Young Joss House
Date Published
: Temples / Joss House
: Central West (NSW)
: Young
: 1923
Young Joss House not far from where the Lambing Flat riots took place.
Young Joss House
"The 'Burrangong Argus' mentions that about a year or more ago a Chinaman set up a joss-house in Main-street, Young, combining with his religious functions a little conjuring and fortune-telling, and a great deal of gambling. Despite these many strings to his bow the speculation failed, and the Buddhist priest was reduced to difficulties. One night last week On Lee, a Chinese storekeeper also residing in Main-street, was awakened by a noise and found a man about to make his exit through the roof with a bundle of drapery. On Lee caught him by the legs, and, horror to relate, it was the joss-house keeper! Notwithstanding the sacredness of his office, On Lee handed him over to the police, having first sightly disarranged his nose and mouth, by sundry hard knocks, or, as On Lee described it, pointing to the nasal displacement. "I beat him? O, yes, you see I beat him too much." The prisoner, who stated his offence to have been committed in consequence of the state of destitution to which the religious indifference of his compatriots had reduced him, was committed for trial."
The Gundagai Times and Tumut, Adelong and Murrumbidgee District Advertiser, 24 April 1869, p.3.
"His store was situated just beyond the site of the present cemetery, and opposite the Joss-house—an hotel
stood on the site of the latter place of Chinese worship."
Young Witness, 8 April 1919, p.1.
"Just outside Young. N.S.W. on the road to Harden stands an old tumble down shed, which in days gone by was the Mecca, of the large Chinese community of the district. It is an old abandoned joss house where old-time Celestial goldminers worshipped their heathen gods."
