Community & Business
16 February, 2022
Local find added to Museum collection
An artifact that is more than a century old has been added to the collection housed in the Clifton and District Historical Society’s Museum.
A Chinese Soy Sauce Jug was unearthed by local resident Linda Bishop on the bank of Kings Creek a short distance from where the old reserve at Kings Creek Railway Station was located.
The Jug has since been identified as being from around the 1880s.
“It is known that there were a couple of reserves along Kings Creek that were worked by Chinese gardeners,” Mrs Bishop said.
She said another local, Tony McCaffrey, had told her of his memories of a fellow called “Charlie the Chinaman”, who lived and worked on the reserve along the creek.
Charlie grew vegetables on the reserve and would sell them to the townsfolk of Clifton.
Where Charlie came from and where he went are details that have been lost in the mists of time.
When Kings Creek flooded, he would gather his few possessions and head to the home of Robert and Mary Ann Bishop and family.
Charlie has long been remembered by the Bishop family and the land that he worked is still known to the family as “Charlie’s Garden”.
Next visit to the Clifton Museum, make sure you see the Jug and read the story of Charlie and an interesting sidelight - a short item about a Chinese gardener who was found guilty of having opium in his possession in 1932.
