DOOLAN  SULLIVAN & BOWSER 1837

After a six day search through gullies, streams, and mountain ranges a detachment of Mounted Police with Private George Colway in the lead came across their quarry. The three men they had been pursuing had encamped in a gully between the ranges in an area known as Weary's Creek. The troopers took the bushrangers by surprise and they had no opportunity to resist. In desperation they fled the camp however after months of living rough in the bush without adequate supplies and shelter, they were no match for the police and were soon captured. It was 25th October in the year 1837.

Doolan and Bowser had been on the run since the previous November after they boldly robbed two drays belonging to Reverend Rusden and Richard Stubbs of the Peel River. The teams were camped at Curabubala Creek. Twenty five year old  Thomas Power who was assigned to Thomas Stubbs and had arrived  on the Heber three months previously, was with of one of the drays. Henry Howard also accompanied the drays. Both gave evidence in Court stating they were not ill used or personally robbed by the bushrangers.

The 20th November 1836 was a fine night with no moon, perfect for the robbers who entered the camp about ten o'clock that night. After bailing up the  four teamsters and an aborigine under the drays they proceeded to ransack the supplies. They stole flour, tea, sugar and tobacco and filled water kegs with eight gallons of brandy. They also  stole two guns and some clothes belonging to Reverend Rusden and this was to prove their undoing.

The three accused of robbing the drays that night were John Sullivan, John Dooley and Timothy Bowser. Twenty five year old Timothy Bowser alias Bolster had arrived on the convict transport Fairlie in 1834. He had been sentenced to 7 years transportation in Middlesex in 1833. By 1836 Bowser was in trouble again. He was convicted of highway robbery before Mr. Justice Burton and a sentence of death was recorded against him. This was commuted to three years in an ironed gang; he was sent to Newcastle to serve his time in the iron gang however escaped from that settlement and headed up the Valley.

Bowser fell in with another  convict on the run, John Dooley who had absconded from Justice Forbes' estate. Bowser and Dooley were clearly identified in Court by the teamsters they robbed that night in November, however John Sullivan was possibly unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - not for the first time in his life. By the time he was twenty Sullivan was not only condemned as a bushranger but had also endured being ship wrecked when his convict transport the 'Hive' was wrecked at Jervis Bay.

Sullivan stated in Court that he had only fallen in with Bowser and Doolan an hour before being captured at Weary Creek  - and no one at the drays could later positively identify him as taking part in the robbery.  Sullivan had arrived  in 1835, a seventeen year old from Cork city and was soon assigned to A. Bell junior  in Invermein. Despite his protestations, John Sullivan along with Doolan, had a sentence of death recorded against him. Timothy Bowser was not so fortunate - the Chief Justice was to confer with his brother Judges to decide whether Bowser was not a fit person to be executed!