Bega Pioneers' Museum has countless files on people and places. This one is about a mystery at Twofold Bay.
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THE following remarkable story of a mysterious tragedy at Twofold Bay in 1853 was published in The Town and Country Journal of February 3, 1894. Its author is unknown.
Forty years have passed over my head since the events happened which I am about to relate. They are indelibly photographed on my brain, there to remain while life lasts.
I had been one month in Australia, and had engaged with a squatter to learn colonial experience on his cattle station near Twofold Bay. In years I was only a boy. The Waratah steamer, on her way to Melbourne, had landed me and my trunk on the beach at Eden. The instructions from my employer were to stop at Falconer’s Hotel until the bullock dray came from the station, and proceed with the dray on its return.
The morning after my arrival at Eden I made up my mind to stroll along the coast as far as Boydtown. A few houses and huts in ruins, only the hotel in good repair, were all that remained of Ben Boyd’s pet township. The only inhabitants were an old couple who, with a few goats, lived in the hotel. Although a billiard table and bar fixings still remained, no refreshment for man or beast was to be had.
Boyish memories on that morning were strong. The sea has always a strange attraction for me, having the power of raising me to the highest heaven of hope or sinking me to the lowest depth of despair. On a calm day, when a slight heaving swell is upon the surface of the sea, then it is that I am most depressed. The contemplation of the rollers as they approach the sandy beach remind me of gentle loving hopes. Then suddenly comes a thud, a little white froth is scattered and blown along the sand, and all has vanished into nothingness. Are all our fondest aspirations to thus have an end? Who can say?
The sea on that morning was as I have described. It was the first morning in my life that I have been in complete loneliness, not a human being nearer than Eden, now three miles distant. I had passed the cattle yard on the beach where at times cattle were shipped to Hobart.
Not a sound from the sea but the low wearying swish-swish of the slight swell, and the cry of a gull at intervals.
