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Tuncurry, which today occupies the northern shore at the entrance to Wallis Lake, was variously described as a ti-tree swamp, a barren sand patch backed by heavy forest and nothing but a repository for logs prior to milling. All of this was no doubt true in the eyes of the writers, but when John Wright walked through Forster from Bungwahl Flats and borrowed a skiff from John Wylie Breckenridge, he saw a different picture.
But they found little there to sustain their interest and left for the Williams River where John spent his time from 1859 to 1864. Here he made the acquaintance of James Gill and family who occupied land some four miles north of Raymond Terrance and east of the Williams River. His interest in the timber industry brought him to the Myall area after his marriage to Catherine Gill in 1864 and he formed a partnership with John Rodgers and Alexander Croll whose operations were based on the north shore of Myall Lake at Bungwahl. Their first child, Marion Mayfield Wright, was born in 1865 followed by Sidney Garden in 1869, John 1871, Alice 1872 and Edwin 1874. He decided to seek land further afield and in 1875, travelled up the coast to the Queensland border but returned to the north shore of Wallis Lake where with the help of John Wylie Breckenridge he rowed across the water to see what potential it held. He saw an opening for shipping his products to market and he saw a mill site and also the ease by which his raw materials could be shipped by water to his mill. He dissolved his partnership with Croll and Rodgers and in the manner of the old Scottish feudalists, began his community with three men, Abraham Mills who was born in Stroud and had grown up in the timber industry, Henry Colvin, a builder and carpenter and fourteen old Andy Delore, the son of a French Canadian, Joseph Deleur (Delore). They built houses and a mill, temporary and frail by our standards today, but adequate for their needs. Then came a store stocked with supplies and then for the first time a timber barge "Nil Desperendum" (Never Despair). As others came to his employ work began in earnest. Another daughter, Josephine, was born in 1876, but sadly in 1877 John and Alice succumbed to diphtheria and are buried on the hill beside the church at Bungwahl. Catherine and the remaining children came to Tuncurry in 1879 and another son Ernest, the first white child born in Tuncurry, arrived. There were three more sons and one daughter born to John and Catherine by 1886.
Timber was milled and it is understood that three small sailing craft, "Sea Breezes", "Sea Nymph" and "Sea Foam" were constructed in the Wright yards over the 1880 to 1882 period, but as they were not registered little is known except from stories handed down by older Tuncurry folk. In 1883, a 47 ton single masted cutter, 77ft long and powered by a 25hp SC steam engine driving a single screw, was launched as a tug assisting in the port. This was the "Marion Mayfield" and later on shares in this vessel were sold to the Miles family of Forster who eventually purchased the tug outright as a beginning to their fleet of tugs. The mill burnt down, which apparently was a frequent hazard with saw mills. The mill was re-built and slips, a drafting loft and an engineering shop were built into the new complex.
Education was a problem and Henry Colvin had been rowing the children across to the Forster school conducted by George Underwood but this was a very dangerous journey and so John set up a school at the rear of his new home, 'Tuncurry House', and employed a teacher Miss Susan Smith to teach there. The building was used outside school hours for religious purposes. The Department of Education was prevailed upon to provide a school and teacher under the new 1880 Education Act and Mr. Charles Snape was employed. The previous teacher, Susan Smith who married the captain of the "Marion Mayfield" Captain O'Beirne, became the first Post Mistress, a position she held for 37 years.
In 1891, Thomas Miles of Forster requested that the Post Office on North Forster have its name changed because of the confusion by the likeness of names on each side of the water. When the Post Master General decided to do this he officially changed the name to 'Tuncurry' from 1 June 1891, that being the name of the Government Village near it.
The name 'Tuncurry' originally spelt 'Tuncurrie' by John Wright was the name he gave to the Village, for when the fish ran in the channel, the natives with spears poised, raced down to the channel shouting "Tuncurrie, Tuncurrie" (plenty fish) according to John Wright. The actual word cannot be found in 'Glossaries of Aboriginal Words' but in A.H. & A.W. Reed's 'Aboriginal words of Australia', there is a word 'Tukkeri' which means 'silver fish', thus with the translation from the guttural native tongue to the Scottish brogue it could be that this is the word they uttered.
Eventually in the life of the village a hotel was built by Henry Miles for Henry Underwood in 1890 and shortly afterwards a Mr. Stephens, the licensee of the hotel, built Stephens Hall right next door and this became the focal point for the social life of the community.
There is much more to the John Wright story, as John was a man who cared for his people, provided for them and tried to build for them and himself a community of the highest standard. What would his thoughts be now if he were able to view the changes that have taken place?
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John
Wright, born in Keith, Scotland, on 21 May 1836,
set out at the age of 22 to seek his fortune in the new world. What he actually
had in mind we do not know, but he directed his steps to New Zealand, arriving
there in 1857. He remained there a short while and after meeting his friend Alexander
Croll they left for Australia in 1858 where they made for the goldfields at
Araluen, no doubt to see first hand the stories that were circulating of the
finds in the area.
