14. Early settlers grew maize,
arrowroot, grapes, potatoes and other vegetables. Here, as
elsewhere, cotton was grown during the American Civil War (to
supply the Lancashire mills, South American cotton having been
blockaded). Some sugar cane was also grown. The sugar was crushed
at Berry's sugar mill at Sherwood and Dart's mill at St Lucia. It
was also sometimes crushed on the Floating mill built on the
steamer "Walrus". However, by 1870 heavy frosts had
severely affected the industry, which was relocated further north.
From 1910 Chinese market gardeners
began to grow vegetables on the small flats along Cubberla Creek
downstream from Fig Tree Pocket Road. However, by the 1950's the
suburban sprawl had reached the pocket and the dairy and fruit and
vegetable farms began to be sub-divided in the Cliveden area.
15. As part of its Bicentennial
cel-arbor-ation, the Progress Association has, with the approval
of the Main Roads Dep't, planted fig trees in the cloverleaf loops
formed by the ramps leading off Centenary Highway onto Fig Tree
Pocket Rd. It is hoped that these will grow into stately trees
that will mark the entrance to the Pocket at this point.
While the Pocket was initially part
of Indooroopilly, the access road wending its way down to the
pocket quickly became known as Fig Tree Pocket Rd. In 1868 the
residents complained that it had become impassable and petitioned
the Department of Works for a sum of money to bring the road up to
standard and offered to do the work themselves at a reasonable
price.
It should be remembered that in
those days, river transportation was more important than it is
now. The first steamer, the "Experiment", began plying
the river in 1846. Later, the "Hawk", the
"Bremer", the "Settler", the
"Ipswich" and the "Breadalbine" became
familiar sights on the river. The "Settler", a
sternwheeler which started operating in 1863, could do two trips
to Ipswich in one day.
Farmers would load their produce
into flat-bottomed row-boats to take it to either Brisbane or
Ipswich (the latter being just as large as the former in those
days, Brisbane having a population of 2,359 in 1856 and Ipswich,
2,459). It was important to take full advantage of the tides,
whereby a trip to the farmers' wharf at North Quay could be made
in six hours on one tide. However, the trip to Ipswich took two
tides, and the rowers would pull in to the bank and camp for the
period of the down-tide, completing their journey on the next
uptide.
The first public land transport
from Brisbane to Ipswich favoured a route south of the river via
the Rocky Water Holes (now Rocklea). Cobb & Co. commenced a
coach service in 1865. This heralded the decline of river
transport; it also left Indooroopilly and Moggill out of the
mainstream of development. If Fig Tree Pocket residents wished to
go to Brisbane town, they would cross the river and catch a Cobb
& Co coach (or, later, a bus or train) at Sherwood. The only
other alternative was a four mile trek through the bush to
Indooroopilly. It was not until the late 1920's that Berndt's Bus
Service provided regular land transport to and from the pocket.
The bus also serviced the recently opened Lone Pine every Sunday.
Another important decision that
helped preserve the rural nature of our area was the decision to
route the railway line from Ipswich to Oxley Point (Chelmer)
rather than to route it across the river at Moggill. A later
proposal to build a branch line from Indooroopilly to Moggill was
also rejected.
(Tell the Next Generation, various
references)
16. Manaton Park marks the northern
border of Fig Tree Pocket. Just as the name "Jay Park"
is a local name for the adjacent area, so the name "Fig Tree
Pocket" was originally just a local name for a section of
Indooroopilly. The Mandalay Progress Association has planted a fig
tree in Manaton Park to denote the north-eastern border of the
suburb.
17. On the property
at 346 Jesmond Rd is a lagoon that has been formed by the filling
of what was once a bora ring. This part of the Brisbane Valley was
once peopled by the Turrbul clan of aborigines, which belonged to
the Yugara language group. A bora ring is a circular mound of
earth forming an amphitheatre. It was in such bora rings that
aborigines conducted important ceremonies, such as corroborees and
the initiation of adolescent boys into young men or
"kippas".
Local resident
Peter Newell recounts how an elderly neighbour told him of her
witnessing corroborees in the bora ring. This probably was not an
initiation ring as two rings were used in initiation ceremonies.
(For a detailed description of the use of bora rings for kippa
making, see Tom Petrie's Reminiscences of Early Queensland, Chapters
V, VI and VII.)
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