Bogged horse put a damper on elections

Nothing came easily to the pioneers of the district.

Even electing a parliamentary representative posed a problem.

In the second elections of the newly created Logan electorate in 1875, transport difficulties caused a famous and unpresented parliamentary crisis.

Adam Black of the Noyea sugar plantation, was returned as a Member by a majority of six votes but the election returns were not formally endorsed by the returning officer, James Gibson.

He claimed many of his voting papers had been obviously immersed in water and virtually illegible and he refused to receive them.

The Legislative Assembly voted to accept the votes but again Gibson refused to sign the declaration.

The situation was unpresented and the Committee of Elections and Qualifications had to intervene another special division in the Assembly and Black was duly elected.

The cause of it all the trouble was a spirited horse, which in shying at a shadow on the narrow track between the swamps on Pimpama Island, dumping the presiding officer in the water as he was making his way to Beenleigh after the poll.

It was cold and dark in the dismal swamp and, with great difficulty and the aid of matches, the papers were recovered, saturated and torn.

The troubles were compounded by the horse that floundered about and became bogged, but was eventually freed.

On arriving in Beenleigh many hours later, horse and rider presented a very sorry sight, dripping from head to foot.

The returning officer, whom, he had met in the main street, accused the presiding officer of being drunk (which was not the case) and refused to accept delivery of the ballot of papers.

The exhausted rider slept at the Royal Hotel with the papers left on a table in the upstairs parlor, to be rescued of members of Mr Black’s committee.

After all that, Mr Black was to resign later in the same year.

Curse worse than bite

Antivenenes being a relatively recent invention, our forefathers in the district came up with their own ways of dealing with snake bites.

On March 12, 1892 when Thomas Barker was bitten by a large black snake while harvesting sweet potatoes in Eight Mile Plains, he found himself far from professional, medical treatment.

The Logan Witness reported that after his dog killed the snake, Barker made his way home and treated himself by drinking two bottles of brandy.

After a long sleep, Barker recovered from the snake bite.

Cow attacks hit headlines

While sharks and crocodiles were commonly seen in the Logan River in the early days of the community, dangers also lurked closer to home.

On September 13, 1884, 70 year-old Elsie Spann went to milk her cow when the normally placid animal turned savage and gored her.

Mrs Spann suffered a clean cut across her abdomen about 20 cm long, but she was more concerned that some of her intestines were protruding from the wound.

Beenleigh chemist, Mr Pritchard was summoned to attend and quickly packed Mrs Pritchard’s intestines back into their proper place, closed the wound with eight stitches of silver wire and bandaged it.

The Logan Witness reported Mrs Spann at first seemed “very much down”, but soon became herself and recovered quickly.

“Such a case speaks well for Mr Pritchard’s knowledge of chemistry,” the Witness said.

“The people of Logan are to be congratulated upon his taking up residence amongst them.”

Less than two years later, a Mrs Jaesche was set upon by a cow.

While walking across a road, a cow suddenly bounded up to Mrs Jaesche and knocked her to the ground, causing her to strike her head violently.

Dr Clatworthy found her to be suffering from concussion, shock and abdominal injury.

He deemed the case to be a serious one and devoted special attention to the case.

Mrs Jaesche lay unconscious for more than two days but suddenly awoke and quickly returned to good health.