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SKIPPER ARMITAGE - AN ISLAND LEGEND

In this first part of a two part feature on Edward E. Armitage MOONBI endeavours to provide the background to one of the more articulate Fraser Island pioneers - a man with almost fifty years of association with Fraser Island.

MOONBI is indebted to Gerrald Patterson of Brisbane who has provided F.I.D.O. with copies of the papers of this remarkable character. Most of the biographical background in MOONBI is drawn from "Reminiscences of a Queensland Pioneer" - a 32 page biography by the "Skipper" published in 1926. The other recollections and anecdotes come from Rollo Petrie who knew the "Skipper" well and whose family relied on "Skipper" Armitage to bring them fresh meat whenever he could.

[left column] Edward E. Armitage was born in Dublin 9th June 1848 and moved with his family to Melbourne in the Gold Rush arriving in 1852 as a four year old.

In his early teens he saw a meteor fall in Dandenong Road, Melbourne, which "was a lump of nearly pure iron, weight 6 tons...3 1/2 feet long and 2 1/2 feet in diameter."

In 1864 (then 16) he followed his brother to Maryborough "where there were 200-300 people comprising timbergetters."

"Reminiscences of a Queensland Pioneer" His biography records:

TIMBER GETTING "On arriving in Maryborough I joined a party of timber getters of whom my brother was now the leading spirit. The timber then grew in the virgin scrubs and forests on the banks of the rivers and creeks, the haulage being so short that only snigging chains and block-wheel trollies were needed. I once cut a pine tree mast for a vessel not far from where Walkers Ltd. stands now. It was all scrub then. No one dreamed even of roads or bridges, let alone railways. The wild primeval bush was everywhere, and we went where we liked, camped where we liked, worked at anything that would give a living. Lonely pioneers generally welcomed a new face as a sign of growing and improving settlement."

The next three years were lean years while young Armitage humped his bluey from station to station looking for work "at any wages" but then in 1867 the lad who arrived in Australia during the Victorian gold rushes saw another Gold Rush at Gympie. He resisted the temptations of the fields and continued a series of outback adventures incluing an encounter with Queensland's only real bush ranger "The Wild Scotsman" and a duel with a tribal aborigine at Graham's Creek (near Maryborough). He survived the latter with a narrow escape from death and was subsequently honoured by being accepted as a "Bunda", white member of the Wide Bay Tribe. It was this status as a "Bunda" which enabled Armitage to establish such a close bond with and understanding of aboriginal culture in the Maryborough-Fraser Island area.

In 1874 after further wanderings including work in Cardwel rain forests where he contracted Malaria, Armitage returned to Maryborough to join in Cedar and Pine logging on Mt. Bopple and along the Mary River. He records -

[right column] " A dry season prevented my getting any down to market the first year (1874), but the next year more than made up for it. A big flood came in February. I had then over 2,000 logs in the river, the flood carried many of them down the river as far as the sea, but most of them were washed up on to the farms and into the scrubs along the river, and gave me five months' extra work with a party of three men and a team of bullocks to get them hauled back into the river and down to the sawmills."

Then 26 years old, Armitage married. Although he continued to travel he was based more permanently in Maryborough. He became manager of a sawmill at Mungar, at $3 per week which employed 62 men. He reorganised the mill but some of the re-organisation included construction of a railway. This was several years before the Queensland Government started the railway line between Maryborough and Gympie in 1879 which ultimately led to the closure of the Mungar sawmill.

Armitage noted:-

"Mr. William Sim, the local head of Pettigrew and Coy's mills at Dundathu, had already shown that a very cheap line of wooden rails could be usefully employed for the carriage of log-timber in places where team haulage was too costly either by reason of distance or for want of "grass to feed teams."

He built a wooden railway at Tin Can Bay. "The Cooloola Tramway" about nine miles long, used a light locomotive to haul the log timber trucks and made a marked success of it. (Sims) was unfortunately killed by an accident on his own railway in 1874."

The success of Armitage's engineering was acknowledged in 1928 when he wrote of the locomotive steam engine he constructed:

"It is still running, though it is 43 years since it was built. It has for many years past been working as a winding engine in Hyne and Son's sawmills in Maryborough, and does all the hauling up and down between the mill and shipping wharf. (hauling in the logs punted from Fraser Island)."

Having left the sawmill he went into contracting business whish led him to build a telephone line from Bogimbah to Sandy Cape Lighthouse 1885. He comments on this chapter of his life which brought him into contact with Fraser Island as follows:

MOONBI 43 Pa

[left column] hospital several days before regaining consciousness. His first words were how sore his legs were. "Its your head that is sore", he was told.

However, on examination it was found that the calves of both legs were badly burned. He had been laid across a hot steam pipe on deck of the boat which had brought him to hospital several days earlier. It was not a very good recommendation hospital staff!!

After his recovery Skipper had a stiff neck. His head was permanently turned to one side. he had to turn his body to look round one way.

Skipper would frequently go up to the scrub on the tram to check on work there. On a previous trip he had instructed "Alf Jarvis" the native (loco driver) to remove a Banksia branch from over the track as it was getting close to the chimney stack. About two years after the accident which twisted his neck the branch was still there. The quick tempered Skipper grabbed an axe, called Jarvis to steady down, climbed up on the tender and made a swipe at the branch. However he lost his footing and he speared head-first over the side, hitting his head on the end of a railway sleeper. He had another trip to Maryborough Hospital, stll unconscious, with some people worried that the old warrior might never recover. Some time later he was alright again, but truth is stranger than fiction - his neck returned to normal and remained so.

Skipper had all but one of his own teeth until death in the late 90's; he never used a toothbrush, but always rinsed his teeth after eating anything.

Another time in Maryborough, while Skipper was walking down the street, he heard yells - looked back to see a horse in sulky bolting down the street, a woman and baby aboard. Skipper raced out into the street and started running in the direction the horse was travelling. As it passed him he threw himself on to its head and neck, pulling the horse to a standstill in the process. The sulky shaft had pierced his coat from the side and was poking out through his chest - or seemed to be. One woman fainted. However the shaft had only gone under his arm.

Skipper was helping or conducting, I am not sure which, a survey of part of the Island. The usual set up of those days was - camp, men, camp cook, e[??] [??] no going home each night).

The diet was not 'Rowe's'. The camp cook did his best to vary meals when possible. He caught some eels and turned them into a dish with white sauce etc Some days later another eel dish was relished also. The Wood Joey when getting wood, killed a carpet snake. We broke camp at daylight and that night someone remarked - "No more eel". "No" said cook. "I s'pose you know you ate the carpet snake last night."

All except one took it O.K. This chap got violently ill and next day was sick all day, and that night he wouldn't eat and after two days it was realized he was not going to improve, so two men were sent back to the carpet snake camp and had to bring the carcass back with them - he recovered quickly. [column end]

[Photograph] LOADING TIMBER in Woongoolbver Creek 1934 into the "Archos". The log ramp and loading ramp are well downstream of Orange Tree Camp. It was here that the tramline which operated on Fraser Island from 1915 - 1923 terminated and it was from this point that Skipper Armitage loaded most of the timber punted from Fraser Island during that period. The logging dump is still used today.

Skipper Armitage was a remarkable man with a fiery Irish temper and a lovable Irish way. He was well known to Rollo Petrie who had placed on record a number of the myriad of anecdotes relating to this remarkable old Fraser Island pioneer.

In MOONBI 43 we have endeavoured to sketch some of the background of this colourful character and in MOONBI 44 we will publish his more detailed recollections of Fraser Island and its aborigines. MOONBI 43 Page

THE PETRIES AT CENTRAL FOREST STATION Recollections of Rollo Petrie from 1917

Note: MOONBI 41 gave a background of the Petrie's 137 year association with Fraser Island and the life style of the aborigines still on FraserIsland in 1913. In MOONBI 42 Rollo remembered his bush camp at Bogimbah in 1913 - 1915. MOONBI 43 recalled the Petries at Orange Tree Camp in 1916-17 at the Mouth of Woongoolbver Creek. ------ In 1918 I went away to school in Petrie. I was 7 or 8. In 1918 we shifted up to Scrub Camp, Central Station as it is known now. We were living in a drying shed Dad had erected of a number of different kinds of timber while the house was being pulled down, transported up Woongoolbver Creek by bullock wagon and re-erected, where there is now a Bar-Be-Que at Central Station.

By this time, several families with school-age kids, and Dad got a school and we turned up on opening day - nine strong - later it grew to 15. The school house was on top of a hill south od Scrub Camp. Now, this area was called Central Forest Station. (Editors Note - The site of theoriginal Central Station School was on the hill in the Spotted Gum patch South West of the present settlement of Central Station. Later a second school was moved in from McKenzies and was situated where the amenities block is now. It had a peak enrolment of 40 but closed during th war. It was used later as an office and was demolished in 1978)

The Fraser School had a boost when the Weir family from South Africa (cousins of Ron Weir, Maryborough) arrived with a large family who were everlasting running out of supplies. The Weirs arrived with some new talent, some girls about our age. The Kauri patch in front of house at Scrub Camp was about 5 - 6 ft. high, just right for running round in.

A "BLUE MOON" - White or Black Legend? The Blue Moon seen once in a 100 years we observed from there. I cannot recollect just what it looked like but I can remember the time we observed both the scheduled "end of world", and the "Blue Moon" on the Island, among other things. I think children in those days, in that environment, grew up much earlier or ./2.

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became more self-dependent. I would venture to say a twelve-year old in that era would match the average 18 years old of today, not academically but in intelligence and initiative. Didn't spend so much time protesting and marching aimlessly, had a goal or goil.

In October, 1917 the Forestry bought a motorboat (ex Sailboat) "HEATHER". I note with amusement a reference of my Dad's to said "Heather", - "Beautifully constructed, the engine barely 8 years old and runs with an even throb and easily started." I can recollect one night when said engine refused and was towed by dinghy power the last two miles to Jetty Woongoolbver and another afternoon coming down from Maryborough, all the family aboard, Dad and Wally Barton and crew; Wall was "Heather's" Skipper and did all trips and maintenance - he was a sailor by trade - back to trip - the engine failed, the tide was running out fast. Dad and Wally were winding in turns, sweat running as fast as the tide, the rocks at the heads getting nearer. Dad's trips up from the engine room were more frequent and then the clear, crisp instructions to Mum and us. Mum had baby in arms. "When I yell, jump. Jump and make for shore. I will be behind you." We could all swim except Nell whom Dad had in hand. Wally was still winding and at that moment a yell came up at the same time as a kick by the engine and it picked up in time to get steerage to miss the rocks by prcious little.If I read this I would imagine I was reading a fairy tale where the hero just got there on time but this one is true fact. I can show you the rock where we would have crashed!!!

We had some hectic trips across Hervey Bay and once, en route to Pialba, Mom and babe were tied to the mast on turtleback (cockpit) to stop being tipped off. A tub full of crockery slid across and overboard. About this time, after a sojourn at Pialba while a sister was born, we went to school. We were back at Orange Tree in time to help Bill Jarvis haul house timber to Scrub Camp. I thought I was helping I guess. Anyway, I walked beside the bullocks and drove them while Bill had a smoke. At a camp where a gang of wood cutters with cook complete, about 4 mile up, I can remember the flavour of a cake the cook gave me, yet. Billy Jarvis hauled that up to the present place - the scrub camp - the Central Camp. It was erected there and added to.

Mum was given the go ahead to alter it and make it according to her wishes. It was a very big house. The house was on that little flat where that picnic area now is, at the area of pine in front of what is now the barbeque turnout at

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Central Station. All that country that is now planted in pine where the buildings are was completely cleared and stumped before any of that foundation was built. That was more or less an experimental plot. That was more or less a place where many different growths were noted. You see the Kauri Pine wasn't indiginous to that area, it came from the northern end of the island. As you can see the Kauri did well. Hoop Pine also did well. This also came from the north. There wasn't any Kauri Pine naturally in the Woongoolvber area. It was all scrub, turpentine and similar scrub to the rest. It was a continuation of the Eurong Scrub, right to what we call Walker's Camp or almost to Walker's Camp - turned into Carrol Scrub then, as you know, Carrol Scrub is on the perimeter all the way in. You get Carrol Scrub - forestered Carrol Scrub. That Carrol Scrub was felled and also that area where those big old turpentine trees were near the house, as big as any of them in the forest. It was cleared completely, and as we had horses then and no motor vehicles, stables, drying shed and everything were built on those flats where Central Station is. There were a lot more men employed then. Ten or fifteen men felled scrub, brushed and planted trees. It was all done by hand then.

The house with the 18 feet wide verandah was situated where the picnic area is now - west of

We were living in the Drying Shed which was at the top of the bank where the track goes down to the creek at Central Station where Flooded Gum is now. We used to slug water on the slide up from the creek with two horses, Major and Tommy, before water was laid on. Tommy, a big beautiful roan rolled me down the hill one night with a well placed kick on the hip after much manipulation. Dad declared no bones broken. Tommy may have been lame for a day or two!! About the same time, sister Nell, while running down the hill from school, was staked with a burnt Carrol sucker, penetrating deeply and leaving charcoal. It took much probing and cleansing to remove the charcoal, and much convincing sister it was in her interests.

In June, 1917 the tramline into Eurong area, one mile was pulled up and laid east to Tallewood block. Rails at this time were unobtainable. Due to shortage of rails a patch of virgin Tallowood a mile further on was temporarily abandoned - seemingly the patch east was priority.

Just east of Forest Station on the road through Eurong is a steep hill called Gentle Annie. This hill was a bugbear to hauling loads of young trees as the U.R.P. method of transplanting in cubes had been adopted. This meant heavy loads of trees

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