No tags yet.
"Extra, Extra"... the Mercury newspaper proclaimed in February 1862... "Important Discovery of a goldfield. The Reward of £20,000 claimed"... and all apparently within 10 miles of Hobart Town on the rocky reef on which only a lighthouse and cottage stood and which was known as the Iron Pot.
It turned out that the lighthouse keeper of the time, Mr T Johnston had engaged the Chairman of the Marine Board, Crawford Maxwell, to forward a specimen of the gold found on the reef to the Treasury in order to claim a £20,000 Government reward for any gold discovered within Tasmania. Mr Johnston told of how the "quartz extends from the island through the reefs to the main land at the southern extremity of South Arm".
Men familiar with the great gold rushes at Ballarat and Bendigo eagerly read of the "golden treasures in inexhaustible abundance to all willing to tap them".
Hundreds of people flocked to the offices of the Mercury to view the apparently "extraordinary rich sample" and almost immediately the steamship Culloden was engaged to transport the Premier, various politicians and town notaries to the Iron Pot.
Suddenly the story seems to have changed. Now Johnston claimed that his seven year old child had found the sample but neither Johnston nor the child were able to tell from where.
The Culloden returned to Hobart with some on board dispirited, stating that the whole affair was a "sell" and calling for an inquiry while others were "in great good humour, delighted with a very pleasant and somewhat exciting excursion".