stradbroke island

By remy969
  • Apr 19, 1500

    1500s Dutch, Portuguese and French probably mapped the coastline around Stradbroke during the middle decades of the 16th century.

  • Lieutenant James Cook charted the outside of Moreton Bay and named several features, including Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island.

  • A group of Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island) people helped Matthew Flinders’ crew find water when they came ashore near Cylinder Beach on their way back to Sydney. This was possibly the first black-white contact on the island.

  • Timber-getters Pamphlett, Finnegan and Parsons were shipwrecked on Moreton Island and spent the next eight months travelling around Moreton Bay. The Noonucals at Pulan (Amity Point) looked after them for nearly six weeks.

  • Surveyor General John Oxley, botanist Allan Cunningham and surveyor Robert Hoddle visited Pulan and called it Cypress Point. It is now known as Amity Point after their ship

  • Amity Point was set up as Moreton Bay’s first pilot station

  • In June, Minjerribah was renamed Stradbroke Island by Governor Darling in honour of the Honourable Captain JH Rous, son of the Earl of Stradbroke and also Viscount Dunwich

  • A cotton plantation was established at Moongalba (Myora). It was abandoned not long after

  • The fourth Commandant of the Moreton Bay penal colony, Captain James Clunie, requested that the Dunwich settlement be closed. His request was granted. After it closed, it became a timber depot

  • The schooner Caledonia was seized by convicts and moored off Amity Point

  • The pilot station at Amity Point was closed

  • From May, no more convicts were sent to Moreton Bay and the non-essential ones were withdrawn. This marked the end of the Moreton Bay penal settlement and moves began to open Moreton Bay to free settlers

  • Government surveyor Robert Dixon began surveying Stradbroke and Moreton Islands. He and Surveyor Warner also surveyed the coast from Brisbane River to Innes (Coochiemudlo) Island.

  • Four Passionist missionaries set up a mission at Dunwich to convert Aborigines. It broke up in 1846. The last priest, Raymund Vaccari, left on 20 July 1847

  • Two of the earliest recorded baptisms in what is now Queensland took place at Dunwich on 20 June. Two sons of Irishman Dick Smith and Aboriginal Neli were baptised by Father Joseph Snell, one of the four Passionist missionaries

  • In March, the Sovereign sank in South Passage between Moreton and North Stradbroke Island, which was still the most used entry to Moreton Bay. A group of Moreton Island and Stradbroke Island Aborigines rescued 10 of the passengers

  • 56 people died. Many are buried in the Dunwich cemetery.

  • Dr Hobbs established a dugong oil plant at Dunwich.

  • Fernandez Gonzales began employing Aborigines to net dugong