The Discoverers
John Deason was born in 1829 at Tresco on the Isles of Scilly in Cornwall, England, UK. In 1851 he was a tin dresser before becoming a gold miner. Deason continued with gold mining and workings most of his life and, although becoming a store keeper at Moliagul, he lost a substantial proportion of his wealth through poor investments in gold mining. He bought a small farm near Moliagul where he lived at the end of his life and died in 1915, aged 85 years.
Richard Oates was born about 1827 at Pendeen in Cornwall. After the 1869 find Oates returned to the UK and married. He returned with his wife to Australia and they had four children. The Oates family purchased 800 acres (3.2 km2) of land at Marong in 1895 about 15 miles (24 km) west of Bendigo, Victoria, and Oates farmed until his death at Marong, Victoria in 1906 aged 79 years.
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