Alone or Lonely (Gordon) Traditional Geocache
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Size: 
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The “ALONE OR LONELY” series of Bowz2 caches acknowledges the extreme feats of endurance and hardship encountered by the pioneers of our country.
Our pioneers lived and worked without the advantages of modern communications or medical knowledge and skills, in remote and isolated locations where help was often days away by horseback or horse and cart. Consequently the want to succeed in this harsh country was often paid with a high price by young and old, male and female alike...
Added to this, when civil registration (i.e. death certificates) was introduced to the Australian colonies in the 1840s and 1850s, the models used were from Britain. Whilst the intentions were admirable, the tyranny of distance and the climate meant that practice was often very different to the required procedure. This was evident with remote deaths. To strictly follow the processes in the heat of summer was quite impractical when faced with the disposal of a rapidly decaying body, let alone considering those unexpected deaths many miles from the nearest community.
A lonely grave could be considered to be a single or small group of graves outside a recognised / currently used cemetery that never had more than twenty graves.
You can often find very isolated single burials through to the small collections at disused railway sidings, rural homesteads and long forgotten chapel sites. Whilst many sites have no headstone, some are no more than rumoured graves but others are well documented, some are unknown identities (I.e. unknown stockman) but ALL have a story to be told.
Visiting these sites can provide insight into past history, a way to remember those before us, as they shouldn’t be forgotten and it might help us to remember just how easy we have it in this day and age!
NOTE: Lonely, does not always mean remote!. Colonel William Light the founder of Adelaide is buried in a city square but his grave is lonely in the fact that it is outside a regular cemetery.
ABOUT THIS CACHE LOCATION:
Gordon was proclaimed on 2 October 1879 and named by Governor Jervois after his brother. However its railway station was named Wirreanda.
Even before the town had been proclaimed, William Hall had taken up farming land in the area in 1873. Hall was born in Lancashire in 1838 and had married Mary Jane Wyatt of Cornwall in 1866. They were to have eight children.
By 1880 the town had still some allotments for sale but there were already some 25 buildings which included the Gordon Hotel, with John J. Carolan as publican. There was also a store, blacksmith, butcher, baker, and a Bible Christian Church. Between the 1880s and 1900 Gordon was the centre for the surrounding farming communities.
In September 1880 George C. Hawker, Commissioner of Railways, advertised for tenders for the construction of a goods platform and office at Gordon. In July 1881 the railway traffic was opened and residents could catch a train on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 10.52 am going north, arriving at Beltana more than seven hours later. If they had to go south they could travel on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays leaving at 2.22 pm arriving in Port Augusta four hours later. Although the early farmers and other settlers faced a hard time population kept growing. In 1887 there were 36 residents in 10 houses, while six years later there were 57 residents and 13 houses.
Droughts were frequent and farmers were soon to learn that Goyder and his line were correct. However when it did rain in often came down in torrents and flooding of creeks was a common sight. Often locals did not realise the force of the water and drownings in flooded creeks were also a regular occurrence. In 1922 it was Thomas Carman who drowned in the Wirreanda Creek near Gordon.
By the 1920s the town still had a hotel, two churches, railway cottages, two stores and a post office.
During 1926 the school was closed for a few months and students travelled to Willochra for their lessons. It reopened but finally closed in 1928 when David Dee was the last teacher. Still, there were enough adults to play golf and tennis and after a hard day's work all were able to attend a dance at the hotel, run by the Schmidt family.
Many of the early pioneers are buried at the Gordon Cemetery. (visit link)
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