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.
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| StateLibQld 2 239314 Herbert River with Mount Cordelia in the background |
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StateLibQld 1 235334 Lagoon with lilies at Mount Cordelia, near Ingham, ca. 1881
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| StateLibQld 1 235358 Looking through the garden towards Mount Cordelia, near Ingham, ca. 1881. |
