On an evening in June 1877, on Fremantle's High Street, the life of Western Australia's first documented Chinese person came to a tragic end.
Carpenter Moon Chow, who arrived in Western Australia in 1829, was struck by a horse and cart and died.
His death caused an outcry. It was reported by newspapers and prompted an inquest that led to the first road rules and road safety regulations in Perth, including speed limits and mandatory lamps for vehicles after dark.
University of Western Australia academics Professor Benjamin Smith and Dr Yu Tao have joined forces with his direct descendant Betty Walker and Chung Wah Association historian Kaylene Poon to uncover the life and legacy of Moon Chow, a figure whose life in Perth and Fremantle has been shrouded in folklore and urban legends.
"Moon Chow came here so early and today we still know him. We remember him and that gives me a sense that multiculturalism is in our state's fabric from the very beginning," Dr Tao said.
"Of course, that's not to say [the Chinese migrants] after Moon Chow, didn't suffer discriminations from the White Australia Policy or even before that.
"However, the fact that people of Chinese heritage have been making a contribution to our state from the very beginning, I think that is very fascinating; that makes me very proud."
Stranded in the colony
Moon Chow, sometimes listed as Chow Moon or Johnny Moon, arrived in Western Australia in the Swan River colony's earliest days aboard the spice-trade ship Emily Taylor in October 1829, but became stranded in Perth when the ship sank off the coast of Fremantle on May 21, 1830.
Dr Tao said Moon Chow built a life for himself in the fledgling Swan River colony as a talented carpenter, joiner and skilled boat builder working for Henry Reveley, the civil engineer responsible for the state's earliest public buildings.
"His skill was highly valuable to a colony that was just establishing," Dr Tao said.
"If some of the wood frames in those early Perth and Fremantle buildings are original, it is highly likely Moon Chow made them.
"We've got evidence that when the Fremantle Port Harbour Master wanted to build a boat there was a letter of recommendation that he looks at a small whale boat built by Moon Chow."
Moon's lost dumplings legend
University of WA archaeologist Professor Benjamin Smith said many stories surrounding Moon Chow had captured the community's imagination.
A popular restaurant now bears his name as does a promenade through Russell Square in Northbridge.
"We have Miss Chow's restaurant here in Perth that is based on Moon Chow's legacy which describes a lost dumpling recipe," he said.
"The only other time that Moon Chow appears in the newspaper other than his death is that a leg of pork was stolen from his house, and there was a court case about it, and the person that stole the leg of pork got off – he was found not guilty."
While Dr Tao commented that he didn't think that unfair verdict would have happened to many Caucasian migrants at that time, it got Professor Smith thinking.
"We were wondering, did this leg of pork show, in fact that Moon Chow did produce the first dumplings here?" Professor Smith said.
Finding the missing family link
Betty Walker, a fifth-generation descendant of Moon Chow, stumbled upon her Chinese heritage when she applied for a passport and saw an original copy of a marriage certificate which showed a different family name.
At the time she was unaware of her Chinese ancestry but began to research archives about the life of Moon Chow, and discovered she was descended from Chow's daughter Mary Ann Moon.
"I was quite shocked, but I've always had an interest in the Chinese culture, and I was dragon boating for so many years and absolutely loved it," she said.
"I couldn't understand why I was so attracted to dragon boating and the whole culture and then I found that I had come down from Chow Moon and I thought, well, that must be the answer, that's the missing link."
Ms Walker spent nearly six years digging into the archives. She uncovered Moon Chow was well documented for a Chinese person of that time.
"When I look at how he actually landed here, I class him as the first refugee, because he was left behind by mistake," she said.
"But being Asian, he couldn't own any land or anything.
"So it was all in his wife, Mary Thorpe's name. Unfortunately, that puts a brick wall up sometimes [when looking in the archives]."
Ms Walker said it was exciting to have found the only known photo of Moon Chow from a relative who lives interstate.
"If I hadn't done the research on my father's stories and photos it would have been lost," she said.
"I'm proud to have brought Chow Moon to life – his family grew and so did his culture in all his descendants."
