1893 – It was a miserable stormy night in January when labourers Henry and William Bell went to bed in their tent at Bexhill, near Lismore, NSW.
They stayed in their day clothes, to help ward off the cold brought on by the heavy rain.
About 3am Henry was woken by the tent coming down around him.
He called out to his brother, but got no answer. He felt around where his brother had been lying, but could only feel the tree which had crashed into their flimsy abode.
He “tore himself” out of the tent, and although he could then see part of 38-year-old William, he was not moving.
Unable to move the branch, Henry enlisted the help of a nearby camper and they tried to spike the log off, and then used an axe. Still unsuccessful, he ran to a nearby public house, and with the help of the publican and two of his lodgers, they managed to get the branch off.
William’s uncovered body had bled from the mouth, but he was quite obviously dead.
The bad weather, apparently, was gone by noon. The heavy rain, up to 180mm, caused some flooding, but concerns that it would affect the local show were allayed and the event went ahead as planned.
William was unmarried. He was buried in the Lismore North cemetery. In 1970 the cemetery was converted to a memorial park, his headstone was among those relocated to the top of the sloped site, where it sits shoulder-to-shoulder with several dozen others, slowly becoming less legible.
Sources: Northern Star, Wednesday 25 January 1893, p2
The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, Saturday 28 January 1893, p 213
Way to go Australia 