World-Wanderer's Early
p. 90 · Read in the full issue
Memories Of Pacific
A MAN who has roamed adventurously across the world, and spent some colourful years among the Pacific Islands, is Mr. Richard E. Vernon, now living quietly at Cardwell. North Queens land.
He yas born in Brisbane, but he was away across the Pacific at least 50 years ago. He lived in Rarotonga when Mr.
Moss was British Resident there. Henri Nicholson then published “Te Torea,”
Snow and Dodge ran the store, and old Captain Taylor had a store near the beach.
Mr. Vernon traded out of Tahiti—to Rarotonga, Atiu and Aitutaki, in the Cooks. He remembered that A. von Nagel had a store on Atiu. Later, he was in the Philippines, and prospected for gold on Luzon. The lure of gold took him to many places.
In more recent years, with his son, he worked a couple of claims on the Black Cat Creek, 6i hours’ walk from Wau. He had previously prospected for gold in America, Australia and Africa. He made some good money—but lost it, looking for more. At one time he was manager of a plantation at Mombasa, East Africa. He was wounded in a rebellion in Mexico, wounded in the Boer War, and he was a member of the United States Ist Corps of Engineers in the Philippines.
Mr. Vernon’s son, Richard Edward Vernon, who was born in Brisbane and educated at the Brisbane Grammar School, had an interest in a plantation in New Guinea. He was killed by the Japs, in the Markham Valley, during the fight ing in New Guinea in 1942.