Page 38 - rigneymaster

One Man’s Goldfield: the story of the Horseshoe Bend Diggings, William Rigney and Somebody’s Darling

relatively recently “refreshed” as it might be expected that a nail carved inscription from
over 30 years previous would be unlikely to look so fresh.

“The result is that a subscription has been started with the object of obtaining a simple
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marble slab on which will be inscribed the original words placed on the cross". It
was the story of the grave that appeared with this note that Rigney was at pains to
correct, both as it affected his own role, or lack of it, in finding and burying the body
and in terms of the original headstone which had always been a slab, not a cross as
stated in the article.

The marble headstone was duly completed and erected and the wooden slab
apparently discarded.

Figure 17 Wooden grave marker

When the route for the Roxburgh railway was surveyed in 1920 the surveyor, Mr
Paterson, discovered the wooden headstone in the scrub downhill from the grave and
returned it to the grave site. The upper part of the wooden headstone is now
mounted, under glass, on the front of the marble stone. Local residents continue to
take an active interest in the grave.

62 Tuapeka Times. 12.1.1901

© Jeff Robertson 38