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[Page 23] 23
Life at Port Stephens in
- the early fifties -
Speaking of life at Port Stephens as it affected
our own family and as I remember it from
the early fifties and up to the year 1873
when I left for Queensland.
we found it very endurable - no rent to pay no taxes we
had our own milk and butter, abundance
of fruit and vegetables.
The water
teamed with fish and oysters - the salt
water creeks and swamps with ducks
great flocks of sea snipe - birds about
the size of a pigeon - excellent eating -
fed on the flats at low tide and as the tide
rose crowded on to the
little sandy beaches of the islands - so
thickly that one charge of the shot was
enough to bring down a dozen or more
at a time - Our chief outlay was for
groceries - principally flour, tea, & sugar which
we got in bulk from Sydney - by medium
of the small ketch which traded between that
(Written in left side margin) My father was a fine field shot and early taught me how to use a gun - I was to have
one of my own when I reached the age of ten - how long the years seemed until that time
arrived - Then I was given a light single barrelled gun, and soon was able to bring
down a quail or snipe on the wing, and to keep the house supplied with all