Week 29 - Newsworthy
We are so fortunate in Australia to have “Trove”, the
National Library of Australia’s online database aggregator which includes free
access to digitised newspapers, gazettes, official documents and images from
all over the country, starting in the earliest years of the colony.
“As of
10 May 2020, 23,498,368 newspaper pages and 2,026,782 government gazette
pages were available to view.” (Wikipedia)
I am one of the 70,000 researchers who use this facility every
day. “The Northern Star” newspaper
of Lismore has provided me with a huge amount of information about my father’s
family and also my husband’s – unfortunately “The Quirindi Advocate”, the
paper of my mother’s home community is not yet digitised.
Often, I am looking for one thing and another pops up – I can
spend hours going down rabbit holes.
Such was the case when I found this headline in the Brisbane Sunday Mail
of Sunday 5 July 1939:
“SEEKING
HORSE OF GOLD”
Here is the story:
A Woman living at Pretty Gully, about 50 miles from the
Queensland border, is looking for a golden horse she saw in a dream 10 years
ago. She is Mrs. Agnes Graham, who, until a remarkable dream, lived an
uneventful life, conducting a confectionery shop in Lismore. In the dream she
saw a golden horse standing in a setting of virgin country. It impressed her so
much that she went out driving shortly after, and at Pretty Gully claimed that
she saw the exact scene —minus the golden horse. Mrs. Graham immediately gave
up her Lismore shop, and persuaded her brother, Mr. Henry Samin, to erect a hut
for her. She took out a mining lease, cleared an acre of ground, grew fruit
trees, and had a shop built. She often comes across gold when she can spare
time from her shop, and stlll persists in her search for the golden horse of
her dreams.
TRAGEDY ENTERS Mr. Henry Samin, the brother
who built the hut, died in Brisbane yesterday, after an illness contracted when
a motor launch in which he was fishing at Burleigh Heads capsized four months
ago. He was taken ashore by his son, Neville, and another lad. Mr. Samin was
born in Victoria 70 years ago, and later lived in the Richmond River district
and at Charters Towers. He was a keen axeman, as were his three brothers. Many years
ago, they issued a challenge to any other four brothers in Australia to chop
against them, but it was never accepted. His brother. George held the underhand
woodchop championship at the Brisbane Exhibition for a number of years. Mr.
Henry Samin. who had his home at Coolangatta, is survived by his widow and
seven children. His mother, who is 89. is living at Ballina. The funeral will
be held at Tweed Heads tomorrow morning.
Agnes and Henry Samin were two more grandchildren of Agnes
McMillan, whose remarkable convict story I have told before, and so they are
distant cousins of my husband (who is a 3 x grandchild of Agnes McMillan).
I was intrigued enough to try to find out more about Agnes and
I wondered if she ever found the gold?
Agnes Samin was the fourth of nine children born to Agnes
Roberts and Henry Samin. The family lived
in Victoria at the time of her birth but by the late 1870s were back in the
Northern Rivers area of NSW, where her father died in 1886. Agnes was only 13.
In 1895, she married Archibald Graham and they had three
children in the next six years. The marriage
was not a happy one. Archibald drank and
failed to provide for Agnes and the children, despite her taking him to court
for support. She got a job in Lismore,
working in a confectionery business owned by Henry de Montmorency, and in 1917,
she obtained a divorce from Archibald.
Northern Star 22 Dec 1917
DECREES NISI.
In the Divorce Court on Tuesday Mr. Justice Gordon
granted decrees nisi in the following cases on the findings of Judge Hamilton
at the Lismore District Court : — Agnes Graham v. Archibald Graham
My Trove wanderings led me to read more about Henry de
Montmorency*, who had a chequered life in Lismore, reinventing himself after a flamboyant
start and a scandalous arrest.
In 1907, he first appeared in advertisements as “Professor
de Montmorency”, giving lectures and demonstrations of Palmistry, Phrenogy and
Astrology. He claimed to be a graduate
of the “Zancois School of Palmistry, Patronised by the Elite.” Soon he was the proprietor of the Federal Herbal
Institute, in Molesworth St, Lismore. The
testimonials credit him with being able to cure everything from constipation to
consumption.
 |
| Testimonial from The Northern Star 20 Nov 1909 |
In 1910, there was a serious charge brought against
him. In a case held behind closed doors,
he was charged with “using a certain instrument with a certain intent.” Within a month, a “No Bill” was filed and he
walked free. He took out a half page
advertisement in The Northern Star to declare his innocence.
Over the next twenty years, Henry appeared frequently in The
Northern Star. He was President of the
Rowing Club and the Cricket Club. He was
on the Show committee and the Chamber of Commerce. His confectionary business became the North
Coast Confectionary Company and won prizes.
He appeared to no longer work as a herbalist.
In 1943, Henry and Agnes married and he moved to live with
her at Pretty Gully. In the census of
1949, he gives his occupation as “miner” –Agnes still holds a mining lease so
they are still looking for the elusive pot of gold.
It seems that it remained elusive. Soon afterwards he appeared
in another news story as the “Assistant Post Master” of Pretty Gully and only
five years later, in 1954, they were living in Brisbane. By this time Agnes was in her 70s, so perhaps
she was no longer able to do the physical work of mining for gold, or perhaps
she was resigned to never finding it.
Henry died in 1965 and Agnes the following year.
Without the newspaper files we would know almost nothing
about them.
*Henry de Montmorency.
I have never been able to find a birth certificate for him and I wonder
if that was his real name. (It is the
name of a French noble of the 16th century – perhaps he adopted it?)
There is a family story that while he owned the Confectionary
Company they are said to have developed a sweet which were called “Monties”
(after Henry). After he sold the company,
the name of the sweet was changed to “Minties”. (However, this story does not
fit with the official history of Minties.)
The Northern Star reported the Company was liquidated in 1933.
No comments:
Post a Comment