Australia's biggest gold robbery took place near Eugowra. The bushrangers, Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall and their gang robbed the Forbes to Orange Ford and Company coach on 15 June, 1862. The bushrangers stole of gold and £3,700 in cash. The value in 2008 money is about A$4 million. The site of the robbery was a gully north of Eugowra, known as Eugowra Rocks. Coaches and wagons had to slow down to get around a steep gully which went down to Mandagery Creek. They also had to get past many large granite rocks. One of these rocks was called "Coonbong" (dead man) by the Wiradjuri people. Gardiner’s gang stopped two bullock wagons and left them in the middle of the road. When the gold escort coach arrived it had to slow right down and try to get past the wagons. The bushrangers, hidden behind the rocks, fired their guns at the coach. The coach driver and two policemen were wounded. One policeman had been shot in the testicles. The horses reared up and the coach was tipped on its side. One policemen assisted the wounded and they escaped into the bush. They went towards the Eugowra homestead for help. The other policeman went back down the road to a small hotel, Lyell's Shanty.
The bushrangers took the gold and money. They put it onto the back of one of the coach horses. They went back to their horses which had been hidden up the hill. They escaped into the bush and stopped at the southern end of Noble’s Lagoon to share out the bags of gold. They went to Mount Wheogo, north of the Weddin Mountains, where Gardiner had his camp.
A local farmer, Hanbury Clements, heard the gun shots and went to find out what was going on. He found the wounded men and helped them back to the farm house. He got on to his horse and rode the to Forbes in the dark in less than three hours to report the robbery. The police arrived quickly, and with the help of an aboriginal tracker, Jimmy Dargan, they were soon following the bushrangers. Gardiner’s camp at Wheogo had a good view of the country. John "the Warrigal Walsh", (the brother of Ben Hall's wife), warned the bushrangers that the police were coming and the gang got away.
Most of the gold was still loaded on the back of the very tired coach horse. The bushrangers finally had to leave the horse in the foothills of the Weddin Mountains. They only took the money with them. The police got most of the gold back. Only Ben Hall and Frank Gardiner's share of the gold was not found.
Today, the town has a supermarket, two hotels, a newsagent, a butcher and golf and bowling clubs. There is also farm supplies, a lucerne plant and a sawmill. Eugowra is famous for its granite. More than 2000 slabs of granite were used in the new Parliament House, Canberra in Canberra.
Californication (album)
Californication is the seventh studio album by American alternative rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was released on June 8, 1999 on record label Warner Bros. Records. The producer was Rick Rubin. On "Californication", John Frusciante returned to Red Hot Chili Peppers. He had appeared on "Mother's Milk" and "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", but Dave Navarro was the guitarist on the band's last album, "One Hot Minute". The band's sound was very different because of Frusciante's return.
Dan Kelly
Dan Kelly (1 June 1861 – 28 June 1880) was an Australian bushranger and outlaw. The son of an Irish convict, he was the youngest brother of bushranger Ned Kelly. Dan and his brother killed three policemen. With two friends, they formed the Kelly Gang. Dan Kelly died during the famous siege of Glenrowan.
More books have been written about the Kelly Gang than any other subject in Australian history. The Kelly Gang were the subject of the world's first full length feature movie, "The Story of the Kelly Gang", made in 1906. They robbed banks, took over whole towns, and kept the people in Victoria and New South Wales frightened. For two years the Victorian police searched for them and locked up their friends and families, but could not find them.
Dan Kelly's father, John "Red" Kelly, was an Irishman, a convict who had been sent to Van Diemen's Land in 1842. He would have been kept in the convict gaol at Port Arthur.
In 1848, after his time in gaol, Red Kelly moved to Victoria, and began working as a farmer around Beveridge. There he built a simple wooden house. The house in Kelly Street is still standing. The original three rooms have been added to over the years, and the house now has 11 rooms.
Red married an Irish girl, Ellen Quinn, in Melbourne in 1850. They had seven children: Annie (1853), Edward "Ned" (1854), Maggie (1856), Jim (1859), Dan (1861), Kate (1862) and Grace (1863).
In 1864, Dan Kelly's family moved north to a farm at Avenel. Red Kelly stole a calf and was sent to gaol for six months. Dan was in trouble with the police when he was five years old because they believed he had stolen a horse. Dan's father died in 1866, and in 1867, his mother, Ellen Kelly, moved the family to a small farm near Greta in north east Victoria. Ellen Kelly's two sisters, Catherine and Jane Lloyd, were living at Greta, and her two brothers, John and James Quinn, had moved to the area in 1864. The Quinn family were well known to the police. Dan Kelly was again in trouble with the law when he was only 10 years old. He and his brother Jim, aged 12, were arrested by Constable Flood for riding a horse that did not belong to them. Jim was working for a local farmer and had taken the horse to ride home on. Flood did not believe them, and the boys were forced to spend two nights in a prison cell.
In 1875, like many other young men in north east Victoria, Dan Kelly and his cousins, the Lloyds, went to New South Wales to look for seasonal farm work in the Riverina area and on the Monaro High Plains. His group of friends were known as "the Greta mob". They went out together to hotels, dances and horse races. By 1876, they were well known for their visits to nearby towns such as Wangaratta, Beechworth and Benalla.
On one visit to Benalla in 1876, Dan was arrested for stealing a saddle. The police let him go when they could not get enough evidence. Dan and his cousins got into trouble with the police in October 1877. They had gone to a shop to pick up food and other supplies, but the shop was shut. When the owner refused to open the shop, Dan Kelly broke down the door. They were charged with violent assault, damage to property (the door), breaking into houses and stealing things worth £113. The boys went into hiding, and the police spent three weeks looking for them. Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick told Ned Kelly to get them to give themselves up. In court, the police were not able to prove most of the charges, but Dan went to prison for one month for damaging property worth £10.
On 15 April 1878, Constable Fitzpatrick, went to the Kelly's house to arrest Dan Kelly for stealing horses. Dan had been seen in Chiltern riding a stolen horse. What happened at the house is now called the "Fitzpatrick incident". There was a fight with Fitzpatrick, and he said the Kelly family had tried to kill him. Dan and Ned went into the bush to hide. Ellen Kelly was sent to gaol for three years for attempted murder. Maggie's husband, William Skillion, and a neighbour, William Williamson, were sent to gaol for six years.
Ned and Dan Kelly went into the bush to a place in the Wombat Ranges. Dan Kelly had built a small hut some time earlier on Bullock Creek, where he had cleared an area of about to keep horses. He had also built a small still for making alcohol. The brothers spent their time searching for gold in the creek.