Escort Rock
Located 3 km east of Eugowra, along the Escort Way, is Escort Rock where, on 15 June, 1862 Frank Gardiner and his gang of bushrangers pulled off the biggest gold robbery in Australian history. They ambushed the gold escort travelling from Forbes to Bathurst and successfully stole 2,719 ounces of gold (that’s 84.56 kg with a 2014 value of around $US3.4 million) and £3,700 in cash.
The robbery was relatively easy. At midday every Sunday a coach and horses owned by Ford & Co (they would be bought out by Cobb & Co a year later) headed off from Bray’s Great Eastern Hotel in Lachlan Street, Forbes to transport gold to the larger centre of Bathurst.
This was an official shipment which was transported by a coach driver accompanied by four police troopers.
On Sunday 15 June, 1862 the coach reached Eugowra around 3.30 pm. Just beyond Eugowra, at a place called Escort Rock, the track narrowed and made its way up a gully. This was the perfect place for an ambush. There were large granite boulders where men on horses could hide and the steepness of the track meant the coach had to slow down and it could not speed up to escape.
Gardiner had created a gang of seven men, most of whom were relatively poor cattlemen from the area around the Weddin Ranges. They were not vicious men but they realized that a lot of money and gold was at stake.
To improve their chances of success the gang managed to stop two bullock teams in the middle of the track. They forced the bullock drivers to lie down beside the road and act as though they were drunk or asleep.
The gold escort was starting to make its way below Escort Rock and up Mandagery Creek when it saw the bullock teams across the road. It stopped. The driver, Jack Fagan, called out to the bullockies to move their teams off the road and, with the escort brought to a halt, Gardiner and his gang attacked.
Fagan, very sensibly if not very courageously, jumped off the coach and ran for the bushes. The horses, frightened by the sound of gunfire and the shouting of the gang, reared up, bolted and the coach tipped over on its side.
The troopers followed Fagan’s lead and escaped down the hill towards the Eugowra homestead. Fagan’s hat was shot off his head and one trooper was shot in the testicles.
It was all over in a few minutes. The bushrangers loaded the gold and cash onto one of the coach horses, retrieved their horses which had been hidden in the bush, and headed off. They stopped at Noble’s Lagoon to redistribute the gold more evenly on the horses, crossed Mandagery Creek and, as it was now dark, set up camp on the banks of the Lachlan River.
The next day, preparing for a long journey, they took food and alcohol from a pub on the Lachlan which was owned by James Newell – his wife, Agnes, was the sister of Dan Charters, one of the bushrangers. They then rode south to a hideout on Mount Wheogo which lies to the north of the Weddin Mountains.
News of the robbery reached Forbes that night. A local squatter, Hanbury Clements, had ridden to Forbes and alerted the authorities and at first light the police troopers, accompanied by a skilled Aboriginal tracker, Jimmy Dargan [he subsequently shot and killed Ben Hall], picked up the bushranger’s tracks and followed them.
Frank Gardiner’s hideout was well located and had good views over the surrounding countryside. Seeing the police posse approaching he escaped but the coach horse carrying the gold was exhausted and it was left behind. The gang took the cash. Only Gardiner and Hall attempted to carry the gold with them. Within a day most of the gold had been recovered.
On 14 August, 1862 Dan Charters turned himself in to the police at Forbes in exchange for a pardon. He refused to testify against John O’Meally, John McGuire or Ben Hall. McGuire was subsequently arrested when police found a nugget of gold in his pocket. He served time, wrote an autobiography The Early Days of a Wild Colonial Youth, and died at Junee in 1915.
Of the rest of the gang, Frank Gardiner was eventually captured in Queensland, sentenced to a life of hard labour but released after eight years on the understanding that he would leave Australia and never return. He went to San Francisco where he died around 1904. Johnny Gilbert was killed in a shootout with the police at Binalong on 13 May, 1865. Johnny Bowe and Alex Fordyce were sentenced to hard labour for life but released after a decade. Johnny O’Meally was shot dead near Gooloogong and Ben Hall formed a gang and for the next three years was a very successful bushranger working mainly on the Sydney to Melbourne road around Goulburn. He was eventually cornered by troopers west of Forbes and shot and killed on 5 May, 1865. He is buried in Forbes cemetery.
Only Henry Manns, a minor member of the gang, was captured and sentenced to death. He was hanged on 26 March, 1863 and is buried in the cemetery at Campbelltown.