Cleaverville – the Town that never Was

A town that should be there…but isn’t. A name without a place. Did it disappear, or was it there at all? What happened to Cleaverville? Did it really exist here, in this world? Or in…… the Twilight Zone?

Our story begins with a man on a beach, eyes closed, reflecting on nothing in particular, except that he was in Cleaverville. Cleaverville Camping Ground to be exact. A three kilometre ridge of sand dunes, spilling into mangroves and behind, the blue, blue sea. In that idle moment, his brow furrowed. This was just a strip of empty land. Why give it the name of a town? Every ‘ville’ he remembered was a town with a name in front of it. There had to be something to this….something more. He gathered up his towel and hat and started back along the road, eyes darting across the landscape looking for clues, any signs of a previous existence. Nothing. He would have to go to the virtual library. Surely he would find Cleaverville there?

This wasn’t going to be easy. To the outside world, Cleaverville was indeed, just a location. A rough hewn geography defined by a rocky headland at one end and a snake’s tongue of a creek at the other. Maps, blogs, Youtube clips even Council records revealed nothing, only deepening the mystery. He had to dig further, deeper. The fog of time. How far back would throw light onto this forgotten town? All possible combinations of Cleaverville + were exercised in the search engines. Nothing, nothing….. but wait?

A single listing at the WA State Records Office, buried in the archives, a map!! A map faded by 150 years, a map, hand drawn by one Alexander Forrest, a map of the town site of Cleaverville! A site, not where we were, but on the other side of that rocky headland, obscured by the rocky hills behind us and no clear way to get there. But first he needed to be sure. Who was Alexander Forrest and how was he involved?

Looking at the map, he guessed sometime in the 19th century. Alexander Forrest + 1870 came up with a biography and Wikipedia links. An explorer and surveyor, Forrest played an important part in discovering and opening up the Kimberley and Pilbara regions. It must have been him! The timeline narrowed when he discovered that both Cleaverville and the adjacent bay, Port Robinson were named after the first Governor of WA, William Cleaver Robinson. The pieces were starting to fall into place. It was 1879.

So now he started looking for evidence that the town did exist. He remembered the bygone era, when State Libraries were the font of all knowledge. Maybe they would have photos or drawings. Only two could be found, taken on the same day in October 1928. A group of locals against a background of bare ground. Where was Cleaverville, just out of shot? It reminded him of The Shining. Friends frozen in time, at a place that existed but yet seemed not to. It was time to find that way, the way THEY had come. He was driven by curiosity as well as the prospect of putting the metal detector to good and profitable use.

Cleaverville Road ended at the base of the headland, with only a steep and rugged track spearing upwards to the top. This would have to do he thought, throwing to low range 4WD. “I’ll take my chances” he cursed under his breath. At the top of the ridge, he paused, looking first at the skyline of Port Headland on the horizon, then slowly down, across the bay towards his feet, stopping only to smile. He was in the right place. The map was true. Below him, concealed by dense undergrowth, the remains of Cleaverville, were laying seemingly untouched and forgotten. A treasure trove waiting to be re-discovered, or so it seemed.

Inching his way down to the steep track he found himself at the junction of another track angling away and disappearing round the next point. The way in he deduced. And then, it all started to slowly unravel. There were no chimney stacks. Where houses were likely to be, there was just rocky, unbroken ground. Where there was clear ground, the seashells from eons ago remained undisturbed. The needle grass concealed nothing but earth and when it didn’t it was too painful to investigate. He held the map in his hand. There were streets and allotments, meticulously allocated. How could this be?

There was an explanation and he found it later that night. It was terrifyingly a case of ‘water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink’. Alexander Forrest was, by most accounts, a better explorer than a surveyor. When later teams arrived, they dug several wells to guarantee the viability of the town site and came up empty, a fatal oversight on his part. The final death rattle occurred shortly after when the pearl luggers, who had been using Port Robinson as a safe harbour, re-located to Broome and the rest, as they say, is history. Cleaverville was never built. Only the name survived. It WAS a town, but only in the twilight zone of Alexander Forrest’s…. imagination.

He shut down the laptop, not entirely dissatisfied with the outcome. While no buried treasure, solving the mystery would do…..for now.