The Maitland Mercury on 1 June 1880 reported on a buggy accident where Mr Carl Tronier was driving with his little daughter Ethel when the buggy they were in, collided against a stump of a felled tree. The buggy was destroyed but the occupants escaped injury.  

He also tried to maintain his coach building business in Glen Innes but, was forced to move to new premises next to the Police Station. Things did not improve and by September 1888 Carl also, like his older brother Joachim, was now in Bankruptcy Court forcing him to sell his property in Glen Innes as well as land he owned in Guilford Sydney. 

The Glen Innes examiner reports that Carl Tronier announces his intention to leave town but assures the residents that the Art Union with be drawn before he leaves. It is not clear where the family definitely leaves for, but it seems they may have relocated to Glen Elgin.  

Meanwhile in Sydney in the late 1880s, Joachim moved to Balmain and lived and worked in the community on many different areas of interest. For example, Joachim was on the Balmain Swimming Club Committee and was also part of the Balmain Protection Association, it is reported in the Balmain Observer, at their meeting, he read out a letter regarding free trade, on behalf of Mudgee Farmers. As a contributing member of the Balmain community, he organised a fundraiser concert at the Temperance Hall Balmain for the Lifeboats’ Brass Band and where his daughter was the accompanist. Besides his community involvement, Joachim August Tronier continued to be recognised for his photographs of the Sydney area and of the Gold Fields.

Sadly, though trouble wasn’t far away. This time it was with Joachim and Frances’ children, who were now young adults. In February 1877, it was reported that Joachim’s daughters were picked up by the Water Police and fined for being drunk and disorderly.

In January 1884 it was reported in the Balmain Observer that Joachim’s son Carl August Tronier had forty pigeons with carriers and tumblers stolen from his premises in Beattie Street Balmain. The next year the same young Carl threatened his father Joachim with “death and destruction”. The case was reported in the papers but was later withdrawn. By June 1886 young Carl had been gaoled in Darlinghurst prison with a seven-day sentenced for being drunk and disorderly. Trouble seemed to follow Carl August too, because in January 1888, he is charged with destroying flowering plants to the value of one pound. However, because he defaulted on the fine of five pounds, he is given four months of gaol time instead. Sydney. On 9^th July 1897 Joachim August Tronier dies at his home in North Balmain of a heart attack. He was less than sixty years old.

Back in the New England area, Carl Christian Tronier was trying to do his best for his family members. Ethel his daughter showed academic abilities with a first-place position in 4^th class Public School Exams in 1886 at Glen Innes Public School and, the following year, she was recognised in Upper 4^th class for her general proficiency, mapping skills and drawing. In 1892, Ethel participated in Sydney University Exams while a student at Glen Innes High School. She achieved the following results: – Geography B, English C, Geology B, Freehand and Model Drawing C. Ethel Alexandra Tronier also entered an example of her needlework in the exhibition at the Colonial & Indian Exhibition London 1886 where, it is reported, she gained a prize for her work.

Poor Carl still just couldn’t seem to get things right. Firstly, in June 1894 our Carl Tronier of Glen Elgin narrowly escapes more serious injury when he dislocates his ankle in a riding accident. Then in the October of that year, it is reported that shareholders are not happy with the management of the Glen Elgin mine. Only a few years before in 1891 and 1892 the reports in Glen Innes Examiner of visits to the mine were very favourable mentioning how friendly visits had been at the mine and that Mr Mrs Tronier’s store was well appointed. But a few years later they were dealing with unhappy shareholders and were getting letters in the press from a “literary parasite” regarding Post Office charges and wife Winifred’s performance was put under the spotlight by the writer “Verax”!

In 1895 letters regarding Winifred’s performance are printed in the paper from B.L.B.R. The same year Carl leaves on the steamer Macleay for Sydney which is reported in the Lismore Northern Star at the time. It is expected that Carl spent time with his brother Joachim while in . 

In his last electoral roll entry before is death, Carl’s occupation was listed as a librarian, when he was almost eighty. Sadly, without ever finding that gold nugget that they were looking for, on 15 March 1907, Winifred Wellings Tronier died of breast cancer in Glen Innes hospital at the very young age of fifty-seven. Her death was reported in many papers including the Sydney Morning Herald and the Brisbane Courier. Surviving another nine years, Carl Christian Andreas Haaber Tronier who was born 1835 in Denmark died in 1916 at the age of eighty-one at Red Range, Glen Innes in the New England area of New South Wales. 

This part of Carl’s story may not have been about “rags to riches” as he had hoped but, his life story was full of little “gems” and there are still lots more of this family’s story to tell.