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Continued: How Joseph came to Australia has not been found However the information below was found in Wallaroo Goal Records
G.R.G. 54 228 no 208 21 Feb 1867 Joseph Simms Age 35, Both read & write, Religion nil, Trade Labourer, Arrived Colony 1853, From Essex Ship "Anna Dixon" 188 tons, Found that the "Anna Dixon" 188 tons Left London 31 Aug 1851,Arrived Pt. Adelaide 8 DEc 1851 Master Capt Kirby So either Joseph's informationon prison record is incorrect or he did not come to S.A. Colony till 1853
The information below is what the families have given to me
REFN1 GENERAL BLANCO 1856The reference of this was often spoken of FISHED NTN SEA WORKED AS SHIPS COOK CAME TO AUST FROM SUSSEX WITH OUT ASSISTANCE SIMMS COVE 1879 From Jill Loudan INFORMATION GATHERED FROM MELVILLE, REGINALD,AND ALICK SIMMS OF COWELL JUNE 1997. CURLEY JOE Came to Australia as a sailor on the "General Blanc". Jumped ship at Pt. Augusta with another seaman - not a brother. Some of the family feel Simms may not have been his real name. Worked his way down to Wallaroo and then on to Moonta and became a fisherman. He built the hpuse and later the home of Minnie Anderson Nee Simms and is still lived in by that branch of the family. Blanch Simms. according to Alick she was really Bianca Martinez Came to Aust probably on an imigrant ship from Italy. Alick says she worked in a palace and ran away tp immigrate. She had very dark eyes, hair and skin which could tie in with a Mediterranean background Curley Joe met her in Melbourne while he was still on the "General Blance" and went back and married her once he had established him self. Maybe she could have been a passenger on that ship? It is said she made most of the nets the family used. They could not be purchased at the time, fishermen made their own and either tanned them with wattle bark, or tarred them. Curley Joe designed and built the Minnie Simms He showed the designs to a naval architect who said the boat would never sail, but she was a wonderful cutter and very fast and stable. She cost 350 pounds fully rigged. The boys of the family received a minimal education and as soon as they were able they coined the For they were fishers by Evelyn Wallace Carter March 1987 One of the earlyiest feshermen in the area wa Curly Jope Simms, the great grandfather of present day fisherman,Ben Simms. Curly Joe settled at Simms cove near Moonta to supply fish t the Cornish miners aand their families who had moved to the area following the discovery of copper This was found firtly at Kapunda 1842 and then Burra Burra and Moonta. A fellow cornishman Curly Joe had been a Nth sea trawler fisherman before working his passage to Aust aboard the barque the General Banko. He met and married an Australian girl Blanche Martin, in Melbourne and together they sailed to Sth Aust. going ashore a Wallaroo and walking the 8 miles to a lonely cove at moonta Bay that would beome known as Simms cove. When he stood on the cliffs and looked out across the waters of Spencers Gulf Curly Joe could see the schools of salmon mullet and tommy ruffs garfish and he knew that good catches could be made once the fishing grounds were located. With a steady market nearby he brought a 15ft. dinghy Challa and sailed out after the fish using both handlines and nets Blanche worked with him making and repairing the nets and helping hawk the fish door to door around the hundreds of miner huts. Snapper, Snapper fat as butter Curly Joe would cry but soon he discovered that it was the homely mullet and tommy ruffs that the Cornish women preferred as these reminded them of the fish they had eaten at homel For one shilling or less in times of glut enough fish to feed a whole family could be purchased. Soon Curly Joe and Blanche started a family they raised 7 sons and 4 daughters. Their business also grew they soon had up to four horse and carts to take the baskets of fish around the miners settlement and the help of the growing family in sel
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