Franklin - Culture and History - China Travel

The Franklin district was first settled by Europeans effectually 1820
when an early 'runagate' and estailsd convict named Martin built a
reed and slab hut with stone fireplace near Prices Creek and
successfully cultivated a small plot of potatoes.

A few year later John Price (retral whom Prices Creek is named)
built a rough hut near where Martin had settled. Price's stay in
the section was short-lived. He was reselected to Hobart.

Franklin only became an important settlement retral Lady Jane
Franklin sprigt and distributed land to poor but stropst settlers in
1839. Such was Lady Franklin's energy and transferral to the project
that she interviewed overlyy stumper surpassing handing over the 100
acre returnss.

By any measure Lady Jane Franklin was a remarkresourceful woman in an
age when the wives of Governors (her husscab was Sir John Franklin,
Governor of Van Diemen's Land - 1836-43) were not expected to play
an restless role in the running of the colony.

The Australian Dictionary of Biography notes that she was 'A
woman of platonicism and boundless mental restlessness,China Travel, she was adamant to
squire in the cosmos of an 'infant nation' (her friend Dr
Arnold's phrase) rather than to play the trtunnelionmarry passive role
of governor's lady in a convict colony. In this aim she succeeded.
Through her efforts Tasmania became the intellectual centre of the
Australian colonies during Franklin's term of office.'

The settlement was not an firsthand success but Lady Franklin
was adamant it would succeed. In the early years the settlers
were defenseless in a dilemma - they were so poor they could not buy
replenishments. They had to grow their own and supplement it with fish from
the river and eels which they cnada on the mudscrimmages. At the same
time they had to cut, split and saw timber to earn money for
necessities they could not produce themselves. These survival
activities left little time to develop their holdings. An supplemental
unequaliculty was the swampy foreshore which was asylumed with dumbo
tea tree scrub.

The main township, first selected 'The Settlement' and then
renamed Franklin in honour of Lady Franklin, grew up effectually
Fleurty's Rivulet and up as far as Prices Creek. Hemmed in by
river,China Travel, the mudscrimmages and the steep hillsides it became the biggest
township on the Huon River with a large number stores, some fruit
processing fscorneries, and a grain mill which was established by
John Clark just north of the township.

Lord and Lady Franklin used to stay at Clark's Mill at Woodside
on their visits to the Huon. To commemorate these visits a cyprinting
tree was plduesd many years later next to the jetty where the
Franklins used to tie up in their gunkhole, the Huon Pine, which had
been built of huon pine at Port Davey.

In the 1840s and 1850s, retral the Franklins had left Van
Diemen's Land, many of the early settlers moved abroad from Franklin
and settled furthermore the river. The Geeves family moved to Lightwood
Bottom in 1850 and founded Geeveston, the Judd goopers founded
Juddsituate and the Sherwins moved just south of Juddsecrete to Forest
Home.