MISSIONARY EXPLORATIONS 68 1 



other by-products, has an unexpected and gratifying value of 

 its own. 



A working agreement between the Australian Presbyterian 

 body and the Moravian Brotherhood had been arrived at as early 

 as 1863, with the result that several missions to the aborigines 

 were established in the southern portions of Australia. 



NICHOLAS HEY was born in 1862 at Doerrenbach, Bavaria. 

 At the age of thirteen, when his father died, he assumed the care 

 of the paternal farm, and kept the home together till his mother 

 died, eleven years later. He then volunteered for the Moravian 

 Mission, and was accepted and sent to Niesky training college, where 

 he found a congenial comrade in JAMES GIBSON WARD, an American, 

 the son of a Moravian missionary in Jamaica. The two friends 

 were afterwards sent to Ireland and subsequently to Australia. 

 Their arrival in North Queensland was opportune, as Mr. Douglas 

 was even then maturing his scheme for the establishment of the 

 first of a chain of mission stations, and they were entrusted 

 with the initial experiment, which was to be made at Cullen 

 Point. Mr. and Mrs. Ward and Mr. Hey arrived at Thursday 

 Island in November, 1891, and made arrangements with Mr. 

 Douglas for the establishment of the mission. 



The missionaries first saw " MAPOON," the site at CULLEN 

 POINT, on 28th November, 1891, when the " Albatross " and the 

 steamer " Dicky " brought them from Thursday Island, with a 

 white police constable and two native troopers, four carpenters 

 and the material for the construction of a house. (SEE MAP B.) 

 There were also on board eight natives of the Batavia district, who 

 were believed to have been illegally recruited by pearlers, and who 

 were to be repatriated. 



Sir Horace Tozer, Home Secretary, had intimated a GRANT OF 

 THE LAND for the mission. 



After a few days' delay, Ward took the " Albatross " 27 miles 

 up the BATAVIA RIVER. For some time Mr. Douglas visited 

 Mapoon monthly in the " Albatross" 



By July, 1892, it had become apparent that the headquarters 

 of the mission had been unhappily chosen as far as horticulture 

 or agriculture was concerned. Mr. Douglas took Mr. Ward on 

 a cruise in search of a more suitable site, and on this cruise Ward 

 contracted a fever which was to be his death. They visited the 

 inlet then erroneously known as the COEN, and which was subse- 

 quently named the PENNEFATHER RIVER (lat. 12 15' S.), and also 

 PINE CREEK (lat. 12 30' S.), now appearing on the map as NOME- 

 NADE CREEK, Nomenade being the native name for pine. (Whoever 

 changed the name had ample justification in the plethora of 

 Pine Creeks in Queensland.) 



Mr. Hey married Mrs. Ward's sister in December, 1892. 



About the end of 1893, the mission fell into popular disfavour 



II 22 



