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The first reference to this area was in the Annual Report, NSW Department of Mines, when P.J. Galway, the Mining Registrar of the Little River Division wrote in his report for 1875:
p. 41
“On the Eastern side, running parallel with the Buddawang or coast range, is a belt of basalt rock about 72 miles wide, this rock is similar to that found in the deep sinking on some of our best gold fields. Several experienced miners are of the opinion that this rock overlies an old river bed, and it is the intention of some parties here to form a prospecting party to test the matter.”
The following, 1876, Galway elaborated:
pp. 98-99
“The attention of some miners at Gulgong being called to the basalt formation referred to in my last report, for the information of miners generally I annex the report sent them at their request for more definite details : -
“ ‘Report on the belt of rock mentioned in M. Registrar’s Report, 1875.
“ ‘As requested, I send you particulars respecting the belt of rock mentioned in the Mining Registrars’ Report, January, 1876, and to prevent any misunderstanding of its true formation enclose three samples.
“ ‘No. 1, taken from the face where it crops the Currawang Creek [Currowan Creek], the depth here visible is over 400 feet,
“ ‘No. 2, taken about 500 yards west of the belt from a hole 40 feet in depth.
“ ‘No. 3, mineral which forms on the roof and sides of caves or hollows in the rock, many of which are to be found where the belt runs through the coast range when nearing the Shoalhaven River, Here the belt is more than 1 mile wide; but under the Buddawang Ranges it varies from 200 to 800 yards.
“ ‘The width - 72 miles - in Report, 1875, is an error in printing.’
“Though called basalt in the Registrar’s Report, subsequent inquiry induces me to believe that pudding stone is the name the rock is more generally known by, being in many places thickly interspersed with pebbles of different sizes, but I learn from practical parties that a true basalt formation shows in the same belt, where it crosses the Shoalhaven River and payable gold was procured from slate rock, underlying the basalt.
“A strong colour was obtained from a mullock slate in one of the caves.
“Fine gold has been got from the surface wash in several places which is of a white sandy nature a few feet in depth.
“After floods the slate rock can be seen under the strata where it crosses the creek and low grounds; the belt can be traced from Monga, Clyde Road, to the Shoalhaven River - some 40 miles.
“The timber on and near the belt consists of mountain ash, gum, and mermate, with patches of hickory scrub.
“The water in the creeks flowing from or near the belt is good, but taken from holes sunk in the creeks is not drinkable, and soon covers everything coming into contact with it in a brown scum.
“*No gold has been found on the east side of the belt. The Little River Gold Field runs parallel with its western side and has produced some of the coarsest gold found in New South Wales.
“The sand on the west side of the belt is of a rich chocolate colour and extends about 40 chains in width, producing splendid root crops.
“ * I find from information received from a practical working miner, on whose statement every reliance can be placed, that lately prospecting the country on the coast or eastern face of the Buddawang Ranges he found gold in nearly every creek and gully he tried, and more generally in a large creek heading from the basalt. The country is very broken, and scrub and vines so thick he had to cut a path in many places; being alone and obliged to return for provisions, the search for gold was very imperfect, but proposes to give the ground a further trial when better prepared.
“The coast face from the Buddawang Ranges extends from the Clyde River to the Pigeon-house Mountain, some 30 by 15 miles, and presents a good field for a properly equipped prospecting party, very fair patches of gold having been found in many creeks falling into the Clyde River; and gold has also been obtained near the Pigeon-house.”
The Annual Report, NSW Department of Mines 1883, noted that W. Clarke had donated fossil specimens that he had collected from Sugarloaf Mountain to the Geological Museum.
It was not until 1886 that the presence of copper was discovered and reported in the Annual Report of the NSW Mines Department:
p.38
“Some rich copper specimens have been found at Buddawang Range, about 16 miles from Braidwood, but no lode has yet been found.”
p. 73 P.J. Galway:
“The discovery of a copper lode in the Buddawang Ranges, about 6 miles from the Little River township, has caused some stir in the the district. I am given to understand that the lode assays from 50 to 75 per cent., and ground adjoining has been taken up. The lode has been found on one of the blocks, and assays as well as that in the original find.”
In 1887 the Annual Report had the following:
p. 43
“A copper lode has been discovered at Budawang Mountain, in the Moruya Division, specimens from which appear to be rich.”
John Hobbes, the Mining Registrar for the Milton Division also noted the find:
“Near the Budawang Mountain there has recently been discovered what may prove to be a good copper mine. I have been shown specimens stated to have come from it denoting great richness. As the land has been applied for at Braidwood, I am unable to give further information as to its exact locality and the work done upon it, in the way of opening out.”
The Annual Report for 1888 reveals the following information:
p. 88
“Prospecting for copper at Currawang Creek [Currowan Creek], Burrawang [sic] Range. has been going on for the past two years, and though promising indications have been met with from time to time, no continuous lead has yet been found.”
The 1888 second edition of the Murrengenberg parish map has five mineral leases charted in the area and, additionally, a prospecting area in the name of Godkins which cover the mine area.
Mr, Blatchford also donated specimens from Sugarloaf Mountain to the Geological Museum.
The prospect was to lie undeveloped and forgotten until 1897 when renewed interest in the area was reported in the Annual Report for that year:
p. 41
“A little excitement was caused a few weeks ago through the reported discovery of a copper lode at the head of Currowan Creek, but the same has been abandoned; very little work, so far, has been done in connection therewith.”
The Braidwood Dispatch of 17th July 1897 carried the following article:
“A Visit to the Copper Mine at
Monga.
“We paid a visit on Wednesday last to the locality in which the latest copper discovery has been made at Monga, or rather on the border land of that parish proper. We were driven by Mr. James McDonald, and two other gentlemen from Braidwood who formed the remainder of the party. Without going over the novelist’s beaten track at the outset of a hunt or what not in giving a description of the beauties of the morning, we may be excused, in consideration of the beastly weather we have had for this ever so long, in expressing our satisfaction with our luck in having chosen such a fine day as we had for the trip, the appointment having been made more than a week before and without consulting Russell or rendering ourselves under the slightest obligation to him for his ‘sma’ mercies’ in the line of weather prognostications. And as it turned out we were just as well off in having chanced it as if we had put our trust in the very ablest of weather oracles, of whom we are in no way short at home without going so far afield to refer to the Russells and Wragges. But this won’t get us any ‘forader’ in our quest.
“The discovery is some thirteen miles from here. Turning off through Mrs. D. MacRae’s paddock at Monga, on the other side of the Mongarlowe Bridge, a little this side of the 10 mile post, you come upon Bentley’s old selection, where there is a gap in the coast range. Here Messrs. Backhouse, the discoverers of the copper, have blazed the track and cut a siding on the steepest part of the ridge. The remainder of the journey was performed on Shank’s pony. The gap is a mile and a half from the Clyde Road, and a little over a mile brings you down to the Backhouse’s camp close to a running stream, its deep sparkling waters bubbling merrily along its downward course until it joins the Currawang Creek [Currowan Creek], a tributary of the Clyde River. It is on either side of this stream, which is about a thousand feet below the table land, that the copper outcrops or veins have been opened. The ridge appears to be composed of debris which has fallen down from the main range, Maringenburra being the name of the overhanging peak. The first copper discovered is on this side of the stream, which may be called Bentley’s Creek, as it rises in the old selection. It was sent down for assay by Mr. James McDonald, through Mr. Austin Chapman, and gave a return of nearly 6 per cent., in addition to 2 % of silver and a trace of gold. Two other places were subsequently opened up nearer the creek on either side of it, from which some nice looking ore was obtained, having a larger show of native copper, which did not, however, turn out upon assay as well as they looked, a distinguishing feature, by the way, in many other things, animate and inanimate, besides copper, and a fact which Portia seems to have been very well aware of when she had to select her lover from their three caskets she had to chose from.
“A good deal of work has been done in prospecting by Mr. Backhouse and his two sons, fine strong able lads, both of them, to whom it is no exertion to skip about these precipitous hills, where in places it is difficult for persons unaccustomed to such country to keep their footing. After reaching the prospector’s camp our party, , which had been joined by a resident of Monga, who had kindly volunteered to guide us through from the main road to the terminus of our journey, and who carried down the luncheon casket, were quite ready to do justice to it. Upon the inner man being somewhat restored we were prepared to look round. The ore, in which the native copper shines with unsullied brilliance, surrounded by pyrites of all colours sparkling like crystals, is very pretty to look at through a microscope, but, of course, we have before implied, ‘handsome is as handsome does,’ and the dull, unpretentious soft sulphides and carbonates are what is wanted. These are more in evidence in the first discovery which yielded the best assay, and no doubt future prospecting will be chiefly directed to this side of the creek and further in to the Monga side, where there have been so many specimens of copper ore and lumps of pure copper, weighing as much as half a hundred weight, dropped across during the past-quarter of a century, and years before that and prior even to the gold discovery by the late Mr. Royds [sic], the father of the present Roynes’s [sic], as this was the route by which cattle were driven to the coast; and the gap through the mountains, where the path used to be, and which up to recent years was always taken by the blackfellows when travelling to and from the coast, is still called Royds’s track.
“The way back is not so easy as going down by any means. To clamber up the steep ridges slipped from the surrounding mountains that frown from their towering pinnacles like giant sentinels, to guard the mineral treasures below - that is, if they are there to guard - is very different from walking along Wallace-street. The traveller may have been indifferent to the descent on his way down, enraptured for the nonce by the stately forest, and the graceful, tall tree ferns, the wealth of vegetation of almost tropical growth, the charming vistas between giving lovely views of ocean stretches curling round the coast headlands with their blue waters lapping little islets set in their midst like so many gems. The ring of the bell bird, the swish of the whip bird, the gentler notes of the thrush, and the sweet mimicry of the pheasant, or lyre bird, are heard on all sides of these embowered, pathless woods, and all things combine to give a ‘tooral-looral’ aspect to the scenery. But coming up, oh my, the poetry is all knocked out of you and you pay no attention, not a bit, to the glorious panorama that was so fetching going down, and no more, with your sides puffing, leaning on your stick while you stop to have a blow, occur to you the lines from Scott’s Lady of the Lake, or any other lines in fact, -
“ ‘High on the south, huge Benvenue
Down on the lake in masses threw
Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl’d,
The fragments of an earlier world;
A wildering forest feather’d o’er
His ruin’d sides and summit hoar,
While on the north, through middle air,
Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.’
“You give up all interest in substituting Budawang for Benvenue and something else for Benan in order to localise the poet’s idea, and all you care about iin the world is, how far it is to the top.
“However, patience and perseverance can accomplish a lot, and when the top is reached, and after a reviver, your frame of mind, as making a start for home you get uncomfortably into your buggy, top-coated and gloved, with a warm Monaro ‘possum rug round your knees, it is very different to what it was when you had all those nonsensical notions on your arrival. As you flip your horse with the whip and tell him to get along you ejaculate, ‘Thank God, we are out of that hole !’ Ah, we never know what is good for us ! It is not every day you have the opportunity of doing a constitutional like this to fix you up.”
The Backhouse family came to Australia from Lancashire in 1841 and had previously lived in the Illawarra district, Majors Creek and Braidwood, and had settled at Currowan Creek, at the bottom of Clyde Mountain, around 1853. William, the father, had 9 sons (one died at birth) and 4 daughters (one died at birth). The sons were David, John, William, Robert, Frank, Charlie, Albert and Peter. There was another branch of the family at Milton. An interesting incident involving the Backhouses was reported in the Illawarra Mercury, 8th August 1862, and although unrelated to mining I think it is worth including:
“Sticking up on the Clyde Road.
“On Tuesday last, a party of three armed men, in the boldest and most lawless manner took possession of the Clyde Road at the top of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, and levied black mail on the passers by. The first parties whom they stuck up at a little before three o’clock in the afternoon, was Mr. Backhouse’s son and daughter, who were returning from Bridsdale [Reidsdale ?], where they had been to hear the archbishop, l and when they had got about a mile and a half beyond Monga, three armed men rushed out of the scrub, and after intimidating them, took 2s. from the girl and L2 10s. from the boy, being all the money they had about them. The robbers took them into the bush, and accomodated [sic] them to a sapling seat, secured them to it, and left them. Immediately after this Mr. Terrance [?] Gillogely, his nephew, a new arrival from home, whom he had gone to meet at Nelligen, accompanied by another man, were pounced upon about the the same by these three desperadoes, and ordered to dismount on pain of the most unpleasant consequences. This party was likewise taken into the bush, after tying their hands and feet, everything they had on them was ransacked, the result of which, however, as in the other case, could hardly have proved sufficiently remunerative for the undertaking, , only L3 being found in their possession. After the first surprise had worn off, and Gillogely’s party looked about them, they discovered the Backhouses not far off them, fellow captives also. Two of the robbers then made off, , taking with them the horses, and shortly afterwards the one who stayed to keep guard over the prisoners removed Gillogely’s party one by one, and tied them in another part of the bush away from the Backhouses. About seven o’clock the fellow left them, immediately after which Mr. Gillogely’s nephew managed to release himself from bondage, and then freed the rest of the party. Mr. Gillogely’s horse, which was knocked up, the robbers left with the Backhouses, and took one of theirs instead. The horse of Mr. Gillogely’s which was taken was a dark brown, branded TG off rump. The robbers had red nightcaps over their faces, and made away by a path cut through the bush into one of the gullies. Mr. Gillogely came into town late at night and apprised the police of the affair, and Mr. Willshire at once dispatched some of the force in pursuit of them, but we, believe no trace of their route has been discovered to warrant any hope of their being captured. - Braidwood Dispatch.”
To return to mining matters, the Annual Report for 1898 reported very work had been done in the interim, and this is understandable given the rugged nature of the country and the capital that would have been required for the necessary infrastructure:
p. 42
“Two mineral prospecting areas were applied for by Messrs. Backhouse and Cleaver on the Braidwood Mountains, to work a copper lode there, but only prospecting has been done, and no ore raised, and the affair hangs fire.”
Budawangs Copper Mine Map
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