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Captain James Cook
Lieutenant James Cook charted the outside of Moreton Bay and named several features, including Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island. -
Mathew Flynders
A group of Stradbroke Island people helped Matthew Flinders' crew find water when they came ashore near Cylinder Beach on their way back to Sydney. This was the very first black-white contact on the island. -
Emigrant
Timbergetters Pamphlett, Finnegan and Parsons were shipwrecked on Moreton Island and spent the next eight months travelling around Moreton Bay. The
Noonucals at Pulan (Amity Point) looked after them for nearly six weeks. They
housed, fed and advised the trio on canoe making, and saw them off some months
later in the craft they’d made on the island. During their time on Minjerribah
(Stradbroke Island), the three experi
enced bora gatherings, and ceremonial,
celebratory and gladatori -
Pilot Station
Amity Point was set up as Moreton Bay’s first pilot station. -
Renaming
In June Minjerribah was renamed Stradbroke Island by Governor Darling in honor of the Honourable Captain JH Rous, son of the Earl of Stradbroke and also
Viscount Dunwich. Rous was commander of HMS
Rainbow
, the first ship of war to
enter Moreton Bay. Darling also named Dunwich, Rainbow Reach and Rous’
Channel. -
Conflict
A cotton plantation was established at Moongalba (Myora).
8 It was abandoned not long after. Over the following years, tensions erupted between the convicts, local Aborigines and the Europeans. -
Even more confliction
November: the fourth Commandant of the Moreton Bay penal colony, Captain
James Clunie, requested that the Dunwich settlement be closed. His request was
granted. After it closed, it became a timber depot.
10
January 1831-December 1832
: 10 or more violent clashes occurred between
Stradbroke Island Aborigines and Europeans stationed at Dunwich and Amity.
1 -
Rewards, Gratitude and Leaving
March the
Sovereign
sank in South Passage between Moreton and North
Stradbroke Island, which was still the most used entry to Moreton Bay
A group
of Moreton Island and Stradbroke Island Aborigines rescued 10 of the passengers
and were rewarded for their efforts with a boat and breast plates.
As a result of the accident, a pilot station was opened on northern Moreton Island and the North
Passage became the main entry.
The entire Moreton Island Aboriginal population move -
The ship Emigrant
On 16 July Dunwich was proclaimed Moreton Bay’s quarantine station. Only weeks later, the immigrant ship Emigrant arrived with typhus on board. The
passengers were put into quarantine at Dunwich.
In all, 56 people died. Many are
buried in the Dunwich cemetery -
Thomas Welsby
Thomas Welsby set up a dugong boiling down works near Myora. -
Seperation
Billy North was granted a lease over
Point Lookout. For nearly 40 years, he ran
cattle, at one stage supplying beef to the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum. He also
operated a fish cannery at Two Mile outside Dunwich. The quality of his canned
fish was recognised by a medal from the National Agricultural and Industrial
Association in 1908 barque, the
Cambus Wallace,
was wrecked on the ocean side of a very narrow
part of Stradbroke Island. Two years later, a southerly gale led to the breakthrou -
Murder
September: Matron Marie Christensen
at the Myora Mission was charged with
murder, later reduced to manslaughter, of 5-year-old Cassy. The death occurred
after the Matron flogged the girl for swimming with the boys -
The "Prosperity”
Prosperity
sank off Point Lookout on its way from Sydney with sugar
machinery for Mourilyan Harbour in North Queensland. Five survivors were cared
for at Point Lookout before returning home. In 1956 a skeleton and boot were uncovered in the sand on Deadman’s Beach, and it is believed they were the remains of the Prosperity’s mate or cook -
Tourism
Point Lookout’s first tourism venture started in the 1930s when Bert Clayton bought land above South Gorge to establish a guest house. The first guests were
accommodated in tents which were slowly replaced by one-room cabins. He sold
up in 1946 and the new owners, the Bulcocks, renamed the complex
Samarinda. -
Lighthouse
The Point Lookout lighthouse was built. Materials for its construction were landed on a Point Lookout beach, and the cylinders for the light were constructed on the
beach and carried up to the site. As a result the beach became known as Cylinder
Beach. -
Ferrys and Lifesaving
A vehicular ferry service started, using the
Amazon,
renamed the
Karboora. It landed on the beach just north of the Dunwich causeway.The former benevolent asylum land at Dunwich was subdivided and offered on perpetual leases in a State Government bid to develop Dunwich as a tourist resort. The first life-saving patrols started at Point Lookout. The following year the Point
Lookout club became affiliated with the Queensland Surf Life Saving Association. -
Sand Mining
Zinc Corp began sand mining on Stradbroke Island. The first shipment left the
Island in 1950. The sand was shovelled by hand from Main Beach and trucked to
Dunwich -
More sand Mining
Work continued all year on subdivision works at Flinders Beach and Dunwich.
Allotments went on sale at Flinders Beach in August 1969. An Australian first: aerial spraying to
control mosquitoes was tried on Stradbroke
Consolidated Rutile began mining operations.
Until then Titanium Zircon Industries
(TAZI) was the Island’s major employer.
The four-bed Dunwich Hospital was opened on 17 Novembe
Island in October. It was
reportedly very successful. -
Ferrys
The Aboriginal Gang received the basic wage after years of dispute.
The wage
case was undertaken by the in
digenous men in attempts by
families to get off the rations system, and the unionisation of the indigenous workers.
Stradbroke Ferries began a regular service to the Island in 1964 and over the years, the Island has seen many changes in its population, industry and construction