Port Arthur, Tasmania: When I visited this former penal colony (now a national park), I was overwhelmed with the beauty of the setting. The drive from Hobart, while only 70 miles, takes almost two hours due to the winding roads. Upon arriving, you sense that you are stepping back into time to less peaceful days.

As most of you know, the English used Australia as a convict settlement. People were shipped out (transported for life) for what today we would define as minor infractions. In England of the 1800's there were over 20 crimes that resulted in hanging. A pickpocket often received 7 or more years of imprisonment. If you stole from a rich person, hanging could be the punishment. Most prisoners upon arriving in Hobart were immediately assigned hard labor. If further infractions occurred, then transport to Port Arthur - hell on earth - was your sentence. The poem that follows is based on research I did while there. All the characters mentioned once walked this earth. I took poetic license regarding some of the specific events. While they are all historically accurate, several may not have happened in the time sequence described. This poem is not for the faint-hearted. To understand this poem, you must also understand that less than a half-mile off the entrance to Port Arthur lies a small island where the dead were buried - both murders and the murdered and soldiers and their families. It became known as the Isle of the Dead. As a footnote, John Baron mentioned in the poem served many years in the role of a gravedigger. He, himself a prisoner, eventually was buried there.

Please read further about the tragic life of Edward Spicer.
The Church
The Gardens
The spirits walk at night
The remains of the main prison
The Isle of the Dead - half-mile off Port Arthur - Edward Spicer and 1768 others buried there
Port Arthur
and
the Isle of the Dead

Edward Spicer my name
I left this earthly world in '54
1854 that is
My spirit still haunts these tragic grounds
that so many come onto laughing and talking
Oblivious to the tragedies that befell us

As a young lad of 14 years
I was transported to Hobart Town
I stole some coins from a gentleman in Dorsetshire
Death by hanging the decree
For whatever reason I know not
Transportation for life
became my sentence
Never to see my family again

Times were tough in '31
in rugged Hobart Town
We were all here, most for reasons
not of our own
Some for thieving, others for forgery
And others for far more violent crimes
The soldiers were hard on us
no matter what our crime
They too living on the frontier
All I had to do was survive 14 years
Then set free I would be

Alas, that was not to be
A fight with an older man
who attacked me
Added 25 years and a trip to Port Arthur
Don't be deceived by the beauty you see
Many of our spirits still stalk
this ground we call 'Hell'

Chained and shackled to a line of less fortunates
Huge logs did we haul
Many dying when one slipped
crushed beneath the weight
My head shaved and in yellow garb
fourteen hours a day I worked

My boyhood turned into manhood
the only women, soldier wives seen from the distance
Young boys less strong than others
forced into forbidden slavery
Oh, how I wanted to escape
but the dogs ripped many apart who tried

In '38 I was lashed by the cat
for carrying a load two shingles short
This my third time before the tails
At 28 I fainted
My back open to the bone
The good doctor revived me
with a dousing of cold salt water
Before standing me again for the final 22
With time my back turned to leather
The cat-of-nine-tails no longer delivered quite the sting
A hero to my mates I became
for standing the line

'42 found me in the salt mines
for failing to show proper respect.
My leather shoes soon eaten by the saline
My feet burned and blistered

In '50 Private Young took a disliking to me
Solitary for 1 month became my home
A slit the size of my foot
my only light
Alone with no human sound or voice allowed

By '51 I was one of the older ones
A survivor
Many had already made the voyage to Dead Men's Isle
Their dissected bodies piled
into indistinguishable common graves
six to a plot
I remember early on
The Reverend John Allen Manton
telling of hell if we did not repent
I longed to go there
for surely it could not be worse

Finally, in '54 a decrepit, broken man's
lifeless body made his own journey to
the Isle of the Dead
Like thousands before me
my dissected remains put to rest by John Baron
Here I lie watching you come and go
Crying out, "Have mercy on us, Oh God,
for we were the least of them. We suffered so.
Please give us peace."

Final Comment: One reason I came to Tasmania was to write this poem. May Edward Spicer have found his peace.

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