Resource Sheet 1
List of supplies for the station
from I & R Lawson to EB Uhr
We will require very little supplies from Sydney this season to keep the station going, as the store is now well fitted with the principal articles requiring sugar and flour.
- ½ ton salt
- 2 tea chests
- 2 tins coffee/ say 4 lbs.
- 3 boxes soap/each 1 cwt.
- 15 gallons rum/bood quality
- 4 cases Pale Brandy
- 2 casks porter/each 4 doz.
- 2 casks ale/each 4 doz.
- 1 octave sherry wine
- 1 small bottle essence of lemon
- 1 small bottle essence of peppermint
- ½ doz. quires letter paper
- ½ doz. note paper with envelopes to correspond
- a little blotting paper
- 1 doz. duck trousers
- 3 doz. pairs mole skin trousers
- 2 doz. pairs cord trousers
- 2 doz. pairs tweed trousers
- 4 doz. Guernsey shirts assorted
- 2 doz. Guernsey frocks assorted
- 4 doz. silk pocket handkerchiefs
- 2 doz. silk neck handkerchiefs
- 1 doz. piece calico/stout
- ½ doz. lambs wool flannel shirts
- 3 doz. pairs strong boots for shepherds
- 2 bottles Castor Oil
- 1 box tobacco papers
- 4 doz. Pickles pints/best quality
- 2 doz. sauces/best quality
A & R Lawson, Boondooma, to Messrs Gilchrist, Watts & Co., Sydney 18 January 1855, Boondooma Station Correspondence, John Oxley Library, Brisbane.
On our selection
It’s twenty years ago now since we settled on the Creek. Twenty years! I remember well the day we came from Stanthorpe, on Jerome’s dray – eight of us, and all the things – beds, tubs, a bucket, the two cedar chairs with the pine bottoms and backs…
Dad didn’t travel with us: he had gone some months before, to put up the house and dig the waterhole. It was a slabbed house, with shingled roof, and space enough for two rooms; but the partition wasn’t up. The floor was earth; but Dad had a mixture of sand and fresh cow-dung, which he used to keep it level. About once every month he would put it on; and everyone had to keep outside that day till it was dry. There were no locks on the doors; pegs were put in to keep them fast at night; and the slabs were not very close together, for we could easily see through them anybody coming on horseback. Joe and I used to play at counting the stars through the cracks in the roof…
No mistake, it was a real wilderness – nothing but trees, “goannas”, dead timber…and the nearest house – Dwyers – three miles away…
Whenever there came a short drought the waterhole was sure to run dry; then it was take turns to carry water from the springs…and talk about a drag!…none of us liked carrying water.
Steele Rudd (Arthur Hoey Davis), On Our Selection, 1899.
Family outside farmhouse, Queensland 1870
Family and farmhouse, c 1870, Richard Daintree, State Library of Queensland, 22161.
Jimbour Station, Darling Downs, Queensland, 1880
The House, Jimbour, 1880, Hume Photograph Collection, State Library of Queensland, 22161.