From 30,000 people to none. A look at the 1870 Graytown Gold Rush Cemetery & deserted Ghost Town скачать в хорошем качестве

From 30,000 people to none. A look at the 1870 Graytown Gold Rush Cemetery & deserted Ghost Town

One of two videos from a recent visit to Graytown, just north of Puckapunyal Army Base in Northern Victoria near Nagambie. Be sure to check out the video of the World War 2 Prisoner of War Camp #6 and explore it's history and connection to the 1942 sinking of the Leander class Light Cruiser and the German Cruiser KORMORAN-    • A wander around the site of Australian WWI...   This visit is to the 1870 cemetery. Deep in the bush, it appears rarely visited and is one of the last vestiges of a once thriving Gold Rush town of 30,000 people. Be sure to check out the video from the 12 minute mark. The information board at the cemetery lists the identity, age and cause of death for several years the cemetery operated. Heart breaking stories told in a single sentence. Disease, particularly amongst children and infants (congenital syphilis, whooping cough, tuberculosis, typhoid and typhus), Misadventure, ( drowning, mine collapse, falls from horses, sunstroke). A surprising number died by suicide (life was very hard and it obviously took it's toll on people). There was even a murder. Poor Inn keeper Ellen Thomas had her throat cut. Two noteworthy statistics. The average life expectancy in Victoria in 1870 was just 39. Amongst children only about half lived to see their 5th birthday. Which is why they had many children and started young. Because one could only expect half of them to survive. I can't imagine how one would continue after having lost, sometimes multiple, children when disease came to visit the household. Little remains of the town. Literally from dust to dust. But the stories told ( or often untold) by the graves and gravestones are inviting and entrancing. The thumbnail features the broken marble gravestone of "Little Frank & Maggie" Who they were, how they lived and died is now lost to history. One wonders what their story was. As with the many, many graves only marked by a simple cross or peg with an engraved cross. Graytown - The Town itself. From Dust to dust- literally. Named after Mr Wilson Gray and who later became Judge Gray in New Zealand - is a gold mining ghost town located approx 120 km north of Melbourne on the road between Heathcote and Nagambie in Victoria, Australia. Graytown was formerly known as Spring Creek which was surveyed in 1848. When gold was discovered here (at Moonlight Flat) in 1868 more than 30,000 miners arrived from nearby Heathcote, Whroo and Rushworth, significantly depleting the population of those towns. At this time, Graytown was compared in size to the Ballarat Goldrush days. In 1871 there were 511 buildings in town! The alluvial gold rapidly disappeared and by late 1870 the population had declined to 150. The death-knell came in 1870 when a flood swamped the mining endeavours and destroyed numerous buildings. Many of the remaining structures were moved elsewhere.