THE WELCOME STRANGER

Evening Star, Issue 21619, 15 January 1934, Page 8

THE WELCOME STRANGER

WORLD'S LARGEST NUGGET DISCOVERY AND SALE Many stories -have been written of the discovery at Moliagul, in 1869, by Messrs Deason and Oates, two Cornish miners, of the world’s largest nugget (writes O. P. Ward in the Melbourne ‘Argus’). Some of the versions have been self-contradictory, and others have lacked essential details. A new and historically accurate account of the finding and sale of the great nugget is now supplied for the first time by Mr W. C. Ray, of Empress road, Surrey Hills. Mr Ray’s father, Mr George Ray, lived with his family on land adjoining the claim of Deason and Oates when they discovered the Welcome Stranger, and his son is now the only man living who can supply all the facts associated with this romance, of the Victorian goldfields. This is Mr Ray’s story:— Although I have passed my seventieth year, the memories of my boyhood days at Moliagul are I clear, and they are supported by the evidence of my father, who gave me first hand all the salient facts of the discovery and sale of the famous nugget. Early in February, 1869, a dry month of an unusually dry year, John Deason and Richard Oates, having come almost to the end of their slender financial resources, were contemplating abandoning their claim at Bulldog Gully, Wayman’s Reef, Moliagul. They had been prospecting there for many months, with varying but unsatisfactory results. Owing to the drought, there was, not sufficient water in the dam to supply the puddling machine to more than half its capacity, and the partners decided to finish up by putting four loads of wash dirt through for the day. John Deason began this work, and it was arranged that Oates should go to a paddock some distance from the claim and thresh by flail a small stack of wheat to be ground into flour at the local mill. This flour was needed urgently to tide the small Deason family over the worst effects of the drought. Having put three loads of alluvial dirt through the puddler, Deason began digging washdirt for the fourth load, when his pick struck hard on what he thought was a rock or loose boulder, a common experience on the claim. With a Cornish oath since he thought only of the blunted point of the pick, Deason prised the “ rock ” from its inch or two iof loose earth covering. He was amazed and overjoyed beyond expression as the massive beauty and purity of what is now known as the Welcome Stranger nugget wero revealed.

PRESERVING THE SECRET. Hastily replacing the “rock” in its setting—the reason for _ which will appear later—Deason hurried across to the house totell his wife of the discovery, As'' I remember her, Mrs Deason was a lovely woman, one of the best of the wonderful mothers of those pioneering days. The two elder Deason children were soon sent with a message to Richard Oates, who was asked to return from the paddock at once. He was amazed and elated at the discovery, and he agreed with Deason that for the day at least it would be advisable to keep the matter secret. So the partners hovered about the claim on various pretexts until nightfall, when the huge nugget was lifted and S laced in the chimney fireplace of eason’s house, where, screened and camouflaged, it was carefully guarded by the prospectors while the necessary arrangements were made to have it broken on the anvil in the blacksmith’s forge on the ' claim. This work was done with great care and secrecy, and the broken fragments of the beautiful nugget were packed in boxes ready for conveyance to _ the _ bank at Dunolly, some ten miles distant. The generally accepted reason for this hasty action on the part of the prospectors in at once destroying the nugget—that its great hulk and weight would make it difficult to handle at the bank—is only partly correct. Neither Deason nor Oates 1 held a miner’s right for the claim containing the nugget, and Deason was afraid that the Government might step in and claim it as a product of Crown land, or at least that he might be involved in litigation which would greatly reduce the value of the discovery. That this was not an unreasonable. fear was proved by the history of the Yandoit nugget, which was found by two elderly miners in some abandoned workings at Yandoit. Elated by their discovery, ' the men rushed off to Castlemaine and deposited the nugget in the bank there. When notified by the bank of the size and value of the nugget the Mines Board immediately applied to the court for an injunction, restraining the bank from siritelting or selling the nugget, and the prospectors, after months of litigation and payment of legal expenses, received only a few pounds each as their share of the SOOoz of gold the nugget contained. Arrangements were quickly made for the safe transit of the Welcome Stranger gold to Dunolly. Packed carefully in boxes disguised as packages of farm produce, the gold was placed in the farm wagonette and was conveyed by the partners to Dunolly. On arrival at the Bank of Victoria, in Broadway, Deason the bank to negotiate. the sale: leaving Oates on guard with the vehicle outside. Deason, who knew the manager well, asked, “ What are you paying for gold now?” i “ Oh, about £4 an ounce,” the manager replied. “An ounce be blowed!” said Deason. “ What is it a hundredweight?” To the astonishment of the bank officials Oates brought in and placed on the counter the boxes containing the glittering fragments of the Welcome Stranger. After some unsuccessful efforts on the part of Deason to induce the manager of the Bank of Victoria to give a higher price an ounce than that first offered, Deason remarked: “We can do better across the road,” and at once removed the boxes of gold to the London Chartered Bank, on the opposite side of Broadway. The manager of the London Chartered Bank, quick perhaps to realise the value and importance of such a sensational deal, came nearer to Deason’s’ terms, and ultimately he paid £9,553 for the *2,31603 of pure gold which the broken-up nugget yielded. WHICH IS TRUE STORY? There Mr Ray’s story ends. 1 am indebted to Mr Harold Baker, manager of the Dunolly branch of the Commercial Banking Company, of Sydney, for the official figures relating to the net weight of tne Welcome Stranger and the purchase price paid by the London Chartered Bank. Mi' Baker repeats the story still current in Dunolly that the nugget was brought to the bank in its natural state and, being too large and heavy to be weighed on the bank scales, was then taken to Mr Archibald Wall’s blacksmith shop in Broadway and there reduced to fragments. Mr Ray’s story is in direct

conflict with this account, and it is supported strongly by the probabilities and the evidence of his father. What almost certainly happened is that the largest fragment of the. nugget in one of the boxes, that containing most of the quartz, was further reduced in size on Mr Wall's anvil, thus giving rise to the improbable story tuat the nugget was brought intact to Dunolly and was broken up in daylight in the township’s main thoroughfa(Jne of tho most regrettable results of the premature destruction of the nugget is that no photograph of the Welcome Stranger m its natural state was ever obtained.' ’the model in the Melbourne Museum and replicas in London and other Old World cities, was made by a modeller from designs submitted by a draughtsman who admitted that he had not only never seen the nugget but was not even remotely associated with its history and discovery. , .. The site of the discovery of the Welcome Stranger has been marked by the erection of a stone obelisk. No nugget comparable in size and purity to this king of the alluvial goldfields has since rewarded the prospector, though the Poseidoh nugget found at Tarnagulla hope that it might some day be equalled, if not eclipsed. ■