'Sam' Samuel Francis Batt

South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), Monday 30 January 1899, page 5 reported on gold finds by a man called Batt at Yandoit. That was Sam Batt, who was a long term resident of the Yandoit district working at alluvial mining. Sam found at least two large nuggets in his time at American Gully in the Yandoit Creek area. From newspaper reports in 1899, it seems that about 1873 Sam found a nugget, reputedly near Nuggetty Gully, which realised £400.
In December 1898 Sam found a large nugget in alluvial ground at Nuggetty Gully, near Yandoit. It weighed 10½ Ib. and was sold in Ballarat for £504. For two weeks Sam Batt apparently kept his find a secret. Three years before a £900 nugget had been found in the same locality by a miner named Brown.
Sam's later nugget funded a two room extension to his wattle and daub house at American Gully. The two rooms were weatherboard, with a large chimney and windows to the road at the front and the bedroom. The boards are now [2022] faced in stone.

Late in life Sam tried his hand at running a wine bar. The Bridge Hotel had been run at one time by Johhnny Gervasoni, son of Carlo whose "Old Stone House" overlooked the bridge. Carlo was long dead by this time, his widow Ann had held a wine license too.
Sam wanted to set up the old Yandoit Bridge Hotel, as the wine bar.

This pub, owned by the Fitzgeralds brewery of Castlemaine had its license surrendered as part of a reduction scheme in the previous months. In December 1916, at the annual court for the renewal and granting of licenses in Daylesford and Franklin Licensing Districts, held at the Daylesford Court House before Mr P. Bartold, P.M., Sam Batt, of Yandoit, applied for an Australians wine license for the Yandoit Bridge Hotel, as the [beer and spirits] license had been surrendered. Superintendent McManamny, the Licensing Inspector from Ballarat, appeared, he suggested that new licenses were not being issued. Mr H. A. M. Bromfield appeared for applicant, and reminded the magistrate that that change was due in 1917. Sam said that the property [annual rental value of £25] and that there were at least 200 district residents besides the travelling public who would be customers. The loacal paper reported that: “Mr Bartold (smiling.)—“I suppose all the residents of the district have asked you to obtain a wine license?” Sam—Well, they've made no objection. Application was adjourned until the 29th December, when, if no preventing legislation prevailed, the license would be granted. 1916 'ANNUAL LICENSING COURT.', Daylesford Advocate, Yandoit, Glenlyon and Eganstown Chronicle (Vic. : 1914 - 1918), 22 December, p. 3. , viewed 13 Nov 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119542615