View
215
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
7/29/2019 Haunted Sheep Station (1940)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/haunted-sheep-station-1940 1/3
Sunday Mail (Brisbane) (Qld. : 1926 - 1954), Sunday 7 January 1940, page 2
National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article98243736
L tilI II II
?
Strange?
Tales Of
Queensland's
Past
AREthere runs of
good-luck and bad
luck ? Can either a
person or a place be sub
ject for a period to a seem
ingly uninterrupted chain
of either good or adverse
circumstances in such fashion
as io pass beyond mere coin
cidence. Lerida Station, in the'
Muttaburra district, hits
known both.
. Neverthelessit is doubtful if
many hundreds of station folk
from all over Queensland as
sociate anything but happiness
with the: name of Lerida, for
they enjoyed the station's
hospitality throughout the many
years when the fashionable
Tower Hi]] Picnic Jockey Club held
its annual carnival there. They are
unaware that a hoodoo lay heavy
upon. Lerida from the '80's almost
throuRh the '80s.
When the Leslie Brothers took
-up Lerida in Ihe 70s it was a
leasehold of 463 square miles sit
uated on the great downs countryof Mitchell and Flinders grasses—
as fine sheep land as there was in
Australia. Many resumptions for
small holdings have reduced Lerida
to less than 50 square miles and to
day the homestead area is a sheepstud.
Situated east of Winton. south of
Hughenden and Richmond, and
north of Longreach. Barcaldine and
Aramac, this old station thus layin the centre of a vast pastoralarea. Fifty miles to the east is the
town of Mutiaburra which in the
'80s and '90s was one of the most
hectic towns in the west.
For those were the days, as Henry
For those were the days, as HenryLnwxon has it. when Cobb and Co.
was king. Muttaburra was a stage
stop lor the Cobb coaches which ran
from Biackall up to Barcaldine and
Aramac, and thence through
'
the
town on the Landsborough River to
HuEhenden. Richmond and over the
horizon's rim.
?
j^ CROSS the Landsborough atMuttaburra stood Fahcy's Hotel,
now gone, leaving in these days of
motor transport— not a wrack be
hind. There the oldest of old hands
declare you might have seen as
many as 16 Cobb and Co. coaches
drawn up at one lime, and inside
the rambling one-story hotel 100
passengers. In the season when the
wool was coining off. hundreds of
shearers, wool-pressers and rouse
abouts rilled the bar and sat alongthe veranda— a laughing, .singing.
and shouting crowd, toasting the
famous daughter of the landlady.The hoodoo on Lerida started
with the spearing of a stockman
when first the station was
taken up. In ]8S0 a man named
Huskisson, while swaggingit —
humping Matilda — across Lerida
on his way to the new station
on Ayrshire Downs, wandered
miles away into desert country
and died of thirst.
In 1885 W. G. Gordon and Walter
Eunning making their way with a
mob of sheep across Lerida to Darr
River Downs quarrelled, though
what they quarrelled about is lost
in the inisls of the past. The quarrel
on Lerida may have been merely
the working out of the hoodoo, but
BunniiiRwas not murdered until
Darr River Downs was reached.
Gordon wa-s hanged in Brisbane for
the minder of Bunning. Then the
hoodoo was suspended for a decade,
only to break again onLorid.-i in
its most intense and final phase.
?
1 ATE in October, 1896. about 90
shearers, wool-pressers. and
rouseaboula had their final .iolh
fication at Fahey's Hotel by the
river in Muttaburra, and said good
bye to their iellows and the drivers
of Cobb and Co's coaches on whiih
of them had travelled to
of Cobb and Co's coaches on whiih
many of them had travelled to
Muttaburra. They left on horseback
for Lerida where .shearing was due
to start.
One of their number. Michael
Callaghan a wool-pi e.sscr, had sei-n
the old hotel for the last time, and
he was unaware that he was walk
ing rislu into the lioodoo tliat lay
upon Lerida.
That night the shearing cavalcade
camped at Tablederry, the strange
table-topped hills that rise 15 miles
from Muttaburra. During the night,
while the remains of considerableliquor purchased at the hotel was
being consumed. Cullaghan quar
relled with a rouscabout, named
John Bohun.
On the following morning- before
the large party .started for Lerida
wool-shed. Callagluin offered to
make friends, but the rousrnbotit
rejected his advances and threat
ened that he would settle Callagluintin; first chance he got.
By six o'clock that evening all
the mm liad reached Lerida and
camped on the banks of the creek
three miles from the bead station
with the intention of going to tlie
wool sheds about seven miles away
in time for the beginning- of shearing next day.
As evidence that Bohun had mut
tered no idle threat, he sot up at
daylight on October 23, secured an
empty whisky bottle and went
searching among the sleeping men
for Callaghan. He experienced dif
licully in locating' him as the men
all slept wiih their heads under the
v..
;?'? -
blankets because the flies were
troublesome.Bohun lifted the blankets of
about half a dozen men and at
last found Callagban. In view
of a watching shearer, named
Barney Hughes, he lifted the
whisky bottle and then struck
Callaghan five times on the side
of the head with it.
Hughes seized the rouseabout and,
with the assistance of other men.
secured him with straps. They
turned their attention to Call&ghan
and found his .skull smashed in. He
lived only a few- minutes.
A shearer rode swiftly to Mutta
burra and reported the msuter to
Constable P. Duffy 'who relived
six years ago as Sub-inspector
Duffy;. After arranging for a doc
tor to ro to Lerida to conduct a
post -mortem the constable rode to
the scene of the murder io find that
the rouseabout had made his es
cape, and was hiding in the bush
iiljuiii two miles away.
Dulfy organised a search party.
The country was combed and it
whs the conMublc who sighted Die
murderer. Bohun made a dash for
a large watoihole. The constable
7/29/2019 Haunted Sheep Station (1940)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/haunted-sheep-station-1940 2/3
a large watoihole. The constable
.?.purred his horse anil rode him
down on the bank of the winci-holc,
bin the rirsprraie man arose and
madr another dash with the ob
vious intention of committings\iicide. Once more he wns, ridden
down smd ull the spirit knocked out
of him. He was then secured,
uiken to tlic camp and shown the
bodv of Callaghan.
'I pot even with him.' he said.
'He won't tellany more lies about
me.'
When Bohun was formally ar
rested and charged with Callaghan'smurder he said : 'Go your hardest.
I Rot him.'
One of the strangest aspects
of the death of Callnghan was
the behaviour of his horse.
Callaghan was buried in a rough
coffin fashioned by his fellows
of the shearers' camp, who then
mustered their 134 horses. A
horse belonging to Callaghan
left the others and trotted
to the newly made grave.He began (o pa«- it with his fore
feet. He was driven away several
timos. but on each occasion he re
turned and pawed the grave once
more.
Their have been many instances
of dogs refusing to leave the
graves of their masters but surely
that is the first time a horse has
been known to act in such a
fashion.
At Rockhampton on December 10,
1896. the murderer, who proved to
have been known also as McMillan
and Gilbert, was sentenced by Mr.
Justice Power to death, a sentence
later commuted to imprisonment
for the term of his natural lite.
Callaghan had scarcely settled
into his grave by the billabong
when the hoodoo settled in an ex
traordinary fashion on Lerida.
About a month later typhoid fever
bipkc out on the station. Two
shearers contracted it and died.
There was tragedy at the home
stead when the manager's daughter.Miss While, died of typhoid and
was buried neur the homestead.
Her lather resigned and went to
New Scn-lh Wales when the shear
ing finished, but noi before he had
seen Leiid.i's hoodoo claim yet
another victim in the person of a
wool-roller named Flannagan who
died in the wool-shed from heart
failure.
?
'pHE hoodoo was to have one more
sacrifice before leaving Lorida.
The new manager must have felt
an oppressive atmosphere after the
sequence of deaths for he died byhis own hand in a manner cieaiiv
demonstrating that he was a victim
of worry and nerves.
He had been on Lerida only a
little while when he yarded 12000
sheep lor a drover who was to
travel them for grass and water
in order to save them from the
to save them from the
drought.
The drover was to have come
from Hughenden and failed to
arrive. For three days the sheep
remained yarded without food
or drink. The manager, over
come with anxiety for the sheep,
stayed up until midnight oi the
third day. and when there was still
no sign of the drover lie killed him
self.
Next day the drover and his men
arrived.
With the death of this unfor
tunate manager the lioodoo Mied,
apparently never to settle ag&'-.
?
\OT long after this sequence of
tragedies Mr. A. C. Hone became
manager of Messrs. F. G.. F. J.. snd
J. C. White and was a host who be
came noted throughout the State.
As president of the Tower Hill
Picnic Jockey Club he made
Lerida famous as the annual scene
of the finest amateur racing, the
gayestballs and tlie most fashion
able gatherings in the west.
Hundreds of members of other
picnic race clubs, invited guests,
visitors Horn the cities and from
overseas discovered at Lerida Aus
tralian bush hospitality at its best,
with guests cami-ed in the shearers
huts, in the overflowing home
stead, in tents; guests who made a
tarpaulin muster of the expensesso that it the improvised bar
nobody was ever allowed to buy a
drink.
Balls were held in (he woolilied
at night throughout the Leriria
carnival, before the Tower Hill
Picnic Jockey Club began to meet
at Beryl Station near Longreach,onned b.v [he Crombies.
Frocks were seen there that came
direct from Paris, or were the
highest priced in the salons of Mel
bourne and Sydney. Sometimes
Atoo's band went over to Lerida
from Longreach: but there were
occasions when hundreds of coupleswaltzed and one-stepped to the
strains of concertinas and liddies
in the old bush style.
The hoodoo left Lerida and not
even the ghost oi one of those oldbushmen who met his end there
could be heard in Die moonlightsinging by the biilabong.
NEXT SUNDAY: To&
Many Shirts in Hie Murder
f
? It'sa grim story this new series telis to-
j
|
day — the story of the queer malevolent in-1
1ftuence that wrote one violent death after
}
| another into the chronicles of one of{
f
Queensland's most prosperous sheep{
I. properties. r
i
7/29/2019 Haunted Sheep Station (1940)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/haunted-sheep-station-1940 3/3
He began to paw the
grave with his fore
feet . . .
Recommended