Joseph Waldo Rice (1828–1915) was an American-born entrepreneur who was first person of European descent to settle the Moira Lakes region near

Barmah Barmah is a town in the state of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. Barmah has the distinction of being located north of the border with the state of New South Wales. New South Wales is north of Victoria, with the border being the west ...

Victoria, Australia Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in Au ...

. He was the proprietor of the Murray Fishing Company serving to provision prospectors and gold miners in the

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is a city in Victoria, Australia, located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2019, Bendigo had an urban population of 100,991, makin ...

region beginning in the early 1850s.

Early life and education

Joseph Waldo Rice was born on 8 February 1828, in

Lincoln, Massachusetts Lincoln is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The population was 7,014 according to the 2020 United States Census, including residents of Hanscom Air Force Base that live within town limits. The town, located in the MetroWest region o ...

to Henry Rice and Mary (Sherbourne) Rice.Edmund Rice (1638) Association, 2010. Descendants of Edmund Rice: The First Nine Generations. (CD-ROM
ERA Books
/ref> After attending public schools in Lincoln, Massachusetts, he set out as prospector in the

gold fields Gold Fields Limited (formerly The Gold Fields of South Africa) is one of the world's largest gold mining firms. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, the company is listed on both the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and the New York Sto ...

of California about 1850. In 1853 with several colleagues from California, he chartered a vessel in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

to sail for the gold fields of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Life and Career in Australia

Rice arrived in

in 1853 to try his luck on the Australian gold fields near

. Shortly thereafter, learning that fish were very plentiful in the

Murray River The Murray River (in South Australia: River Murray) (Ngarrindjeri: ''Millewa'', Yorta Yorta: ''Tongala'') is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is Australia's longest river at extent. Its tributaries include five of the next six longest r ...

, he left the gold fields and after a short time and settled in Moira Lakes near

Barmah, Victoria Barmah is a town in the state of Victoria, Australia. Barmah has the distinction of being located north of the border with the state of New South Wales. New South Wales is north of Victoria, with the border being the westward-flowing Murray Ri ...

and in 1856 established the Murray Fishing Company to supply the Bendigo gold fields with about a ton of fish per week, transported over by spring cart. Rice died on 26 February 1915 in

Moama, New South Wales Moama ( or ) is a town in the Riverina district of southern New South Wales, Australia, in the Murray River Council local government area. The town is directly across the Murray River from the larger town of Echuca in the neighbouring state of ...

, and was buried in the Barmah Cemetery in Barma, Victoria along with his wife Mary Ann (Gill) Rice who died twenty years earlier on 21 October 1895. Many of his descendants still live in Barmah district.

Genealogy

Rice was a direct descendant of

Edmund Rice Edmund is a masculine given name or surname in the English language. The name is derived from the Old English elements ''ēad'', meaning "prosperity" or "riches", and ''mund'', meaning "protector". Persons named Edmund include: People Kings an ...

, an early English immigrant to

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...

, as follows: * Joseph Waldo Rice, son of :* Henry Rice (1794 – 1858), son of :* Gershom Rice (1755 – 1837), son of :* Gershom Rice (1710 – 1790), son of ::* Jacob Rice (1660 – 1746), son of ::* Edward Rice (1626 – 1712), son of ::::*

(1594 – 1663)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rice, Joseph W. 1915 deaths 1828 births People from Lincoln, Massachusetts American emigrants to Australia 19th-century Australian businesspeople