Sick and bewildered, not understanding why help from Melbourne had failed to arrive, Dr Sanger that evening dictated a midnight letter to James Veitch (which, 131 years later, I would find in the Public Record Office in Kew). He intended it to be read by the highest authorities in the colony, but not knowing exactly who they were, he addressed it somewhat generally to ‘the Colonial Secretary’, who at that time was also Port Phillip’s first police magistrate, William Lonsdale.
Sir,
I have the honour to announce the arrival of the Ship Ticonderoga from Liverpool with a large number of government immigrants on board under my superintendence.
I deeply regret to have to inform you of the serious amount of formidable sickness prevalent during the whole Voyage, especially toward the latter part, and of the long list of Fatal cases resulting therefrom, in the greater numbers from Scarlatina and other Febrile diseases, nearly the whole of which have assumed a Typhoid character … which appears rather on the increase than otherwise and I fear will continue to do so as long as the emigrants are in the vessel. The Deaths have been 100 in number and Births 19. No. of souls dispatched from Liverpool 795. There are at present at least 250 patients requiring treatment, and both my coadjutor Mr Veitch and myself are almost wearied out by the constant demand for our services, especially as it is impossible to get proper nurses for the sick in sufficient numbers.1
He then requests
sufficient supplies of medicines including, Porter and Ale, Wine and Brandy sufficient for the Emergency; also a quantity of beds and bedding as those belonging to the majority of the patients seriously ill are completely spoiled. As the state of the Emigrants demands steps to be taken instantly for their relief, the Captain and myself have made arrangements for the removal of a portion of them on Shore, a covering of a temporary nature being in the course of erection. From the statement of the Pilot who directed us to proceed to the Quarantine ground, and informed us that the Emigrants might go on shore, we expected to have been visited by the health officer to-day, but as no less than seven persons have died within the last 24 hours, and many more are in a very precarious state, we have deemed it indispensably necessary to apply for the articles annexed without delay.2
When, a few days later, Lonsdale put the letter in front of Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe, the worst of his earlier fears for the Ticonderoga were confirmed.
* * * *
The morning following Sanger’s late-night missive, Captain Ferguson, along with the new sanitary station superintendent Joseph Taylor, finally arrived aboard the fully laden Empire. Having sailed through the night, he pulled up in the Empire and stood off from the much larger ship lying quietly at anchor in the little cove called Abraham’s Bosom. ‘What ship is that?’ Ferguson called. At first there was no response to the prescribed maritime ritual. He hailed her again. ‘What ship is that?’ If the captain was not on deck, the officer of the watch would normally be the one designated to make the response. But the great black clipper was as quiet as the grave. Eventually, a weary voice hailed back in the dawn light across the glassy still water, ‘Ticonderoga’.
Taking a risk that pilot Henry Draper refused to even consider, Ferguson went straight aboard, accompanied by Dr Taylor, to meet with Boyle, Sanger and Veitch. As they listened to what these three exhausted men told them of the voyage, as well as what they could see for themselves, Ferguson realised things were even worse than he had thought. Boyle appeared spent, a man utterly at the end of his tether, Veitch not much better and Sanger still ill.
The deaths on board had now well exceeded 100, Boyle continued, with more people dying every day. More than 200 were still sick. More than a dozen bodies were lying here on the deck—some had been there for days—and their immediate burial was of critical concern. Looking around at this scene of horror, a suddenly very pale Joseph Taylor began to glean what he had so hastily signed up for. One of the most recent deaths, Boyle then said, was his very own brother, the Ticonderoga’s third mate, William Boyle, who had succumbed to the fever just hours earlier. The visiting men offered their sincerest sympathies, and from that moment, Harbour Master Ferguson took charge of the situation.
In his report penned to Governor La Trobe a few days later, which has survived, Ferguson recounts a whirlwind of activity that he instigated in the days following his arrival. His first and most urgent task was to bury the dead. Then he needed to transfer the large amount of stores from the Empire to the shore, working the two ships’ crews hard in the November sunshine. He soon realised that the little Empire’s holds were not nearly generous enough for this emergency. The Lysander, he knew, was being prepared for sail and should arrive soon, but even with what she held, more would be needed. Leaving an increasingly alarmed Dr Taylor to gather a thorough understanding of the state of illness on board, as well as to sort out the stores, Ferguson and Veitch ventured ashore to inspect the makeshift hospital under canvas and ti-tree branches, as well as the patients it contained. Here, Veitch explained, they—as had he—spent their first night off the ship, accompanied where possible by members of their families and some of the remaining nurses, such as Annie Morrison and the indefatigable Fannings; however, more properly trained medical and nursing staff were sorely needed. Ferguson wrote, ‘I landed and found about forty of the sick people in temporary tents near the lime-kiln and houses occupied by Mr Patrick Sullivan.’3
Sullivan would not occupy them for long. In his hand, Ferguson brandished an order for the eviction of all tenants within the proposed quarantine area, the boundaries of which would now be outlined. They would, he added, be generously compensated for the breaking of their leases, as well as the requisitioning of their dwellings. He trusted that there would be no trouble. Enlisting some of the burlier members of the crews of the Empire and the Ticonderoga, he made his authority clear to the assembled families and delivered the news. It was all here in black and white, he said, signed personally by the Lieutenant-Governor himself, that he, Charles Ferguson, Harbourmaster
holds an authority from me … to take such steps as may be found desirable in withdrawing from licensed occupation such portion of land as may be required for the purpose of the immediate formation of a quarantine station at the Heads …4
Then, heading off into the bush with a small pot of whitewash, Ferguson paced out what he considered to be the reasonably accurate boundary of the station. It was not by any standards a fastidious measurement, and would not have met with the approval of his colleague the Surveyor-General, Robert Hoddle, but this was far from a normal situation.
Sullivan had built a series of wattle and daub cottages, including a reasonably substantial one of three rooms and a small dairy cellar, albeit in disrepair, which lay in the middle of the proposed station. This, explained Ferguson, would now be requisitioned and occupied by the sick, for which Sullivan would be compensated £200: ‘I also arranged with Mr William Cannon who holds a lime-burner’s licence within the limits of the proposed quarantine ground to remove to the Westward of the boundary line.’5
The more of the area Ferguson explored, the more he believed Hunt’s initial recommendation for the site to have been a sound one. As well as bush, he reported a large area of
dry open country, a large portion of which is capable of immediate cultivation, with abundance of timber, and from the statements of the Pilots, and those who have resided there for many years, plenty of fresh water can be got at all seasons by sinking wells at a moderate depth. The anchorage is quite secure, any vessel can lay in safety within a quarter of a mile of the beach.6
There was also an area of several acres under cultivation with oats and potatoes, which would be of good use.
Red marker lines were laid out to delineate various other necessary aspects of the station, and by making all who were there again walk over the boundaries with him, Ferguson made sure everyone understood exactly the new parameters of their changing world. Failing to respect those parameters, he added, would lead to severe consequences. Then, satisfied with the rudimentary layout, Ferguson ordered two 30-foot timbers to be taken from the ship’s carpentry stores and brought ashore. Two holes were dug several yards apart, and the timbers were erected as flagpoles, marking out in the boldest terms the entrance of the station—directly off the beach, facing the water, so that any who approached would be in no doubt that this was no longer simply a quiet piece of beach.
The next morning, to Ferguson’s considerable relief, the great hulk of the Lysander hove into view. Three vessels of size—a small but impressive fleet—had now dropped anchor inside the previously quiet cove of Abraham’s Bosom. More stores were offloaded, then Ferguson requested that Captain Boyle assemble all his able-bodied passengers. In terms that invited neither question nor equivocation, Ferguson informed them that all joiners, carpenters, stonemasons—in fact, every man skilled in a useful trade—were as of now employed by the government at a rate of 5 shillings a day. A quarantine station needed to be built right here, he told them, and they were going to build it. Those who had not travelled with their own tools would be provided with them from the Ticonderoga’s stores, or those of the Lysander. The men, slightly dumbfounded, looked around at each other briefly, then nodded in assent. The stonemasons went ashore first, and were told to begin work on a couple of simple storehouses utilising the abundance of limestone that surrounded them. Aside from the pay, which was at a rate greater than they could expect doing similar work at home, most were happy to finally be of some use after the ghastly voyage when all they could do was wait for death to stalk yet another victim.
Apart from the practical advantage of an instant labour force, Ferguson, who had worked with men all his life at sea, on no account wanted idle and potentially disgruntled hands lying about with nothing to do but brood on their ill fortune. In his report, he dared to
respectfully suggest that the Colonial Architect send down at once a plain plan or sketch of a large airy barracks or depot, as there is an abundance of materials on the spot for its construction, which would furnish immediate work for the healthy Emigrants, who ought on no account to wander about the station in idleness.7
Realising that sick people could endure only so much sleeping on a beach, and that an alternative quickly needed to be found, Ferguson drew Sanger and Veitch to the rail, and indicated the Lysander. This, he told them, was to be their new hospital. Fifty new beds plus new blankets and bedding had been provided, and he suggested they begin transferring the most serious patients over to it as soon as possible. The Ticonderoga, he added, was no longer viable as a place for the sick.
Sanger thanked him, but pointed out that medical staff of any description were needed desperately. Ferguson did his best to recruit more from the able-bodied passengers, but even his powers of persuasion were barely adequate. He even flexed his authority to intercept one John Chambers and his wife Janet, who were simply catching a ride on board the Lysander to take up a position as assistant lighthouse keeper at Shortland’s Bluff. Now, they were told, they were to be re-employed—at a rate of six shillings a day—as hospital attendants on board the Lysander, which was now a floating hospital.8 This is in itself a testament to the depths of the emergency. Ferguson knew well that lighthouse keepers in the colony were regarded far more highly than nurses, and the step down the social ladder for the young couple—albeit a temporary one—would have been significant indeed. It is reported, however, that both served admirably on board the Lysander, without complaint, for the entire period of its quarantine.
Next, Ferguson turned his attention to the Ticonderoga herself. Dr Taylor had made his preliminary examination of the ship, and was visibly shaken by what he had seen. The lower decks were appalling, he said—virtually indescribable. People were so ill as to be crawling on hands and knees. How anyone could have endured a day down there, let alone three months, was utterly unfathomable. Believing—as virtually everyone at the time did—that diseases such as typhus were borne through the air by ‘foul miasma’, his immediate assessment was that it was poor ventilation that had been the root cause of the catastrophe. As Ferguson later stated, ‘Doctor Taylor will report fully as soon as he has made himself acquainted with matters on board. Want of ventilation and cleanliness appear to me to have much to do with it …’9
Fresh provisions would be needed, and quickly. Ferguson had already arranged to draw upon his contacts in the upper echelons of Victorian colonial society, and fortunately Mr John Barker, Clerk of the Victorian Legislative Assembly and prominent landholder in the Westernport area, agreed to supply beef from his Boneo and Cape Shanck properties for five pence a pound. The lime-burner families, too, would be engaged to regularly supply eggs and fresh milk.
Turning to Boyle, Ferguson enquired how often his ship needed pumping. Mustering a little pride, Boyle stated that the Ticonderoga was tight as a drum, one of the finest ships he had sailed, and that her pumps rarely required anything beyond normal use. After some thought, Ferguson surprised the captain by instructing him to fill the holds of his ship with seawater, then have the pumps manned continually, day and night until the water, as well as the foul air, was drawn out. However, he added in his report, ‘it was evident that to check the further spread of this disease, the people should all be landed out of the ship’.10 Everyone, declared Ferguson—the sick as well as the healthy—as well as their belongings, were getting off the ship as soon as possible. Boyle announced that he had a number of large tents on board each capable of housing ten men. Ferguson bought the lot. He reported:
As it was evident that to check the further spread of this disease, the people should all be landed out of the ship, I urged the immediate erection of large tents on shore, and Captain Boyle having twelve for sale, each capable of holding ten men, I purchased them on account of the Government for Seven pounds each, and ordered them to be at once erected and occupied.11
Then, he continued, the Ticonderoga would be thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom. Every bench, every locker, every inch of floor and deck would be swept, washed and disinfected with chloride of lime, then several coats of whitewash. Every remaining piece of bedding, every sheet or cloth, as well as the beds, benches and tables where the Ticonderoga’s passengers slept, ate, lived and died, would then be ripped from her insides and burned on a great and cathartic pyre or else thrown into the sea. In the end, no trace would remain of the Ticonderoga’s passengers, or the terrible disease that had literally decimated their numbers.
The disembarkation happened agonisingly slowly, but soon the little cove began to resemble a camp city. Boxes and trunks soon littered the sand and foreshore as people re-established themselves at the cove. People in their dozens, in various stages of illness from near death to experiencing the first symptoms, were deposited wherever there was something to lie on. However, some had already circumvented Ferguson’s intentions to purge the ship and had taken their blankets and bedding from the ship, lice-ridden as they probably were, further risking the spread of the disease.
The first to come off the Ticonderoga were the dead—two at a time, in the rowboats—but even from among the fit passengers, few could be found to bury them, terrified as they were of themselves becoming victims of the contagion. A burial area had been set aside a little way from the shore, but with no coffins, and hardly anything left that could be used as even a shroud, the dead were buried, usually by their own family members, fully clothed along with their few meagre possessions. Even sadder perhaps, is that these humble burial plots were not to last, as the ground had been sited too close to the water’s edge. In just a few years, therefore, the Ticonderoga’s victims, as well as their resting places, would be lost forever to erosion and the sea.
Nor, it transpired, was Point Nepean’s sandy soil, with its meagre 10-foot water table, suitable for the digging of graves in any case. This too proposed a problem for the disposing of animal offal and carcasses, as well as the hastily dug toilets, all of which were liable to spreading more filth and illness with one decent rain.
The several hundred healthy passengers who had travelled on board the Ticonderoga likewise came to regard themselves as victims of the disease—albeit by default—being equally subject to the restrictions imposed by Dr Hunt and harbourmaster Ferguson. It was not long before some began to resent the confinement of this desolate place. Many who had lost loved ones wanted to pick up the pieces of their broken lives and start again in this new country; others wanted to put it all behind them and move on. For the time being, however, none would be allowed to do so. In front of them was a bay, behind them an ocean and standing in between them and the town of Melbourne was roughly 100 kilometres of scrub and bush, making it as unreachable as the moon.
Ferguson was aware of the potential for trouble rising out of a large number of discontented passengers. In his report to La Trobe, he added:
As there is such a large body of people landed, I beg to recommend that a Sergeant and a small body of police be sent down overland and stationed at the Eastern boundary of the quarantine ground to maintain order, and check the insubordination which was beginning to show itself amongst the seamen and Emigrants before I left.
Soon, a contingent of around half a dozen sergeants accompanied by six mounted constables was beating its way overland on horseback through bush to set up camp, ostensibly to protect the borders of the quarantine station, but also to prevent those who might attempt to leave it, and be ready to react to any unrest.
On Sunday, 6 November, Ferguson returned from Point Nepean to Melbourne on board the Empire, feeling that he had aged an entire year in the few days he had spent there. He reported to an anxious Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe that the final 150 sick and 250 fit passengers had all been removed from the Ticonderoga, with some being accommodated in the requisitioned lime-burners’ cottages, while others were living in primitive and makeshift conditions on the shore. The worst cases had been transferred to the hospital ship Lysander. The epidemic was far from over, though. People were still dying daily, although the numbers were gradually starting to decline. Dr Taylor was in charge, but Ferguson privately doubted whether he was up to the task. The Ticonderoga’s principal surgeon, Joseph Sanger, was recovering and now able to resume some work, and was once again being assisted on board the Lysander by Dr Veitch, although Ferguson described both of them as being ‘in an extremely debilitated state’.12 He meanwhile approached another physician, a William Farman, surgeon superintendent of the Mobile, to quietly take over some of Taylor’s duties. Taylor, he decided, would now oversee the camp on shore, while Farman would undertake the cleaning of the Ticonderoga and work with Sanger and Veitch on board the Lysander. Supplies would still be needed—particularly tent material, blankets, bedding and mattresses, as well as the usual demands for wine and porter.
La Trobe and Ferguson realised, however, that the tragedy unfolding at Point Nepean could not be kept quiet for long, and both men readied themselves for the storm both had seen coming long before the arrival of the Ticonderoga.