Kalgoorlie Miner 15 Apr 1966-
Dinny’s Brainwaves
‘Oysters and a Petrol Pourer’
When Coolgardie was new and luring men from all parts of the country, many interesting characters rode or trudged into town. Pint-size bantam weight Dennis ‘Dinny’ O’Callaghan arrived there only eleven days before his 18th birthday. He came to Australia with his family from Ireland but he left them behind in Broken Hill when news reached that town of the rich gold finds at Coolgardie in the West.
On February the 4th 1893, he first caught sight of the canvas town of Coolgardie with the dust rising above it from the feverish dry-blowing activity. He waited only long enough to pitch his tent before joining in the search for gold. He picked up enough small nuggets to pay his way but, disappointed, he decided to prospect further afield. He bought pack horses and ventured out into unknown country. He made two expeditions in the following months with no big gold finds, and on one he nearly perished through lack of water. The young Irishman kept going back to Coolgardie as he said those days in Coolgardie were
wild and willing, it was where I spent some of the happiest days of my life.
Dinny O’Callaghan first attracted public attention after the discovery of the fabulous ‘Hole of Gold’ at Londonderry, twelve miles south of Coolgardie. After the news of his rich find, which turned out to be mainly an extremely rich pocket, about 200 alluvial diggers swarmed to the spot and pegged claims surrounding the mine. Dinny pegged twelve acres close by and sold out for £2000. He then looked around to see if there was any more ground to be pegged, but he found all was taken. He then had a brain wave, in those days an alluvial gold miner could work to within 20 feet of the cap of a reef, later this was changed to 50 feet provided the lease was then only recommended for approval. The owner of the lease had all rights to reefs or loads.
The owners of the Londonderry had their line of reefs delineated with red flags.
Dinny’s bright idea was that as the mining act did not allow the reef owners to hold the alluvial ground that their tents and dwellings covered, he would peg that area. The six owners of the Londonderry each had a tent as well as a log hut which held the precious specimen stones from the mine. The hut was locked and guarded day and night, it was like likened to a jewellers shop or a gold mint.
Dinny carefully marked off 20 feet from the line of the reef and pegged a block of 50 square feet which held the tents and the famous log hut. The owners appealed to the warden but were told there was nothing they could do about it. After working his new claim for only 5 days, Dinny heard of another rich find, the ‘Wealth of Nations’ a few miles away. Anxious to join the rush he sold out his alluvial claim to the Londonderry owners.
At the ‘Wealth of Nations’, Dinny was lucky and picked up quite a few big nuggets, the largest weighing 25 ounces. He soldered down one of these in a mustard tin and sent it back to his father in Broken Hill. When the gold around the new find became scarce he went back to Coolgardie. It was then the middle of 1894 and Dinny decided something was missing in the now busy centre, and that was a small goods shop. With a partner he opened ‘The York Ham Shop’, they sold all types of small goods and one of their biggest draw cards was oysters sold for five shillings a dozen.
‘the skins of this ere are might tough’
There’s a story to tell about those oysters! The coach driver bringing them to Coolgardie from the coast, 360 odd miles away, decided they had been dead far too long, so he threw them off his load. When Dinny asked where they had been abandoned, the driver told him 25 miles down the track. Dinny went down in a light card and bought back the shells and emptied and cleaned them.
He then bought up all the tinned oysters available in town and ordered more from Perth. These were then put in the shells as they were ordered, and when the customer finished his meal, the shells were removed to the rear, washed and ready for the next order. This went on for some time, the shells gradually disappearing through breakage, rotting and old age, until there were only about eighteen left. One night a teamster from York, who had never seen oysters before, came to the shop and ordered steak and eggs, but was told by the staff that they were off the menu. The sign advertising oysters caught his eye, so he decided to try them. After a few minutes, Dinny, who was at the back of the shop heard a loud crunching and grinding noise. He rushed into the shop!
The teamster complained loudly ‘the skins of this ere are might tough’ pointing to the ground up mess on the table. He had chewed up the shells and put Dinny out of the oyster business for good.
Dinny O’Callaghan later married and claimed that his son was the first white boy born in Boulder. Another first he claimed that he was the first to peg a claim at the famous ‘Sacred Nugget Rush’ in Kanowna. This was the most sensational and exciting gold rush to take place in WA, or so it was claimed. The Reverend father Long at Kanowna told a friend that some men had shown him a slug of gold weighing about 100 lbs. He had been sworn to secrecy, but in three weeks time he will be able to reveal the locality of the find but not the names of the men concerned. In the following three weeks the news spread far and wide, and being constantly pestered for information Father long said he would not make the locality known to the public until the time was up.
Father Long announcing the location of the Sacred Nugget find – Photo SLWA
On August the 11th 1898 at 2:00 pm, father long appeared on the hotel balcony at Donnellan’s Hotel, Kanowna and addressed the throngs of thousands of men waiting in the street. He told them that the nugget had been found on the South side of mount Glynn, seven miles from the Kurnalpi road. Dinny O’Callaghan was on the outskirts of the crowd with a saddle horse and got away quickly. Tassy O’Connor and a mounted trooper were not far behind him. Arriving at the place Father Long had indicated, Dinny saw a few freshly dug shallow holes, so he jumped off his horse and began pegging. The other two men were close behind and they hammered their pegs in close by. The rest of the crowd arrived and pegged wherever they could. By the time he had pegged his claim he said he would have sold out cheap as he didn’t like the look of the ground at all.
Neither did a lot of other men as many who came didn’t even bother to put a peg in the ground. The men soon realised that there had been no nugget at all, but only a practical joke played on the Father. It was said that if the perpetrators of the hoax could have been discovered they would have been lynched.
While Dinny was on the Goldfields he proved himself a good sportsman, an excellent boxer, cricket, football player and swimmer. It was when he moved to Perth he began his best business venture, taxis were taking over from horses and buggies in Perth when he joined their ranks with the motor car. He had lots of time to think while waiting for the fairs and decided to invent something to make himself rich. One day he came up with a simple idea, but one which made him £20,000 in two years and enabled him to travel the world twice over. In those days before petrol bowsers, the petrol was tipped into the tanks from cans which was always difficult to do without spilling the petrol. Dinny thought of an idea for a gadget to put on the petrol tins for easier pouring, he painted it as the ‘O’Callaghan Easy Filler’.
Sunday Times 18 November 1917
After many more years of travel and adventure he settled down in Eastern Australia but he went back to Kalgoorlie to live in the afternoon of his life. Even then, though about 60 years old, he kept in the public eye by such actions as taking part in walking marathons to raise money for charity. He settled down to write his life story called:
‘Dennis O’Callaghan’s long life and remittances and adventures throughout the world’
Moya Sharp
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