Zeehan

Zeehan (Dutch Zechaan, ‘sea-hen’), a mining township on the west coast of Tasmania, 29 miles by rail from the port of Strahan on Macquarie Harbour. The name is taken from a prominent mountain, 3 miles south-west, which Tasman discovered in 1642, and christened Mount Zeehan, after one of the two ships which formed his expedition. The township owes its existence to the discovery in 1884, by two pioneer prospectors named Frank H. Long and William Johnstone, of rich silver-lead ores in great abundance, extending over an area of more than 160 sq. m., approaching at its north-eastern limit the peak known as Mount Dundas, where a subsidiary camp has been formed. In 1889 about 150 pioneers were encamped on the field, and in April 1891 this population had increased to upwards of 3000. Hotels, churches, and banks were quickly erected, as well as a post-office, mining exchange, court-house, police-office, and other concomitants of a populous centre. The field in fact was feverishly ‘rushed’ beyond both the capital and labour resources of the colony, till at the close of 1891 the population was estimated at upwards of 6000, and Zeehan ranked as the third town of the island. With the stoppage of the bank of Van Diemen's Land in August 1891 the unwholesome element of speculation received its first check, and the exodus of drones which followed, while reducing the population, did much to restore a healthy tone to the paramount industry of the district. British and colonial capital has been largely attracted by the extraordinary wealth of the field, and public ore-dressing and smelting works for local treatment of the poorer ores have been erected. The Mount Zeehan Silver-lead Mines, the largest company in the field, had by the end of 1892 exported to England 600 tons of ore, containing 400 tons of lead, and upwards of 60,000 ounces of silver, valued at £25 per ton.