wearily along that weary road with the hot sun gleaming down upon the parched and burnt earth, which looked up as it was vainly in its mute appeal to the bright, pitiless, shimmering sky. To right and left, and far as the eye could see, was the dense scrub, with here and there the clearing of the settler- a populous solitude, a desert covered with trees. Even the evergreen foliage drooped and looked dispirited, and the very birds were affected with the general deflation. 

Arriving at the store of Mr. Friedrich I was met by Mr. Moriarty, who very kindly undertook to ride round and show me the condition the people were in for want of water. We went out 4 miles beyond the store and made a general tour round, and I was astounded at the number of farmers settled there, all within the last 5 or 6 years, and all having neat comfortable little cottages and more or less improvements; some with a patch of vines, bananas, peaches, and various kinds of fruits and vegetables. Why, they are making an Eden of that wilderness of scrub, these Germans are! for they are all Germans, and that is the reason we have heard so little of their privations. No Englishmen would ever live there and endure what those German people do: of that I am perfectly certain. Many of them are positively starving, many living on corn ground to meal or burnt and mixed with chicory and drunk as coffee. Most of those I saw were nine and ten miles from water. Their whole time is occupied carrying water, and they have not an hour for any other work whatever. If they had water they could fence and fall and burn off until rain came, but they have no time and no money, and how those starving unfortunate people live at all is to me an inscrutable mystery. 

And yet before this season they have all been prosperous and had plenty, for the appearance of their farms and cottages plainly prove that. As a rule their houses far superior to the general dwellings of the average British settler who begins without capital for many of these Germans started in that scrub without a pound. A good comfortable neat house seems to have been their first care and a crop their second. Their farms are all fenced with a paling wallaby-proof fence, and are in perfect order waiting the rain and the seed. I did not think there were so many Germans in Queensland and wonder when they all came I and how they managed to start without any money. Certainly no English immigrant would ever think of taking up land and starting for himself with nothing. But for these hardy industrious Germans, the thousands-yes, tens of thousands of acres in the Rosewood would still be unbroken forest that is now all occupied. Their farms average 40 and 50 acres, and in some places there is a whole cluster of neat little farm houses together. The country is a succession of broken ridges and steep gullies, with here and there flat topped spurs and gentle slopes. 

Standing on top of a high ridge the view is simply enchanting; everywhere farms clearings, and white cottages peeping from the dark scrub on hill sides away for miles in every direction, and bounded in the distance by an amphitheatre of hills covered with their grand old “harp of pines” stately, gloomy pines towering high over all others like giants among an army of dwarfs. But, my soul had no thought for scenery, nor did the turkey and the pigeons around me everywhere turn my thoughts for a moment from the unhappy people. Water is to them precious, more precious than gold. A small drink of water costs seven shillings; and if there are three or four children and a cow, how long will the cask last and where are the shillings to come from! Nearly all have a cow or a horse; some have three or four, and cows and horses are all fat, some very fat; but this caused me no astonishment, for I have seen plenty of such phenomena in the days in other parts of Australia. Stock in the Rosewood will never die from hunger, for vegetation will always grow in the clearings on that deep rich soil which is a bed of manure, successive layer of decayed vegetation leaves and wood; but even in the standing scrub the cattle fatten and thrive, for there are lots of plants and trees they can live on. 

But carting water a distance of eleven miles makes cows expensive, and yet these poor people do not like to kill them. Many have not tasted meat for a year and many are often without anything at all to eat. Yet all are cheerful and not a murmur escapes them; full of courage, full of patience and full of hope. A truly wonderful people the German settlers. They feel bitterly the refusal of the Government to recognise their want of water and expend a small sum in sinking a couple of wells. I really believe there are many of them would die in their homes before they would leave them, and some will die if this water famine continues a couple of months longer. 

I saw one poor couple, and if ever there was a case for human compassion and charity, this is one. The husband is blind, having lost his sight from a shot wound in the war in New Zealand, and his brave little wife works her very heart out to keep themselves in food. She cut down several acres of scrub and burnt it off with her own hand. Yet they never complained! Poor man, he told me he had gone to bed without any supper, and having no horse they have to depend for water on the charity of neighbors. His wife wept as if her heart was breaking, but dried her tears and was cheerful again in a moment, I am not ashamed to say the scene was too much for me. They had no food and no money and scores are in the same position. Surely it was divinely beautiful and godlike to see that poor little woman’s devotion to her blind husband. Yes! beautiful above all earthly things is a true woman’s self-sacrificing love, her affection which increases with adversity and becomes more luminous as the the darkness deepens around it. I thought of that noble woman whose lover returned from the wars sadly scarred and disfigured. “Surely you will not marry him now? “ said a friend. Yes! if he only had enough of mortal frame left to contain his soul!” I know these people were starving! I gave them an order for flour and sugar from a neighbouring store and their gratitude I know was greater than the trifling gift. Would I had a shipload of provisions to distribute among them, for they are all sadly in need of wholesome food. I cannot see how many of them can remain much longer and live. They are now in the premonitory stages of destination which ends in famine and famine surely will come if rain keeps off much longer. 

All this magnificent tract of rich land from Walloon to Tarampa, and from the railway to the Brisbane River containing about 120,000 acres, is peopled by about a thousand settlers with their wives and children, all suffering from want of water. And yet I believe a hundred pounds would sink a couple of wells that would supply all the settlers on Sally Owens Plain. It will be criminal if the Government refuse to do this for the unhappy people who have no money, no water, very little food, and knowing no English are unable to express their calamities or appeal for the help they are entitled to.

Mr. Moriarty is sinking a well in the bed of Blacksnake Creek, and two men went down 20 feet in 4½ days, but there was no sign of water when I left. In any case he cannot give water to the public. The waterhole he had for himself he generously threw open, and the people very soon emptied it. Like all true Irishmen he would share his last and best with his neighbours and his friends. 

The people on this plain-about 400 farmers and their families-have received but little from the Government; and in this, their stage of utter destitution, they ask but little. Shall it be denied? As Shakespeare said, “We do pray for mercy. And that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.” 

And here there is a need to dissipate the horrors of despair and save these starving families, valuable colonists all-none more so. I do not blame the Government altogether for the neglect, because the Government do not appear to have had the slightest conception of the state of the Rosewood Scrub; but there can be no continuation of this excuse after this, and I feel sure that the Minister for Works will at once send up half-a-dozen men to sink a couple of wells in Sally Owens Plain, and by working in relays day and night I feel sure water would be reached in a fortnight; and am certain the entire expense would not be more than a hundred pounds. At least, the people will be satisfied to do it themselves for that amount. 

It is useless to construct dams except for future storage, for when rain falls there is water everywhere. It is the present that needs provision, and only by sinking can that be possibly attained. I noticed a couple of dams on the road, or something which was intended for dam, and they are a superior disgrace to those who designed them. lt would be well for the Minister for Works to see them to obtain an idea how work of this kind are occasionally constructed. Their expense can scarcely be justified by the amount of water they will contain, for such dams as those would be dry months earlier than the waterholes. 

On my return journey in the evening I met a long train of carts returning, some of them from their second trip, having left home at 3 or 4 in the morning and travelled about forty miles during the day. The hole from which they derive their present supply will be dry in a fortnight, and they will then have four miles further to go, perish of thirst, or forsake their homes, in the latter case they would depend entirely upon charity if no employment were obtainable. This is a gloomy picture but it is really an auto type, a bare engraving with nothing of chromo about it; in fact it is but half a description of the dismal reality.

In conclusion, I would tell the Government that within that two hundred square miles of scrub are a thousand farmers, who are the most valuable, industrious, and peaceful of our colonists; that four hundred of them are dependent for water upon one lagoon rapidly drying up, and unless water is obtained from wells, every man, woman, and child will have to leave their houses, in a starving condition; and where will they go to? 

I rode sadly homeward as the red sun sank slowly behind the Main Range, and on the last ridge I turned and gave one parting glance away across that expanse of scrub, these pine-clad hills, and thought of the hundreds of aching anxious hearts sick with hope deferred, or homes with hungry and thirsty families, and all the “toil and trouble” and human misery and despair that were away among those hills and valleys and that dark scrub over which the mantle of night was descending unknown to the outside world as completely as if buried in some Lethe of oblivion.

From the Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser, Tuesday 4 December 1877, page 2
THE ROSEWOOD SCRUB SETTLERS.

In a previous issue of this journal we published the report of the editor of the Ipswich Observer on the destitution and suffering that existed at the Rosewood Scrub. The statements of the writer were called in question, and it was represented he had exaggerated the actual condition of the people. Mr. James Foote wrote to the Queensland Times strongly contradicting Mr. MESTON’S report, and others followed in a similar strain. On the other hand, several letters appeared in both local journals to the effect that Mr. Foote had simply called on his personal friends, and not on the small settlers among whom it was asserted, and proved beyond doubt, that destitution existed to an extent that was hardly credible. 

From the first we had the fullest confidence in Mr. Meston’s statements, and from our knowledge of the writer, we were certain he would not intentionally misrepresent facts for the purpose of obtaining a mere ephemeral popularity. When a public journalist is in the presence of destitution and suffering, such as Mr. Meston personally observed at the Rosewood Scrub, it is but natural that he would write strongly on the facts collected by him. And in these times strong writing is required to enlist the public sympathy. 

The powerful letters of the celebrated correspondent of the London Times, “S. G. 0” (the Rev. Sydney Godolphin Osborne), on the Indian Famine Relief Fund, moved hundreds of the population of Great Britain to contribute liberally to the relief of their fellow-creatures in India, who otherwise, probably, would have contributed little or nothing. Mr. Meston has followed in the footsteps of this truly patriotic, brilliant, and benevolent clergyman. He has directed public attention, and enlisted public sympathy, on behalf of a class of settlers who wore really in a most pitiable condition. So far from deserving censure for his action, he is, in our opinion, entitled to the warmest thanks of the whole community. 

Mr. Meston has the courage of his opinions. Determined to show that he had written truthfully, even if strongly, on the condition of the people of the Rosewood Scrub, he, on Tuesday last, accompanied Mr. James Foote, M.L.A., to the locality, and we give below the result as published in the Ipswich Observer of Thursday. The report speaks for itself and upholds all Mr. Meston’s previous statements.

Our readers are probably becoming weary of the Rosewood Scrub, which threatens to continue, surfeited with the long and profitless discussions and the letters of correspondents, and only a sense of duty to ourselves and to destitute settlers requiring assistance in their distress justifies the repetition, and we cannot be turned from our duty by frowns, threats, or ridicule, or the plausible statements of those who speak and write as if they knew everything, when they actually know nothing. We shall be as brief as possible. 

On Tuesday morning, at 6 o’clock, we left Ipswich for the Rosewood Scrub, with Mr. James Foote, member for the West Moreton, and Mr. J. Born to act as guide and interpreter. Mr. Foote was anxious to know the actual state of affairs, and he is entitled to the most earnest thanks of the settlers for the honest interest he has taken in their distress; and as his first visit was but a short one, he had only a very partial opportunity of learning the true state of the people, but on this occasion he made a sufficiently general and minute inspection to be able to judge accurately. 

Before entering the Scrub we met several water-carts on their way to Walloon for water, having left home at daylight, and one man said came fifteen miles or thirty miles for a cask of water, and all along the road to Friedrich’s we met carts driven by boys, men, and women, all bound for water. 

We first called on a widow with nine children, her husband had died after an illness of 23 weeks, and she has no means of supporting her family, and is in really destitute circumstances. The poor woman cried as she narrated her difficulties, and no wonder. Further on we came to a family who pay eighteen shillings weekly for water, and the husband was obliged to leave his wife and children at home and go and work in Brisbane. After remaining an hour at Mr. Friedrich’s store we all started, accompanied by Mr. Friedrich, to visit the Back Plain and the settlers away towards Tarampa. Not a trace of vegetation appeared on all the clearings, the bare slopes were dry as the desert, many with the hoe holes waiting for a chance to plant and others covered with the white ashes of the brigalow where the fires had been smouldering. Scarcely at any house, we think only two, did we find the husbands at home, all were away for water. 

We found one family whose horse was injured, and they had to buy their water and pay eight shillings per cask for it, and another family whose fowls and ducks were nearly all dead and the husband and wife could only earn 2s. 6d. daily and had to buy three casks of water weekly. These people were really destitute, and no fault of theirs, for they had all to work like slaves to “give the lips they love unborrowed bread.” Another family we found sadly in need of assistance, and how they manage to live is a profound mystery. The two women cried bitterly as they told Mr. Born of this distress, and they do not cry for nothing these people.

We heard of another family who had killed all their fowls, ducks, and pigs for food and had nothing left, while scores are barely existing on the most meagre provisions, and clothing is evidently deficient with many of them, and they have nowhere in some instances to look for money to buy food or clothes. 

It was apparent to us all, that only for the generous way in which the Ipswich storekeepers have supported these settlers, fully half of them would have been forced to leave their homes months ago, but though some would now go and seek for work they have no idea where to get it. All their time is spent in carting water, and many of them could not leave their families to go and look for work, for the family would either have to cart water or pay for it, and many could neither do one nor the other; and as a rule the great majority would not leave their homes under any but the must desperate circumstances and as a last resource, which is natural, seeing the labor and privations they have undergone in making or acquiring those homes. Crossing the hill towards the Back Plain we found settlers who lived on the heights and had to carry their water three miles and up a hill with gradients of one in ten in some places. 

On the way we passed several settlers really destitute, and yet these people would hardly admit that they were so much in want as they really are, and only for Mr. Born we should have been unable to tell except by external appearances. On the Back Plain there were several hard cases, one a widow with four children and whose husband died a short time ago and left her not only without any money, but with a heavy debt, and the poor woman had to sell the waggon to pay some of it. She was advised to leave the place and go into town, but the farm being a homestead, with residence not fulfilled, she would not leave, and also thinks it better to stay in her own home, for with a little assistance and kind neighbors she may manage to get over this season and be able to make her own living from the farm. Mr. Foote most generously gave this poor woman some liberal gift from his own pocket, and we added a couple of pounds from the relief fund, and it was all much wanted. 

We heard of another settler, one who had to draw water eleven miles, and who would have starved only for substantial sympathy from Messrs. Cribb and Foote. Several of the settlers have gone away to look for work, and some have returned unable to find any. The hardships some of the settlers are enduring is incredible, and the water famine is appalling. 

Mr. Foote was as much astonished as we were to find them all so cheerful, and he agrees with us that no other race of people would have remained there under such privations. Many of them now find it difficult to feed their horses, and no horses means no water. All their stock is a fearful burden to them, for our readers can realize the expense of giving cows and horses water at 8s. per gallon or drawing it 10 or 12 miles for them. A few have no horse, and in this case have to buy or carry, and Mr. Archibald who is boring for water, told us of a poor old man and two little girls who travel daily a distance of six miles for water, or a distance of twelve miles a day for a drink. 

And our readers will mark this-all these people have been devoting their whole time and labor from five or ten months in carting water, and remember also that their last crop was entirely lost, that there have been a continual expenditure and no income and now then even the most sceptical or the most thoughtless -wish to believe that there is not a great deal of ruin and destitution? It is impossible it could be otherwise. A few of the older settlers, and those who have been most successful, are even now fairly comfortable, and would be so for a long time, but these are men who took off several good crops and differ widely from those who started within the last three years without a penny, had to borrow to begin with, and by losing the lost crop and no prospect of the next one, have thus started under difficulties and had no chance to retrieve themselves. It is all very well for a man who has plenty to pooh-pooh an idea of want and to think everybody or ought to be like him, but such reasoning is unadulterated nonsense and goes for nothing whatever. 

After a tour round the Back Plain, back past Hansen’s, on to Sally Owen’s Pain, we all returned to Mr. Friedrichs’ at 6 o’clock, after a ride of about twenty-five miles and having seen enough to convince us all that there is real destitution among a great many of even those settlers whom we visited, and who are only a fraction of those who inhabit that immense tract of scrub. 

Mr. Foote did not deem it necessary to go out for another day, nor did any of us, for we were all satisfied that there are scores of destitute families in the Rosewood, and that the general misery from want of water by everybody, and want of enough food and clothes by a few, is enough to justify public subscription and any assistance that can be rendered.

It is the intention of Mr. Foote, the member for the district, to urge the Government to organise a few road parties from settlers who want work, and make and repair the roads in the Scrub, and this will undoubtedly do a large amount of good in a double sense; but there are many who can do nothing until they have water, having no time to attend to anything else. 

Mr. Foote has done all in his power to have wells sunk, and now he will increase his efforts when he knows the true state of affairs, and the settlers may depend that he will do all he can for them publicly and privately, and we will be only too willing to give him all the assistance in our power at any time. 

In our first article we used the word “famine,” not in the Indian sense, to mean that people were dying in all directions, but to indicate destitution; and it is now proved beyond all question that if our first description was tinted a little, it was perfectly true in detail and actual facts, as those forming the party on Tuesday can prove if necessary. We do not pretend to say what will be the result of three months’ more drought; we are afraid to give the real state even at present, but it is devoutly to be hoped the Almighty will spare the people further affliction if it seems best to Him.