Charles Wooster

Extract  The Northern Champion (Taree) Newspaper, 25th April 1936

SOME REMINISCENCES

THUNDERBOLT AT FORSTER

  (By CHAS WOOSTER)

Mr. Chas. Wooster, of Nabiac who is   the oldest returned soldier and sailor in the Commonwealth, writes us follows: ' Having seen in your paper of 1st April a little about Forster and Tuncurry of 10 years ago, I thought 1 would give you something about the doings of 65 years ago. At that time David Ravell and myself were running a small vessel between Sydney and Forster, and it was at that period that Breckonridge and Barlin were constructing the saw mill at Forster. I remember that about this time the well-known bushranger, Thunderbolt, used to spend his holidays at Forster, staying at the only accommodation house, then kept by the Godwins. One morning Godwin was in the kitchen with Thunderbolt, and after a while ho opened the front door and called out, "Here come two troopers." That was tho last Forster saw of Thunderbolt. Sixty five years ago there were no houses at Tuncurry. The first person to reside at Tuncurry was the late John Wright, who built the mill there.   On one occasion our vessel was lying     on the site now 'occupied by Porter's mill. We were loading beech logs from Sydney, when a heavy storm arose   Operations wore temporarily suspended, and we were lying in the hold, spinning yarns, when there was a heavy, clap of thunder, accompanied by a flash of lightning which struck our top mast and split it almost to matchwood. We had with us a half caste named Yellow Albert, but when the smoke had cleared away he was as white as any of us. The damage to the boat was patched up by a man from Forster, and after finishing tho loading we set sail for Sydney,  with the intention of having the dam age properly repaired there, but as the run disclosed that there were no leaks we kept her running until she was   beached at Port Stephens in very heavy weather. The big sand spit just inside the bar was caused by Captain     Kendall of the Walter and John Ketch, who, after getting inside in bad weather, dropped, his anchor and threw the ballast overboard, causing the sand to bank up in later years.