What? No Caterina Cordelia? Folklore debunked

 

As I research and write history, I always feel that I should add a disclaimer: this is the story, until further research proves otherwise!

THE FOLKLORE

I have oft repeated the story of the enigmatic Caterina Cordelia as given us by history buff and newspaper editor Robert Shepherd who may have got it from Alec S Kemp, The Kemp Report. According to local lore an Italian woman, Caterina Cordelia, arrived on the Herbert as the housekeeper for licenced surveyor Maurice Geoffrey O’Connell who along with his brother John Geoffrey O’Connell and William McDowall (McDowell) are attributed with the first planting of sugar cane in the Herbert River Valley.

 It has always been thought that a number of landscape features eg: creek and hill, were named for her. What happened to the O’Connells and McDowall can be tracked through newspaper reports and documents, but the fate of Caterina Cordelia has remained a mystery.

Until now…………….

FOLKLORE DEBUNKED

Bill Kitson, Retired Senior Curator, Museum of Lands Mapping and Surveying and coauthor of works such as Surveying Queensland 1839-1945, A Pictorial History and With Great Zeal. Charting of the Queensland Coast by the Royal Navy 1861-1913 appears to have solved the mystery and in so doing debunked the folklore.

This is what Bill writes and I quote:

In 1866 Maurice, who was at that time the Commissioner of Crown Lands for the North Kennedy Pastoral District, carried out a feature survey between Saltwater Creek just to the north of Townsville, up to and along the south bank of the Herbert River from Long Pocket to Halifax. On his plan of survey he names several features including a Mt Catherina where Mt Cordelia is today. At the base of it there was a small creek flowing into the Herbert River, which he leaves unnamed. Surveyor George Phillips would in May 1872 call this Katharina Creek. In September that year he also gives O’Connell’s Mt Catherina the name Mt Katharina.

It appears that Maurice was unaware that in 1866 George Strong Nares RN had given the feature the name of Cordelia hill. Nares had carried out a hydrographic survey between Gould   and Rattlesnake Islands (Ref D9482/1 G S Nares, Salamander1866), during which he named several features in the Palm Island group after Royal Naval vessels, that had served on the Australia Station, eg, Pioneer Bay, Pelorus Island, Orpheus Island, Hazard Bay, Harrier Point and on the mainland opposite the islands, Cordelia hill.

 SO!

(1)          Mt Cordelia was named after a vessel of the Royal Navy, not a person.

(2)          Yes, a feature was called Mt Catherina by O’Connell on his 1866 survey.

(3)          The creek at the base was not named Katharina creek by O’Connell on his 1866 survey.  

NOW!

In relation to a mysterious “Italian Lady” named K/Catherina, I offer the following information.

After Maurice’s death in December 1868, his younger brother John Geoffrey O’Connell, who had been his assistant since 1865, got married in April 1869 at Cardwell. On the Marriage certificate it showed that John was a farmer at Katherina Plains Herbert River (O’Connell Bros sugar selection). John would not become an Authorised surveyor until June 1869. His bride was listed as Maria Katherina Louise Cesar (Caesar) age 20 years. She was in fact christened at St Andrew’s Church Sydney in October 1848 as Catharine Lewis (Louis?) Caesar.  Her father was Alfred Louis Cesar (Caesar) and mother Marion Lockhart. Alfred was a linguist working with the New south Wales Police Department. It appears that he may have been born in Mauritius, as his father was Julius Cesar (Caesar), assistant port master at Port Louis for thirty five years. Her mother Marion (Mary) died in 1850, her father remarried in 1853 but died a few years later in 1857.

It is possible that a young woman losing both parents at such an early age might be capable of heading to the wilds of north Queensland while still a teenager?

If the O’Connell brothers named their sugar selection [first taken up in 1868] after her when she was 19 years of age, then there is a chance that she may have been with them in 1866 at age 17 years, when O’Connell carried out his original survey??????.

So, there you have it.  There was no Caterina Cordelia but there may have been a Maria Katherina Louise Cesar (Caesar).  What is so gratifying about the solving of this mystery is that Bill has made an invisible woman visible, and corrected some inaccuracies in the historical record of our district.

Source:

Kemp, Alec S. The Kemp Report, unpublished text, n.d.

Kitson, Bill. The Mysterious “Catherina Cordelia”.

Vidonja Balanzategui, The mysterious Caterina Cordelia. Interpreting Ingham History Blog, 24 July 2022.

StateLibQld 2 239314 Herbert River with Mount Cordelia in the background

                            StateLibQld 1 235334 Lagoon with lilies at Mount Cordelia, near Ingham, ca. 1881

StateLibQld 1 235358 Looking through the garden towards Mount Cordelia, near Ingham, ca. 1881.

 

 

 

History of Ripple Creek Mill and Plantation

When Robert Mitchell Boyd and John and Joseph Wood from NSW acquired Arnot’s 600 acre selection on Ripple Creek in 1882, their venture became the Ripple Creek Plantation and Mill. Installing machinery obtained from Mirrlees, Watson and Co., Glasgow, it first crushed in 1883. Despite its late start it operated the longest of the now defunct mills. Its strengths were that its owners were experienced sugar growers, it was a private concern, it was not overcapitalised, and it used a good proportion of the available plantation lands for growing sugar cane. It also took cane from independent and tenant growers. It had a large annual production of refined white sugar achieved by a sulphitation process, which gave it independence of those few companies that monopolised refining, the largest of which was CSR. By 1906 it had grown to 3 580 acres.

A ‘classic plantation’ and longest operating of the now defunct mills. Ripple Creek Mill, 1884. (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photographic Collection)

In every respect it was the epitome of the classic plantation, essentially a self-sufficient community. The substantial plantation house was surrounded by a luxurious tropical garden and featured a tennis court. Besides the sugar mill, there was also a saw mill and a manure ‘mill’. There were stores, a post and telephone office, a school, hospital, a blacksmith’s shop, implement shed, stock yard, slaughter yard and stables for over 100 horses. 

The 100 horse mill stables, Ripple Creek, n.d.  (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photographic Collection)

As well there were officers’ houses and workers’ cottages and barracks. It had its own tramway system and a wharf on the Seymour River. When Gairloch Plantation and Mill closed and went up for sale in 1887 Wood Bros. and Boyd of Ripple Creek acquired 500 acres of that plantation. Robert M. Boyd, of Ripple Creek Plantation, leased to tenants, and both he and the Neames would have liked to have purchased cane from more contractors but needed the divisional board to put in the infrastructure on the northern side of the river, as they could not afford to do it themselves. Unfortunately, it was not until the passing of the Railways Guarantee Act in 1895 that the divisional board could secure loans to lay a tramline on the northern side of the river. After that Boyd of Ripple Creek followed CSR, taking supplies from both tenant and independent farmers. By 1904 CSR records showed that land-owning farmers outnumbered tenant farmers. 

When Robert M. Boyd put his Ripple Creek Planation up for sale, CSR began construction on a bridge across the Anabranch to facilitate access to Ripple Creek land before the Ripple Creek management had managed to sell their property. This quick action is indicative of why CSR was a survivor and able to withstand the constraints others buckled under to. CSR had a broad business base, astute management, was opportunistic, protective of its own interests, and prioritised agricultural research and innovation. It, of all the planters on the Herbert, was in the position to put in the required infrastructure: bridges, rail, and rolling stock to source small growers’ cane as they became increasingly more numerous. R.M. Boyd felt unable to offer prospective suppliers the same price that CSR offered, nor was he willing to enter into long-term contracts. He argued that there was no way he could increase his mill’s output of raw sugar since it lacked the requisite amount of cane to run the mill in “double shifts”. Moreover, Boyd was only permitted to refine so much white sugar because CSR (as dominant refiner) controlled how much refined sugar produced by other millers could be put on the market. The only course left was to close down. Even CSR had clear reservations about the viability of taking the crop let alone purchasing the mill. In 1906 Wood Bros. and Boyd listed Ripple Creek Planation Mill plantation for sale, though with clear regret. They blamed the farmers for the position they were in, saying that the farmers were holding back on planting cane, trying to force the Ripple Creek management’s hand to pay the same prices as CSR offered its farmers. They hoped that the mill would continue as a cooperative mill. There had been some hope in the Valley that the government would step in to ensure the survival of the mill and the farmers had petitioned the government accordingly. CSR ended up purchasing the sugar mill machinery, tramlines and rolling stock. 

1893. Ripple Creek Estate Mill Docket, small farmer Daniel Pearson. Source: Pearson family, Brooklands.

In 1908 the Ripple Creek Mill conducted its last crush and the plantation was again offered for sale, this time with the land offered as discrete blocks. It had been arranged that CSR’s Macknade Mill would take the purchasers’ cane. With the Ripple Creek Plantation and Mill closed down, CSR became the sole miller in the district, and its monopoly of the sugar industry there and dominance of the wider Australian sugar industry was commented on with censure, even at the time. Boyd did not sever all contact with the district even after selling out to CSR. His son Archie, with his wife and their children, continued to reside at ‘The Palms’ Ripple Creek; Boyd Snr. would visit and maintained his connections in the Valley. Archie and his family moved to Sydney in October 1913 following his father’s death there on December 4, 1912. With the sale of Macknade to CSR and the closure of Ripple Creek mill, CSR became the dominant miller on the Herbert, operating both of its mills as central mills.

SOURCES:“The Ripple Creek Mill,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, August 28, 1907, 4.“Ripple Creek Plantation,” Queenslander, June 8, 1901, 1110.“Ripple Creek Sugar Plantation, Herbert River, Ingham,” Queenslander, May 12, 1906, 24; “Advertising,” Macleay Chronicle, July 23, 1908, 8.Queensland Government, “Railways Guarantee Act 1895.”Census of White Persons directly connected with C.S.R. Coy’s Mills in Queensland, November 15, 1904, Deposit N305-D.1.0 6 2, CSR Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra.“The Northern Miner,” Northern Miner, April 24, 1908, 4;“Ingham News,” Northern Miner, May 7 1908, 9. JAB Diary,“Robert Mitchell Boyd (1849-1912),” quoting “Ripple Creek Plantation,” Brisbane Courier, May 11, 1901, 15.Correspondence from R. Boyd to E.W. Knox, November 22, 1905, Deposit 142/1560, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra; and handwritten notes, October 24, 1903, Deposit 142/1559, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra.Correspondence from R. Boyd to E.W. Knox, November 22, 1905, Deposit 142/1560, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra; and handwritten notes, October 24, 1903, Deposit 142/1559, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra; correspondence from R. Boyd, to E.W. Knox, January 9, 1906, Deposit N305-D 3.0 F4 1, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra; and “Ripple Creek,” handwritten notes, October 24, 1905, N305-D 3.0 F4 1, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra.  “Display Advertising. Ripple Creek Plantation, Herbert River, N.Q.,” Queenslander, September 8, 1906, 12.  “The Ripple Creek Mill: Premier’s Reply to Petition,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, August 28, 1907, 4 as quoted in JAB Diary, “Robert Mitchell Boyd (1849-1912).”Memorandum of agreement between CSR and Wood Bros. and Boyd, April 14, 1908, N305-D 3.0 4 1, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra.“The Queenslander: Ripple Creek Sugar Plantation,” Brisbane Courier, May 10, 1906, 4; “Farms, Land etc.: Ripple Creek Plantation, Herbert River, N.Q.,” Queenslander, June 16, 1906, 16; “Local and General,” Johnstone River Advocate, June 27 1907, 2; “Telegrams,” Evening Telegraph, June 20, 1907, 3; “World of Labour,” Worker, May 30, 1908, 7; “Notes and Comments,” Queenslander, May 2 1908, 36; “Advertising,” Macleay Chronicle, July 23 1908, 8.“Northern Sugar Industry,” Queenslander, August 11, 1906, 40; “MALEFICENT MONOPOLY The Colonial Sugar Refining Co.,” Sunday Times, December 1, 1907, 1; “Colonial Sugar Refining Company,” Daily Mercury, August 9. 1910, 7; Commonwealth Parliament, “House of Representatives,” [Hansard], Sugar Bounty Bill (No.2) Second Reading, September 21, 1910 and Constitution Alteration (Legislative Powers) Bill Second Reading, October 20, 1910; and Griggs, “The Decline of Competition,” for his discussion of CSR’s monopoly of the factors of the Australian sugar industry.“Herbert River Notes,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, October 11, 1913, 11; “Personal,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, December 12, 1912, 4; JAB Diary, “Robert Mitchell Boyd (1849-1912),” December 2-4, 1912.