Licensee
1866 – Louis Burgess1New South Wales Government Gazette (Sydney, NSW : 1832-1900), Friday 20 April 1866 (No.91), p 1033.
Location
The Araluen Plains.
On very early maps (c1830s) the area on the east of the Araluen Creek is simply labelled ‘Reedy flat’, and may have become the area referenced as ‘the plains’. The use of the location ‘Plains’ was prevalent in the early 1860s, but was gradually replaced by locations named as Crown Flat, Redbank and Newtown, as the mining population followed the gold, and moved further along from Mudmelong. As the Freeman’s Journal noted in 1862, ‘It is the opinion of experienced miners that the claims on the Crown Flat and ground lower down are exhausted, and that a considerable area of fresh ground will be opened and remuneratively worked on the plains higher up.’2Freeman’s Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850-1932), Wednesday 5 February 1862, p 3.
At mining sites during the ‘rush’ diggers sometimes referred to ‘the plains’ as the mucky, watery ground that had been levelled and extensively used for panning, as opposed to the area for digging, or where infrastructure was built to sift out the gold. This means ‘the plains’ may have moved along the Araluen valley as the panning area expanded.
In the News
The July 1866, New South Wales Police Gazette3New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime (Sydney : 1860-1930), Wednesday 25 July 1866 (No.30), p 271. published ‘A warrant has been issued by the Araluen Bench for the arrest of Cesare Nosai, charged with stealing a saddle (recovered), of the value of £3, the property of Lewis [Louis] Burgess, of Araluen. He is an Italian, about 28 years of age, … offender left Sydney for Hokitika, per steamer, on the 16th May last [June 1866].’
In 1867, Louis Burgess is noted as the licensee for the Victoria Hotel at Emu Creek4New South Wales Government Gazette (Sydney, NSW : 1832-1900), Tuesday 22 January 1867 (No.15), p 205. ‘The New Gold Field at Emu Creek, near the Wedden Mountain. The locality of this extraordinary rush is Emu Creek, … is distant from Cowra some 36 miles in a south-westerly direction … If any of your Bathurst readers wish to know the route they should take—first to Carcoar, then to Cowra, then Bumbalbry, then Brumah, and then 6 or 7 miles to Emu Creek. Forbes people come up the Young Road from Forbes to Bogolong; the Young people strike into the Wedden Road; Forbes must be some 40 miles off; Young, about 17 or 20; Cowra, 36; the nearest point to the Lachlan, as I have before stated, 17 or 20 miles,’ reported the Armidale Express in December 1866.5Armidale Express and New England General Advertiser (NSW : 1856-1861; 1863-1889; 1891-1954), Saturday 1 December 1866, p 2.