Sarah Island

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In 1822, the first prisoners were brought to Sarah Island In Macquarie Harbour to cut Huon pine for the shipbuilding industry.  The island was stripped of vegetation and facilities were built to house the convicts. It was the hub of a larger complex that surrounded it to farm, gather fresh water, provide solitary confinement for the incorrigible prisoners and to process wood.  There was no water or food growing capacity on the island so life was not convenient by any stretch of the imagination.  By the end of 1834, the operation had been moved to Port Arthur and the place was dismantled and abandoned.  As the harbour was settled by free men later, the building materials from the ruins were gradually carted off until Sarah Island was protected as a national historic site.  What's left of the penitentiary can be seen above.  It was quite well built and had heating fireplaces that were allowed to burn all night.  Because of the great distance to Hobart by sea, they eventually started building ships on Sarah Island and ended up constructing some 137 vessels.  They were able to launch one every two to three weeks in the end.  By this time, conditions had improved and life was more than tolerable plus the convicts were learning a useful trade under Master Shipwright David Hoy.  The last ship was unfinished when the convicts were removed to Port Arthur so ten were left behind to complete the job along with a small guard. The convicts overpowered the guard and stole the ship, sailing her to Chile.  Eventually many of them were caught, two were hanged and four were returned to serve time at Port Arthur.  We were guided on the island by Nigel Curtin-Smith, probably the most entertaining guide we have ever had. His fast paced, aggressive, Australian humor (he would chastise me for this and say it was Tasmanian humor - he is fiercely Tasmanian and believes the state should secede from the north island) was a great tool for telling us a bit about what went on at Sarah Island and to involve the crowd in the adventure.  He engaged Mary with a question about ergot, which she knew was used as an abortion drug or at least as a uterine constricting drug.  It was also a hallucinogen, though, and kept the convicts off balance.   The saw pits on the island were the worst job, especially for the man in the pit.  The convicts were often standing in water up to their waists in there and because of the constant rain of Huon pine dust, they usually went blind after a year or so in the pit.  Later they shielded their eyes with a leather hood.  Now THAT had to be cool in the summer in the water in the dust in the pit!                       This is the finishing wharf where ships were fitted after they were launched.     The logs sticking out into the water here are the remains of the outer wall of a coffer system that enlarged the size of the island considerably and created a flat, stable wharf area.  They are Huon pine and the buried wood here is probably worth a small fortune!              Nigel reckons this is the nineteenth century, convict equivalent of a microwave.  This was the cooking hearth in one of the buildings.      This is the bread oven.  It is a quite sophisticated design with a spiral smoke chamber that allowed them to cook all the bread for the convicts with one firing of wood.  The bread was coated with a mold that made it go bad in less than a day so convicts couldn't hoard it for a potential escape.               This is the jail.  The individual cells were quite small.  There were six in this enclosure.  There was no daylight and the idea was to drive the convicts mad to help to control them.

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This site was last updated 12/10/07