pine lumberjacks) settlement and boatyard was located on Payne Bay on Port Davey's north. The settlement remained until the 1900s when the Huon Pine trade ceased. Another temporary settlement was located at Bramble Cove behind the Breaksea Islands to serve the whaling industry in the early 1800s. Whaling ships would enter Port Davey for wood, water and vegetables and to try-out captured whales in sheltered waters. There is also evidence shore-based whaling took place at Bramble Cove in the middle of the 19th century. Nothing remains of the site except for a few huon pine headstones from an old cemetery. The Bathurst Harbour/Port Davey area was marked on early 1800s maps as being the site for a settlement named Bathurst. The exact location of the proposed settlement varied depending on the map. Locations included Bramble Cove, Joe Page Bay below Mount Mackenzie and the Rowitta Plains. By the Victorian era, cartographers discontinued marking the settlement along with others such as Montgomery south of the Spero River, Cracroft on the Arthur Plains and Huntley in the Upper Florentine Forests west of Mount Field National Park. The pioneer aviator Francis McClean organized and led an expedition to Port Davey to observe the May 9, 1910 solar eclipse. They suffered almost continual rain, yet a bush fire came within of destroying their instruments and built a concrete platform for their instruments on Hixson's point. However the weather obscured the eclipse on May 9. In the late 1930s, the British Zionist League considered a number of other places where a Jewish homeland could be established. The Kimberley region in Australia was considered until the Curtin government (in office: 1941–1945) rejected the possibility. Later and with the support of the then Premier of Tasmania, Robert Cosgrove (in office from 1939), Critchley Parker proposed a Jewish settlement at Port Davey. Parker surveyed the area, but his death in 1942 put an end to the idea. Catalina PBY 5 flying boat, serial number 292, VH-BDP was the first recorded civilian aircraft to land in Port Davey on the 8th July 1947, flown by John Fraser (ex RAAF pilot). It was one of 3 bought as war surplus from RAAF by J Botterill & Fraser, South Melbourne, Vic, intended to be used to carry freshly caught seafood from fishing boats in Port Davey to Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Only VH-BDP commenced operations, but ceased in early 1948 and