Researching
the history of early Tweed Heads / Cooloon using a variety of Primary and secondary sources.
Early
Maritime between 1850 to 1910 through Tweed Heads.
The town of Tweed Heads was once known by the name
of Cooloon and the name had changed officially around 1965 according to the
1934 map, although the town was called both. Tweed Heads is a coastal town in
northern New South Wales located on the border of Queensland with the town of
Coolangatta. The two towns are known as the twin towns as there is no defined
boundary between them other than the state border, where there was at one stage
a fence between them. The border does have some quirks especially in regards to
the different state laws. Both towns follow the border on the coast and Tweed
Heads is located on the entrance to the Tweed River on the NSW side of the
border. Coolangatta is the entrance to what is known as the Gold Coast and is a
popular tourist destination. The town of Cooloon began with the pilot’s station
at the river entrance, although before this time there were small settlements
throughout the area with regular maritime trade for lumber and supplies. During
the mid 1800s the closest main settlements were either Ballina to the south or
Brisbane to the north. The river entrance itself was forever changing bringing
disaster to many vessels, which still continues today even though there is now
training walls made of rock at the entrance. As the town grew and developed so
did the surrounding area. Today the town of Tweed Heads is vastly different to
what it would have once looked like around the turn of the century.
Primary Sources
Headstone
of William Rowlands who died in 1872, located on the western wall of Tweed
Heads and Coolangatta Surf lifesaving Club, Greenmount.
The headstone of William Rowlands is actually a very
simple marker located on the outside western wall of the Greenmount surf club
also known as the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf life saving club in
Coolangatta. The headstone is located around 100 metres from the border of
Queensland and New South Wales. When the surf club was extended one of the
requirements was to incorporate the headstone within the building and the grave
was supposedly under the car park when it was extended. The grave is the only
one in Coolangatta even though the town looked into construction of a cemetery. No explanation as to why the headstone has
been placed in this specific location is available nearby. William Rowlands was
a ship captain who died in the town of Cooloon while he was waiting for the
entrance of the Tweed River to become passable and sail with goods to Sydney.
During this time he became ill and after a month died during 1872. According to
his wishes he was buried with the ocean to his feet where Greenmount Surf Club
is now located, which was once an isolated windswept location. The researcher
when looking into the history of the headstone would encounter many paths to
research. The maritime trade for the area was essential for the survival of
many settlements along the river and any researcher could search the impact of
unfavourable conditions for trade could have on the livelihoods of those
involved. Another research path could be to observe the changing location
around the grave site. Tourism was the main drawcard for tourists from
Brisbane, who came for the beach. Later with redevelopment of the landscape the
headstone became fenced in and later became part of the new Greenmount surf
club building during the 1950s. The grave is the only lone grave located in
Coolangatta and the first one when crossing the border into Queensland.
Monument
to the memory of the Boyd victims of the schooner Ebenezer wrecked at Tweed
Heads in 1859. Located Coral Street Tweed Heads.
The monument to the Ebenezer disaster is dedicated
to the memory of those who drowned on the Tweed River in June 1859, aboard the
schooner The Ebenezer. The Ebenezer had departed Sydney containing members of
the Boyd family aboard and were travelling to Tweed Heads, where the ship
became stuck on the shallows at the entrance to the river. The monument was
unveiled during 1966 and was refurbished in 2007 with the help from descendents
of the family. The monument location is on the north side of the Tweed River in
the car park on Coral Street. The car park is located at the entrance to Jack
Evans boat harbour and Coral Street runs around to where Duranbah Beach at the
entrance to the Tweed River. The monument invokes a sense of public memory of
an event which has occurred in the past, when family was impacted by the loss
of family members. The researcher has several avenues to research into the
wreck and the loss of family. The tragedy occurred well before there was a
pilot and any visible navigation structures, which would have made navigating
the entrance easier due to the experience of the pilot. Anyone researching into
the local area would be able to find a wealth of information about the many ships,
which were wrecked when making attempts to cross the treacherous entrance to
the river. Many of these vessels were involved with the timber trade collecting
cedar and delivering them back to Sydney. News which is almost instant today
was truly different back in 1859 as news of the Ebenezer disaster took around a
week to reach Sydney. Researching into how people survived during this early
time period and what their occupations were well before any major developments,
which people now take for granted not knowing how much has changed.
‘Tweed
River Harbor works’, Clarence and
Richmond Examiner, 7 December 1895, p. 3.
The article is written about the proposed works to
parts of the Tweed River during the late 1890s. The works include extending
rock walls at the entrance to the river, which would have been seen to make the
river safer for vessels to cross the entrance as it was notorious for
shipwrecks and ships becoming grounded in the shallow water. The small town of
Cooloon was located alongside the river and had grown from several buildings
during the early 1870s when the pilot station first began. The town was one of
the most isolated in the state of New South Wales. The works were not finished
until around 1910 when the rock wall was placed at the river entrance to make
the crossing of ocean going vessels safer.
A researcher would be able to use the newspaper article as a stepping
stone to research what was occurring within not just the location of Cooloon
close to the river entrance, but further down the river to other settlements
within the region. The Town especially Coolangatta across the border during
this time were growing not just through trade from timber and farming, but also
through tourism as the area was popular with people from Brisbane who came down
for beach activities. As the town increased in size the landscape would have
changed through human intervention to something that would have been
unrecognisable to the early settlers, who came to the area looking for work and
to scratch out a living. Villages, which were along the river nearby would have
merged and became part of the entire area and soon became known as suburbs.
More newspaper articles may lead to more information and even looking through
council minute books may inform researchers about the progress of the harbour
works and where they were and what problems the workers may have encountered.
Village
of Cooloon, Parish of Terranora, County of Rous, Land district of Murwillumbah,
1909, NSW Land and Property Information, http://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/mapping_and_imagery/parish_maps, accessed 14 July 2012.
The town of Cooloon, later Tweed Heads is on the far
north coast of New South Wales bordering with the state of Queensland. The town
across the border is the town of Coolangatta, this unique location gives the
two towns the name of the twin towns. The parish map is a primary source, which
provides for the researcher plenty of information about the formation of the
early township including the river system and the location of one of the
wharves are located, where ships can load or unload. The town has since been
developed from one small area located at the entrance of the Tweed River and
slowly reclaimed land for more buildings and other constructions. The town of
Cooloon was actually where the first pilot station was in the state is located
and operated for a number of years. The town grew around the pilot station,
especially when the head pilot had bought people and their families to work
with him. The survey map from 1906 shows how much the town has changed from the
early times to present, where many relics of the past have vanished while many
of the street names still exist and can be used as points of reference. Researchers can use the map as one point of
reference by researching other maps of towns along the river to view how the
changes human habitation has occurred within the area and changed the
environment. Researchers could use navigation charts to observe the changes,
which would have occurred for the mariners who regularly traded with the town
from the towns to the north and south. Other research taken place would be
about the owners of properties and what occurred over the period of time when
the town grew. The streets may have changed or even disappeared with the
redevelopment of the town from first settlement to now.
Secondary
Sources
Keats,
Warren D. McGregor and Cooloon, Tweed
Heads, Lower Tweed River Historical Society, 1999.
McGregor and Cooloon book is about the working life
of William McGregor and the beginnings of the town of Cooloon. The book is a
secondary source, although it contains many historic references including
copies of early town maps and shipping information for the area. The vessel
movements included are the arrivals of people to the town of Cooloon and the
vessels, which struck trouble entering the river and were wrecked. The book talks about how Captain William
McGregor became the pilot to the Tweed River in helping ships give safe passage
over the entrance of the river both on entering and exiting. He was very
familiar with the changing conditions and made many alterations to the region,
which would help in the safe passage of the ships. In effect the pilot was the
first real rescue group to help vessels in trouble on a river system that is
one of the most isolated and dangerous in NSW waters. The book would help the
researcher with looking into other areas of research, especially when it
mentions the town of Cooloon’s first doctor and then you could search through
newspapers or other local books gathering information about the doctor’s
career. The research in the book prepared the person researching into the area
more information and questions they can answer by looking into primary sources
provided in the footnotes and the possible locations where to find the primary
sources. The book brings about many possibilities in local research on the
Tweed river and how it has changed from then and its present condition. The
book could be used as a guide to finding more references, which could be used
and for more questions which would then need to be researched for answers to be
found.
Keats,
N.C. ‘Wollumbin’, Point Clare, 1988.
The book can lead the researcher into the early
stages of the Tweed area and gain secondary research and more resources to be
used on the chosen subject. The book is a history of the area and a secondary
source. The author wanted to provide a history of Tweed and many of the areas
south from the location. Not just focusing on one particular area or topic.
They provide information on the family members who first settled into the area.
Wollumbin is a secondary source providing basic information not just about the
Tweed Valley, but also about locations which are connected like the Gold Coast
to the north and even the Richmond valley down south. It explains the isolation
of the area from the early colonial time especially from Sydney and the convict
settlement in Moreton Bay. The book mainly focuses on the early days of
shipping, the cedar logging camps and the beginnings of mail delivery along
tracks and also the explorers who found and mapped the river systems during the
early days for those who moved to the areas to make their living. The book
helps researchers in finding more sources and also a snap shot of what the
selected areas could be like before main settlements began to crop up all along
the coast. Gives an indication on how difficult life could be for founding
families who migrated to the area looking to make a living especially through
the timber trade. The book was first printed in 1988 and could be outdated by
new research since the time the book was printed. The publication may have been
superseded by other publications, which have come after.
Bibliography
of some sources used
Denning, H.W. Historical
Manuscript of the Tweed, Murwillumbah, Tweed Shire Council, 1988.
‘Redefining the Queensland – New South Wales border:
guidelines for surveyors, 2001, www.outbacknsw.com.au/QldNSWBorder.pdf, accessed 14 July 2012.
Keats, Warren D.
McGregor and Cooloon, Tweed Heads, Lower Tweed River Historical Society,
1999.
Keats, N.C. ‘Wollumbin’,
Point Clare, 1988.
Longhurst, Robert From Tallebudgera to the Tweed, Gold Coast City Council, 1996.
Village of Cooloon, Parish of Terranora, County of
Rous, Land district of Murwillumbah, 1909, NSW Land and Property Information, http://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/mapping_and_imagery/parish_maps,
accessed 14 July 2012.
‘Town without Cemetery’, Singleton Argus, 15 June 1931, p. 4.
‘Tweed River Harbor works’, Clarence and Richmond Examiner, 7 December 1895, p. 3.
