From 'The Short History of Thuringowa' by Peter Bell pp 32-33
"The growth of a population centre in the middle of Thuringowa's coast brought about a change in agricultural practice away from broad-acre grazing to small farming, to supply produce for the local market. The large pastoralists were still powerful - Edward Cunningham, now the owner of Woodstock, and John Carr his manager were both on the Divisional Board - but most of the other members described themselves as selectors or freeholders. Farms subdivided out of the first generation of pastoral leases were filling up the coastal plain and extending up the river valleys. Small holdings like Jorgen Rasmussen's dairy were established on the plains of the Upper Ross by 1871.
A good example of the smaller landholders who followed after the first generation of graziers is John von Stieglitz, and we know a fair bit about him because his letters and family papers have been preserved. He was born in Tasmania in 1844, the son of a wealthy landowner in the Midlands. After training in surveying, he moved to Queensland in 1868, practising as a private surveyor for several years. He was attracted north by the gold rushes, tried his hand at mining on the Ravenswood goldfield without much success, but was given the government contract for surveying the town plan of Ravenswood in 1870. This led to a succession of government jobs which were obviously satisfactorily carried out, for he was appointed as District Road Inspector and Engineer for Roads, Northern Division in 1871, and subsequently became Government Surveyor for the Townsville district in 1873, an important public service position. He took up an area of grazing land which he called Bereberinga on the south bank of the Ross River under the face of Mount Stuart in 1872, and later bought another property which he called Saint Heliers on Cape Cleveland in 1876. He bred draught horses on Bereberinga and grazed beef cattle on Saint Heliers. (Stieglitz 1994)
In one of his letters home to his family shortly after his arrival in Thuringowa, von Stieglitz described the view from Bereberinga:
There is a very nice view from the top of this little hill, looking north at the foot ofit there is a plain for about a mile, with just a nice number oftrees on it. From there to the Town it is timbered country, flat, with a river running through it, called the Ross. Over the timber, one can see the houses in Townsville. The one that can be seen best is the Church of England which is on the top ofa rise, and over this there is a high island in the sea. All this is looking Northward, and South there is a high rocky mountain, which is not unlike Mt Wellington at Hobart, only there is no snow on it. (von Stieglitz letters 21 May 1873)
Of particular interest in this correspondence are von Stieglitz's comments on the house he built at Bereberinga, as they are among the few written descriptions we have of the first generation of houses in the north. In an early letter actually written from his property he wrote, "there is a nice stony hill where I am at this moment, and here I intend to put up a bit of a cottage." His plans were delayed by the wreck of the schooner Alma which was bringing the timber, but two months later he reported that work was in progress. He described the distinctive North Queensland house that was evolving in the first decade of settlement: simple, symmetrical, built of sawn timber with a corrugated iron roof, raised on stumps, with verandahs on the front and back walls and a detached kitchen at the rear:
I have not done much to my cottage yet, only the foundation laid, as the vessel that was bringing the timber was wrecked, but there is another due here now, so trust will soon have it up. I dare say you would like to have an idea of what it is to be like, so will give you an idea of it. The front is to be twenty four feet long and twelve back, divided into two rooms, the parlour will be about two feet longer than bed room. In front of these two rooms there will be a verandah, six feet six inches broad, at the back there will be a similar verandah, but instead of leaving it open, there will be a bedroom nine feet long on the west end and an office six feet six inch square on the other end, so there will be only a little porch left open between the two. The roof will not be hipped, as it will be roofed with iron. The whole of it will be raised off the ground about one foot and a half, and all built of sawn timber. It will cost about seventy five pounds, painting it and all. (von Stieglitz letters 13 July 1873) As a public official and a landholder, von Stieglitz played a prominent part in the community and took part in many business and civic activities. He was one of the members elected to the first Thuringowa Divisional Board, and we have seen that he probably suggested its name. He was one of the founders of the Townsville Show Society Committee, and was a shareholder in the North Queensland Meat Preserving and Boiling Down Works. He lived at Bereberinga until 1885, for the first eight years as a bachelor, then early in 1881 he married in Tasmania and returned with his wife to live at Bereberinga, where a son was born in 1882. However, his wife Mary contracted tuberculosis, and died early in 1885. By that time von Stieglitz's meatworks investment had failed, and he began selling off some of his interests in the Townsville district. He moved back to Tasmania in 1887, where he continued in public life as a member of parliament, eventually dying in 1916. In his fourteen years residence in Thuringowa, von Stieglitz made a valuable contribution in several fields of activity. He also summed up something of the distinctive spirit of Thuringowa in the way he divided his life between rural and urban activities, farming and administration. Like many cattle 33 farmers, he invested in the new meatworks, hoping to add value to the northern beef product, but was disillusioned by the outcome. The early death of his first wife is a reminder of how frequently infectious disease touched the lives of the first generation of Europeans to live in the north. Bereberinga, the house that von Stieglitz built in 1873, was still standing in the early 1890s, but was probably demolished soon afterward. Today, only the stone base for the kitchen fireplace can still be found on his "nice stony hill" which is now within the grounds of Lavarack Barracks, an attractive spot overlooking the view of Townsville very much as von Stieglitz described it nearly 130 years ago." |
