If you were in want of a good story in the 1930’s, you only need to take a long walk up Cassidy Hill on the fringe of Kalgoorlie to see old Jimmy Long. He not only overflowed with reminiscences of colourful goldfields life, but he also was a link to Paddy Hannan. In fact he reached the area where Hannan made his historic find before Hannans picked up his first nugget.

Jimmy Long with his two ‘best mates’.

Jimmy lived in a one room corrugated iron shack which was clean and compact. He share this home with his two best friends, his two snowy white dogs which contested for his friendly pats. This one room served all their modest needs – eating, washing and resting. He wore a cotton shirt and grey worn serge trousers held up by a leather belt. His blue eyes twinkled out of a weathered faced and he was spry and lively for all his 85yrs.

When he had a visitor he woulds bring out two enamel mugs, a tin of condensed milk and a basin of sugar from a box he used as a cupboard. Striking a match he would light the primus and wait for the kettle to boil. If you were to look around you would see he had no clock. With a knowing laugh he would point to a nearby ant heap. “Thats me timepiece” he would say, “Don’t need to rely on clocks with a sundial, just on three o’clock isn’t it?” It was indeed that time.

Over a cup of tea he would tell how he met Paddy Hannan more than thirty years earlier. It was early June of 1893 and Coolgardie was packed with gold hungry prospectors eager to rush to any new find. When news came of a rich discovery at Mt Youle (21 kms from Kalgoorlie),
‘away out east’, the town was almost deserted.

Jimmy said he joined one of Reedy’s wagons – Reedy was the discoverer of Kurnalpi and was one of the men in the first team. Other teams followed and among those in the tracks of the leaders were Hannan and his Mates Flanagan and Shea, who were independent of the teams by having pack horses of their own.

“We all left Coolgardie the same day, but it was like a funeral procession with its snake-like line of pack horses and men making for ‘El Dorardo’ ” Jimmy would say. “After travelling about 25 miles to the North East we camped on a hill near to where Maritana bridge now stands. On the next morning a chap named Morris and his nephew found a few specks of gold. Then we rushed on to Mt Youle”. Jimmy added that on the journey out Morris referred to the specks of gold he found and said “if we don’t find anything out here I’m going back”.

On reaching a dry soak, the party was informed that the Mt Youle report was a myth, but that plenty of alluvial gold was to be found further back (this was to be knows as Hannans Find). “When we got back” said Jimmy, “half of Coolgardie was there. Its the luck of the game” said Jimmy, “if Morris had stayed behind when he specked the gold instead of going on to Mt Youle, his name and not Hannans may have gone down in history”. Jimmy said that on his return to the find made by Hannan he camped at a spot near Monte Cristo Hill and while he was away to cut a new tent pole, a group of diggers took over the area and on his return he was told that the land had been pegged and to remove his tent. They had been pulling up spinifex to stuff their mattresses and had found ‘shotty’ gold (Small granular pieces of gold resembling shot.)

After tea Jimmy would leave his shack and point to a spot about 15 minutes walk away where a tree was planted. Thats where Hannan found his first bit of gold, he was a modest little chap, I knew him well. Waving his arm to encompass all the mining plants with their giant chimney stacks, he said he could have pegged the lot. He was fossicking weeks before Sam Pierce and Brookman camped there and started pegging leases. The leases they pegged were to become ‘The Golden Mile’

“just the luck uv th’ game”

No regrets said Jimmy, “just the luck uv th’ game” This had been Jimmy’s experience through a lifetime of prospecting. He had been part of the rushes to Coolgardie, Kurnalpi, Bulong, Kanowna and a host of others, but he had always been among the ‘also rans’.

He was happy to end his days in his little tin shack, with his few friends, his two dogs and his memories.

Ref: The Glittering Years by Arthur  L Bennett

Sunday Times 29 June 1941

James ‘Jimmy’ Long was laid to rest in the Kalgoorlie Cemetery on the 23rd March 1944.

Sunday Times 26 March 1944

The following verse was written by Tony Bozich in celebration of the 125th anniversary of  the discovery of gold in Kalgoorlie by Paddy Hannan, Thomas Flanagan and Dan Shea. Thus setting off a major gold rush in the area, and the rest, is as they say, is ‘History’.

Someone will say it was a dream

 that passed before the mind,

 of the trio who pursued the gleam

 of gold and made the find;

 But Hannan, Flanagan and Shea,

 I’d swear it was that group,

    across the flat did make

their way,in weary file troop.

In the deep small hours of the night

the town was all asleep,

 the wind blew shrill and cold with spite,

 a fitful moon stood steep.

 A barking dog was heard somewhere

 amidst the wind and dark,

 and I unsleeping rose to stare

 outside, no light or spark.

 On looking through the window glass

 some distance from my place

 I saw the three in file pass

 in slow and measured pace;

 they trudged, not looking to the side,

 it seemed toward one spot,

 lean, bearded they seemed to glide,

 from whence I still know not.

 Towards the mine head on the rise

 their path it seemed to lead,

 and everything that round one lies

 in no way did they heed.

 The night was June the Seventeenth eve,

 that date sprang to my mind,

 and through my head began to heave

 thoughts of an eerie kind;

 I called but they did not turn round

 or vary from their aim,

 across the way without a sound

 they went on just the same.

 With turned up lamp and pounding heart

 I gave another call

 but once again as at the start

 they answered not at all.

 A moment and they disappeared

 and have not since returned,

 though through the years I’ve often peered

 and for their coming yearned.

Hannan Street, Kalgoorlie 1895

]]> https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/a-goldfields-fantasy-by-tony-bozich/feed/ 2 https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/dan-shea-discovered-gold-with-paddy-hannan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dan-shea-discovered-gold-with-paddy-hannan https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/dan-shea-discovered-gold-with-paddy-hannan/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2015 08:32:38 +0000 https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/?p=908 Memorial headstone in memory of prospector Dan Shea, who discovered gold with Paddy Hannan in Kalgoorlie. Dan Shea was born in County Cork, Ireland, and emigrated in 1868 to prospect on the goldfields of Australia and New Zealand. He teamed up with Paddy Hannan and Tom Flanagan, and the three prospectors worked together to prospect […]]]>

Memorial headstone in memory of prospector Dan Shea, who discovered gold with Paddy Hannan in Kalgoorlie.

Dan Shea Headstone: Photograph supplied by Derek Graham

Dan Shea was born in County Cork, Ireland, and emigrated in 1868 to prospect on the goldfields of Australia and New Zealand. He teamed up with Paddy Hannan and Tom Flanagan, and the three prospectors worked together to prospect out of Coolgardie. On 15 June 1893, they discovered gold at Kalgoorlie. Paddy Hannan returned to Coolgardie to apply for a reward claim. Flanagan and Shea continued prospecting the site. After the gold rush to the area, the three men did not remain to see the amazing growth of Kalgoorlie. By 1894, the original claim passed into other hands, and the three men went their separate ways. Shea continued to “chase the weight” through the Murchison and Pilbara goldfields. His last years were spent in and around Perth, and he died a pauper in 1908. His gravesite was restored in 1973 after a representation by Mr Tom Evans, the then Member for Kalgoorlie.

Mr O. G. H. Day, of the Perth Marble Works, Wellington Street, has just completed a memorial to the late Dan Shea in Karrakatta Cemetery, consisting of a marble headstone, with inscription in lead letters, also a kerbing and railing. The work has been executed to the order of the Mines Department.
Sunday Times (Perth), 31st January 1909.

Grave located in the Karakatta Cemetery, Western Australia, Roman Catholic Section BC232  – Lat:- 31.968611 Long:- 115.796389

Inscription:

DAN SHEA

PROSPECTOR
A DISCOVERER OF HANNANS (KALGOORLIE)    1893
BORN IN COUNTY CORK, IRELAND

DIED 9th SEPT. 1908    PERTH W.A.
ERECTED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Paddy Hannans Statue

Paddy Hannans Drinking Fountain – Photo SLWA

Early in 1928 the ‘Kalgoorlie Sun’ newspaper directed the attention of the residents of Kalgoorlie that although a plaque and a tree existed to make the first place where gold was found in Kalgoorlie no permanent memorial to the man who found it, Paddy Hannan, existed.

The article suggested that a memorial should be erected on Hannan Street to show visitors that the residents were neither unmindful nor ungrateful for the benefits they enjoyed. It was also pointed out that as it was the State Centenary in 1929 it would be an appropriate time to erect such a memorial.

The Kalgoorlie Municipal Council offered a prize of 5 pounds 5 shillings for the winning suggestion. Twenty-five ideas were put forward to the council including, animal watering troughs, drinking fountains, signs, and statues of stone, bronze, and marble.

The winner was a boy of 15yrs, he was Keith Craig of Ward Street, Kalgoorlie. He believed the best way to perpetuate the memory of Paddy Hannan was to erect a drinking fountain showing him in typical prospecting garb and carrying a water bag from which the precious water flowed.

Baker and Matthew (Monumental Masons) won the prize to design the statue and it was sculptured by John McCloud.

The fountain was paid for by public subscription and was erected on its present site on the corner of Hannan and Wilson Sts. It was unveiled as part of the State Centenary Celebrations. It might be mentioned that soon after the decision to erect the fountain was taken the old tree planted on the site of the first gold died and was replaced. On the 50^th anniversary of the discovery of gold, two plaques on either side of the tree were unveiled making it a permanent record.

A forgotten man in the story of the Paddy Hannan Statue is John Domonic McLeod the sculptor who created the work in 1929, McLeod, a talented artist and writer as well as a sculptor, died virtually penniless in Royal Perth Hospital in 1947 and even then no obituary chronicled his fine work on Paddy’s copper effigy.

Mr Erin McLeod who is John’s nephew and aged 77yrs has a wealth of memorabilia on his uncle from 1929. He says that John McLeod originally wanted a statue of a pack horse to be erected where Paddy now sits.

Over the years, it was vandalised on a number of occasions and so in May 1982, it was decided that the statue required restoration and protection. To ensure its survival, the restored original statue was repositioned in the foyer of the Kalgoorlie Town Hall, and a bronze replica replaced the original in its Hannan Street location. This replica was made by sculptor Peter Gelencser.

Today we have recently witnessed thas vandalisation of the rep[lacemewnt statue by the removal of his head. A 38-year-old man has since been arrested.

The famous statue of Paddy Hannan in Kalgoorlie-Boulder has been decapitated – Photo Kalgoorlie Miner