I was born in England in 1879, the 27, of November. My Father and Mother and the famaly emigrated to Australia. We went on a saling ship, name the Dalem Tower. It took twelve months to get there. It was a terrible voige. My mother was sick all the way. We did not think she would live. I was a baby and when the ship got half way to Australia, a terrible storm cam. We was all battened down. Thire was a terrible crash. The marst blue down. The Capten cried out every man for himself, the ship is sinking. But the galent sailors throwed the marst into the sea and the ship stood upright again. They saved ower lives, and the saliors put another marst up on the ship and the storm carmed down. The ocean was smouth like glass and God put the sun light across the ocean again and the Dalem Tower went sailing on to Australia again.
Well we got to the city of New Castle and lived there for a time. I was a boy 8 years old. My brother took me to the ocean beach swimming. When we got thire the ocean was rough and thire was a rock two miles long, flat on top, ten feet from the water and my brother Richard walked on top and a big wave came and took him out into the ocean. He was a great swimer. But the ocean was full of maneting sharks and my brother Henry said to me "if them manetars get him they can have me to". He had a nife on him. He could handle any shark. So he jumped into the ocean and swam two miles in the ocean, so they could get to the sand beach. I walked till they came out smiling.
My father was a contractor builder and took the family to Melbourne and built a lady’s Collage with one hundred and fifty rooms in it. Then we went to Queensland to see his old Irish aunt. She lived in an old log caben with a big chimney full of hams up inside. She smoked a clay pipe. But uncle was dead. He was tuf. He used to dig for gold at the foot of the mount and in the morning a Chineman was getting gold. Uncle pulled him out and choped his pig tail off. He never came around again. But the old Irish aunt had water came from the Tambery Mountains. In a creek she got a lavel gold out of it. She took it to the bank and they gave her English gold with the King’s head on it and silver. They old Irish aunt took us to the Tambery Mountains and shoud us the oldest living thing on this earth, so she said. It was 16,000 years old. It was called the macrazania tree. They choped them all down and they growed again. I don’t think they will ever do away with them. They are everlasting. They look like a palm tree.
My father took us to Hobart Tasmania and he built two bunglows thire and he left me and my mother, and two sisters in Tasmania. I was a bricklayer 18 years and while I was in Tasmania I climed Mount Wellington. It took two days to get thire. I had to go through a dence jungle. It was full of rabbets and wild chickens and tall trees. The Abragnals burned holes in them as big as a room. I sleept in them at night. I got lobsters out of a running stream and boiled them in a half galen can. Boy was they good. And the sun went down in the forest. It was dark. The leaves on top of the trees was so thick you could not see a star in the sky. I could not see only for a fire out side that I lit to boil the lobsters on. It was dark. But I could hear the nightingale was singing till the morning. I fell asleep and the mockingbird was mocking in the bush. It woke me up. I looked all around the forest and there was millions of humingbirds and parrots chatering in the forest. I got some more lobsters and boiled some ____, then the sun shined so pretty through some places in the tops of the trees. I was lonely. Only the birds cheered me up. I walked to the foot of the mountain. It was covered with pretty flowers and the prettiest birds in the world and God put the sun light on me as I started to clime that great mountain. It was five thousand, five hundred feet in the air. I got halfway to the top and I fell asleep behind a rock. I was 18 years old and I heard the Jackas schream. He is a bird as big as a crow, and schreams like a young woman laughing and the sound dies away like an old man laughing down low, and the sound goes all around the rocks and it keeps up laughing at diferent times all day. I started to clime the mountain again. There was a 60 foot chane from the top. So I climed to a place to get off and I steped on a bank and my foot sliped. I cought a little tree. God put it thire for me. I might have gone 60 feet in the rocks below. But I always had faith in God, Jesus Christ. He died for me. I got to the top. Thire was a rocking stone. The wind blue around it for thousands of years and it broke off and rocked with the wind. I stook on top and I could sing like a nighting. I sang Sweet Bular Land on the highest mount. I stand, I could see away across the sea where mansions are prepared for me, my heaven, my home forever more. I came back down the mountain and got in the tree for the night again. I caught a rabbet and boiled him in the can, and it got dark. The fire maid light, and I had my super and the nightingale kept me company all night long and the sound of all the diferent kinds of birds sleeping in the trees. I went back to my mother. She said where have you been? I told her I climed Mount Wellington.
So I stayed withe my mother in Hobart for a time. Then I got my ticket for CapeTown. I had a good time on the boat with my consertinia. They danced The Barrel Polker and when we landed in CapeTown, all friends left, so I walked to the beach. A lot of people was thire. I played The Barrel Polker and The Girl I Left Behind Me. I got friends and beer, eats and a place to board. I stayed in CapeTown till I was 19 years old and layed bricks thire.
So I got my ticket for The Transval, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was one thousand five hundred miles distens thire and 7000 ft above the level of the ocean. I seen my father thire on Sunday morning. He took me to Church with him. He was building hospitle thire. I layed bricks on it and he was working on the far end and the scafeling fell. A black labourer came runing to me and said Mr. Arthur your father fall, he is sick, scafeling fall. I ran to him. He said to me, Jesus is with me. Take care of your mother. They took him to the hospitle on Hospitle Hill. I stayed with my father till he went with Jesus. He was a faithful Christen to the end. The docter said he broke the spinel cord in his neck, he might live till the morning. I stayed with him.
He had a pretty blue eyed blond nurse. At twelve o’clock at night she gave me a beef stake pudding. I fell in love with her. I was 21 and she was 18 years old. At two o’clock in the morning I shut my eyes. She said, Arthur your father ‘as gone to be with Jesus. I looked at my Dad and cried like a baby and the pretty nurse cried to. She said where is your mother? I said she is on the ocean sailing to England. She said you come home with me. I have a lovely home and you will like my father and mother. I took my consertina. They were kind to me. She was the only girl, and they liked to dance The Barrel Polker. I promest to marry her and her father told us that is, your home to stay. He was a banker in CapeTown but had thire home in Johannesburg. Thire daughter was a nurse thire in the Hospitle thire. My dear old mother kept telling me to come home. I was in a jam. I did not know what to do. I told her to come and see me off on the train. She cried and said I will never see you again. A lady came and spoke to her and said to me, why do you leave her? She watched me out of sight and I sat dowen and said such is life.
Well, I got to CapeTown and while I was thire climed Table Mountain and when I got down in the Valley I caught a little yellow monkey. He soon got tame. I had candy and nuts in my pocket and he had his little hand in my pocket all the time. It was a loveble little thing. If I left it just went out of his sight he would schream till I came back. He worried me. And while I was in CapeTown I used to go around Table Mountain and at the foot of it thire was a forest of trees that grow with pretty silver leaves that don’t grow in any other part of world. I used to get them and paint steam ships on them and send them in letters around the world. They was so pretty. You could make bookmarks of them. Well I went to the boarding house and in the evening they came to my room and wanted me to play the consertina. I did till two o’clock in the morning and they took the hat around and got me 20 English gold sovereigns with Queen Victorier’s head on them, all maid in great Great British Empire. I never see paper money till I came to Canada and the USA. I was not used to it. But I am used to it now. So I am going to get my ticket for England so I gave the little monkey candy and nuts, put him on the boat for London, England and the Capten loves him and wants me to leave him on the ship when I go shore. So I left him with candy and picked up my gripe, shut the door. I heard him schream.
I went to London Bridge and while I was walking over I heard a sweet voice singing buy my sweet lavender fifteen branches a penny, please buy my pretty flowers. She pined a white rose on my coat. I gave her a gold English sovereign. She said take me with you I will never leave you. She was a pretty girl. She had a raged dress. It maid her look prettier. She had blue eyes like the morning sky and pretty teeth, her golden blond curley hair. I went to see my mother and told her I would be back and take her with me and she would sell pretty lavender no more. She said I will wait for you. I came back but she vanished. I never see her again. My mother said God moves in a misterious way his wonders to perform, he plants his footsteps in the sea and calms the mighty storm.
I stayed in London and layed some bricks on a hospitle and at 12 o’clock the whistle blue and a nurse with a pretty little whit cap on came to the window with a beef steak pudding. Well to cut a long story short I got married to her and while I stayed in London a son was born, Ted, then another son, Ben. After that we went to Canada then Myrtle and Victor was born the same day in the same house – twins. I built three huses in Canada, the city of Toronto. Then the war came. Thousands of Canadens voluntered to fight for England. I tried to join but they said I had to many kids. Canada did not take fathers. So I sold my home and went to Palm Beach, Florida, helped to build the courthouse. Then I built a school at Lakeworth, Florida.
I was in Florida a little over two years, then I got a job on a railroad station in Macon, Georger. I took the faimley thire and the boarding house caught fire at two o’clock in the morning. We all got on the frunt lan. The Young Mens Christian Acoasion took us in till the morning and a lady acrost the street put us up for a week. So I got thire tickets and took them all to Baltimore. And when we got settled down one night I went to the Bricklayers Union. I came out at 9 o’clock at night. I seen a crowd of men standing on Gay St. A USA. officer was beging for voluntears to join the Army. Not one came up. He said if you don’t voluntear you will be drafted. I shoulted at him and said take me. He said thire an Englishman wants to voluntear to fight for your country. I glory in ‘is pluck. He is a farther of five children. You have none.
The above handwritten memoir was sent by Arthur Richardson to his nephew, Harry Richardson and was contributed to this site by Harry’s son, Tasman Richardson.
