The Elizabeths' Story Traditional Cache
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Size: 
(regular)
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This is the story about my 3rd/4th maternal grandmothers both called Elizabeth and living here during the first convict settlement.
The first Elizabeth was the youngest girl convict on the First Fleet aged 13 on the Lady Penryhn in 1788. She had been convicted of stealing some material (worth in today's money $46) from her employer a cloak maker. She spent 2 years in Sydney during which time she received 30 lashes for insolence. On 4th March 1790 she was sent to Norfolk Island on the ill-fated Sirius and remained here for 23 years until the colony was closed.
On 2 March 1794 her first child Elizabeth was born the father being convict William Nichols.
At the age of 13 daughter Elizabeth caught the eye of the Commandant Captain John Piper of the NSW Corps. She bore him a son when she was 14 in 1808 called Norfolk Piper. Captain Piper was probably the most popular Commandant on the island, his role being to to organise the closure of the colony. He spent 6 years on the island living at Government House with Mary Ann Shears who he had a child with at 16 in 1806 and another in 1808, and later married having 10 more children.
It would appear then in order to secure Elizabeth's future on Van Diemen's Land, she aquired assets, financed one assumes by Piper. In the Norfolk Island Muster of 1811, Elizabeth at 16 was only one of two free women on the island who were land owners in their own right. She had 525 sheep, 4 cattle, 15 swine, 40 goats, 15 acres under cultivation and a two story house.
Both Elizabeth's left here in 1813 and settled with their large families in Van Diemens Land becoming very successful farmers and pioneer women.
We have visited the island to try to find out where Elizabeth Nicolls farm may have been, assuming she actually had one. There are no later records/maps than 1896 available, far too early for Elizabeth. However on a 1840 muster there is an area called Pipers Farm on the only unallocated area of land in 1896. During the second convict settlement there was no one called Piper on the island. We are guesstimating that this may be where she farmed.
The cache is placed overlooking this land among trees which would certainly have been present during the Elizabeths' time.
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