Thomas Crampton

174

Iris Dunne on 2nd May 2017

Trial: 11th January 1830

6

Bron Larner on 1st May 2017

ONE OF THE FIRST RECORDED CONFLICT EVENTS IN QLD: 1838: Crampton's Corner, north side of the McIntyre (Mcintyre) River (Cowbawn Coonigal): ‘The Crampton Corner Massacre near Goondiwindi reputedly followed the Aboriginal murder of a station manager's family but Donald Gunn, in Links with the Past, has shown that, while the "massacre" may have occurred, certainly no white family was murdered; indeed, this massacre seems to have had little impact on the public consciousness.’ ‘Crampton was the only man on the river that the Blacks were really frightened of. From the time he first went to the river, there never was a Black bold enough to throw a weapon of any sort at him. He used to carry a carbine, a pair of large pistols, and what is known to a man of war's man as a boarding cut lash. And with these arms, he would face the Tribe independent of their number. He used to shoot them where he came on them. On one occasion he left his hut to take his daily ride through his herd as was the custom in those days, but when he had gone a short distance he noticed there were no cattle on one of his principal camps, and he came to the conclusion that there was something wrong. This camp was at a lagoon about three and half miles from the station, and studded with low gum trees on each bank. The lagoon itself was not a very large one, shaped something like an egg. Crampton rode to the lagoon and found that nearly in every tree on both sides of the water there were one or two Blacks waiting for the cattle to come in, so that they may spear them from the trees. Well Crampton took his horse a short distance away, draped the bridle reins on to the ground, and went back and shot every Black that was there. There was one among them that was only wounded; he escaped Crampton's notice, and he made his way back to what was left of the Tribe, and told them what had befallen the others. There were about twenty that were killed that morning by the hands of one man. Now these lines may appear incredible to some people, but they are as true as that there are ink and paper. On another occasion he was going up the river to Yetman, and he did not take any firearms with him, and on the plain near Tucker Tucker he saw a whole Tribe crossing. They were shifting over toward the Severn. As they had all their women and children with them he knew that they were not on the war path; and he charged them with no other arms but a stockwhip, and drove one of them before him like he would drive a bullock, and secured him for the night, and next day he drove him about thirty five miles to a station named Crageen. My father was living there at that time as a stockman where he chained the Black up for the night. He was going to take him and deliver him up to Mr Commissioner Meehan at the Peel River. Before he left our place the next morning my father persuaded Crampton to secure the Black in some way, so they placed a rope around his neck and around the horse's neck that Crampton was riding, and tied his hands together with some strips of hide, and my father insisted on Crampton taking a gun with him. He took him in that way to within about eight miles of the Police Barracks at the Peel River. The hide the Black's hands were tied with was causing them to swell, and cut into the flesh, and Crampton released his hands. After releasing the Black as stated, they had gone about a mile when the Black sprang on to his captor and tried to pull him of his horse. He was a very spirited animal and had a first-class horseman on his back, so the horse bounded ahead, and drew the black flat on to the ground and kicked him about until his scull was all broken. Crampton then took the rope from off the horse's neck, and he went in to the Peel and reported to Mr Meehan what had happened, and he sent two of his Troopers with a dray to bring in the black. When they arrived at the place in the road where he had been left by Crampton, he had crawled about two hundred yards away in the bush, and was quite dead.’ WILLIAM JOHN BEST GRAY in his EARLY HISTORY OF THE DOWNS: Written in 1903