Mayfield Chinese Dam

Dam built supposedly by Chinese labourers in 1880 in Ootha, NSW.

This dam is attributed to the work of Chinese workers, though the evidence for this is not certain. The heritage study report merely stating:

"As well as tank sinking, the Chinese worked in gangs ringbarking trees. The Chinese were a relic from the gold mining era in the western districts, and Chinese labourers flowed out onto the labour market when the diggings failed."

Mayfield Chinese Dam

Certainly, many Chinese workers did scrub cutting and other station work and may well have built this dam, though the number of such structures falsely attributed to Chinese miners in the gold rush period and after is very large. The odd reference to the Chinese workers as a "relic" of the gold rush period does not take into account the fact that most gold miners returned to their villages and that the agricultural work of the 1880s was largely done by more recent arrivals.

Ootha settlement

"In the early days, the visit of an old Chinese called "Ah Foo" with his covered van and two horses was the main source of vegetable and fruit supplies. The visit was looked upon as one of life's highlights by the Shelley Children. The old hawker continued to trade in the district as late as the mid-twenties and came from Bogan Gate."

Memories of Shelley children, 1972 in, A. M. Connor, Where Whirlwinds Rise Tall: Featuring the "Burrawang' Run and the Ootha Settlement in Central New South Wales, 1983, p.80.