Long Tailor - brief history of key players

Biographical details of key players in this story:

Summer 1867 –Cooma Court at Boloco Station

After a ride up the mountain to a post-mortem in Mowembah the next morning they returned down to lunch at Boloco Station. After the meal, the dining room was cleared and the clerk arranged chairs for the magistrate, the police officer assisting and the witnesses. A number of local farmers had returned to the Station to hear the proceedings, including a young journalist from the Monaro.

Looking down from Mowembah to Boloco

Winter 1901 - Royal Mail Hotel Braidwood

“Down near Dalgety they found a dead tailor.”

The old man cleared his throat loudly, and repeated: "“Down near Dalgety they found a dead tailor.”

Sounds in the pub softened as the regular patrons turned to look at the stranger. The old man coughed as he cut some tobacco to fill his pipe.

“Under the dead man’s saddle they found bags containing silk, thread, scissors, tape measures, thimbles, needles, and a light colored colonial tweed vest, half made. They also found enough coin in his pockets to buy a couple of loaves of bread and some tea. They would have us believe he was a pauper, this bloke. Without so much as a knife to cut his tobacco.”

“They called him the Long Tailor. They suppose he died one warm Thursday afternoon near the Snowy River, on the road to the high country, in the Summer of 1867.”

“They held an inquiry, on a Sunday would you believe. At a sheep station up in the mountains. The police magistrate rode down from Cooma with a doctor. He said the death was accidental.”

“But he knew it was not so. I heard him say as much. Don’t believe everything you hear. The Long Tailor did not die the way they tell. I know what really happened, because I was there.”

“Draw close. Keep my schooner full. And I will tell you what really happened to the Long Tailor and all his gold and his woman. The man who called himself Jemmy, the warrigal”.

(you can keep following this story by clicking the links at the bottom of each of these chapters)

> Summer 1867 – Boundary of Boloco Station and the Snowy Mountains

<Return to the Start of the Story

Peter Quinton

Palerang

December 2014

Summer 1867–Boundary Boloco and Snowy Mountains

The Long Tailor tightened his grip on the bridle, and the chestnut slowed, and came to a stop. One more day.

Ahead the land rose in front of him, in every direction. He paused, then spun the horse around and looked back across the plains from where he had come. Once more he cursed that English toff, from Boloco Station – the one who would not share a drink with him. 

Summer 1867 - Foxlow Station

The first time we rode down to Foxlow Station it was like a knife through fresh butter. We crossed the purple mountains along the cart track near Count Rossi’s holding. 

It was the middle of summer and stinking hot during the day. But evenings in the mountains are cool. Mist hangs onto the hills at night, and a sweet dewy breeze blows gently in the early morning.

Summer 1887 - Walgett

Sir Watkin Wynne, c Indya 2014

It was a blistering hot evening at Walgett.  Walgett had just been proclaimed a town.  Far north in New South Wales, an inland town near the border with Queensland, it is one of the most inhospitable places on Earth with day time temperatures that drive a man mad. 

“Put out your pipe and come take your rest.”

“I will be there soon.  I have had news.  I want to sit out here and think for a bit.”

Out here there was a slight breeze from the Barwon River. The sunset was a brilliant red.

“What is it – news from Grafton?”

He tightened his grip on the paper in his hand.

“A man I once worked with.”

“I am sorry.  Do you want to tell me about it?”

He was silent.

“Talk to me, Wright.”

He did not know where to start.

She sat down next to him.  A young child in arms.  Quietly the other children appeared, on the veranda, restless and unable to sleep in the heat.

“I do not know his name.”

“But you…”

“I do not know his real name.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was called Sir Watkin Wynne.”

Details -Kate

In prog, Indya

Kate, c Indya October 2014

Letters

2014

Dear Indya

Can you draw Kate and the Long Tailor together – and old 2 room farm house / creek in the background, moon in sky (as set out in the context). 

For dramatic effect, a small 10 yr old boy might be looking at them from a background tree and can be almost indistinguishable from the tree (maybe just a hint of a face in the bark).  (The young boy drowned in the Yandyguinula Creek when he turned 18 – he was Kate and the Long Tailor’s son.)

Majors Creek (2)

Majors Creek may look fairly flat, but it is poised on the edge of a precipitous fall into the Araluen Valley.

The road from Majors Creek to Araluen via Mount Araluen Is one of the more difficult public vehicular assents in Australia.  Restricted to four wheel driving in fine weather, it is one drive many people only do once: precipitous cliffs, a single lane dirt road with a series of switch backs that require 3 point turns.

Nevertheless, the views are superb, and the climbing interesting.  

Once the only inland exit from the Araluen Valley, this point of the road saw an unsuccessful attempt by Ben Hall and the Clarke gang to hold up an armed coach bringing gold out of the valley.

Summer 1889 - The Yuin Trace

In 1860 the life of Jerrabatgully was starting to consolidate around one man. But, even then, it was starting to spin out of control.

Michael Nowlan O’Connell was a bear of a man. 

Snowy haired, with a square-cut white beard, prosperous cheeks and piercing eyes. He was a hardworking and genial man fond of his adopted country. Unlike his brothers, he learnt his letters and was educated.  He wrote telling letters to the local papers and stood up to the quiet pervasive corruption of wealthy English immigrants.

Summer 1867 – Above Stony Creek, Jerrabatgully

Lucy was a cracker of a horse rider. A better rider than her sister, she thought.  Better than most of the blokes in the Jerrabatgully. 

The Hurley girls, Lucy and Caroline, had proved they could steal the two horses tethered outside the Majors Creek police station a couple of times.  They would be up the bridle path in full gallop towards Braidwood before the police stumbled out of the shack.  

The image is the 2nd of 4 pieces of art work being prepared for the story by the Canberra Artist Indya. Indya has been commissioned to complete the series with one of an image of Kate at Jinden and a final of the aboriginal police officer Sir Watkin Wynne. c.2014, Indya

But that was a lifetime ago, and now she was eighteen.  She wore three rings on each hand and she could feel what was happening inside her – her life was changing.  

She finished the climb into the foothills to the west of the Shoalhaven River, dismounted and set up camp.  She took off the mare's bridle and saddle, cleared the old camp fire of debris and started a new fire with a flint.  From her bags she brought a bottle of water and eggs.

Autumn 1882 - Jerrabatgully

Fifteen years pass slowly.

Fifteen hard years. Fifteen years alone. Kate stands here in the cold pale moonlight. Tears well in her eyes and the old farm house shimmers. She has been summoned here.

Kate, c Indya October 2014

The desolation of Jinden

Jinden lies at the extreme South of the Shoalhaven River valley, two days ride from the old administrative capital of Braidwood (South Eastern Australia).  

Mountains to the West, South and East form natural barriers to ordinary commerce - and although a road now climbs through the mountains at Snowball, it remains a quiet and lonely place.  

Today it is a farming location.  Passing through it, the ordinary visitor will not be aware of the terrible events of early 1867, that took the colony of New South Wales to the brink of civil war. Today the area is starting to thrive.  But, in 1867, news from Jinden resonated around the world with the bitter cold wind of desolation.

Looking North, towards Braidwood, from Jinden

The Long Tailor

I am finalizing a short story and documentary around a ‘lost’ Australian bushranger, the Long Tailor.  

James Dornan, The Long Tailor, c.Indya 2014

I have picked up concept art from Indya – a local artist.  I was blown away by it – I have invested a lot of time in the story of this man, but recognized him straight off the page.

Detail: preliminary sketch James Dornan, the Long Tailor – c. Indya 2014




Peter Quinton
Palerang
August 2014

Ulladulla and Milton: Colonial justice

Ulladulla - trawler in dry dock

Along the eastern coast of Australia are a series of protected bays.  In the early days of the colony of New South Wales, small government settlements were established at the bays. Isolated by high mountain escarpments to the West and deep gorges along the coast, these settlements became important hubs of economic activity, particularly farming and forestry ventures. The settlers were dependent on travel by sea.  Inland centers gradually forged bridle paths and bullock tracks to the coastal hubs - for mail, wool and, after the discovery of gold in the 1850s, mining.

The Long Tailor - II

Down near Dalgety they found a dead tailor.

A little while back I posted research around the death of the Long Tailor.

A quick update on what I have been doing.

Australian Badlands - Tinderry Ranges - Michelago, New South Wales

Haunt to bushrangers in the 1860s, the Tinderry Ranges rise 700m above the Michelago valley.  I traveled there to scope locations described by old timers and in old papers, in preparation to riding to some of the more remote locations in the coming weeks.

The ranges themselves have been recently decimated by bushfire.  Although there has been some regrowth, the range looks even more unforgiving than usual.

Bushrangers (the Clarke brothers and the Long Tailor) took cattle and horses from stations at the bottom of the ranges at Michelago and, to the North, at Foxlow, driving them up into isolated bush camps high in the Range.

Tinderry Range

Majors Creek - I

Spent this afternoon in the magic village of Majors Creek and, for a little while, Elrington's Pub - researching the Clark Brothers and the Long Tailor.  In this place, an old mining town, the usual boundaries between the past and the present flicker.

Majors Creek cemetery

A little way from the town - absolute solitude.  The clouds came down to the mountains.

Novel: The Long Tailor

Down near Dalgety they found a dead tailor - stories written around the mystery surrounding the supposed death of an Australian bushranger

Parkes Cycle

Book One: The story of the Long Tailor

Copyright 2015 Peter Quinton

Published by Peter Quinton

Indigenous readers are advised that this story contains the names of First People who have died.

You can read the stories here (by scrolling down the page) - or you can now read it (free) in book form by clicking  > here <.

1      Words

The Long Tailor has been long forgotten. The official records concerning him are remarkable only because they are entirely inconsistent. Unwritten memories of the man are tainted by politics and personalities.

In the absence of any historical record, I have turned to the hills to tell these stories concerning the man and those who loved and chased him.