ghap_id,layer_id,title,record_type,description,latitude,longitude,datestart,dateend,source,created_at,updated_at,placename,dataset_order
te017c,2008,"Cox's River depot attacked",Event,"Macquarie wrote ‘Instructions for Serjeant Jeremiah Murphy’ just days after his orders to Wallis, Shaw and Dawe in April 1816. He noted that ‘A body of Hostile natives’ had ‘recently crossed the Blue or Western Mountains from this side to the New discovered Country, and attacked and Plundered the Government Provision Depot established at Cox’s River’. It is unclear if this report is correct, that the warriors had come across the mountains from the Sydney region to escape the sweeping British campaign around the edge of the Cumberland Plain, or were from the Cox's River area. The raids were serious enough to threaten the isolated depot and other shepherds and workers. Macquarie wrote that the warriors had not only raided the government depot, but also ‘driven away from thence the Government Stock-men - as well as the Stock men of Private Individuals who were attending their Masters Herds in that Country’.",-33.547,150.146,1816-03-01,1816-04-30,"Note 15, Macquarie to Bathurst, 18 March 1815, HRA, vol. 9, p. 550; SLNSW, A773, 25 May 1816 pp15-16; Gazette, 1 June 1816; SRNSW, 4/1798, p.35; Orders to Murphy, 22 April 1816. SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, pp. 35–37. Macquarie to Bathurst, 4 April 1817, HRA, vol. 9, p. 342.","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Government Provision Depot' (Cox's River depot, near Glenroy)",
te017d,2008,"Man missing presumed dead",Event,"Macquarie’s expedition left Bathurst to return to Sydney with one man missing. According to Macquarie’s ‘firm friend’, Major of Brigade Henry Colden Antill, ‘he had come with us with the idea of becoming a settler in the new country, and as we suppose, he had remained behind at Bathurst’. But only on mustering did they find the man was missing. Apparently, the ‘last time the poor fellow was seen was with some of the natives’ and he, ‘being a little in liquor, had insisted on going with them to their camp, where it was supposed from his own imprudence he had fallen a sacrifice, as no trace could be found of him by the parties which had been sent out’. 
So too the Wiradyjuri people to whose camp he had gone ‘had not since been seen’. This ‘poor fellow’ may have transgressed Wiradyjuri law and suffered dalgi giban (payback or retribution). This transgression may well have involved a woman – the colonists’ attitude towards Wiradyjuri women was a constant source of conflict.",-33.4182963,149.59450006,1815-05-11,1815-05-11,"Henry Antill, 12 May 1815, ‘Journal’, in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, p. 96; Fry, Beyond the Barrier, 29–30","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02",Bathurst,
te017e,2008,"4 Wiradyuri people killed",Event,"On his journey from the Cowpastures to Bathurst, after passing the location of current-day Rockley and heading down the hills towards the Campbell River, Throsby and his party met ‘a large Tribe of Natives’. Cookoogong undoubtedly relayed to Throsby that, as Throsby recorded it, ‘the people at Bathurst was very very (cooler) angry with the Blacks’. They told Throsby and Cookoogong that the colonists ‘would set their dogs’ on them, and would shoot at them. They also said that ‘four black people have been killed and more wounded’.",-33.689,149.627,1819-04-01,1819-05-31,"Throsby, ‘Journal of a tour to Bathurst’, 1819, SRNSW, 9/2743; Throsby to Meehan, 21 April 1820, SRNSW, 9/2743, pp. 86–88, 136; Smith, Aborigines of the Goulburn District, p. 5; Hassall to Macquarie, 16 June 1819, SRNSW, 4/1742, pp. 310–22; ‘November’, Annual Register, 1819, p. 88; Government and General Order, 31 May 1819, HRA, vol. 10, p. 182; Macquarie to Bathurst, 19 July 1819, HRA, vol. 10, p. 179; Parsons, ‘Throsby, Charles 1777–1828’, ADB.","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Campbells River",
te017f,2008,"Horse speared",Event,"One of William Lawson’s 'best breeding mares’ speared. ",-33.69,149.628,1819-06-01,1819-06-30,"Hassall to Macquarie, 16 June 1819, SRNSW, 4/1742, pp. 310–22.","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Campbells River",
te0180,2008,"Some Wiradjuri shot",Event,"In April 1820, Charles Throsby wrote to Governor Macquarie from his home, ‘Glenfield’, south of Sydney, requesting urgent military action in the ‘New Country’. He had received letters that he felt it necessary to send to the governor, which showed ‘the people are much alarmed at the natives’. He hoped ‘their fears are greater than their real danger’ and that the few ‘natives named as being at the head’ of events were the real issue. Throsby feared there were ‘a large collection of natives there, particularly those belonging to the western river’, who were ‘headed by Murrah-Murrah, who will never cease to be troublesome as long as he exists’. Throsby found that ‘some natives had been shot’ and this may have ‘exasperated them’. But before he had gone very far, somewhere near present-day Bargo, south of Sydney, Throsby ‘met with some of the very men who was accused as ringleaders’ and found ‘proofs of the total want of foundation for the shameful reports received’ and of the ‘cowardly conduct of the white people’. While it remains unclear what occurred, it seems that ‘some natives’ had been killed and some ‘white people’ then spread word the Europeans were under threat from Murrah-Murrah and his warriors.",-33.41869033,149.59443569,1820-03-01,1820-04-30,"Throsby to Macquarie, rc’d 30 April 1820, SRNSW, 9/2743, p. 139; Throsby to Macquarie, May 3 1820, SRNSW, 9/2743, p. 143–44. The Lachlan River was known as the ‘western river’, but it is unclear who Murrah-Murrah was and from which area. Murundah of the Burra Burra may well have been known to Throsby by this point. It seems he meant the ‘ringleaders’ were Aboriginal people who had travelled east and met him at Bargo. ","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Bathurst region",
te0181,2008,"James King killed",Event,"In February 1821, Private James King of the 48th Regiment was apparently ‘slain by the Wiradjuri for reasons unknown’. King was one of eight privates stationed at Bathurst at the time under Sergeant Pilling.",-33.41926344,149.59426403,1821-02-01,1821-02-01,"Clem Sergeant, The Colonial Garrison, pp. 42–43","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Bathurst region",
te0182,2008,"Raid on 'Menah'",Event,"for a time, ‘the natives showed a friendly feeling’ towards the Coxes and their 500 head of cattle. But when there was ‘interference’ with the women, the warriors’ ‘hostility was aroused’. Warriors then ‘drove the armed stockmen away’, released cattle from the yards and killed numbers of sheep. One of the Coxes’ stockmen galloped his horse to Bathurst to report ‘the blacks had murdered his mate, looted the hut and dispersed the cattle’. arming ‘half a dozen men at Bathurst’, including Richard Lewis, who was still working for the Coxes after supervising the convicts on Cox’s road in 1815. While the armed party rode off through the Turon hills towards Mudgee, George’s brother Henry sent for military help, requesting ‘3 soldiers to be allowed to be sent from Bathurst to our station to protect our people and property’. the stockmen at ‘Menah’ had abandoned the place, and it was being guarded by two Wiradyjuri men. According to George Henry Cox, when his father George and his armed party returned to ‘Menah’, ‘they found the story exaggerated and the hut in fact guarded by “Friday” and “Aaron”’.",-32.5405184,149.53808784,1822-02-01,1822-02-01,"G F Cox, ‘History of Mudgee’, p. 42-44; William Cox to Goulburn, 7 February 1822, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, p. 121; Cox to Brisbane, 7 February 1822, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, 6065, p. 135.","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Menah, Mudgee",
te0183,2008,"Battle at ‘Menah'",Event,"According to George Henry Cox (told the story by his father and uncle many years later), ‘one morning at daybreak’ the ‘men were surprised by a body of natives, who made a fierce and determined attack on the hut’. But Cox, Lewis and the other stockmen (six in total including Lewis, excluding Cox) – and possibly the Wiradyjuri men Friday and Aaron – ‘were well provided with fire-arms and ammunition’. ‘for two hours desultory fighting was maintained. Holes made through the slabs gave the men a splendid opportunity of taking good aim and to watch the movements of their crafty foes’. According to George Henry, during the battle ‘about half a dozen blacks were shot, while the defenders (with the exception of poor “Friday”, who becoming too venturesome, went outside when a spear was thrown, hitting the poor fellow in a vital part) came through the ordeal un-scathed’. ",-32.54138667,149.53860283,1822-01-01,1822-01-01,"Cox, ‘History of Mudgee’, p. 42. ‘Lewis, Richard’, BDHSMA, LF840","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Menah, Mudgee",
te0184,2008,"Attack on stockworkers",Event,"near the Fish River, William Lawson had stock and an outstation at a place called ‘Dirty Swamp’ (now Locksley). Lawson’s ‘Hut Keeper’ at Dirty Swamp was William Mowbray (or Maybrow). Another of Lawson’s men, ‘Government servant’ Charles Hatt, turned up at Mowbray’s hut just before sunset on 25 March. Hatt later reported he found Mowbray in the company of four Aboriginal men, one of whom he knew as ‘Guyett’. They had ‘eight spears’ and ‘two waddys’ but did not appear hostile or threatening to Hatt. Mowbray then apparently left the hut with two of the men in search of some missing cattle. With nothing to prick his suspicions, Hatt left Guyett and the other man at the hut while he also went to see if he could find the cattle. Returning alone ten minutes later, Hatt said he was struck down from behind. He could not say who it was, but that there were no other Wiradyjuri he saw ‘but the two Blacks which where left in the Hut by me’. 
Hatt was later taken to Bathurst for treatment, and his injuries included a large incision ‘an inch in diameter’ on his neck that ‘appeared to be inflicted by a Sharp Instrument’, according to the medical officer, Davies. Mowbray never returned to the hut. His body was found several days later, not far away, ‘quite naked except for the left wristband of a Red Shirt which remained round his arm’; ‘his shoes were lying a few yards from him’. The following day a ‘waddy [wooden club] belonging to the Black natives’ was also discovered about 400 metres from where Mowbray had lain. The inquest into Mowbray’s death pronounced a ‘verdict of willful murder’ against a Wiradyjuri man named ‘Guyett’ and ‘three other Black Natives’.",-33.51437115,149.7761178,1822-03-25,1822-03-25,"‘Inquest held at Bathurst’, 30 March 1822, SRNSW, NRS 897, Reel 6021, 4/1819, pp. 449–54; ‘Killed by natives’, 10 April 1822, SRNSW, NRS 897, Reel 6065, 4/1798, p. 135; List of convicts employed by William Lawson, May 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6058, 4/1771, pp. 312a–b, 313a; 6062, 4/1782, pp. 51c, 57a. Lawson to Goulburn, 10 April 1822, SRNSW, 6065, 4/1798, pp. 135–38.","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Dirty Swamp",
te0185,2008,Raids,Event,"Raids across Kings Plains during late 1822, based on later reports from Judge Advocate Wylde to Colonial Secretary Goulburn that there were ‘incidents’ reported by Wylde’s overseer Andrew Dunn to Commandant Lawson that were not acted upon. ",-33.49761976,149.31557178,1822-09-01,1822-12-31,"Davidson, ‘The development of the pastoral industry’, pp. 82, 89; McKay, ‘Wylde, Sir John (1781–1859)’, ADB; Steven, ‘Palmer, George Thomas (1784–1854)’, ADB","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Kings Plains",
te0186,2008,"Raid on hut",Event,"stockman Henry Alsop was armed but alone in a hut when, according to Wylde’s overseer Andrew Dunn, a group of Wiradyjuri approached. They suddenly attacked Alsop, who was ‘cut in a most shocking manner’. Then, ‘one of the natives got the loaded Gun, which was discharged’. Soon after, ‘two other Stockmen Booth and Butcher’ arrived at the hut and ‘a general severe affray took place amongst them, during which one of the blacks was shot dead on the spot’. 
According to Dunn, ‘Some of the blacks, while others were engaged with the Stockmen, plundered the Hut of everything’ before they left. ",-33.49931965,149.30797577,1823-07-20,1823-07-20,"‘Re: inquest into death of Peter Bray’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, 6065, pp. 312–13","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Wylde’s ‘further Station’ at Kings Plains",
te0187,2008,"cattle killed and Cows in calf overdriven",Event,"according to Wylde, ‘our private loss has already proved considerable in cattle killed and Cows in calf overdriven - the toll remains a decrease in numbers of more than 200, which is exposed in the Bush to the wanton Slaughter of the Natives’. ",-33.4974945,149.31956291,1823-06-01,1823-07-31,"‘Re: inquest into death of Peter Bray’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, 6065, pp. 313–14","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Wylde's stations at Kings Plains",
te0188,2008,"Man attacked, wounded",Event,"Acting Bathurst Surgeon Stephen Geary Wilks conducted autopsies on seven bodies in attacks in May 1824. He recognised ‘David Brown, a free man Hired servant to Mr Terry’ as he had ‘been for some time under [Wilks’s] care in consequence of severe wounds and ill treatment at the hands of the blacks about twelve months ago’. Brown’s body ‘bore marks of similar murderous violence’, quite probably targeting him again for crimes against Wiradyjuri people that Brown had committed the year before.",-33.18188454,149.63619232,1823-06-01,1823-06-01,"Depositions re bodies of men killed by Aborigines, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1799, pp. 23–25, 27–29; David Brown, Re absence in registers, SRNSW, NRS 937, 6013, 4/3511, p. 587; David Brown, Report re his murder at Bathurst by natives, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1800, p. 137. ","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Milla-Murrah (possibly)",
te0189,2008,"Stock raids",Event,"Wylde noted in late July, ‘further mischief has been done [after previous cattle killed etc.] and more is expected to arise from renewed similar Incursions’ and ‘various stations were temporarily abandoned’ and stockworkers were sheltering together.  ",-33.49799553,149.31552887,1823-07-20,1823-07-31,"‘Re: inquest into death of Peter Bray’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, 6065, pp. 312–14","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Palmer and Wylde's stations Kings Plains",
te018a,2008,"raids on stock?",Event,"Superintendent of Government Stock John Maxwell reported that ‘the Blacks have been very troublesome’",-33.41955,149.59404945,1823-08-21,1823-08-21,"Maxwell to Goulburn, 21 August 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6031, 4/7029A, p. 47","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Government Stock Stations",
te018b,2008,"Stock raids",Event,"Maxwell reported a government heifer had been killed by spearing. He noted that a man named ‘Jingler’ had been identified as the most likely perpetrator and pointed to the finding of cattle bones as proof that, far from this being an isolated incident, the Wiradyjuri had ‘got into the practice of eating beef’",-32.418,150.595,1823-09-02,1823-09-02,"Maxwell to Goulburn, 2 September 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6031, 4/7029A, p. 49","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Government Stock Stations",
te018c,2008,"Stockman killed",Event,"On 29 August, ‘the body of a man who was found murdered’ at William Lee’s station at Clear Creek, around 10 miles northeast of Bathurst, identified as one of Lee’s workers, ‘hut keeper’ and ‘Crown Prisoner’ Peter Bray. The Sydney Gazette newspaper reported he ‘was found barbarously murdered’. According to the testimony provided to coroner Thomas Fitzherbert Hawkins, on 29 August one of William Lee’s shepherds, John Tanner, came to John Cornwall’s hut looking for Peter Bray. Tanner told Cornwall ‘their Hut was robbed and that the Hut man Peter Bray was missing’. They went to the hut and ‘saw it [in] great Confusion and robbed [of] all their Tea, sugar, Meat and Bread’ as well as axes, knives, cooking equipment and ‘Shot and Balls’ and ‘one Musket’. The two men then went from the hut to the nearby creek and ‘found the tracks of the Black Natives’, before discovering a trail of blood and ‘the Body of the Deceased lying in the Creek by the edge of the Water’. When William Lee arrived on the scene, he proceeded ‘to where it appeared [Bray] had received the first blow, where the Hat of the deceased lay cut in two halves’. From the signs of struggle on the river bank, Lee believed Bray had been dumped in the nearby creek alive and had tried to crawl out of the water before he died. ‘Earing, a Black Chief of the Tabalbucco Tribe’. [Aaron, the Wiradyjuri man who had assisted Lawson, the Coxes, Blackman and others] described 'the tracks of the four Natives known by the names of Jackey, Taylor, Charley and Congo-gal’. ",-33.32565164,149.69764709,1823-08-29,1823-08-29,"‘Re murder of the hut keeper by natives, 2 September 1823’, SRNSW, NRS 938, 6017, 4/5783, pp. 419–27. ","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Clear Creek",
te018d,2008,"Raids on Government herds",Event,"Hawkins wrote to Colonial Secretary Goulburn in early September that he was confident the killing of Peter Bray was ‘committed by four native Blacks well known at Bathurst, one of them belonging to the Tabalbucco Black Tribe who have lately done much mischief among the Government Herds at that place’. ",-32.88564183,149.80648041,1823-08-01,1823-08-31,"‘Re murder of the hut keeper by natives, 2 September 1823’, SRNSW, NRS 938, 6017, 4/5783, pp. 419–27. ","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02",Tabrabucca,
te018e,2008,"Raids on Wylde's station",Event,"Judge Advocate Wylde’s ‘first station’ on Kings Plains, called ‘Djyawong’, was raided three times in September and October",-33.49931965,149.30419922,1823-09-01,1823-10-31,"‘Re cattle killed by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, 6065, pp. 340–42","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Kings Plains",
te018f,2008,"Raids on Palmer and Wylde's stations, Kings Plains",Event,"On 20 September, Charles Booth, a convict stockworker for George Palmer (although ‘under the direction’ of John Wylde’s overseer, Andrew Dunn), was ‘out with his cattle’ on Kings Plains, accompanied by ‘a black Native’ called ‘Scrammy’, when ‘a number of other natives took and drove his Cattle away from him’. According to Booth, ‘early the next Morning they killed a fat Cow out of the same Herd which they had driven away’. Then, ‘about 2 miles from the place where they had taken the cattle from him’, Booth and Scrammy ‘found the skin and head only left, the whole of the meat being carried away. On examining the hide there appeared a great number of Spear Holes, with pieces of Broken spears laying about’, as well as ‘another Cow killed belonging to the same Herd’. Soon after, another of Palmer’s stockworkers, Henry Alsop (also Fasbrook), reported to Dunn that ‘he was out looking after his Cattle … and saw Natives, and one of them came to him and said his name was “Jacky”’ and he ‘had a spear with him which was bloody at the end and splintered’. Alsop then went ‘a short distance’ and ‘found a young Steer belonging to the Judge Advocate killed, speared, with one shoulder taken off’. Alsop, in charge of Palmer’s ‘two Hundred and thirty Head of Cattle’, soon found the stock under his charge had also been scattered, spooked and speared. He could only muster one hundred, which ‘appeared to be very wild and run away from him’, and he spent several days tracking them. When he finally drove what cattle he could find home, he found ‘one Cow speared in the udder since which time, they have been obliged to take a dead Calf from her’. Another cow was missing, which he had ‘every reason to believe the natives have killed’.",-33.49931965,149.30797577,1823-09-20,1823-09-20,"‘Re cattle killed by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, 6065, pp. 340–42","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Kings Plains",
te0190,2008,"Attack on Wiradyuri men",Event,"‘A few days after this’, [20th September] the two stockmen went out again and came upon ‘a Black native Camp where there was a fire’, and although they ‘saw no natives’ they found ‘a quantity of Beef roasting’. Booth, Alsop and Scrammy then ‘came upon the natives, finding in their possession a quantity of beef’. As Booth was ‘armed with a Musket, the natives ran away’. Alsop said that ‘they saw a number of natives a little distance off’ who ran off and ‘shouted out “murra gerund white fellows”’. Booth set out again to search for the cattle. When he came upon ‘5 Natives’, one of them ‘in the act of skinning a Steer the property of the Judge Advocate’, Booth had no hesitation in believing it was his role to sneak up and shoot the men. He ‘approached very near to them unperceived, and fired at them, and wounded one that was in the act of chopping open the hinder quarters’. Booth then saw ‘two of the natives leading him off’. It is not clear whether Scrammy was with him, but by this time Booth may well have understood what the Wiradyjuri shouted as they left with the wounded man. As Booth later reported it, they once more said, ‘they wanted [to] tumble white man down’. Booth said he did not recognise ‘any of the natives’ but had ‘every reason to believe ‘Gingler [Jingler]’ was ‘one of them’. Booth also later reported that ‘the Cattle being so driven by the natives, that the cows have slipt and lost ten Calves’. ",-33.49731557,149.32514191,1823-09-20,1823-09-30,"‘Re cattle killed by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, 6065, pp. 340–42","2025-05-29 12:16:02","2025-05-29 12:16:02","Kings Plains",
te0191,2008,"Spearing of stock",Event,"On 8 October, the increasingly bold attitude of Wiradyjuri warriors spurred overseer Andrew Dunn to send Alsop and Booth into Bathurst township to report the September  incidents to Commandant Lawson. Dunn sent a warning to Lawson that ‘the Judge Advocate and Mr George Palmer will suffer materially by the natives driving the Cattle about so much from a great loss of Calves and most serious injury done on the stock’. He also reported he had found several sets of bones ‘in travelling several Miles round in the Bush’ that he considered were from ‘Cattle killed at some former period’. ",-33.4960272,149.31655884,1823-06-01,1823-07-31,"‘Re cattle killed by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, 6065, pp. 343–44","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Kings Plains surrounds",
te0192,2008,"Attack on Marsden's station",Event,"The attack on Samuel Marsden’s station on 19 November was deadly and vicious. Oversser Andrew Dunn gave ‘an alarmed account’ of events. He said ‘they came to Mr. Marsden’s Station and committed the most inhuman Murders of the Bodies of two men, that I ever saw in my life – the sight I saw I will never forget’. It seems the two dead men, convict workers William White and Peter Grenman, were mutilated as a gruesome message to those who would find the bodies.",-33.50032167,149.3167305,1823-11-19,1823-11-19,"Dunne to Palmer, 22 November 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, 6065, p. 329. Locla historian Gwenda Stanbridge notes that Grennan was assigned to Marsden and that the killings were on 22 and 24 October ‘at the King’s Plains Government Station’. Gwenda Stanbridge, ‘“People of the Three Rivers”’, in Blayney Diggings, p. 17","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Marsden's station at Kings Plains",
te0193,2008,"Shooting a Wiradyuri man",Event,"On 22 December 1823, William Lawson reported to Colonial Secretary Frederick Goulburn that 'A man by the name of Miller in fetters, formerly overseer at Longbottom, shot a native and it appears without any cause or provocation, they came immediately to me at Campbell River for protection and demanded justice saying if they did not get satisfaction, they would kill Tom Miller or some of his children. I have told them some days previous if the white man ill-treated them they were to go and complain to Major Morisset who would punish the white man, which they perfectly understood, and they promised at the same time not to kill the white men or the Stock. Miller is committed to take his trial'. ",-33.48185394,149.6162796,1823-12-20,1823-12-31,"Lawson to Goulburn, 22 December 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/1798, pp. 365–68; ‘Thomas Miller’, BDHSMA, F10","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","White Rock?",
te0194,2008,"Raids on stock",Event,"Judge Advocate Wylde requested a reward for the capture of ‘Saturday’ on 1 December, which indicates Windradyne had been involved in spearing cattle at least from November. It seems he was operating to the east of Bathurst and not at Kings Plains, where Jingler was the leader wanted for the ‘offences’ committed. On 12 December, Goulburn replied to Wylde’s letter to inform him that his ‘recommendation of a reward being offered for the apprehension of the native named Saturday’ would be enforced. It seems word was sent to Commandant Morisset, and he promptly sent out a party – probably of soldiers, constables and armed convicts – in search of ‘Saturday’. THe Gazette reported in early January that ‘numbers of the cattle have been killed’ at Bathurst. ",-33.41926344,149.57954407,1823-11-01,1823-11-30,"Wylde to Goulburn, 1 December 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 598, p. 335. Goulburn to Wylde, 12 December 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 4/3509, 6011, p. 686; Gazette, 8 January 1824, p. 2","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Bathurst region",
te0195,2008,"Capture of Windradyne",Event,"Perhaps Morisset called on the assistance of Aaron again, but whatever the case he sent a detachment of at least six men to the right place, somewhere to the east of Bathurst and the Bila Wambuul. The detachment was able to approach Windradyne and whoever was with him with some confidence. But when he was told they were being taken prisoner for killing cattle, Windradyne fiercely resisted being restrained. His struggle undoubtedly stunned his captors. According to the Gazette, ‘the strength of those men is amazing’ and it ‘took six men to secure him, and they had actually to break a musket over his body before he yielded, which he did at length with broken ribs’. Windradyne was beaten into submission and ‘for his exploits, was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment in irons’. ",-33.41066626,149.58503723,1823-12-01,1823-12-31,"It appears Chief Constable James Blackman may have led the detachment, although, recalling events in 1830, William Lawson was not certain Blackman was ‘the person who apprehended the Native black “Saturday”’. Lawson, 14 January 1830, in Selkirk, ‘The discovery of Mudgee’, p. 25; Rene Lesson, ‘Journey across the Blue Mountains, 1824’, in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, p. 162; Morisset, 26 December 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 598, pp. 373–74.","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Bathurst region",
te0196,2008,"Cattle speared",Event,"In January and February, Judge Advocate Wylde’s cattle were again attacked and speared, and once more he wrote to the authorities with urgency, calling for decisive military action. ",-33.49760187,149.32857513,1824-01-01,1824-01-31,"Wylde to Goulburn, ‘Re attack by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065; 4/1798, pp. 312–14.","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Wylde's stations at Kings Plains",
te0197,2008,"Cattle speared",Event,"In January and February, Judge Advocate Wylde’s cattle were again attacked and speared, and once more he wrote to the authorities with urgency, calling for decisive military action. ",-33.49760187,149.32857513,1824-02-01,1824-02-28,"Wylde to Goulburn, ‘Re attack by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065; 4/1798, pp. 312–14.","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Wylde's stations at Kings Plains",
te0198,2008,"Station plundered",Event,"On the afternoon of Friday 19 March, Patrick Ryan, ‘Crown Prisoner and Government Stockman stationed at the Swallow Creek’, was out grazing ‘the Government Cattle in his Charge’ when ‘a large Body of Blacks to the Best of his Beliefs about one hundred and Fifty in number came and herded his cattle in various directions’. Alone and unarmed, Ryan ran and was ‘pursued by about Twenty of the mob who came up with him, one of which knocked him down’. He was then held down and stripped of his clothes and released. He took off once again, making for a hut ‘about a Mile and a Half distant’ up the Swallow Creek valley, where he ‘gave the alarm to the other two Stockmen’ who were there, Michael McKeyley and John Anderson. McKeyley then ‘went up to the Judge Advocate’s Station’ at Kings Plains and ‘immediately gave the alarm to the Military’ stationed there. Anderson remained at the hut, and according to Ryan’s later statement to Magistrate Lawson and Commandant Morisset, ‘the Blacks came shortly after about Sixty in number, came to the Hut took possession of the Provisions and eat what they required’. Then in what can only have been preparation to carry off supplies, the Wiradyjuri ‘tied up the Blankets Bedding and every thing the Hut contained’. ",-33.41997984,149.37286377,1824-03-19,1824-03-19,"Wylde to Goulburn, ‘Re attack by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065; 4/1798, pp. 312–14. ","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Swallow Creek Govt Station",
te0199,2008,"Night assault on hut",Event,"The military stationed at Wylde’s ‘Diyawong’ station were two soldiers, privates John Softly and John ‘Epslem’ (or Absalom) from the ‘3rd regiment Buffs’. It took McKeyley several hours to travel up the Swallow Creek valley to Kings Plains, and he arrived at the station around eight or nine o’clock that night. The soldiers were told by McKeyley that ‘the black natives were in and about their Hut’. ‘Agreeable to [standing] orders’, the two privates immediately mustered the now seasoned quasi-official commander, overseer Dunn, and two of his men, and marched down to Swallow Creek. A paltry detachment of just two soldiers was stiffened by armed convicts and an overseer. They arrived at Swallow Creek on Saturday morning around 2 am, to find ‘the Blacks were in possession of the hut’ and the stockmen unharmed, though humiliated – ‘stripped, and their clothes, Blankets &c. tied up and in possession of the Blacks’. It seems that by this time many of the sixty warriors had dispersed. In the dead of night, banking on the element of surprise as well as their muskets, the soldiers ‘then attacked’. John Softly entered the hut first. According to Softly and Epslem, ‘some of them attempted to escape through the chimney and through the sides of the Hut by pulling away the Bark’. Other Wiradyjuri men ‘made resistance’, and one man then ‘catched hold of his Musket while Private John Ebslem was entering’. Another man ‘had a spade in his hand, and made a Blow at him with it which was sloped off [parried] by his Musket, otherwise it would have killed him and the second blow which was sloped off in like manner and broke his Musket in two parts’. As close-quarters combat broke out in the hut, both soldiers were, as they reported events, ‘then obliged to act in our defence as well as we could to secure those most active’. There is little further detailed information on their attack, merely that they managed to take three prisoners, and two other Wiradyjuri men ‘were killed and the remainder dispersed’, suggesting they may have fired at those who were fleeing the scene, or that Dunn and the convicts had remained outside and shot at them.",-33.42714345,149.37114716,1824-03-20,1824-03-20,"Wylde to Goulburn, ‘Re attack by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, pp. 312–14; Morisset, Ryan, Softly and Absalom, ‘Re robbery at Swallow Creek Hut’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1800, pp. 28–32.","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Swallow Creek Affray",
te019a,2008,Poisoning,Event,"In 1887 William Henry Suttor Junior noted that ‘very frequently’ the cause of Wiradyjuri attacks was ‘their ill-treatment by the whites’. As Suttor recalled from stories told by his family: ‘Poisoned dampers had been left purposely exposed in shepherds’ huts in order to tempt the blacks to steal and eat. They did eat, and died in horrible agony. No wonder reprisals took place’. Suttor was clear that the poisoning of people at a place called the ‘Murdering Hut’ occurred before a series of raids in late May 1824, and that one of these raids was at the ‘very place where it was rumored, the poisoned bread had been laid for them’.",-33.18188454,149.63619232,1824-05-01,1824-05-31,"Suttor, Australian Stories Retold, p. 65; Salisbury and Gresser, Windradyne of the Wiradjuri, pp. 22-3. Salisbury and Gresser noted that ‘Millah-Murrah’ was nearby ‘Tanawarra’, a ‘native cemetery’, and that it was also ‘the location of the “Murdering Hut”’, where it seems poison had been laid out for unsuspecting Wiradyjuri. According to Gresser, it was ‘nearby’ (not on) ‘Tanawarra’, the ‘native cemetery’. Gresser notes that ‘Mullah-murrah’ meant ‘many eyes’. Gresser Papers, BDHSMA, pp. 24–53","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Murdering hut' ('Milla- Murrah'?)",
te019b,2008,"Bathurst Massacre or ‘Potato field incident’",Event,"Suttor wrote that: a foreigner named Antonio had cultivated a patch of land on the Macquarie River, opposite the town of Bathurst. Among other things he grew some potatoes. One day, as a large number of the black tribe of the place came by, Antonio, moved by the spirit of good nature, gave some of his tubers to these people. Next day, they having appreciated the gift, appeared at the potato patch and commenced to help themselves. This was not to Antonio’s liking, who roused the people of the settlement on his behalf. They rushed down and attacked the blacks, some of whom were killed and others maimed.' One of Windradyne’s descendants, Uncle Bill Allen Junior, relates today that this was Windradyne’s family, ‘shot down in front of him’. ",-33.41872615,149.60550785,1824-05-01,1824-05-31,"Suttor, Australian Stories Retold, pp. 44–5; Uncle Bill Allen Junior, interview with Stephen Gapps, 15 September 2020","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03",Kelso,
te019c,2008,"Raid and attack on the 'Mill post'",Event,"As William Henry Suttor Junior described it, ‘after this [the Bathurst Massacre], the blacks commenced general depredations’. James Lowe was a ‘shepherd in the employ of a settler up the country’ (Richard Lewis). On Tuesday 25 May (Lowe later wrote), he was ‘very much surprised’ on his ‘return home at sunset’ when he ‘found the hut stripped of everything but a hammock and the hut-keeper killed at the mill’. According to Richard Lewis, the owner of the ‘Mill Post’, Lowe and another convict stockworker raced to inform him that they had made the gruesome discovery of ‘a man lying dead close by the Mills’. Tuesday 25 May 1824 was a dark night, with a waning crescent moon. Undoubtedly hastily gathering lanterns, arms and convicts – as well as his neighbour, John Tindale (variously Tindall, Tyndall, Tindle) – Lewis rushed out to the hut ‘close by the Mills’. He found the dead man as Lowe had reported, as well as ‘the Hut Robbed of all its contents’. On ‘looking around’ he also saw ‘the footsteps of a great number of Blacks’. ",-33.184,149.623,1824-05-25,1824-05-25,"Reverend William Horton, Wesleyan Missionary Papers, 3 June 1823, ML BT 52, V4, p. 1268; Deposition re death of James Buckley, suspected murdered by Aborigines, 29 May 1824, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1799, pp. 47–50. ","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Mill Post",
te019d,2008,"Raid and attack on 'Warren Gunyah'",Event,"The next morning (26th), Lewis ‘proceeded with Tindale to his station, distant about Four Miles’. At Tindale’s ‘Warren-Gunyah’ they came across an even more gruesome find. There they ‘saw the Hut with a quantity of Brush drew around it, and the Hut burnt down’. When they looked inside the remains of the hut, they ‘saw the bodies of two men parts of which had been Burnt away’. A more detailed investigation of Tindale’s property led to the discovery of another dead man. In the daylight, as Lewis later told Commandant Morisset, ‘on looking around … we found the body of James Buckley one of Mr Tindall’s Servants as Corpse about Fifty yards from the Hut’.",-33.13539503,149.68082428,1824-05-25,1824-05-25,"Deposition re death of James Buckley, suspected murdered by Aborigines, 29 May 1824, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1799, pp. 47–50; Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 2.","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Warren Gunyah",
te019e,2008,"Raid and attack on 'Milla-Murrah'",Event,"At absentee landlord Samuel Terry's station ‘Milla-Murrah’, George Cheshire and William Lee found ‘two shepherds and one hut-keeper killed by the natives'. The Wiradyjuri warriors had ‘proceeded to break up and destroy every article of convenience about the place; 12 sheep were killed and eaten at their camp … [and] Several other sheep were also killed, and many wounded’. The Gazette newspaper later reported ‘that the natives have in their possession 7 stands of arms, with plenty of ammunition’. If 'Milla-Murrah' was the 'Murdering Hut' it may well have been targetted. Salisbury and Gresser, Windradyne of the Wiradjuri, pp. 22-3. Salisbury and Gresser noted that ‘Millah-Murrah’ was nearby ‘Tanawarra’, a ‘native cemetery’, and that it was also ‘the location of the “Murdering Hut”’, where it seems poison had been laid out for unsuspecting Wiradyjuri. According to Gresser, it was ‘nearby’ (not on) ‘Tanawarra’, the ‘native cemetery’. Gresser notes that ‘Mullah-murrah’ meant ‘many eyes’. ",-33.41894107,149.60542202,1824-05-25,1824-05-25,"Reverend William Horton, Wesleyan Missionary Papers, 3 June 1823, ML BT 52, V4, p. 1268; Gazette, 10 June 1824, p. 2; Depositions re bodies of men killed by Aborigines, 29 May 1824, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1799, pp. 55–58; Gresser Papers, BDHSMA, pp. 24–53; Salisbury and Gresser, Windradyne of the Wiradjuri, pp. 22-3","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03",Milla-Murrah,
te019f,2008,"Station raided",Event,"In the ‘latter part of May’, shepherd James Carter at Arkell’s station (‘about 28 miles from Bathurst, and 14 from O’Connell Plains’) reported that ‘the natives took from him 490 sheep’. It seems they took some and then drove them off and scattered them, as he reported later that ‘the greater part had been retrieved’.",-33.67596137,149.62260962,1824-05-20,1824-05-31,"‘Supreme Court’, Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 2","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Arkell's station ",
te01a0,2008,"Station raided",Event,"According to William Lane, ‘a tribe’ (it is unclear if he meant the same group as he had met earlier who he thought had 'hostile intentions') ‘also visited James Hassall’s station at the Brisbane Valley, some 15 miles from O’Connell Plains’, where ‘they plundered the stockmen of all their comforts and provisions’. ",-33.73447601,149.73734379,1824-05-20,1824-05-20,"‘Supreme Court’, Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 2","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Hassall's station",
te01a1,2008,"Attack on stockworker ",Event,"Convict stockworker John Hollingshead was ‘in the employ of Mrs Hassall, under the superintendence of Mr [William] Lane’. On 31 May he was ‘searching for horses’ when ‘he fell in with a tribe of black natives, about 30 in number, upon the summit of a hill’. According to Hollingshead, ‘they were in ambush’ and that as he was ‘aware of disturbances that had only recently occurred, he took to flight’. Obviously, word of the attacks to the north on 25 May had travelled to the south of Bathurst within six days. Then, Hollingshead recounted, the ‘spears came flying after him in showers’. He was ‘twice wounded … but kept running, as the natives were in close pursuit with the tomahawk’. Hollingshead ran for his life and ‘came home wounded in two places; one spear having passed through the left arm, just below the elbow, and another fractured the thumb bone’. He made it to ‘within one mile of the farm’, where he stumbled upon his fellow worker Alexander Grant, who had been out that morning looking for cattle. Grant said he found Hollingshead ‘in a bleeding state, from the effect of the wounds caused by the spears’. Unlike Hollingshead, Grant ‘was riding, and attended by several dogs’, which he believed meant that earlier that day he was ‘passed unmolested’ by a group of Wiradyjuri. Grant had suspected something was amiss, as that morning he had seen a group of Wiradyjuri who ignored him when he called out to them. He even recognised and ‘named one of them’, but still no word came back from the group and they passed silently by. 
The warriors left off their pursuit of Grant and Hollingshead, and the two men managed to return to their hut. ",-33.73447601,149.7373867,1824-05-31,1824-05-31,"Gazette, 10 June 1824, p. 2; ‘Supreme Court’, Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 2","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Hassall's station",
te01a2,2008,"Three women killed",Event,"After the attack on Hollingshead on 31 May, according to Grant, ‘consternation among the men on the estate increased’, and the Hassall's overseer William Lane and some men arrived ‘equipped for an expedition after the natives’. Lane ordered Grant to accompany them ‘as he had so lately seen a party’. Some of the other convict stockworkers apparently begged ‘to be allowed arms, that they might go in pursuit of the natives, else they would all be murdered’. Of Lane’s scratch force, only four of the party had muskets, and the fifth (Henry Castles) ‘could only obtain a sword’. They went out to where Hollingshead had been pursued (the southeast direction, ‘close to the main road leading from O’Connel-plains’) and apparently returned that night after a ‘fruitless … expedition’,  failing to fall in ‘with any of the natives’. Grant said that when they were ‘scouring the woods’ he became separated from the others, so he went to ‘ascertain the safety of the flocks, and the stock-keepers’. Then ‘at a place called the 8-mile swamp, 7 miles from the main road, he espied the same tribe he had seen in the morning’. Grant called out to ‘Joe, one of the chiefs’, who replied ‘in an abusive and insolent way’. He called to another man he obviously recognised, ‘Simon’, and in reply was ‘answered with a shower of spears’. The three women’s bodies were later found by Henry Trickey, a ‘crown servant’ in the employ of merchant and whaling entrepreneur Captain Thomas Raine. Trickey said he lived ‘on his master’s estate at the two-mile creek, distant five miles from O’Connel-plains, and eighteen from Bathurst’, called ‘Rainville’. While he was travelling ‘between Sidmouth Valley and the two-mile creek, a trifling distance from the main road to Bathurst’, Trickey’s ‘attention was arrested by a large quantity of crows, eaglehawks, and other birds of prey’. He was then ‘surprised to find the bodies of three black women’, on ground ‘called the Government reserve’. William Lawson Junior was to write two weeks after the event that the women were killed in sheer frustration at not finding any warriors. He believed Lane’s party ‘fell in with a horde of their women and despatched them in return for the men’.",-33.57300901,149.75077629,1824-06-01,1824-06-01,"Gazette, 10 June 1824, p. 2, Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 2; Salisbury and Gresser, Windradyne of the Wiradjuri, pp. 25, 48. William Lawson Junior to Nelson Lawson, 14 June 1824, in Beard (ed.), Old Ironbark, p. 37. ","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","8-mile Swamp. ",
te01a3,2008,"Attack on stockworker",Event,"Then ‘at a place called the 8-mile swamp, 7 miles from the main road, Grant saw the same tribe he had seen in the morning’. Grant called out to ‘Joe, one of the chiefs’, who replied ‘in an abusive and insolent way’. He called to another man he obviously recognised, ‘Simon’, and in reply was ‘answered with a shower of spears’. Grant then was ‘compelled to retreat in quest of his companions … who were 3 miles away’. ",-33.57637004,149.75481033,1824-06-01,1824-06-01,"Gazette, 10 June 1824, p. 2, Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 2; Salisbury and Gresser, Windradyne of the Wiradjuri, pp. 25, 48. William Lawson Junior to Nelson Lawson, 14 June 1824, in Beard (ed.), Old Ironbark, p. 37.","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Near 8-mile swamp",
te01a4,2008,"An ‘affair'",Event,"According to shepherd James Lowe, in early June ‘a number of people and a party of soldiers’ were already ‘in pursuit of the natives’. The Gazette also reported that ‘a party went out in quest of the natives’, although it was concerned they went ‘for the purpose of spreading destruction amongst their ranks’. The result may well have been what ‘Candid’ was to note in the Gazette in August – that ‘in an affair which took place at or near Mudjee five blacks were killed’, but this remains unclear which event Candid is refering to and whether it was a combat or a massacre. ‘Candid’, writing from Parramatta on 29 July, asked whether ‘parties of the blacks were found and fired upon?’ and suggested that reports of ‘only five natives’ being killed must be incorrect. Gazette, 12 August, 1824, p. 2",-32.61682177,149.57456589,1824-06-01,1824-07-31,"‘Candid’, Gazette, 12 August, 1824, p. 2","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Near Mudgee",
te01a5,2008,Dispersion,Event,"‘Fidelis’ (probably William Cox) complained in the Gazette that it was unfortunate that ‘after the dispersion of those attacked by the mounted settlers from Bathurst, their summary measures were not followed up by the detachment of the military’. This force may not have been sanctioned by Commandant Morisset at Bathurst and may well have been ex-sergeant Tom Miller and his twenty armed men who went out 'and shot any they came across' (though Miller says he was directed to do so). ",-33.41725751,149.58486557,1824-06-01,1824-06-01,"‘Fidelis’, Gazette, 5 August 1824, p. 4","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Bathurst region",
te01a6,2008,"Attack on overseer",Event,"Commandant Morisset sent ‘Lieutenant Lowe with a detachment of 12 men’ out with an ‘Overseer and a Constable this morning (25th June) for Mudgee’. The overseer of ‘Mr Cox’s … station at Mudgee’, Theophilus Chamberlain, had informed Morisset that there was ‘a Tribe of Natives’ near the Cox’s run who ‘last Monday overtook him on his road home and would have murdered him had he not fortunately been mounted which enabled him to escape from them’. He also saw they had ‘destroy’d Two Cows’. As with Baker’s earlier march into the Wiagdon Ranges and back, Lieutenant Lowe’s detachment failed to find any Wiradyjuri near Mudgee. ",-32.59397374,149.59928513,1824-06-21,1824-06-21,"Morisset to Goulburn, 25 June 1824, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1800, pp. 77–80","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Near Mudgee",
te01a7,2008,"Attack on stockworkers",Event,"As the Gazette put it: while holding the Commandancy of the Settlement of Bathurst [Lawson], behaved in the most kind and conciliatory way regarding the mountain tribes, and was supposed, in return, to enjoy their good will, and be without the reach of their ingratitude and treachery; but recent lamentable instances demonstrate the contrary. At Lawson’s ‘upper station’ on ‘Campbell’s River’, ‘Mr. Lawson … lost four men, who were cut off by the savages; and, very lately, three others have also fallen victims to aboriginal barbarity’. Some of Lawson’s men had been killed and their bodies mutilated in a particularly gruesome manner. It may have been that the killing of three women by William Lane’s men had been avenged, perhaps by the ‘chiefs’ Joe and Simon and their warriors. The Hassalls’ overseer, Thomas Fisher, wrote that unarmed stockworkers took refuge together in their huts and some shepherds had been ‘drove quite away’.
",-33.72562462,149.57473755,1824-07-10,1824-07-20,"Gazette, 5 August 1824, p. 2; Australasian Pocket Almanack … 1822–1826, p. 134; Fisher to Hassall, 20 July 1824, ML, Hassall Correspondence, vol. 3, pp. 1563–64; William John Dumaresq, ‘A ride to Bathurst, 1827’, in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, p. 192","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Lawson's 'upper station' on Campbell's River",
te01a8,2008,"Attack on stockworkers",Event,"The Gazette noted seven deaths, but Fisher and a later report 5 dead. At Lawson’s ‘upper station’ on ‘Campbell’s River’, ‘Mr. Lawson … lost four men, who were cut off by the savages; and, very lately, three others have also fallen victims to aboriginal barbarity’. Fisher wrote to his employer on 20 July that he had ‘just returned from the [Bathurst] Plains’ and was sorry to say that while he was there ‘Mr Lawson’s overseer and young Mr Lawson came to inform the Commandant that another of their men are found killed by the natives at their Upper Station by Campbell’s River’. He also noted that Lawson and his overseer could not say what ‘further mischief’ had been done ‘as none of their Men or Cattle and flocks were to be found’. The Gazette noted the ‘Gentleman who had been proverbially kind to them [Lawson]’ had ‘two hundred and fifty fine sheep’ killed. ",-33.72334024,149.57611084,1824-07-10,1824-07-20,"Gazette, 5 August 1824, p. 2; Australasian Pocket Almanack … 1822–1826, p. 134; Fisher to Hassall, 20 July 1824, ML, Hassall Correspondence, vol. 3, pp. 1563–64; William John Dumaresq, ‘A ride to Bathurst, 1827’, in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, p. 192","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Unclear, possible Lawson's station",
te01a9,2008,"Encounter at 'Guntawang'",Event,"In late July, ‘Candid’ wrote to the Gazette, concerned to know the true extent of Wiradyjuri people who had been killed over the last two months. In one ‘instance’, Candid asked, ‘was not the resistance of the blacks so obstinate that, notwithstanding the fire of the English, the blacks were the masters of the field?’ There are no other details of the engagement that ‘Candid’ mentions. It seems in July there was a battle or skirmish ending in a Wiradyjuri victory that those involved – or the Bathurst authorities – were reluctant to mention. This may well have been what William Cox’s son, George, was later to describe as an ‘encounter’ at ‘Guntawang’, where he said ‘no less than seven whites were killed, while the number of blacks slaughtered was never ascertained’. ",-32.3730026,149.45835114,1824-07-01,1824-07-31,"‘Candid, July 29’, Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 2; Cox, ‘History of Mudgee’, p. 44; ‘The Bathurst Blacks’, ‘Honestus’, Gazette, 9 August 1824, p. 2, Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 4; ‘Subscriber’, Gazette, 5 August 1824, p. 4","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Guntawang' near Mudgee",
te01aa,2008,"Raids on stock",Event,"In early August the Gazette noted further stock losses 'Further intelligence from the Bathurst country furnishes a most distressing aspect from the continued atrocities of the black natives … Owing to those recent atrocities, the immense stock upon the other side of the mountains, is becoming scattered over the whole country: the shepherds and stock-keepers have necessarily abandoned their charge to the rapacity of the natives'. ",-33.41174095,149.58555222,1824-07-01,1824-07-31,"Gazette, 5 August 1824, p. 2","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Bathurst region",
te01ab,2008,Massacre,Event,"George Henry Cox described how there were ‘very many sad scenes’ when ‘a war nearly of extermination was declared’. He recalled that ‘an immense number of the natives, men, women and children, were slaughtered at Mudgee and amongst them poor old Aaron our guide. He was shot in the long reach of water at Dabee’. At the time, in mid-August, just before martial law was declared, questions were asked about ‘more particulars … as to the death of Ering [Aaron] and others’. ‘Candid’ asked the Gazette to confirm if ‘sixty or seventy’ people, rather than the five reported, had died ‘in an affair which took place at or near Mudjee’ and whether ‘old Erin [Aaron]’ was ‘dead or alive’ and ‘if dead, in what way did he die?’ There were no replies to those questions in the Gazette. As we have seen, according to George Henry Cox, Aaron was shot in a massacre on the upper Cudgegong River, suggesting that 60-70 people were indeed killed in this massacre. ",-32.87165783,150.0318718,1824-07-01,1824-07-31,"Cox, ‘History of Mudgee’, pp. 44, 46. Henry Cox quoted in George Cox, ‘Mudgee in the early days’, p. 5. Peter Swain thinks the ‘long reach of water at Dabee’ would be between the current ‘Dabee’ property and where the river begins to wind as the valley narrows. Peter Swain, interview and sites tour, 28 January 2021. Gazette, 12 August 1824, p. 4, Gazette, 19 August 1824, p. 4.","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Cudgegong River at Dabee",
te01ac,2008,"Attack on Chamberlain",Event,"In September 1824, a man known to the colonists around Bathurst as ‘Blucher’ was leading a large group of Wiradyjuri people away from the cattle and sheep stations that had been established on the Cudgegong River valley near present-day Mudgee. Blucher had around a hundred people in his warband, including women and children and a strong force of over forty warriors. They were herding about forty head of cattle, travelling around a hundred kilometres north-northwest of the Cudgegong River (possibly near today’s Avisford Nature Reserve), in rugged terrain well away from the open terrain of the river flats. Blucher’s people were soon being tracked by reportedly one of the most ruthless characters in the district – Theophilus Chamberlain, overseer for George and Henry Cox’s cattle and sheep runs in the Mudgee area. On or around 10 September, on the Cudgegong River, about 130 kilometres north of Bathurst, Chamberlain was with two stockmen, somewhere between the Coxes’ ‘Dabee Farm’ (later ‘Rawdon’, near current-day Rylstone) and the Mudgee area, when they ‘fell in with a tract [tracks] of cattle’ heading away from the main river. 
The ‘well armed and mounted’ trio decided to investigate, following the cattle tracks. After travelling around ‘60 miles to the N. N. W. [north-northwest]’, the stockmen ‘saw a very large number of natives’ who were driving ‘about 40 head’ of ‘horned cattle before them’. Blucher attacked at once. He led thirty warriors straight at the men, who turned their horses and fled. To Chamberlain’s surprise, Blucher’s men were so intent on killing them that they kept pace with the three horsemen. As they ran, the warriors were skilfully peppering the three stockmen with a hail of spears and boomerangs. Blucher led his men from the front in the all-out attack against Chamberlain. Chamberlain’s horse was then struck by a boomerang, which ‘cut a piece out on the ribs’. At this point, the overseer decided that a counterattack was the best method of survival for himself and his stockmen. Bringing their muskets to bear – rather than fleeing on horseback, unable to shoot and reload – was a smart tactic. Despite being outnumbered ten to one, Chamberlain ‘turned the horse round’, took aim at the boomerang thrower and ‘shot the man dead’. 
As it was later reported in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (Gazette) newspaper, Chamberlain ‘again retreated, loaded, and turned the second time, and shot the headmost native dead. He then retrograded again, loaded, turned, and shot a third man dead, whereupon the natives stopped’. Their leader, Blucher, was dead. The rest of the warriors broke off the attack. 
The overseer ‘with his two men rode on till after dark’, at which point they rested and ‘remained all night without any fire, fearful of being discovered’. 
",-32.66828079,149.57302094,1824-09-10,1824-09-10,"Gazette, 16 September 1824, p. 2 and 30 September 1824, p. 2","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","NNW of Cudgegong River",
te01ad,2008,"Counterattack by Chamberlain",Event,"After escaping the attack by Blucher's warriors Chamberlain and his men were returning to Mudgee when they came across an unexpected sight. They found a place ‘where there were a number of natives’ fires, and an immense quantity of arms laying round them, consisting of spears, boo-merrings, &c’. Strangely, there was ‘not a living person to be seen’. They had stumbled across the camp of the warband they had fought the day before. The Wiradyjuri had left their weaponry at the camp, as they were conducting the ceremonies or sorry business associated with burying their leader and two other warriors – men who may also have had leadership status in the united warband of several combined family groups. Chamberlain recognised an opportunity. The party ‘immediately dis-mounted, and heaped the whole of the arms on the fires’. The mourners would have seen plumes of smoke rising from their camp. The whole warband, ‘men, women and children’, then raced back in a ‘great fury’; Chamberlain and his companions ‘immediately mounted their horses and retreated’. Again, around forty warriors pursued them, once more keeping pace with their horses. But ‘they had few arms with them’, and when Chamberlain saw ‘they had nearly expended’ their spears and boomerangs, he and his men ‘dismounted, tied their horses together, and faced about, commencing a fire of musquetry on the natives’. According to the Gazette report, they ‘then charged them with the bayonet until they were completely routed and dispersed’. There were ‘sixteen men dead on the field’ at the end of the affray. ",-32.66221132,149.57559586,1824-09-11,1824-09-11,"Gazette, 16 September 1824, p. 2 and 30 September 1824, p. 2","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","NNW of Cudgegong River",
te01ae,2008,"Dangar attacked by 'Bathurst Blacks'",Event,"In October 1824 Assistant Surveyor Henry Dangar set off from the Hunter River on an ‘expedition’ to determine its ‘nature and point of junction’ with the Goulburn River, and to find a good route over the ranges to the Liverpool Plains. On 14 October, Dangar’s party was preparing to cross the Liverpool Range near what Cunningham had earlier called Mount Macarthur, when they were ‘attacked by a large body of natives’. For three hours, a fight ensued between what Dangar described as ‘the Bathurst Blacks’ and his party. Dangar’s men were undoubtedly well-armed and probably took cover while the warriors, wary of musketry from recent experiences, tried to pick them off. They managed to spear one man in the head and ‘killed a horse’ before departing with a packhorse laden with provisions. Dangar later wrote that he and his party ‘were near being cut off and annihilated by the natives’. How Dangar knew that it was ‘the Bathurst Blacks’ they had fought with at ‘Mount Macarthur’, north of Merriwa – well over 200 kilometres from Bathurst – can be attributed to the members of Dangar’s party. Along with another surveyor, John Richards, and ‘two servants Williamson and Allen’, was an unnamed ‘black boy’. The fact the warriors had attacked Dangar’s party without hesitation suggests it may well have been Windradyne’s warband, on the move away from Morisset’s September campaign. One historian suggests there were 'possibly 150' warriors but provides no source for this. ",-31.84956533,150.29434204,1824-10-14,1824-10-14,"Gazette, 4 November 1824, p. 2; Dunn, The Convict Valley, p. 124. According to Wood they were attacked by ‘possibly 150 in number’. Wood, Dawn in the Valley, pp. 43–45; Gray, ‘Dangar, Henry (1796–1861)’, ADB.","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Mt Macarthur, north of Merriwa",
te01af,2008,"Gunshot wounds reported being 'dressed' in Wellington",Event,"In October – basing its report on ‘information’ received from the district – the Gazette suggested that while the ‘exterminating war’ was going on around Bathurst and ‘its surrounding vicinity’, it was a very different story at Wellington. Here, according to the Gazette, ‘peace reigns around the smiling and ever verdant valley’. The Gazette report continued, ‘The information further states that the poor objects [Wiradyjuri] often visit Wellington Valley with gun shot wounds, in order to obtain relief by getting them dressed!’ ",-33.38615961,149.52907562,1824-10-01,1824-10-31,"Gazette, 14 October 1824, p. 2; ‘The Aborigines’, Gazette, 29 September 1825, p. 3. ","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","the surrounding vicinity' of Bathurst",
te01b0,2008,"Abduction and retaliation killings",Event,"The Dabee (and possibly other people, including the Bogee) were together in the Brymair Valley in 1824. One of these ‘men of the Dabees’ was later known as Jimmy Lambert or ‘“King Jimmy” of the Dabee Tribe’. In 1824, Jimmy was a young ‘stripling’, fourteen years old. At some point around this time, Jimmy was ‘camped in the Brima Valley’ with his Dabee people when two white stockmen in a ‘nearby hut’ held a young Dabee woman for three days, until ‘she escaped and got back to her people in a dreadful condition’. The ‘men of the Dabees’ then ‘carried out their tribal law — killed the stock-men, burned down the hut and killed and ate most of the sheep’. ",-32.92455477,150.15151978,1824-09-01,1824-12-31,"‘M. Lambert’ told the story of the massacre to the Tribune newspaper as it had been passed down through her family. Her grandfather was the Dabee man Jimmy Lambert, who had ‘a bullet which he had carried in his leg all his life, a bullet he got when Redcoats fired on the Blacks’. His wife, Peggy, later called ‘Queen Peggy’ by Rylstone locals, was living by the Cudgegong River when she died in 1885. Jimmy lived for a time in a hut on a hillside of the Brymair Valley. As ‘M. Lambert’ wrote: ‘That this is a true version of what happened so long ago, I have no doubt; the story was told to my father by his mother who was a step-daughter of King Jimmy’. ‘POEM RECALLS TROOPS’ CRUEL MASSACRE Contributed by M. Lambert’, Tribune, 26 April 1961, p. 7. Emma Syme’s ‘Great Great Grandmother’s name was Madge Green’; she used the name ‘M. Lambert’ because the Tribune was a socialist newspaper. According to Emma some Bogee people survived by using an ‘escape route’ – a pass out of the Brymair Valley and into the Cudgegong Valley. Emma Syme (North-East Wiradjuri Co), pers. comm., 8 November 2020. ‘Queen Peggy deceased’, Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 26 August 1885, p. 3. Peter Swain and Ray Agnew, interview, 28 January 2021. In an ode to ‘The Dying Chief’, H. H Lublin wrote that ‘he was both esteemed and respected by the settlers in the west’. ‘Original Poetry. “The Dying Chief”’, Leader, 23 February 1895, p. 31. Peter Swain, interview, 7 December 2020. It seems there were three or four massacres in the area: Dabee, ‘Brima’, Bogee and another near Glen Alice. Emma Syme, interview, 28 January 2021; Martin DeLauney, interview, 27 February 2021","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Brymair Valley",
te01b1,2008,"Skirmish and massacre",Event,"After the abduction of the Wiradjuri woman and the retaliatory killing of the two hut keepers, according to Jimmy Lambert’s grand-daughter, ‘a detachment of “Redcoats” were sent to punish the tribe’. The Dabee were taken by surprise. The men ‘hastily instructed the women and children to climb into the trees on the flat, while they themselves ran for cover behind the tree trunks on the opposite mountainside’. The ‘soldiers’ (they were almost certainly not soldiers but an armed party) followed the men and wounded ‘quite a few’, including young Jimmy, as the Dabee warriors skirmished with them from the steep sides of Clandulla. They may have had a prepared position, possibly with a stockpile of weapons, as their attackers found it too difficult to pursue them. The ‘Redcoats’ then went ‘back to the flat and fiendishly shot every woman, girl and piccaninny who had taken shelter in the trees there. Among them was the young lubra who had been the unwilling cause of it all’.
",-32.92455477,150.14877319,1824-09-01,1824-12-31," ‘POEM RECALLS TROOPS’ CRUEL MASSACRE Contributed by M. Lambert’, Tribune, 26 April 1961, p. 7.","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Brymair Valley",
te01b2,2008,Massacre,Event,"Bogee Creek (Bogee-Nile Creek) runs out from the horseshoe-shaped Brymair Valley. It is unclear if this is the same event as the Brymair Valley massacrez, however the swamp would appear a different location to the women and children at Brymair taking shelter in the trees on the flat. ",-32.95012711,150.17314911,1824-09-01,1824-12-31,"According to descendants of survivors of massacres at this time, there was a massacre at Bogee Swamp as well. Peter Swain certainly feels ‘a shiver in [his] bones’ when he drives past the remaining swamps at Bogee today. . Peter Swain, interview, 7 December 2020; Emma Syme, interview, 28 January 2021; Martin DeLauney, interview, 27 February 2021","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Bogee Swamp",
te01b3,2008,Massacre,Event,"in 1854, missionary Lancelot Threlkeld wrote in the Christian Herald newspaper that he had been told about events at Bathurst in the 1820s by an ‘informant’ who was ‘a Magistrate’. This may well have been Lieutenant Percy Simpson, who had been commandant at Wellington during 1824. According to Threlkeld, the magistrate told him that at Bathurst ‘a large number were driven into a swamp, and mounted police rode round and round and shot them off indiscriminately until they were all destroyed!’ Then, ‘when one of the police enquired of the Officer if a return should be made of the killed, wounded there were none, all were destroyed, Men Women and Children! The reply was; - that there was no necessity for a return’. The ‘long reach of water’ on the Cudgegong at Dabee, the Bogee Swamp or the Brymair Valley all fit the description of a ‘swamp’. While the Mounted Police were not formally established until 1825, Threlkeld was relating events from thirty years before. It certainly seems to have been a story from 1824, as the ‘commanding officer’, Threlkeld recalled, left for England ‘shortly after’; Commandant Morisset returned to England in early 1825. (It could not have been his successor, Lieutenant John Fennell, who died in Bathurst in 1826.) It is possible that on his voyage back to England the ‘commanding officer’ at Bathurst had some extra baggage. According to Threlkeld’s informant, ‘forty-five heads were collected and boiled down for the sake of the skulls!’ The magistrate apparently ‘saw the skulls packed for exportation in a case at Bathurst ready for shipment to accompany the commanding Officer on his voyage’. Threlkeld also described how a ‘certain officer’ ‘on his return from one of these cruel exploits, made his boast that it was fine sport, for it was only to draw his pistols from the holster, and he dropped the blacks down like partridges!’ ",-32.75494244,149.78347778,1824-01-01,1824-12-31,"Threlkeld in Gunson (ed.), Australian Reminiscences, pp. 19–25, 49, 74; Christian Herald, 5 August 1854, Christian Herald, 14 October 1854, p. 206","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Unknown (may be already referred to)",
te01b4,2008,Massacre,Event,"In his 1887 Australian Stories Retold W H Suttor recounted a massacre at Billywillinga. Here, around 16 miles to the northwest of Bathurst, according to Suttor ‘a camp of blacks had been established’ near a group of stock station buildings. Suttor describes how ‘a party of soldiers was despatched to deal with those at this camp’. The soldiers began ‘negotiations’, which were ‘apparently friendly, but really treacherous’. As he wrote 'Food was prepared, and was placed on the ground within musket range of the station buildings. The blacks were invited to come in for it. Unsuspectingly they did come, principally women and children. As they gathered up the white men’s presents they were shot down by a brutal volley, without regard to age or sex.' 
Suttor’s is the only known historical account. While questions remain as to whether soldiers were involved (and would indeed use these tactics) – and whether Suttor may have re-versioned or even manufactured a story based on other attacks on Aboriginal people that occurred later, elsewhere on the frontier – his narrative certainly fleshes out some of the many claims of ‘indiscriminate’ killings at this time. ",-33.27428728,149.42985535,1824-01-01,1824-12-31,"W H Suttor, Australian Stories Retold, pp. 45–46","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03",Billywillinga,
te01b5,2008,Massacre,Event,"In the early 1960s, Bathurst historian Percy Gresser noted a massacre – one that none of the Suttors or any other source had described. According to ‘local traditions’, the massacre had occurred at Bells Falls Gorge, near Wattle Flat, north of Bathurst, along the road to Sofala. According to Gresser, ‘an old resident of Wattle Flat whose father had resided in the district before him, told me years ago that “hundreds of blacks” had been rounded up and shot at Bell’s Falls’. Gresser thought it was quite likely that ‘some were shot there, but in the course of time the number would become greatly exaggerated’. ",-33.1226007,149.71155167,1824-01-01,1824-12-31,"Gresser Papers, BDHSMA, pp. 24–53; Bathurst Times, 20 August 1962, p. 3. This brief snippet of information from Percy Gresser was transformed by Grassby and Hill, who wrote that ‘troops drove a party of women and children with a few accompanying warriors into Bell’s Falls Gorge. Trapped, they were systematically shot’. Grassby and Hill, Six Australian Battlefields, p. 160. Mary Coe described it even more dramatically: ‘women with their children jumped into the gorge or were shot and their bodies fell in. The Redcoats stood at the edge of the cliff and shot at the bodies making sure everyone including the children were all dead. The water ran red with blood of the murdered Wiradjuri people’. Coe, Windradyne, p. 58. Sofala locals in the 1990s said to David Roberts that at Bells Falls Gorge there was a ‘huge massacre’ and they [Europeans] ‘rounded all the blackfellas up at the top of the gorge, and shot at them until they jumped off’. They had no idea when, or why, but that it involved the gorge. Roberts, ‘Bells Falls massacre’, p. 615. For an overview of debate over the veracity of the massacre see Neumann, ‘Among historians’, p. 182; Roberts ‘The Bells Falls Massacre and oral tradition’, in Attwood and Foster (eds), Frontier Conflict, pp. 150–57","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Bells Falls Gorge",
te01b6,2008,Massacre,Event,"Percy Gresser believed that an alleged massacre at Clear Creek was yet ‘another tradition with a solid basis of fact, but numbers greatly exaggerated’. He described how a man who owned ‘a considerable area of country towards the head of Clear Creek, under the blue range of hills to be seen to the north-east from Bathurst, pointed out to me a locality on his property where “hundreds of blacks had been shot”’",-33.32378698,149.69713211,1824-01-01,1824-12-31,"It may be the case that the events around the stockman killed at Clear Creek in 1823 became transformed into a massacre. Gresser Papers, BDHSMA, pp. 24–53; Bathurst Times, 20 August 1962, p. 3","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Clear Creek",
te01b7,2008,Massacre,Event,"Descendants of Diana ‘Mudgee’ Collins know that she was recovered as a baby after surviving a massacre near Mount Frome, south of Mudgee. According to Martin deLauney, the Coxes’ overseer Chamberlain instigated the massacre. Chamberlain had been sacked from his employment with the Coxes by 1825 for his ‘vindictiveness throughout these unfortunate massacres’, as George Henry Cox later described it. ",-32.61711095,149.65490341,1824-01-01,1824-12-31,"Martin deLauney believes the massacre occurred at the ‘The Rocky Waterhole’, near Burundulla. Martin DeLauney, interview, 27 February 2021; Cox, ‘History of Mudgee’, pp. 44–46","2025-05-29 12:16:03","2025-05-29 12:16:03","Mount Frome/Burundulla/The Rocky Waterhole",
td3b62,2008,"Sgt Baker detachment",Event,"<p>Morriset sent Sgt Baker to NW to Wiagdon ranges but they could not find any Wiradjuri people.A</p>",-33.189,149.686,1824-06-24,1824-06-24,"<p>Gapps, 2021, Gudyara</p>","2024-09-22 13:53:46","2025-09-05 00:32:58",Wiagdon,0
td3b63,2008,"Lt Lowe detachment",Event,"<p>Morisset st Lt Lowe to Mr Cox's after Chamberlained sighted Wiradjuri people, but they found none.A</p>",-32.615,149.575,1824-06-25,1824-06-25,"<p>Gapps, 2021, Gudyara p 152</p>","2024-09-22 13:56:09","2025-09-05 00:32:58","Cox’s Homestead",1
td3b64,2008,"Detachment to Wellington Valley",Event,"<p>Morisset sends detachment of 4 privates to Wellington Valley.A</p>",-32.555,148.944,1824-09-01,1824-12-31,"<p>Gapps, Gudyarra, p 152</p>","2024-09-22 13:59:33","2025-09-05 00:32:58","Wellington Valley",2
