Port Fairy, the Mahogany Ship and the Lost History of the Belfast Shire

Of an ongoing bloody-minded palimpsest of epic proportions: This story started in 2009, with author Ian Geddes: a self-taught agricultural engineer and inventor, researching a brief background of the historical working life or `career¿ of his recently restored vintage tractor; he soon found the story had other ideas. The war was over, in late 1948: the Belfast shire had mysteriously taken delivery of a revolutionary, 65 horsepower, English, 1948 Minneapolis Moline tractor; manufactured by Henry Meadows Pty Ltd, the tractor was secretly imported by an `unknown contractor¿ in order to power the shire¿s rock crushing plant in its capacity as a stationary engine. For the next 14 years, and employing the services of over 30 ancillary staff: in the process of producing 100,000 tonnes of crushed material for the all the region¿s roads, the `Meadows¿ fulfilled a pledge made by Shire Engineer John Ryan to provide a sealed road to the front gate of every residence in the shire. Delving deeply into the historical workings and machinations of the small western district township of Port Fairy and its Shire Council (Belfast) in Victoria, Australia. As he celebrates the contributions of the charismatic, and enigmatic: Shire Engineer and Shire Secretary John Patrick Ryan, who served the Belfast Shire with distinction from 1941 to 1972; Ian unearths a previously untold trans-generational palimpsest of colonial Australia¿s early settlement on the shipwreck coast. A tale of truly extraordinary human endeavour, vision, individual and collective enterprise, and so much more: the story of John Ryan, is also the story of the Mahogany Ship, Australia¿s oldest unsolved maritime mystery. That the 2021 revised edition contains a plethora of historical maps, it is of one particular map (Fig: 8) hidden in the Public Records Office of Victoria for over 140 years, the mystery of the long `lost¿ Mahogany Ship may very well be solved. Because of a very rare 1940¿s vintage English Minneapolis Moline UDM tractor, and thousands of hours of research: a trans-generational palimpsest of systemic colonial corruption is uncovered. Such was the fate of the long lost Mahogany Ship: once the vessel was out of sight, and out of mind; in a trans generational, bloody minded slight of staggering proportions: its location was historically contrived to stay that way. In other words: the putative `Mahogany Ship¿ has never actually been lost, as much as it was `simply allowed to disappear.

Dettagli