| Narrative | On 25 May 1824, Richard Lowe, convict shepherd to Richard Lewis was returning to his hut at sunset, when he was surprised to find the body of hut-keeper, Richard Taylor and the hut stripped of everything. Lowe and a convict stock worker ran to Lewis's hut to inform him of the murder and next morning Lewis rode to his neighbour, settler John Tindale at 'Warren Gunyah'. Both men set off for Bathurst to alert the magistrate Major James Morisset. En route they found one of Tindale's huts burnt down and the burnt bodies of his workers, John Dowden and James Florid. Further on, they found the body of another of Tindale's workers, James Buckley. (Gapps, 2021, p.138)
According to historian Stephen Gapps, the location of the attacks, 'is near where the Turondale Road today crosses Millah Murrah Creek between Duramana and Turondale'. (Gapps 2021, p. 139)
When Lewis and Tindale returned to Lewis's station, a detachment of soldiers had arrived with more bad news. At nearby Millah Murrah station, owned by Samuel Terry, the soldiers had 'found the bodies of two convict shepherds', John Donnelly and Joseph Rose and hired servant David Brown. (Gapps 2021, p.140-1).
Over a period of 24 hours, Wiradjuri warriors had killed seven colonial workers on the Bathurst frontier, then the furthest frontier west of Sydney. The killings constituted a massacre. As Gapps points out, 'the sight of a cart with the bodies of seven white men in it trundling through the middle of the Bathurst township sent shock waves through the district and beyond.' (Gapps 2021, p.147) |
