"Lucky" Joe Sloane

He "Struck It Rich" From the Giro to Edie

DEATH has claimed Joe Sloane, one of the last of the old school of pros pectors who put Papua on the miner’s map away back in the ’Bo’s, and who became one of the “Big Six” of Edie Creek in the middle 1920’5.

The story of his early life in Papua has been told to us by Mr. D. H. Osborne, another old-time Papuan resident, who knew Sloane well.

Sloane (Mr. Osborne says) went to Papua first about 55 years ago from Cooktown in Queensland as a member of a prospecting party. Under the leader ship of a man named Hurley, they landed in the Bartel Bay region where the Rev.

Copland King was building the first Ang lican mission station. The party found colours at the mouth of the Magura River and started off to follow the stream to its source. However, Hurley was mur dered by some carriers whom the party had picked up and the rest of them returned to the- coast. On the journey out, another member accidentally shot himself and, on reaching the sea, the party broke up.

Sloane returned to the Queensland goldfields until after the discovery of gold on Woodlark Island; he then joined a party with Jim Coleman, who was to be his partner for many years.

They did well on Woodlark and, later, moved on. to the Gira, where they found one gulley which was subsequently known as Coleman’s Gulley.

In December, 1899, Coleman and Sloane were part of the “rush” that started from the Gira to the head of the Aikora River, each miner carrying his own pack. At this time natives were not used in min ing to anything like the extent known later on. They were not permitted to work in the claims, for example, which limited their activities to carrying cargo and building houses.

The reason for this prohibition was the difficulty of obtaining any labour; and those who had it, it was felt, would have an unfair advantage over those who had not. Claims were limited to 50 feet in those days. A contributing reason was the Warden’s rule that no one but a holder of a Miner’s Right was entitled to work a claim—and this included native workers as well as Europeans.

Coleman and Sloane moved to the Yodda when it was discovered in 1900, and were there for some time. Sloane enlisted with the Australians in the Boer War; but, returned later to Papua with Coleman.

The partnership did not last long after Sloane’s return; and, in the early years of the century, Sloane was prospecting around Papua and as far east as the Waria .River, on his own. When payable gold was discovered at Lakekamu, Sloane was at Buna; but he walked right across the island to the new field, and had struck payable gold there long before the bulk of the crowd arrived.

In 1918, with Jack Murphy and Davie JDavis. he found a patch of the newly important osmiridiurh on the Gira River.

It was worth £B6 per oz. at this time, and their parcel of the metal brought them £4,000 each.

After a spell on Woodlark Island, Sloane followed Sharkeye Park across the border into the Mandated Territory.

IN his book “Gold-dust and Ashes,” lon Idriess tells how Sloane located Sharkeye Park on Koranga and. later, became one of the Big Six at Fdie Creek.

By this time, and with reason, Sloane had earned the nick-name “Lucky” Joe Sloane.

Sharkeye had been “in smoke” for a couple of years. No one knew where he was; some said he was dead: others were prepared to stake their lives, that he was “on gold.”* Sloane decided that he was alive, somewhere in the mountain land of the new Mandated Territory, and that, somehow or other, he would find him.

He set off for the tiny Government post at Morobe village, but when he got there District Officer Levien was away on patrol at Lae, about 80 miles up the coast.

Sloane got back into his dug-out canoe and was paddled up the coast to Salamaua. He spent some time on the deserted sand-spit that was later to be come the graveyard of many hopes, and an important port, finally recruited a line of carriers, and then set off inland.

Villagers had told him that two white men were up in the mountains some where; that their carriers came that way to the coast for supplies. Lucky Joe was on the scent!

The party trailed on over the mountain track, following from one village used by Sharkeye’s carriers to the next, and near Lambura they met a little Englishman going in the opposite direction. It was Ernie Dover, third man in to Koranga but unlucky in that he had not the stores to maintain him there. He had taken a

job with Sharkeye, and was then on his way to the coast for stores.

Sloane pushed on across the Bulolo River, and came at last to Koranga Creek —and there found Nettleton and Shark eye, and their camp, where they stored gold, casually, in innumerable meat-tins.

Lucky Joe tried the stream above Sharkeye’s claim, and got gold in the first dish. He then hurried off down to the coast again, and up the Markham River, where he recruited a dozen boys and signed them on for two years’ service.

District Officer Levien was by then keenly interested; but he was ill, and went south, and the secret of Koranga was kept for a further seven months, while Sharkeye, Nettleton and Sloane and their teams of boys worked the golden creek. Idriess describes it in this way; “As soon as a meat-tin became empty it was filled with gold. Gold was lying everywhere about the camps; tins of it, bags of it, and then boxes of it; shovel -

fuls of pure gold could be dug out of those boxes.”

But this was not the end of Joe Sloane’s luck. Over two years later, Bill Royal and Dick Glasson, driven desper ate by the fact that other men were on gold while their fortunes steadily dwindled, set out from Koranga up Mount Kaindi, determined to find another gold field, richer if possible than Koranga.

And such is the luck of this game, that they found just that, after the herculean task of climbing 4,000 feet up the un tracked mountain into the mists. Their discovery was Edie Creek, where ground went ounces to the dish, where gold was entangled in the tree roots and studded the creek beds. It was said that they could dig out a shovelful of dirt any where along the creek bed—and get an ounce of gold on the shovel blade.

A few days after their discovery, Royal went down to Koranga Creek to acquaint the chosen few—and the first man he told was Lucky Joe Sloane. Sloane did not wait; he went straight up to Edie.

The party which later became known as the Big Six of Edie consisted of Bill Royal, Dick Glasson, Frank Chisholm, Albert Royal, Joe Sloane and Bill Money, On their first day’s work there they got nearly 70 ounces, with a team of six boys.

Later, the boxes returned anything up to 280 ounces per day. Edie Creek was a small alluvial field, phenomenally rich; its inacessibility gave fortunes to the for tunate few who were able to get in early.

After Sloane had had what he wanted of Morobe’s gold, he retired from the mining life. He had been living in re tirement in southern Queensland for many years before his death on March 7.