Lonely Hilltop

Historic Graves

Plea For A Memorial

From Our Own Correspondent

Thursday Is., Aug. 20.

IT is not generally known to passen gers travelling through the cele brated Albany Pass, on their way to Thursday Island, that right up on top of Albany Island are a number of graves.

In the early days of the north, a settlement was made at Albany Island by beche-de-mer fishers; and in the early sixties, on the recommendation of Sir George Bowen (then Governor of Queensland) a port of refuge was established for castaway voyagers, which was a few months later removed to Somerset, on the mainland opposite.

Those were the days when there were many shipwrecks, and when the island ers of Torres Straits bore a very un enviable reputation, a number of massacres being recorded.

The island had its own little grave yard on top of the hill, and amongst some of the earliest burials were two of the members of the ill-fated Ken nedy exploring expedition, Messrs.

Niblett and Wall, who perished on Cape York Peninsula in 1849. Their remains were brought across to Albany Island in the brig “Freak,” which was searching for Kennedy and his men, and were interred there.

The burial service was read by a young man named Christopher D’oyley Aplin, who during his later career held the post of Collector of Customs and Surveyor General in Labuan, and was afterwards Government Geologist in Victoria and Southern Queensland.

Twenty-six years later he was himself laid to rest beside Niblett and Wall; he had been appointed police magis trate at Somerset, and died while holding that office.

Another who lies on the lonely hill is Mrs. Mary Turner, who was the wife of one of the first medical mission aries to New Guinea, and died in 1876, at the age of 26.

Victims of the tragedy of the

of the Niblett and Wall graves, the wooden monument which was erected was some time ago removed to the Thursday Island Museum, owing to the possibility of scrub fires destroying it.

But time is not dealing very kindly