Trove Part II: Are you a descendant of Yankee Joe (Rolfe) rescued by Aboriginal women and men in the Great Two Fold Bay Flood 1851?
CULTURAL WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander users are warned that this material contains colonialist stories of deceased persons and accounts of places and events that could cause sorrow. It also includes language used by colonialists to describe Aboriginal women and men.
Introduction
For context, please read Part I: Trove project: Aboriginal Flood Rescuers.
In 19th Century Australia, numerous white settlers were rescued from floods by Aboriginal women and men. I plan on identifying those white settlers from primary sources in the public domain. Their descendants exist because their ancestor/s were rescued.
The Great Two Fold Bay Flood May 1851.
In late May 1851 a great flood took the lives of seventeen people in the Two Fold Bay Flood. Details of the flood were recorded in a newspaper article of the time: ‘Two Fold Bay. Dreadful Storm and Loss of Seventeen Lives’ (Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 29th May, 1851).
Yankee Joe (William Rolfe)
One of the people who was rescued by an Aboriginal man was ‘Yankee Joe’ Rolfe. A brief history of Yankee Joe Rolfe has been written by Bemboka Pioneers.
Yankee Joe Rolfe was born in America in 1806. His wife and one of his children died in the 1851 Bega floods. By 1873, he had remarried and owned land at Mogilla. He was buried at Kameruka in 1878. Mountain areas, Yankees Flat and Yankees Gap bear his name. Many locals are descendants of his Grandson Albert.
Below is a more complete version of the flood.
Yankee Joe, his wife and children, ‘mounted a stack of hay’, where they remained until the flood was so high as to float it, and it drifted down the current for two miles.’ An infant child was swept from Yankee Joe’s wife’s arms and was drowned. Yankee Joe clung to a tree, as did his wife, and the stack of hay swept on, with the remaining children on board. After ‘four days and three nights’ clinging to the tree, Mrs Rolfe perished.
Yankee Joe was rescued with the ‘aid of ropes’ and ‘the aid of a blackfellow’ (sic, name not given, emphasis added). His eldest daughter Mrs Roberts (married to Henry Roberts) survived on the stack of hay, along with ‘three of her brothers and sisters’, and remained lost for ‘five days and three nights , until rescued by a blackfellow in his canoe’ (sic, name not given, emphasis added).
Descendants of Yankee Joe
The descendants of Yankee Joe exist because of the rescues performed by two un-named Aboriginal men using rope and canoe to conduct rescues. It seems likely that there may have been more Aboriginal women and men involved in the rescues, and this knowledge may exist in Aboriginal stories from the time.
The family tree (below) is Family: Albert Courtney Rolfe / Almaria Ann Tindall. Yankee Joe went on to father eleven children. The family tree below provides details only of Albert Courtney Rolfe's descendants.
Other Surnames
- Emily Maria Rolfe married James Murry Peck, Candelo, New South Wales 1893
- Ann Elizabeth Rolfe (? George Shepherd? 30 Sept 1867)
- Grace Edith Rolfe married Oswald Sidney James Bates on 4 Mar 1906
- Lillian I Rolfe ?
- Aletha M. Rolfe married Richard R Hogan, Sydney, New South Wales 1916
- Eliza Jane Rolfe married William T Herbert, Bega, New South Wales 1909
- Aveline M Rolfe married Arthur E Good, Sydney, New South Wales 1919
Focus on Grandson Albert
Bemboka Pioneers notes that ‘Many locals are descendants of his Grandson Albert’ (shown below).
Albert Courtney Rolfe’s parents were William Rolfe (b. Abt 1838, Monaro, New South Wales, Australia d. 22 Aug 1903, Bega, New South Wales, Australia) and Caroline Amelia Thirkell (b. 6 Apr 1849, Cranbrook, Kent, England d. 22 Jul 1915, Bega, New South Wales, Australia). His father William Rolfe was rescued by an Aboriginal man during the Great Two-Fold Bay Flood in 1851. (Source: My Family Online).
Albert Rolfe married Almeria Ann Tindall, and was father of:
1. William Rolfe, b. Abt 1895 [Birth]
2. Arthur Rolfe, b. Abt 1896 [Birth]
3. Leinster Rolfe, b. Abt 1897 [Birth]
4. Mary Rolfe, b. Abt 1898 [Birth]
5. Harry Rolfe, b. Abt 1899 [Birth]
6. Beatrice Rolfe, b. Abt 1903 [Birth]
7. Gordon Rolfe, b. Abt 1905 [Birth]
8. Ivy Rolfe, b. Abt 1908 [Birth]
9. Doris Rolfe, b. Abt 1911 [Birth]
10. Albertha Grace Rolfe, b. 21 Mar 1913, Bemboka, New South Wales, Australia. d. 17 Jan 1916, Candelo, New South Wales, Australia,(Age 2 years)
Are you a descendant of Yankee Joe (Rolfe), rescued by Aboriginal women and men in the Great Two Fold Bay Flood 1851?
I hope this story provides enough information for descendants of Yankee Joe and Caroline Thirkell to identify themselves. You are alive today because Yankee Joe was rescued in the Two Fold Bay Flood by an as yet un-named and unacknowledged Aboriginal man.
Note I say ‘Aboriginal man’ because this is what was recorded by a visiting white correspondent. Only Aboriginal people will know the full story as handed down, and whether or not there were other Aboriginal women and men involved in this rescue.
