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

and told them of the presence of gold at a beach a short distance upstream. The
following day the party followed his directions and discovered the Horseshoe Bend
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Diggings.

Link to Mayo Island, site of Patallo’s home in Google maps

The area they discovered was a terrace of around a hundred acres, an ancient river
had already completed much of the work of separating the alluvial gold from the mass
of the sand and silt. This was the area to be mined first.

The discovery was not kept secret for long. Mining Surveyor Drummond of Lawrence
recorded in his report to the Otago Goldfields Superintendent in June 1864, that a
small rush had occurred some time previously from the Woolshed (now Glenore near
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Milton) to a spur near Millers Flat which seems likely to have been Horseshoe Bend.

The first miners to the area, including the discoverers Messrs Sullivan, Lunday and
Ford, mined the beach areas which were able to be mined with pan and cradle using
the Clutha as a water supply. This area was quickly exhausted and the attention of
the miners turned to the terrace behind the beach, an area which would require
machinery, and good high pressure water supplies before mining could proceed. By
1865 the Bend was becoming a mining town and the scale of operations was
increasing to meet the challenges of the terrain.

In 1865, Mining Surveyor Coates from Clyde reported to the Goldfields Superintendent
that "Operations on this ground are now and have been for the past twelve months
conducted in a most systematic manner, and as the river drift comprising it is
auriferous almost throughout its depth which varies from ten to fifteen feet, handsome
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dividends have long continued to be obtained. This later claim is supported by a
report thirty years later which states that 49,000 ounces of gold was recovered at the
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Bend during this period.

In 1865 Horseshoe Bend had a population of seventy-two, of whom fifty-five were
miners. The majority of the miners (forty-three) were engaged in sluicing operations
and the remainder in cradling.

In 1865, for a population of seventy-two, Horseshoe Bend could boast no fewer than
six “hotels”. Discounting the publicans themselves this equates to one hotel per eleven
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miners.

Mrs McElwain (daughter of Mr Meyer, gold miner) provided the only early photograph
of the Bend that is included in this volume. The photo was apparently taken by her
Uncle. This Uncle went on to England after taking part in the Boer War, and from this,
at least this one photo, of the Bend from the top of Billy Goat Hill (above the Lonely
Graves) can be dated as being around the turn of the century.

6 Stewart, R.T Original manuscript used for a radio presentation. Circa 1940
7 Drummond "Statement of Mining Surveyor Drummond" in Report of the Otago Goldfields to the Otago Provincial Council. 30.6.1864
8 Coates, J.J "Statement of Mining Surveyor Coates" in Report of the Otago Goldfields to the Otago Provincial Council. 1.4.1865
9 "The Otago Goldfields: Their Past History, Present Position and Future Prospects" Otago Daily Times. 1896
10 Coates, J.J "Statement of Mining Surveyor Coates" in Report of the Otago Goldfields to the Otago Provincial Council. 1.4.1865

© Jeff Robertson 8