Researching the history of early Tweed Heads / Cooloon using a variety of Primary and secondary sources.

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.