newspaper article from 1888

A DEADLY INTER-STATE FEUD
THREE OF THE HATFIELD GANG KILLED BY THE M'COYS

Catlettsburg, Kentucky Jan.12,1888

The way of extermination continues between the McCoys of Pike County, Kentucky, and the Hatfields of Logan County, West Virginia. As soon as the last sad rites of the late butchery were over the McCoys organized a posse and visited the Hatfield settlement in West Virginia for the purpose of annihilating the gang. The posse visited the Hatfield house, and finding no one at home they repaired to the woods to consult a few moments. 

Their secrecy was of short duration, for the Hatfield party was soon upon them, and a regular battle ensured. After the smoke cleared away it was found that the Hatfield party were badly worsted and three of their number were killed, while none of the McCoy party posse was hurt.

Those known to be killed were Johnson Hatfield, Thomas Chambers, and James Vance. Vance was shot seven times. Satisfied with their day's work the McCoy posse returned to their settlement to await developments. Vance had killed several men in the McCoy neighborhood and had to leave in consequence. He had been a bold, daring, desperate fellow. The authorities be waged until one side or the other is completely exterminated.

European Settlement in autralia

Australia's first group of European migrants arrived in January 1788. They came on a fleet consisting of two warships, three supply ships and six ships which carried the main group, almost 800 convicts. Governor Arthur Phillip was in command. When the fleet reached the planned destination of Botany Bay, Governor Phillip was disappointed to find that it was not suitable for settlement. So the fleet continued a few kilometers up the coast to an inlet Cook had named Port Jackson. Here Phillip found what he described as 'the finest harbour in the world'. On its shore, at a place he named Sydney Cove, Phillip established the first European settlement in Australia.  

The main reason for a British settlement in Australia was to provide a place of punishment where convicts could be sent. Phillip's task was to establish such a settlement and make it self-supporting as soon as possible, so that the British government would not have to pay large amounts of money to keep it going. This was an enormously difficult job for several reasons:

The people who were to build the settlement were convicts. Generally they were not good workers and very few of them had any knowledge of farming or carpentry - the two skills most needed in the new colony. Unlike Aborigines, who lived well off the land, the new settlers did not understand the Australian environment. Nor, in the early years, did they have much success in finding fertile land or growing enough food to feed the whole settlement. The new convict settlement at Sydney Cove was very isolated. The nearest European settlements were in the Dutch East Indies and at the Cape of Good Hope. It would take up to 18 months to get news to Britain and back.

Henry Kendall

Born on 18th April 1839 at Kirmington on the south coast of N.S.W., Henry

Kendall was the son of a small farmer who moved north with his family to the

Clarence River district. He was thirteen when his father died in 1851 and

his mother took her children back to the south coast to live near

Woolongong.

In 1855 as a cabin boy, he went to the South Seas on a whaling

brig owned by an uncle. Two years later he was breadwinner for the family in

Sydney: an errand boy, shop assistant, solicitor's clerk (at Grafton),

public servant.

He married in 1868, and went to Melbourne in 1869, hoping to make a

living by writing; but here he failed, as he did when he returned to Sydney

in 1870, a victim of povery and drink.

He was in desperate straits in 1873 when the timber merchants, George and Michael Fagan, took charge of him and cared for him until he was well enough to be employed as a storekeeper in their timber business at Camden Havan, near Port Macquarie (N.S.W.).

His wife and two sons (they had been living apart) rejoined him here in 1876 and another son and a daughter were born. one of his many poems:

September in Australia

Grey winter hath gone, like a wearisime guest,
And, behold, for repayment,
September comes in with the wind of the West
And the spring in her raiment!
The ways of the frost have been filled of the flowers,
While the forest discovers
Wild wings, with the halo of hyaline hours
And the music of lovers.

September, the maid with the swift, silver feet!
She glides, and she graces
The valleys of coolness, the slopes of the heat,
With her blossomy traces;
Sweet month, with a mouth that is made of a rose,
She lightens and lingers
In spots where the harp of the evening glows,
Attuned by her fingers.

The stream from it's home in the hollow hill slips
In a darling old fashion;
And the day goeth down with a song on its lips
whose key-note is passion;
Far out in the fierce, bitter front of the sea
I stand, and remember
Dead things that were brothers and sisters of thee,
Resplendent September.

The West, when it blows at the fall of the noon
And beats on the beaches,
Is filled with tender and tremulous tune
That touches and teaches;
The stories of youth, of the burden of time,
And the death of devotion,
Come back with the wind, and are themes of the rhyme
In the waves of the ocean.

We, having a secret to others unknown,
In the cool mountain-mosses,
May whisper together, September, alone
Of our loves and our loses.
One word for her beauty, and one for the grace
She gave to the hours;
And then we may kiss her, and suffer her face
to sleep with the flowers.

Oh, season of changes - of shadow and shine -
September the splendid!
My song hath no music to mingle with thine,
And its burden is ended;
But thou, being born of the winds and the sun,
By mountain, by river,
Mayst lighten and listen, and loiter and run,
With thy voices for ever.

A quote from Mark Twain about australian history

Australian history is almost always picturesque; indeed, it is also so curious and strange, that it is itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer and so it pushes the other novelties into second and third place. It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies; and all of a fresh new sort, no mouldy old stale ones. It is full of surprises and adventures, the incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened. 
Mark Twain, More Tramps Abroad, London, 1897

Banjo Paterson

Andrew Barton "Banjo' Paterson (1864-1941). Poet, ballad writer, journalist and horseman.

'Banjo' Paterson, known as Barty to his family, was born Andrew Barton Paterson at Narrambla, near Orange on 17 February 1864. His parents, Andrew Bogle and Rose Isabella Paterson were graziers on Illalong station in the Yass district.

Paterson's early education took place at home under a governess and then at the bush school in Binalong, the nearest township. From about the age of ten years he attended the Sydney Grammar School. He lived with his grandmother in Gladesville and spent the school holidays at Illalong station with his family.

After completing school the 16-year-old Paterson was articled to a Sydney firm of solicitors, Spain and Salway. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1886 and formed the legal partnership, Street and Paterson. During these years Paterson began publishing verse in the Bulletin and Sydney Mail under the pseudonyms 'B' and 'The Banjo'. here is one of his many poems:

        On the Trek
   

Oh, the weary, weary journey on the trek, day after day,
    With sun above and silent veldt below;
And our hearts keep turning homeward to the youngsters far away,
    And the homestead where the climbing roses grow.
Shall we see the flats grow golden with the ripening of the grain?
    Shall we hear the parrots calling on the bough?
Ah! the weary months of marching ere we hear them call again,
    For we’re going on a long job now.

In the drowsy days on escort, riding slowly half asleep,
    With the endless line of waggons stretching back,
While the khaki soldiers travel like a mob of travelling sheep,
    Plodding silent on the never-ending track,
While the constant snap and sniping of the foe you never see
    Makes you wonder will your turn come–when and how?
As the Mauser ball hums past you like a vicious kind of bee–
    Oh! we’re going on a long job now.

When the dash and the excitement and the novelty are dead,
    And you’ve seen a load of wounded once or twice,
Or you’ve watched your old mate dying–with the vultures overhead,
    Well, you wonder if the war is worth the price.
And down along Monaro now they’re starting out to shear,
    I can picture the excitement and the row;
But they’ll miss me on the Lachlan when they call the roll this year,
    For we’re going on a long job now.