...a place in the KellyGang story
After the Fitzpatrick incident the KellyGang went off to a place in the mountains at Bullocky Creek where some of them had been before. Soon Ned and Dan Kelly and Joe Byrne were joined by their cousin Tom Loyd and Steve Hart who had just left Beechworth Goal.
The boys found some small quantities of alluvial gold. The panned and sluced and sunk shafts along the line of the local creek. To suppliment this income and raise money for the defence of Mrs Kelly and the others they also set up 2 whiskey stills and planted crops on 20 acres which they cleared. The boys also peppered the local trees as they practiced their shooting skills. Occasionally Joe Byrne would go off to Mansfield where he was not known and other friends would come up and help with the work around the camp. See also (Herald4/7/1880)
On 25 October 1878 Ned Kelly had been to Table Top and the Bogs and Emu Swamp and on his way back to Bullock Creek he came cross the tracks of a police party; see Cameron Letter.
Mr Turner from Mt Battery Station visited the camp with the KellyGang and described the camp many years later. (BWC)
In about June 1879 Det Ward
received information that the KellyGang
were at Bullocky Gully, or at the head of Ryan's Creek. About five or six
miles from where they were murdered. Constables Mooney, Hayes,
Whitty, and Senior-constable Strahan
proceeded to there, and made search for three days.(RC3042)
Const Charles Adolphus Whitty. Awarded silver medal from Humane Society for
attempting to rescue drowning lunatic in July 1880
A jounalist made his way into Bullock Creek and gave us this description of the KellyGang's camp. :
Monk's sawmill
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