Jupiter Mosman

Horse Boy Extraordinaire

One of my favourite inland towns is the city of Charters Towers. Charters Towers in Queensland is located approximately 130 kilometers southwest of the coastal city of Townsville and is roughly 1,000 kilometers north of the state capital, Brisbane. Charters Towers is inland, and although it’s not really that far from the coast, most of the tourist advertising promotes it as the start of the "outback”. The city is surrounded by vast stretches of open savannah and lots of cattle country. Having travelled throughout much of the 1.8 million square klm that make up the Sunshine State, I can safely attest to the following little factoids. Queensland has on average, between 8 and 9 hours of sunlight per day throughout the year, which is why it’s also known as the skin cancer capital of the world. Another little observation is that there is way more land dedicated to cattle and sugarcane that you could probably imagine. And finally, if you live in the USA and think Texas is big, just imagine an area two and a half times larger and you’ve got an idea about the size of Queensland. In the late 19th century, gold fever swept through the state, leading to a rush of prospectors and miners looking to make their fortunes. The discovery of gold in Charters Towers quickly saw the population swell significantly to about 30,000 people, and at one point it was one of the largest and most prosperous mining towns in Australia. The discovery of gold that put Charters Towers on the map is attributed in no small way to the sharp observations of a wide-eyed aboriginal boy who would later become known as Jupiter Mosman.

From what I managed to read in the local museum, Jupiter Mosman was born in northwestern Queensland in or around 1861. It’s said that he ‘turned up’ one day at a large cattle station called Kynuna not far from Julia Creek which is in the central west of Queensland. Apparently, he was about 8 to 10 years old at the time, and a visiting pastoralist called Hugh Mosman took a liking to the boy and ‘acquired’ him as his horse-boy. The boy’s aboriginal tribal name remains unknown, however, it’s said that Hugh Mosman ended up adopting the boy and named him John Joseph Jupiter Mosman.

Mosman called him Jupiter, because his eyes were "large, luminous, and as limpid as a planet". Hugh Mosman teamed up with two other men, and together with Jupiter, went prospecting throughout the area that is now Charters Towers. They had travelled on horseback for many weeks, and with water and food rations running low, decided to camp one more night before heading back towards the coast. It was late December of 1871 and the weather was hot and dry. The prospectors set up camp and didn’t realise that a storm was slowly brewing in the southeast. As the early evening slowly turned to night, the air became heavy and oppressive as if the atmosphere was charged with static electricity. Flashes of lightning momentarily pushed back the shrouds of darkness, and gradually increased in frequency until the surrounding countryside was illuminated like brilliant daylight as the lightning split the skies. The rolling thunder grew louder with each passing moment as the power of nature prepared to unleash its fury on the vulnerable campers and their horses.

As the storm got closer the wind began to increase and the leaves of the trees around the campsite started rustling loudly. Old tree branches began to creak and groan as they were forced against each by the prevailing winds. Leaves and dry debris began swirling through the air as the winds started to pick up around them. The horses began to move nervously, tossing their heads back and forth, with their ears pulled back, wide eyed with nostrils flaring, they began pulling against their tethers. The temperature dropped suddenly, and within moments the first cool fat raindrops began to fall from the ominous skies. The rain began slowly at first, before the gradual patter of raindrops quickly turning into a roaring deluge. A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, and as the lightning bolt charged the surrounding air with an electrified sizzle, as it found its way to earth through a tree that was standing right beside the campsite. The lighting strike and the deafening thunderclap was too much for the horses, and they broke free from their restraints and galloped wildly through the middle of the campsite. The stampeding horses scattering things everywhere as they crashed their way through the surrounding bushland in their efforts to escape the noise of the storm.

Early the next morning, which happened to be Christmas Day 1871, young Jupiter was sent out in search of the horses, and while he was looking for them, he noticed a peculiar piece of rock that was sticking up out of the ground. The rock had yellowish coloured metal mixed with quartz, and Jupiter took it back to the ruined campsite to show his boss. Whether he found the missing horses or not remains a mystery to me, however his discovery heralded the start of the gold rush that established the area that we now know as Charters Towers. Hugh Mosman and his fellow prospectors did very well out of the discovery, however Jupiter being merely a child, moreover an Australian Aboriginal child, did not do nearly as well as his adopted father and the other prospectors. Hugh Mosman eventually left Charters Towers, and certainly left his mark on the town, but Jupiter remained there almost all of his life, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery on the outskirts of town. Literature that I found at the local tourist information center said that following his death in 1945, some of the locals bandied together and raised funds for a headstone, and I was pleased to stop by and see his final resting place on our journey though Charters Towers.

The following is an excerpt from a newspaper clipping dated 18th of July 1941. It seems lady luck kissed Jupiter Mosman more than once in his life, and I have to wonder how grand he looked in all those fine clothes that he bought with his Casket Prize winnings. It’s also worth mentioning that Hugh Mosman did provide Jupiter with quite a good education at a school in Sydney, and also taught him some invaluable life skills before they finally parted ways. Although Jupiter was never wealthy, he did, at least by Australian Aboriginal life expectancy rates, live a long and relatively comfortable life before he eventually passed away in 1945. He was about 84 years old.

A far cry from the heady gold rush days at the end of the last century, Charters Towers nowadays is more of a tourist destination and is well worth the visit. Three major highways converge and intersect through the township, making it a crossroad for mining, farming and travelers alike. Road trains sometimes consisting of up to three or four trailers rumble back and forth along the highways and are always heavily laden with produce or livestock on their way into the City of Townsville. Seasonal hordes of migrating tourists bustle up and down the highways, all racing each other to the next available free campsite or caravan park. This happens especially in the winter months as the warmer tropical temperatures appeal to the southern sunseekers and overseas travelers looking for a taste of the tropical far North.

Our last visit was towards the end of winter, and although the mornings were pleasantly cool, the days gradually became warm and inviting, as if to promise that spring was just around the corner. It was easy to navigate around the township, and it had a laid-back feel to it, similar to what you would experience in many rural towns all over Australia. The streets were wide, and the parks were green and lush, their flourishing obviously a result of careful tending by the local council and lots of water most probably pumped out of the nearby Burdekin River. The only drawback worth noting was that a large colony of flying foxes had decided to roost in one of the parks which made it almost unbearable to anyone endowed with a sense of smell. One of the highlights of our visit was to watch the sunset on the top of Towers Hill. Regrettably the following picture really doesn’t do it justice, as I was only using my old phone camera which wasn’t really suitable for capturing the magnificent colours which were on display.

Please leave a comment or feel free to share this post, and as always thank you for reading.