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Archiver > SOUTH-AFRICA > 2003-11 > 1069861094
From: "Editor" <>
Subject: Re: History of SA gold mining [Re: [ZA] Re: SOUTH-AFRICA-D DigestV03 #652]
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 17:38:14 +0200
References: <FBBFC9B6-2001-11D8-AE8A-000A958703BA@alphalink.com.au>
That's fascinating, Andrew, but I do think my message implied rather clearly
ghost towns in South Africa! ;-)
Besides Millwood & Eureka City...? Did most of the original SA mining towns
survive? All the towns along the Witwatersrand, for instance, owe their
existence to mining, as do others in Free State & Natal (not all of them
gold mines, however). A similar question along the same (gold) vein: how did
the major 19th C gold rushes run worldwide? America> SA> Australia? I don't
have dates for America & Australia. These separate rushes caused an enormous
movement of people around the globe. Some of our ancestors were remarkably
well travelled for a period when modes of transport were so slow &
difficult. I've just looked up the leader of the 1849 Byrne Settlers to
Natal -- Joseph Charles Byrne, born ?1800 in Dublin, died in Australia
c.1863. Before bringing his party to Natal, he'd already gallivanted around
Oz & NZ for some years. Maybe it's because passports were only introduced
after WWI & immigration controls in most countries were quite lax. You could
also work your passage on ships, so you didn't even need much money. The
19th C must have been heaven for an adventurous soul...
Regards
Maureen
eGoli, Gauteng
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Rodger" <>
To: <>
Sent: 26 November 2003 01:16
Subject: Re: History of SA gold mining [Re: [ZA] Re: SOUTH-AFRICA-D
DigestV03 #652]
>
> Maureen's wonderfully evocative description of Millwood prompts me to
> urge Listers who live in, or contemplate visiting, Australia and New
> Zealand to visit similar sites in those countries. In New Zealand there
> is the little village of Arrowtown, still alive as a village, but with
> its own ghost settlement tucked away in a side street: rows of little
> huts where early Chinese gold-diggers lived while scratching a living in
> the gold there which, as in Millwood, soon ran out. In Victoria,
> Australia, there is a site in metropolitan Melbourne where a vein of
> gold was found, and the Yarra River was diverted from one of its many
> horseshoe bends through a shortcut tunnel by means of a dam, to permit
> its working; when the gold ran out, they just blew up the dam and the
> only trace of all this now is the tunnel, which still carries some of
> the water, and the area is now a public park called Pound's Bend in the
> far outer suburb of Warrandyte. In Eastern Victoria there is the ghost
> town of Walhalla, in the mountains north of the Latrobe Valley, where
> the miners, being British, provided themselves with a cricket ground by
> cutting off the top of a hill. The nature of the terrain led to a local
> rule that if you hit a six you were out, and had to find the ball
> afterwards, play meanwhile continuing with a spare . . . Its spooky
> adit and the cool contrast of the underground workings with the heat
> outside was recelled to me by the description of Millwood, but Walhalla
> also has an old railway with a timber trestle bridge. There are other
> similar sites in other States, notably Hill End in New South Wales.
>
> On Wednesday, November 26, 2003, at 12:29 AM, Editor wrote:
>
> > Millwood! Thanks, Pat. That's the place -- oh, there's the dearest wee
> > wood
> > & corrugated iron house still standing there (or was, in about
> > 1986-87). The
> > day I visited, I was charmed by a big clump of snowdrops growing just
> > outside the front door -- definitely a woman's touch. I felt I could
> > move
> > right in & feel at home, although the old adits & stopes are quite
> > spooky. I
> > have a vague recollection that one of the bigger buildings was moved
> > into
> > Knysna proper & houses the Millwood Museum. I agree with you about the
> > forests -- the Great Fire of 18?? did enough damage. I think all
> > historians
> > have a secret hankering to be time travellers!
> >
> > The only other ghost gold rush town I've visited is the site of Eureka
> > City
> > on the koppies above Sheba Mine near Barberton. Although Pilgrim's Rest
> > has
> > been so well preserved for posterity as a living place, what other ghost
> > towns remain? Shades of High Noon, tumbleweeds blowing down the main
> > street
> > & two gunfighters sizing each other up ... except, I read somewhere that
> > American miners who came here commented on the noticeable lack of
> > "gun-slinging" in SA. Just today, I found a copy of AP Cartwright's
> > "Valley
> > of Gold" (Howard Timmins, 1973), which narrates the history of the
> > Eastern
> > Transvaal gold rush -- can't wait to start reading it!
> >
> > Regards
> > Maureen
> >
> Andrew Rodger
>
>
>
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