The Beulah district is bounded on its east side by the Mersey River, on its west side by the Dasher River, on its north side by the Kentish Bridle Track Rd and on its south side by Union Bridge Rd, which connects Paradise and Mole Creek. As part of the County of Devon, the northern half of Beulah was designated the Parish of Roland and the southern half the Parish of Loxere. Within this uninhabited bushland, Foster Estate was granted land, often several miles wide, adjoining the eastern side of the Dasher River and stretching all the way from Paradise to Kimberley. In 1863 when the Deloraine district became the first municipality established on the Northwest coast, it included the Beulah and Paradise districts. It was only after floods washed away all the wooden bridges on the Mersey River several times, taking many months to be replaced, that it became apparent, in 1908, that Beulah and Paradise were better served as part of the new Kentish municipality that began in Jan 1908. Following the 1944 floods, it was over 10 years before Dynan’s Bridge was replaced.
First Settlers to North Beulah
As we saw previously, the original settlers to Paradise had to first cross great swathes of bushland belonging to Foster Estate to get to their selections, and the original settlers of Beulah had to do the same thing. About 1877/78, they forded the Dasher River at Duck Marsh off the old Paradise Rd and climbed the long hills eastward through Foster Estate until, on top of the hill, they found excellent fertile land they were free to purchase. The first settlers were James (56) & Helen (44) Knowles with their family of eight boys and one girl, who took up 218 acres northwest of the present township of Beulah. On the next property were Bassett & Mary (Greenhill) Ferrar who settled on 320 acres and, adjoining them, William & Mary Ann Walker with seven children had another 320 acres. Mary Ann was the daughter of Thos Johnson Jr along the Old Paradise Rd & and granddaughter of Dolly Dalrymple of Sherwood, Latrobe. These three pioneering families were soon joined by two of Reuben Austin’s sons, John and Albert Austin, on 150 acres and son-in-law George with wife Alice (Austin) Eagling on 48 acres. All these families had adjoining properties that stretched from the present-day Golden Gate Rd on top of the hill down to the future township of Beulah. Interestingly, all these families had been converted in revival meetings of the Christian Brethren evangelists in Kentish during 1874–75, and it seems they may have made a collective decision to pioneer this new farming district; not unlike the Wesleyan group of families that first came to Barrington.
Beulah given its Name
Just as Reuben Austin, their well-known friend, and father to some of them, had named ‘Paradise’, so this inspired group of new settlers came up with another biblical name, ‘Beulah’, for their new district. At the time, Beulah was in common use as a name for substantial homesteads, suggesting ‘peacefulness, contentment and bliss.’ It first appeared in newspapers in July 1880, stating: ‘Beulah is the name of the new settlement south-east from Kentishbury, lying between the Mersey and Dasher Rivers.’ James Knowles held cottage meetings in his house until the mid-1880s when a small split-timber gospel hall was built on John & Albert Austin’s farm on the southside of today’s Golden Gate Rd. This building doubled as a day school for their children whenever a teacher became available. A few other settlers took up land south of them, but crossing the Dasher River at Duck Marsh remained the only way in and out of Beulah, necessitating building a rough log bridge. This route remained a very rough track, not suitable for chaise carts, only bullocks or horseback, and after rain Duck Marsh became an impassable bog. In 1880, when a few government ministers made their first visit to Beulah via Duck Marsh, a meeting held in the ‘Beulah Hotel’ (probably Knowles’s living room) urged the building of a new access route by extending Vinegar Hill Rd down to a more stable crossing place through the Dasher River, but the Minnow Gold Rush changed all that.
Finding Gold in the Minnow
After finding rich gold deposits at Beaconsfield in June 1877, the discovery of gold six months later in the Minnow River by Sheffield prospector J G (Jack) Johnson couldn’t have had a more dramatic impact on the northern area of our island. In Dec 1877 Jack Johnson quickly sold the general store he had just opened in Sheffield to James Butt, and along with his brothers Thomas and Lewis, and others, they began to explore two promising reefs they believed they had found. Charles Coleman’s sensational report titled The Sheffield Gold Fields, printed in the Examiner on 31 Dec 1877, had its predictable response: gold fever quickly spread, with hundreds of ‘hopefuls’ rushing to the Minnow River hoping to pick up a quick fortune. They came from Sheffield, Kentish, Latrobe, Railton, Deloraine and Launceston. The shortest route from Sheffield and Kentish was to leave Old Paradise Rd at the Dasher River and track up what is today Watts Rd over the hill and come down directly on the Minnow goldfields. Railton prospectors formed a rough track from Dick Lowe’s bridge, through Stoodley across the Bridal Track Rd and the Dasher River, up through North Beulah and down the Minnow. The most used track brought Deloraine and Launceston prospectors from Dunorlan down across Dynan’s Ford at the Mersey River and onto the Minnow goldfields.
The Minnow River drains the top of Mt Roland and after heavy rain, pours down the mountainside in a series of spectacular cascades called the Minnow Falls. From the base of the mountain, the river flows northward between the Gog Range and the Paradise Hills where it crosses Union Track Rd to Mole Creek. The Minnow goldfields commenced here and continued as the Minnow River rounds the western end of the Gog Range and runs eastward through Lower Beulah for a couple of miles parallel to the Gog Range. Several small tribute creeks running off the side of the Gog Range also contained traces of gold. The goldfields ended where the Minnow turns north to eventually join the Dasher River at the bottom of the Kentish Bridal Track Rd. Today, Lower Beulah Rd follows the route of the Minnow River very closely from beginning to end.
But there was no quick money, and within a few weeks most of the ‘hopefuls’ had left, leaving the more committed prospectors to burn the bush for easier access and begin sluicing the gravelly creek bottoms and digging test holes alongside the riverbed. But digging and tunnelling was hard work, and not enough gold was found. Still, everyone was hoping to find a gold lode where payable gold could be mined.
As the miners grew more confident about where to peg out their claims, the government sent two surveyors to the district. During 1879 –1880, one worked on a detailed survey of the entire Minnow River, while the other surveyed a proper road from Dunorlan railway station to the goldfields where he laid out a small township site called Minnow. The surveyors were kept busy granting 10-acre mining leases to more than two dozen groups, the first being Thomas Johnson and his three sons, Thomas Jr, Jack & Lewis of Sheffield. Other leases listing Sheffield people included: John & Frank Greenhill, Stephen & Chas Smith, Malcolm Campbell, George Strawberry, Robert Manley, Wm Collard, James & Thomas Boutcher, James Butt and Reuben Austin.
By July 1880, land speculators from Launceston began buying up the big blocks of land, hoping gold might be found on them. They included W & T C Hawkes of the Cornwall Hotel, Benjamin W Campion (a Longford solicitor), W Hart of Harts Hardware and Harry Birchall, managing director of A W Birchall’s bookstore in Launceston. This was at a time when things looked to be booming. Wm Moore opened a storeroom on his 166-acre block and supplied the miners with meat and bread. In fact, there was even talk of building a hotel for the miners.
In Dec 1880, 27 investors formed the Star of the West Gold Mining Co and put up £10,000 to purchase mining & milling equipment. Seven investors from Sheffield committed to £650 each. Once, the mine’s manager, William Creelman, who had been to Deloraine on business, arrived back at the Mersey River only to find it too high to cross. He had to walk upriver to what became known later as Kelly’s Cage Rd and cross on a settler’s barge, after which he became completely lost for three days and three nights. Shareholders in the Blair Athol Gold Mining Co, formed on 9 Dec 1881, all came from Westbury. Blair Athol was one of Britain’s greatest racehorses of the 19th century. However, if all these investors thought they had backed winners at the Minnow, they were gravely mistaken.
Minnaw/Minnow Name Muddle. Like Mt Rolland/Roland, the Minnaw/Minnow River had its spelling problems. Reporting the excitement of finding gold at Beulah, The North West Post newspaper, printed in Latrobe, insisted on spelling it the ‘Minnaw River’. Earliest handwritten maps had this river marked the Minnaw, Monnow and Munnow. Almost certainly it was named after the Monnow River that runs across southern Wales, England. But with all those vowel variations, I guess the surveyor’s choice of Minnow River for its permanent name was a reasonable compromise.
First Road into Beulah
After government surveyor Henry Chambers surveyed the road from Dunorlan to the Minnow goldfields, the need for a bridge across the Mersey River at Dynan’s Ford became an urgent necessity. In March 1882, Charles Fenton, the only son of historian James Fenton of Forth, won the contract to build this 150ft-wide bridge for £599. Six months later, Chalmers reported that many selectors, anxious to obtain good farmland in Beulah, had taken up 3,803 acres, with more applications being made almost daily. Geo Gregory from Westwood, near Westbury, began advertising for 50 men to cut down scrub by the acre along the foothills of Gog Range. He had purchased more than a dozen blocks and needed men to scrub and burn them off so he could sew them down with English grass seed. Some said Gregory would get his money back in one season.
Dynan’s Bridge was completed 15 months later in August 1883, but by then the Minnow goldfields were in serious decline. For most mining parties, their results were devastating. The gold specks petered out, and there was no gold reef. The Johnson brothers traced alluvial gold to the higher ground of Mt Gog, but no mining parties could find a payable gold reef. In October 1883, the Star of the West mine was forced to close, and all hands were laid off. But as mining interest waned, farming fever increased. Roads from Paradise, Stoodley and Kimberley opened, and the last of Beulah’s good land was taken up.
First settlers at Lower Beulah
The first family to take up land in Lower Beulah were Edward (Ted) & Christiana Sharman and their seven children. Ted was one of five brothers & one sister belonging to George & Mary Sharman, all of whom came from Huntingdonshire, England, aboard the Panama, arriving in Hobart in April 1853. Near New Norfolk, Edward married German immigrant Christiana Hansh in 1867 before all the Sharmans moved north to Blackamore near Weegena. After Ted bought land in Lower Beulah, several other Sharman families followed.
Next came Ted & Christiana’s good friends Thomas & Mary Ann Jessop with six of their offspring. They were also from Blackamore, where Thomas had been a farm overseer. Their eldest daughter, Emma Jessop, had married Frederick Sharman back in Oct 1868. Thomas Jessop selected a 200-acre block at the junction of Dynans Bridge Rd and Lower Beulah Rd, which later became the centre of the Lower Beulah settlement. A Methodist family, they had come from Suffolk, England, aboard the 977-ton Whirlwind, arriving in Launceston 31 March 1855.
Charles and Wm Frankcombe from Blackwood Creek behind Bracknell also purchased blocks on the western side of Thos Jessop. Just how close these three earliest families became is indicated by the four weddings held within two months in 1886 at the Wesleyan church, Deloraine. On the same day, 24 March 1886, Chas Frankcombe (21) m Anna Jessop (26) schoolteacher, Alfred Thomas Jessop (21) m Mary Sharman (17) and Chas Sharman (22) m Clara Jessop (23) schoolteacher. Two months later, on 18 May 1886, Wm Henry Frankcombe (23) m Mary Ann Martha Jessop (19).
On 1 Nov 1887, a post office was opened in Mrs Clara Sharman’s house called the Beulah Post Office. The mail was carried in nine miles from the Dunorlan railway station by Thomas Jessop (1887–1895) and Ed Sharman (1895–1904). But over the following years, as most Minnow goldminers left, scores of new settlers began occupying all the land between the two separate pioneer groups in the north and south areas of Beulah. By the turn of the century, a small township developed in the centre of the Beulah district that included a school, public hall, church and local shop. In mid-1904, John & Annie Best’s recently opened store became the new Beulah Post Office, with mail deliveries now coming from Railton and Stoodley instead of via Dunorlan. On the same date, Clara Sharman’s original PO, four miles away, was renamed for the first time as Lower Beulah PO.
Next time, we will look at the pioneer settlers along Beulah Rd.