Sophie Chapman died at the Ajax Gold Mine lease at Red Flag on the Mt Margaret Goldfields 12 miles southwest of Laverton and 2 miles from the Hawks Nest Rail Siding. Buried alongside is Alexander McDONALD (age 27) 100 meters ESE of the old Red Flag Well. Sophie Chapman and Alexander McDonald were killed by the roof falling in of the dug-out kitchen on the 22 May 1896. Mrs. Chapman’s husband, Arthur F CHAPMAN, was also present but uninjured. They had just finished their evening meal.
Arthur Chapman came out from England and pegged a lease called the Ajax. When he brought out his wife he excavated a kitchen for her out of the side of a hill. The kitchen roof was made of mulga rafters with a covering of brush and wood on which was piled the excavated debris from the mine. The structure was completed on the 14th of May and on the 18th it was used for the first time. At 6:30pm on this evening, Arthur Chapman left the kitchen to get his pipe. The roof of the dugout suddenly collapsed without warning. The whole weight of the roof buried Mrs. Chapman and McDonald under tons of earth. Chapman raised the alarm and with the assistance of George and Alexander Phillips, miners camped nearby, they recovered the bodies.
There being no cemetery in the district, the two were buried side by side about 50 yards up from the well and only a few yards away from the dugout. There is a well-known story that the well at Red Flag is haunted. It is claimed at midnight the apparition of a woman and a man descend from the graves and stand at the windlass pointing to the deserted dugout.
The following verse by C Austin Climie tells another story
Vengeance is Mine, Saith the Lord,
I will Repay.
On a creek, amongst the mulga scrub
There is a well all travellers know,
That never fails to meet their needs
Should drought prevail, and hot winds blow
Nearby this well, but not too near,
There are two graves but known to few,
That as this story does unfold
I think you’ll say is worth review
The name Red Flag, where is the well
Seems strange to unfamiliar ears,
But when its origin is explained
You’ll think how apt that name appears
When all men rushed from east to west
Towards Coolgardie’s Golden Yield
Ashburton miners picked up gold
When halfway to that distant field
To find the place should they return
They climbed a burly white quartz blow
And on the top placed there a flag
And old red shirt they again would know.
When Coolgardie fame began to wane,
And Hannans Find its wealth impeached
Prospectors scattered North and East
Until the Margaret District reached.
Amongst the others came an aged man,
Who pegged an area for a lease,
Then in the creek bed sank a well,
In which the flow does never cease.
For a camp he then a dugout made,
In a sloping bank, near to the well,
Roofed in with mulga laths and earth,
A cool retreat in which to dwell.
When all was done to make a home,
The loving thought could well devise,
He brought from overseas his wife,
A girl with laughing roguish eyes.
The days flew past, the while these two,
Were having a quiet but happy time,
Until a youth of broken mein,
Came seeking work upon the mine.
The old man asked him to the camp,
And proved to him a friend indeed,
By giving him not only work
But providing for his every need.
He had his meals with man and wife,
While making good upon the mine,
And when chatting in the camp at night
Seemed quite contented at that time.
The acquaintance soon to friendship grew,
And quite forgetting how begun
The man fully trusted in this lad,
Just as he would, were he a son.
And so the weeks ran into months,
In which the boy awoke to find,
Wild longings for his kind friends wife,
Were playing havoc in his mind
He struggled hard against the thought
Of betraying her, he should defend,
And despised himself for every wish,
That meant disloyalty to his friend.
But passion held him fast in leash
And brought about his quick defeat,
Compelling him in face of right,
To make confession at her feet.
While she being nothing but a child,
Too young by far to mate with age,
Was drawn by youths’ relentless law,
Towards the boy, naught could assuage.
Little they dreamt of the fearful price,
They would be called upon to pay,
By him, who reads all human hearts,
And has said ‘I will repay”,
With the rain, all nature seems to smile,
Bringing life to all things in its train,
And nothing seemed so far away,
As dire disaster, death, and pain.
The creek that through the summer slept,
Leapt into life, now wide awake,
And with many a bound and many a spill
rushed merrily down to join the lake.
For a full night, fast fell the rain,
Until so soaked became the ground,
That roads and banks were washed away,
And water lay in pools around.
On the evening of that rainy day,
The man was late in reaching home,
And when in the act of going in,
The sight he met turned him to stone.
His wife, regardless of the rain,
Was seated near the bright log fire,
With the boy half kneeling at her feet,
In worship of his heart’s desire.
While she with loves light in her eyes
The like of which he had never seen,
Was gazing at the radiant face
In rapture of a loved one’s dream.
He on the threshold, spellbound stood,
His anger great, his kind heart sore,
While Nemesis, both sure and swift
Was near him by the dugout door.
The rain descended in a sheet,
When he, quite drenched was going in,
He heard an ominous slipping sound,
And then a crash that startled him.
With the sound, he stayed his steps,
To find that quite without his aid,
The two, that had betrayed his trust,
Had with their lives, his wrongs repaid.
For the dugout roof had fallen in,
Being overweighted by the rain,
And underneath its wood and earth,
Lay cold in death, lay the erring twain.
Though many men, from off the mines,
Did all that willing hands could do,
It was not before the break of day,
The two crushed forms were brought to view.
The husband, stricken to the heart,
All interest in his mine quite gone,
Dismissed the men, gave up his lease,
Then trecked away, for unknown bourn.
All that left to tell the fate,
That befell these fold, to all who seek,
Are two neglected fenced-in graves
Up the knoll, beyond the creek.
And so my readers ends the tale,
As told to me long years ago,
While travelling in my search for gold,
By a sad-eyed man with locks like snow.
Epilogue:-
In Autumn when the moon is full,
And the bell-birds note does rain foretell,
Its then two wraiths are seen to walk,
Hand clasping hand around the well.
Then as averred by many men,
Who have seen the wraiths (tho skeptics doubt)
They always walk toward the bank
Whereon was once the snug dugout.
But on reaching there they disappear,
In filmy cloud of shining light,
And before ones senses have quite cleared,
Are then quite lost to human sight.
Should you who read have any doubt,
That in the moonlight wraiths are seen,
Let them an all-night vigil keep,
Near to the well in the silvery sheen.
When they will see before their eyes,
The boy and girl of whom I tell,
Who met with such a tragic end,
In the ‘dug-out’ camp near the Red Flag Well
Written by Clement Austin Climie c 1932 at Hawks Nest via Laverton Western Australia.
Ref: Lonely Graves by Yvonne and Kevin Coate
The Laverton & Morgans Mercury- 15.10.1910
Plaque by Outback Graves
Moya Sharp
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