Gold at Harrietville by Brian Lloyd (Secondhand Book)

SECONDHAND BOOK

Harrietville today is a tranquil tourist town nestling between the branches of the Ovens River as they emerge from the towering vastness of Mt Hotham and Mt St Bernard. Harrietville in days past was a bustling mining town, first settled by alluvial miners during the 1850s – the gold decade of Victoria’s history.

While reef mining, which began in 1860, gave permanence to the infant settlement, it was the alluvial gold which gave vigour to Harrietville, in the early days sustaining the Chinese diggers who scattered up-river after the Buckland Riots of 1857, and in later years, providing a harvest for the dredges that foraged for gold along the river.

The early reef miners made fortunes from mines with picturesque names like “Tiddle de Addle de”, “Mons Meg”, “The Monarch” and “Rose, Thistle and Shamrock”, to be followed by a period of big company mining, after most of the pickings were gone.

As reef mining declined, small dredges worked the alluvial leads in the rivers – keeping the township alive in the period up to World War 1. Then, in post World War 2 years, came the colossus of dredges, the Tronoh, which worked the alluvial deposits until 1955.

There is a golden thread running through Harrietville’s history from its foundation to the present day – miners still work their claims in the bush, and the Sambas mine is one of the few gold-producing mines left in Victoria. Gold at Harrietville not only follows this gold threat through the ups and downs of the town’s history, and that of the reefs and the mines, the alluvial workings and the dredges, but it also taps the richness of the human story – the lives of the men and women who created the community of Harrietville. If the miners were tough, resourceful men – and they had to be to survive in that steep alpine country – they could also see the funny side of life, and their humorous sayings and doings sparkle throughout the story.

Specifications:

Condition: Good – minimal marks to dust jacket, signed by the author.

Publisher: Shoestring Press

Year: 1982

Format: Hardback, with dustjacket

Pages: 211pp

ISBN: 095983916

$90.00

1 in stock