William Melody was a lively Irishman - Part 1

A Tale of an Irish Goldminer
By Paul Melody

A colourful personality, with a fair share of the Irish characteristics, William Melody was a veteran goldminer by the time he settled in New Zealand in 1861. His hunt for gold began with the Californian gold rush in the United States in 1849 and ended when he left the South Island goldfields of New Zealand about 1880.

William spent most of his lifetime among Irish people, though he had actually left his home in Ireland at the age of 12.

He lived among Irish relations in Illinois when his family settled in the USA, he was with a big band of Irishmen who flocked to the Victoria gold fields in Australia after 1851, and he was a lively member of the Irish communities of Otago and the West Coast of New Zealand.

In New Zealand, William - he was known as Bill by his mates - made a name for himself in 3 ways.

Firstly, he was one of the party led by William fox which discovered the rich field of gold at Arrow River in Otago in 1862.

Secondly he was a hotelkeeper at Arrowtown between 1863-65 and later at Hokitika between 1866-69.

Thirdly, he was one of the leaders of the Irish demonstration at Hokitika against the 1867 execution of the Irish patriots in England. The Hokitita uprising took place in 1868.

Born in a village in County Mayo in Ireland in 1828, William was one of the family of five sons and four daughters of Patrick and Mary (nee Kelly) Melody. The family lived at Bunnyconnellan village, near the border between County Sligo and County Mayo, where Patrick Melody was a farmer.

In 1840, when William was 12, the entire family migrated to America, settling in Lake Forest, Illinois on the shores of Lake Michigan.

It's very probable that the reason for the mass departure was as quoted by Bill Melody (NZ) - that William's brother Patrick (a man of substance, recorded at 16 stone 8 pounds) flattened one of the residents of Bunnyconnellan during a fist fight, an activity causing such a local reaction that the family were forced to flee from County Mayo to the USA, where Patrick's youngest brother James Melody had already made his home around 1837-38.

Another story is that the Melody family left because they were evicted by their landlord. This may have been the outcome of the fight episode. The father, Patrick Melody was 50 when they emigrated, whilst his wife Sarah was 38.

The four Melody brothers were William, Martin, Patrick and Anthony. A fifth brother was born in the USA but died age 6 from a brain tumour in 1850.

Editors Note 1: The 1850 census of Lake County, Illinois lists 2 Melody families living there:

1. Patrick Melody (aged 60) with wife Sarah (aged 48). Children living with them were:

• Mary (age 28, b 1822, d 1909, married to John Nolan and appears to be living elsewhere at the time of the census)
  
• John Patrick, the fighting first-born is recorded in Almon Frost's notes as having died from a work accident in Chicago, working alongside his father on the drainage canals.
  
• Anthony (age 23)
• William (21)
• Margaret (19)
• Bridgett (17)
• Martin (13, born 19 March 1837 - died 1918, married Julia Kelly)
• Ellen (8, born in USA October 21, 1842 in Lake Forest, Illinois. Married name Doyle, married to Thomas.
• John (6, born in the USA, died the year of the census from a brain tumour)

2. James Melody (aged 40) with wife Margaret (age 35). Children all born in the USA:

• Michael (12)
• Margaret (11)
• Sarah (9)
• Mary (5)
• Anthony (3)
• Martin (1 month)

Editors Note 2: an internet reference suggests the following party made up the immigrant Melody group:
1. Patrick (b 1790) with wife Sarah Holmes (b1802)
2. James (b 1810) - later information from the 1850 census with a 12 year old child born in the USA shows James emigrated first.
3. John (b1800) married Bridget (b 1798)

The newly arrived family fitted in well at Lake Michigan, in Illinois, where their relatives the Colemans, were fully established.

In 1848 the California gold rush began, and in the following year William, then aged 21, and a friend left home for the goldfields. They were true "Fortyniners", as the gold seekers of that year were called.

William paid some dollars for the privilege of clinging to the back-strap of a 'prairie-schooner' all the way across America. When the wagon-train reached the Western desert, William took sick, and as the wagon train couldn't wait, he was 'put ashore' with some food and a great friend, who volunteered to look after him. They hid in a ravine, but while the friend was away foraging for some food he was killed by hostile indians. William finally recovered and reached California alone.

They were among thousands of eager miners at the Californian gold-rush in 1849-50. How successful William was isn't related, but William and his brother Anthony eventually were lured away to Australia by reports of gold discoveries there.

William once again back-tracked across America by prairie schooner (probably to pick up brother Anthony in Illinois, and visit the family for the last time), then at Boston they caught a ship and headed East for the Australian goldfields. En route they stopped at Naples in Italy, where either William or his brother narrowly escaped being knifed by a stiletto wielded by a jealous Italian female!

There's no record of William's 1849-50 career as a miner, nor of the years immediately afterwards. But clearly he had been bitten by the gold bug, for by at least 1856 he was in Australia, where gold had been found in Victoria in 1851. He married Eliza Moran, an Irish girl, at Ballarat in 1856 and in 1859 their first child, Sarah Marie, was born.

Sarah was a real goldfields child, having been born in a tent on the Ballarat diggings.

Whilst William stayed in Australia, Anthony headed back to North America and joined the gold-rush at the Klondyke. He mined a useful batch of gold but lost it all when near drowning in the White Horse River in the Klondyke. All the others in the party were drowned, and in order to save his bacon, he had to cut away a heavy-laden belt of gold. He sufffered some paralysis as a result of the accident. Later he joined his brother Martin to settle in Illinois.

William stayed at Ballarat with his family for the next two years. Then the lure of the gold fields which had opened up at Gabriel's Gully in Otago on May 2, 1861, drew him - without his family - to New Zealand in that year.

Excited by the prospects he returned hastily to Ballarat after a short time to collect his wife and 2-year-old daughter, then came back to New Zealand.