Ghost of Glenloth Well Mine

Located on the Eyre Peninsula, Glenloth Well is approximately an hour and fifteen minutes south-west of Kingoonya near Lake Harry. Glenloth Well is home to the Glenloth Goldfields, a natural deposit of Gold and Hematite that was noted by the Government Geologist in 1893.

 By 1904, a mine and extraction building was constructed. A five-stamp battery mill (a type of machine that crushes rocks instead of grinding them) was built, powered by a 14-horse engine with a vertical boiler, drawing water from Lake Harry.

A small settlement was established to process the mine. The closest towns today are Kingoonya (32 km northeast), Glendambo population 77 (74 km east), and Tarcoola (87 km north-west).

In 1936, a daughter of an owner of the East-West Mine at Glenloth Goldfields, Yvonne Marie Heylen, wrote to The Mail newspaper, telling of a local ghost story.

Her article is as follows:

“Last week one of the old miners who was working as a tributer on our mine told father that there was a ghost down one of the old underlie tunnels, near where he was working. He said he could hear weird noises and sounds of running feet at night.
Next night he took his carbide lamp and crawled along the old abandoned tunnel or 90 ft. when suddenly his lamp went out.

 In the darkness, two yellow eyes of fire appeared before him, and the next instant' he received a heavy blow on the head from the ghost. Scrambling along on hands and knees, the poor miner came out of the tunnel as fast as he could and gave the alarm.

Father and one of my brothers took candles and ropes and went to investigate. They discovered that the ghost was Billie our billygoat, who had been missing for several days.

Billie was soon rescued and taken out of the tunnel.

Yvonne Marie Heylen. Glenloth Goldfield.”

 While in this case, it turned out to be a goat and not a ghost haunting the old mine-shaft, the moral of the story here is; don’t crawl into deep dark places on your own, you never know what you might find!

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2018    
The Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal.

References:

1901 'IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. FIND OF GOLD AT GLENLOTH WELL.', The Register (Adelaide, SA: 1901 - 1929), 26 April, p. 7. , viewed 27 Dec 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56068329.

1936 'The Ghost in the Mine', The Mail (Adelaide, SA: 1912 - 1954), 14 November, p. 7. (MAGAZINE), viewed 26 Dec 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55732930

Gee, L.C.E. & Brown, H.Y.L., (1908), Record of The Mines of South Australia, 4th ed., Government Printer, Adelaide, South Australia.

Record of Mines, (1980), Summary card No:8, Gairdner S 5315/Harris
Noble R.J., Just J. and Johnson J. E., (1983), Catalogue of South Australian Minerals-1983, Government Printer, Adelaide, South Australia

Father Michael Ryan

Father Michael Ryan:

Father Ryan first arrived in South Australia with Bishop Murphy in the year 1841, and was the first Roman Catholic priest On South Australian soil; he held the high ecclesiastical positions of Vicar-General and Apostolic Administrator in his time.
He was the first Catholic priest to say Mass in Kapunda in 1845
Father Ryan was appointed with the task of building a church in Kapunda.
Father Ryan found a suitable place to hold mass for those who couldn’t get to the St Johns church; the area is now where Kapunda Institute stands. Eventually, he chose the site for St Rose of Lima church to be built. The original church has since been destroyed and a new one built in its place.
On the 3rd of April 1864, Father Ryan performed a wedding ceremony for Horace McKinley and Martha Craig.


On 15 August 1864 Father Michael Ryan laid the foundation stone for the Sevenhills church at Sevenhill.
Father Ryan died of apoplexy on 24th August 1865 (Historically the word "apoplexy" was also used to describe any sudden death that began with a sudden loss of consciousness, especially one in which the victim died within a matter of seconds after losing consciousness.)

At his funeral, it was stated
“Father Ryan was a pious and zealous member of the Catholic Church— a man of modest and unassuming manners. In him, the members of his Church have lost a truly benevolent pastor, the poor a ready counsellor, and the needy a friend.”