There are over 200 towns from the Goldfields on the Outback Family History web site and I have commenced to upgrading each one with new information and photographs, and this weeks ‘Feature Town’ is Abbotts. You may not have heard of it before now, but it’s an abandoned town in the Murchison region of the Goldfields, 31kms North West of Meekatharra on the Mt Clare road.
The town was originally founded in 1898 and gazzetted in 1900. It’s named after a prospector named Vincent Vrauizan who changed his name to Vincent Abbott in 1893.
One of the earliest mines to open was The Black Iguana. In 1895 the Black Iguana and the Abbotts mine were both operating ten head stamp mills in the town for processing ore.
In 1902 all of the boarders at Abbott’s Hotel were poisoned by eating tinned beetroot, many of the victims were given emetics, which were administered with much success. No fatalities were recorded from the incident. The matter was publicised in newspapers as far away as Tasmaina.
Murchison Times and Day Dawn Gazette 21 January 1902
ABBOTTS– TERRIBLE STORM. TWO HOTELS AND NUMEROUS PRIVATE HOUSES BLOWN DOWN. FALL OF FIVE INCHES OF RAIN.
A terrible storm passed over Abbotts yesterday, about 1 pm. which did damage to property, estimated at £1,200. The Abbotts Hotel was almost blown away, only the Store; bar and billiard room remaining standing while the Miners Arms Hotel fared worse, only the bedrooms remaining intact. A large engine house at the New Murchison King Gold Mine was totally wrecked, and numerous other smaller buildings were carried clean away, leaving half of the inhabitants of the town homeless.
The telegraph line was broken and carried away in two different places by flying timber and iron, some of which were carried nearly a mile. The town presents a most dilapidated appearance, and the bush for a mile around is simply strewn with sheets of galvanised iron. A man named John Geerola was knocked insensible and had his collar bone broken by the falling debris at the Abbotts Hotel, but otherwise no serious accidents occurred, although there were several miraculous escapes The force of the wind can be imagined when a half ton iron cage at the Abbotts Gold Mine was blown over, and three inch iron pipes bent nearly two and a half inches. Rain has fallen during the last 21 hours. making the total five inches. Communication by road is now impossible.
Abbotts Hotel
Moya Sharp
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