Mr. Andrew Petrie’s Loss of Sight
Walked His Room in Agony
Blind for Twenty-four Years
Overlooking the Workmen
Never Could be Imposed Upon
His Wonderful Power of Feeling
Walter Petrie’s Early Death
Drowned in the Present Creek Street
Only Twenty-two Years
Insight into the Unseen
“You Will Find My Poor Boy Down There in the Creek”
A Very Peculiar Coincidence
Walter Petrie’s Great Strength
First Brisbane Boat Races
After the settlement was thrown open in 1842, Mr.Andrew Petrie’s office was of course abolished, and Colonel Barney and others, recognising that gentleman’s ability, endeavoured to persuade him to return to Sydney, and continue under the Government there. However, taking an interest in Queensland, he preferred remaining where he was to try his luck in what he foresaw would become a flourishing colony. Therefore, he started business on his own account, contracting for Government and other buildings, and here his engineering and architectural training stood him in good stead.
In 1848, while on a trip to the Downs, Mr. Petrie caught sandy blight, which was prevalent at the time; his eyes got very bad, and though everything was tried to cure them nothing seemed to work. Being an active man, he became impatient at the waste of time consequent, and though his wife begged him to wait awhile and rest, he insisted upon going to the doctors. Simple remedies and time, no doubt, would have worked the cure-the doctors in those early days were not as skilful as they are now. My father, then a boy of about seventeen years, remembers leading his father to the hospital, which stood where the Supreme Court is now, and there they went in to the doctors to see what could be suggested, my grandfather saying, “Whatever you do don’t cut anything.” “Oh, no!” was the reply, but the boy saw one of them take up a small pair of tweezers, and catching hold of the skin or scum which had formed over the sight, he held it while the other cut through with another instrument. Then caustic was put in the eyes, and the doctors declared that though it would pain a little, everything would come right, and Mr. Petrie would be able to see. All the way home, however, the poor gentleman was in great pain, and that whole night through he walked his room in agony, and one of his eyes burst. Father could never forget that awful time afterwards, and to this day he thinks his father’s sight may have been saved under different treatment.
Some time after, when the pain had gone from his eyes, my grandfather was taken to Sydney to see if the doctors there could do any good; they told him that one eye was quite hopeless-the sight was gone altogether, but there might be some chance with the other. In the latter he always thought he could see a little glimmering, but nothing further ever came of it.
It is a pitiful thing when a strong active man loses his eyesight. When Mr. Andrew Petrie realised that he would never see again, his agony and suffering must have been fright- ful, for he could not become reconciled just at first. It was a sad, sad time for his wife, who had to comfort him and witness his struggle, helpless to effect a cure. He was only fifty years of age at the time, and had always been used to leading others, so that the eternal darkness facing him must naturally have been almost more than he could bear. Could he have known, he was to live (a blind man) for twenty-four years- being nearly seventy-four at his death. However, in time’ it was wonderful how he managed, people marvelled at his aptitude.
“He was always at work with his mind,” my father says; “I have seen him when tenders were called for erecting a building or bridge, etc., getting my brother John to explain the plans and read the specifications to him; then he would take a slate and with the forefinger of the left hand on the top of the slate, he wrote across, moving down his finger each time he finished a line until both sides were filled. He never crossed the lines, and would state the quantity of timber required, the amount of nails, and everything else needful; or if it was something to be built of brick or stone, he was scarcely out in a brick, etc. Indeed he was very seldom out in his reckoning.”
Father goes on to say that his father always rang the work men’s bell at eight o’clock, then again at one and two and six. “He gave all the men their orders for the day; he knew each by their step, and called them by their names. To one dray- man he would say to take so many loads of loam to the scene of action, and to another so much sand, lime, or bricks; and then the carpenters, blacksmiths, and sawyers got their orders. Going to the carpenters’ shop he would feel the work being done all over, and knew at once if it was correct- they could not deceive him. In the same way he went to the blacksmiths and stonemasons, and I have heard the men say they would sooner see any one coming into the shop to examine their work than father. They said if anything was wrong or not finished off properly he would find it out by feeling, for he knew where a joint should be, or a nail driven, and was never imposed upon, but would have things done properly at all costs. He always carried a walking stick, and at times would use it when displeased, but in a moment or two his temper was gone, and asking for a piece of board, he drew on it with chalk the shape of the moulding or anything that they were making, explaining how it was to be done and all about it, telling them to be sure and work correctly.”
Mr. Andrew Petrie was led every day to all the buildings and other works under construction; he was never satisfied till he went the rounds to see what was required for the next day. His son John after a time had a pony broken in for him to save any walking, for he had a sore leg. Before leaving the old country his thigh was broken; while riding a young horse from his work in Edinburgh, the animal shied and ran him into a cab. The young fellow’s leg got caught in the spokes of the wheel, and was broken, and also the shin and side of the leg above the ankle was very much skinned and bruised. The broken part (thigh) was set and recovered, but the bruise on the leg would heal up and then break out again, and years afterwards, when his sight was gone, it was very bad at times.
“One could almost see the bone of this leg,” Father remarks,” but my father would never lay up with it; though you could see that it pained him sometimes very much, he would never give in. He had a great spirit, as well as an active mind, and his memory was splendid. He often gave us (his sons) little things to do and remember, and though we perhaps forgot all about them, he never did, and would afterwards ask had we done such-and-such a thing? When I told him I’d forgotten, he would say the wretched tobacco smoke had taken all my brains away!
“A boy led the pony on which my father rode round to the different works in progress, and you would see him taken to a ladder leaning on a two-story building, up which he would climb just as though he could see. Getting to the top and on to a plank, he would poke about with his stick on the sides and all along the plank, then all over the building, feeling with it the different parts of the work; and all the men had to do was to tell him what portion of the building he was on, and he seemed to know where each piece of timber should be fixed, and where every joint should be. It was wonderful to see him going over a building–he had a grand head, much better than any of us, his sons. His leg never got well, though it healed up somewhat before his death. He was very independent with regard to this leg, and dressed, washed, and bandaged it himself night and morning, seldom allowing any one else to touch it.”
In the same year in which Mr. Andrew Petrie lost his eyesight (1848) his son Walter was drowned in the one-time creek from which Creek Street now takes its name. In those early days Mr. Petrie ran a couple of punts, one of which was employed in carry- ing stone (used for buildings) from the hard stone quarry at Kangaroo Point, also sand and shells from the bay for lime-making; the other journeyed to Ipswich with flour, etc., for Walter Gray’s store, and brought back tallow and bales of wool. On one occasion the latter was loaded and ready to start, but lay at anchor opposite Kangaroo Point, waiting for the tide, which would not suit till eight o’clock; and Walter Petrie (a boy of twenty-two) intended making the trip in charge of the boat (as the head man was ill), and had gone down the township before the hour of departure to visit some friends and get some tobacco. When eight o’clock came round, however, there was no sign of the young fellow, and one of the crew (former prisoners) on board, wondering what he should do, went ashore at last to ask instructions. Mr. Petrie started off at this to look for his son, saying to “Tom” to come along, and they would find him. Father remembers well leading his blind father to a number of different places, and at last they came to a friend who said the young fellow had been there some hours previously, leaving with the intention of going to the boat.
That night no trace was found. Next morning Mrs. Petrie, with one of those unexplained insights into the unseen, said that her son would never be found alive, for he was drowned down in the creek; and she pointed her hand as she spoke. Her remark was, however, made light of, the hearers little suspecting how true it was, the boy being a splendid swimmer. In the meantime, a story had been started, born quickly like a bubble, as empty tales are at those times, that the young fellow had run away.
The boat waiting to start was sent off, and “Tom” took his brother’s place. Whether it was because of his mother’s remark he does not know, but all the time the boy had the same strange feeling that Walter was drowned, and going up the river everything he saw floating gave him a turn. At that time R. J. Smith’s boiling-down works had opened on the Bremer, and after entering that river, the boat’s party came upon a dead body floating a little way ahead. “I thought it was him,” says my father, “and I nearly dropped; but when we got up to it it was a dead sheep with the wool all off floating in the water. Then when we got to Ipswich I was told that my brother had been found drowned in the creek at Brisbane on the same day as I had seen the sheep.”
Strange, but true, is the following, which illustrates still further the strong feeling which Mrs. Petrie had with regard to her son’s disappearance. In those days a small scrub grew on the north bank of the creek, just behind where the Commercial Bank is now, at the corner of Queen and Creek Streets. Before any trace was found of the missing lad two men were sent by Mr. Petrie to this scrub for vines. for binding up shingles (which were always bound so then in bundles, the vines being twisted into the shape of hoops), and Mrs. Petrie hearing the order (she had never been out of the house all this time) called after them, “You will find my poor boy down there in the creek,” and then she persisted in watching the men, for from the doorway the creek could be seen. Her daughter stayed by her side, seeking to draw her away, but the poor lady was in such a dazed condition, that she seemed unable to think of anything but her lost son. She watched as the men reached the creek, then noticing them pause and draw back-” They have found him now,” she said. The men returned and asked for Mr. Petrie. Why do you ask that?” she said, “I know what has brought you. You have found my boy.” All the time she was unable to weep, and they had to take her away to another part of the house. Mr. Petrie himself had discredited the idea of drowning, saying Walter was too good a swimmer, and now the shock seemed to come to him twofold. Pitiful it must have been, to see the poor blind gentleman going to his wife’s side as he did when he heard the truth, and the body having been in the water, he could not even have the comfort of feeling his son for the last time-the bonny boy who was a favourite with all.
It was found afterwards that the young fellow had gone to cross the bridge (or rather apology for one) which spanned the creek opposite to where Campbells’ warehouse is now, and the logs being wet (for it had been raining), he slipped and fell. The bridge was originally composed of three long logs put across the creek, then slabs on top, and dirt covering all; but at this time the dirt had fallen off, and also nearly all the slabs lay beneath in the mud. As the young fellow crossed to take the short cut to the boat, simply as such accidents happen, he slipped in the dark (though he may have crossed safely a hundred other times), and falling head foremost on to the slabs (it was low tide), he was stunned and lay unconscious. Indeed from the examination after- wards it was said his neck was broken. However, he lay there all alone in the dark, while they sought for him in other places, and the water which knew him so well, and in which he had learnt to swim, rose slowly and lapped against the stalwart young form as though to rouse it. Then, gaining no answer, and growing bolder, the tide lifted and carried the lad up the creek to where he was afterwards found.
Of all Andrew Petrie’s children, Walter was the only fair one with blue eyes, and he was said to be exceedingly hand- some. Grandfather himself was fair, but my grandmother, who was a Cuthbertson, was dark, and a very big woman. They thought it wisest not to let her see her dead son, but she would not be comforted otherwise, and the sight proved too much. “That is not my boy,” she insisted, and then the mother lost consciousness.
It was a very peculiar coincidence, but nine years after- wards, at the end of 1857, in the same creek, another Walter, a little son of John Petrie, was drowned, the first Walter being twenty-two years, while the second was a baby of twenty-two months. The child’s accident also happened at a broken bridge, though it was further up the stream-in fact, it stood in the present Queen Street, near where Shaw’s ironmongery shop used to be, now occupied by Russell Wilkins. The boy wandered off from his nurse, and, she, being sent to seek him, came upon the little chap drowned in the creek. The alarm was given, and the body was recovered quickly, but life was extinct. In that part the water was only five or six feet deep.
Walter Petrie, as I have said, was only twenty-two years of age when he met his death, and he was an exceptionally strong, young fellow. His brother “Tom” says of him, “I have seen Walter take two two-hundred pound bags of flour, one under each arm, and walk by a plank on board the punt with them. Also many a time in my presence has he taken a blacksmith’s sledge hammer by the handle, and held it out at arm’s length.” He was a splendid swimmer, learning the art with his brothers not many yards from where he fell, and had the water been high when he attempted to cross the logs, all would have been well.
Before his death, Walter Petrie used, with his brother John, to row a great deal in the early boat races. The sport was very different then to what it is now. The boats were heavy and ungainly, and the races were consequently won by sheer strength. Boats after the style of a present- day ferry boat were used for one occupant, and both Walter and John won many of these single-handed races. Then together they pulled in the whaleboat events with equal success, their boat being called the Lucy Long. Whaleboats held five oarsmen always, and another man who stood up and used the steer oar, holding it in his left hand, while with his right he assisted the stroke. Such races would look odd in these days, of course, but my father says a whale boat race was well worth watching. The men all kept good time, feathering their oars alike, and so on. The course taken was from the Colonial Stores (Queen’s Wharf), down to the Garden Point, where a buoy was anchored, then round the buoy and back to the point on South Brisbane above the present Commercial shed, then called Womsley Point after a sawyer who used to cut timber there. Another buoy was anchored here, and the course continued round it, then back home to the wharf. When John Petrie was pulling in these races he acted as stroke.
By way of variety, what was called a dingey race was indulged in. It was great fun. The dingey only held one man, of course, and John Petrie was very often chosen because of his aptitude. He was allowed so many yards start, and the idea was that the bow man in the whaleboat following had to catch him within a certain length of time (about twelve minutes). When the whaleboat got close to the dingey the latter would spin round like a top, and the big boat lost ground in turning after it; and so they went on until, if the whaleboat got too near, the pursued man jumped over- board and dived beneath his opponent’s boat. “Bow” followed after, diving also, but when John Petrie was in the race he was seldom caught before time was up, as he was a grand swimmer and diver in those days, and very few could catch him in the water. Of course, there was no bridge across the river then.
Being a good deal younger, my father was out of these races, but he witnessed them, nevertheless. Another exciting event he remembers in this connection was a race between two lots of natives. Each crew occupied a whale boat, and the prize was a bag of flour and some tea and sugar. It was a splended race, and well pulled, the winners, who were Amity Point blacks, beating the others (Brisbane tribe) by a length. The successful crew were fine, big, strong men, and good pullers, having had more practice than their Brisbane brethren, as they mostly had belonged to th. Pilot’s boat’s crew. That night in camp there was much feasting, the prize being greatly appreciated.