Case File 04: Escort Rock
Ben Hall, the Eugowra gold escort and Goobang Creek, 1862 to 1865.
Case File 04, Volume 2: the real file
This page is for readers of Outback Case Files, Volume 2: Bushrangers and Gold. It describes real crimes of the bushranging years, factually and without gore. If you have come here from a puzzle, finish your accusation first: this page gives the game away.
Campfire Quests acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which these stories took place. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this page may contain the names, images and stories of people who have died.
Ben Hall, the Eugowra gold escort and the death at Goobang Creek, New South Wales, 1862 to 1865
In the book this case appears as “Escort Rock”. The names of people and most places were changed to make the puzzle work. Below is what really happened.
On 15 June 1862 Frank Gardiner's gang, Ben Hall among them, ambushed the Forbes gold escort at Escort Rock near Eugowra, wounding Sergeant James Condell and taking gold and notes worth more than £14,000. From 1863 Hall led his own gang with John Gilbert, John O'Meally, John Vane, Mick Burke and John Dunn through hundreds of robberies; Gilbert killed Sergeant Edmund Parry at Jugiong in November 1864 and Dunn killed Constable Samuel Nelson at Collector in January 1865.
Betrayed by the settler Michael "Goobang Mick" Coneley, Hall was shot dead by Sub-Inspector James Davidson's police party, guided by Aboriginal tracker Billy Dargin, at dawn on 5 May 1865 near Goobang Creek, north of Forbes, five days before the Felons Apprehension Act made him an outlaw. He was 27. Gilbert was shot at Binalong on 13 May 1865; Dunn was hanged at Darlinghurst on 19 March 1866; Gardiner served twelve years and was exiled.
How it was really cracked
The real informer was Michael Coneley, "Goobang Mick", a settler Ben Hall trusted. Hall had ridden in Frank Gardiner's gang at the Eugowra gold escort robbery of 15 June 1862, the richest in Australian history, and from 1863 led his own gang through hundreds of hold-ups. In April 1865 the Felons Apprehension Act was passed to outlaw him; it was to take effect on 10 May. Coneley told Sub-Inspector James Davidson where Hall was camped near Goobang Creek, north of Forbes.
Before dawn on 5 May 1865 Davidson's party, which included Sergeant James Condell, the escort sergeant wounded at Eugowra, and Aboriginal tracker Billy Dargin, surrounded the camp. Hall was shot about thirty times as he ran, five days before he was legally an outlaw, a point argued in Parliament. Dargin, credited with tracking Hall to the camp, died in October 1865. Gilbert was shot at Binalong eight days after Hall; Dunn was hanged in March 1866. Hall is buried at Forbes.
Read more
These are public sources we used. They open in a new tab and carry more detail than this page, including the places where the old records disagree with each other.
A word about respect
These were real people, and in most of these districts their descendants are still here: police families, bush families, and the Aboriginal communities whose trackers did so much of the finding. We have kept to the public record and left out the gore on purpose. If you share this page, please share it the way you would want your own family talked about.
Banner photo: Escort Rock, near Eugowra, by Matilda (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons.