Wollombi

'The bushrangers left the Lake Macquarie area during the late afternoon or early evening of December 16 (1840). How they spent the next day is unknown - perhaps they were recovering from the influence of liquor - but by December 18 they had crossed the Watagan Range to near the present day village of Millfield, in the Wollombi District. This journey would only have taken a few hours, but they had a large quantity of stolen goods, which they more than likely distributed among the gully rakers and sympathisers in the timber industry and on the properties in the district.

At sunrise on December 18 the bushrangers raided the property of Mr. E.C. Close, Illalung, where they entered the stockmen's hut and found the stockmen and two constables from Wollombi asleep in their beds. The bushrangers broke the guns of the constables and then made them carry corn two or three miles (4.8 km), to where they had their horses tethered at the top of a mountain. The bushrangers then had their breakfast, which was reported to be new made bread, obtained locally. They also seem to have had knowledge of where to find the constables as they captured them while they were in their beds. These fact reinforce the conclusion that there was collusion between the bushrangers and the local convict classes. Lieutenant Edward C. Close was not at this property when the gang raided it. He lived at 'Closebourne' in Morpeth, the house later renamed Bishopscourt and now part of St. John's Theological College.

The bushrangers secured the constables with their own handcuffs. They then took the constables and the overseer from Close's and descended on the property of Thomas Crawford, called Brown Muir, near the present day village of Millfield. On the way to Brown Muir the bushrangers bailed up a man on horseback and handcuffed him to close's overseer.

Thomas Crawford was in Maitland at the time of the raid. At Brown Muir the constables were given bottles of spirits, which were passed out the window of Crawford's house. The newspaper correspondents one of whom was Thomas Crawford himself, abhorred the behaviour of the constables, describing them as ' vile constables' and 'pseudo protectors of the peace.' When they were handed the bottles of spirits they were said to have knocked the necks from the bottles, and drunk the contents till they became in a state of beastly intoxication.' The constables were also said to be 'Hail fellow well met' with the bushrangers, and their behaviour was described as disgraceful in the extreme, worse if possible than that of the bushrangers.

When Crawford returned home he found 'every place of security about the house was broke open; and almost every piece of furniture more or less injured. The bushrangers remained at Brown Muir for three hours and fed their horses, ate dinner, compelled all the men and women present to drunk large quantities of wine and spirits and when they left, stole a horse, two coats, trousers shirts, two twenty shilling notes and several articles of jewelry. They also took a man to guide them to the next station.

The next stop for the band was the property of Ellalong, near the present day village of Ellalong, which belonged to Robert Crawford. Here they stole a horse, leaving another in its place. At Ellalong the gang had the bell taken down and destroyed. This was very willingly done by one of the assigned men. They then ransacked the house and made a present of tobacco to the assigned convicts, before continuing on to the next property.

The next property raided was Glenmore, which belonged to John Martin Davis. The gang arrived at the property at about three in the afternoon. David Dunlop the police Magistrate who had pursued the gang as far back as August 1840, arrived at Glenmore just half an hour before the gang, and he and the Davis family were about to sit down to dinner. As it was near Christmas the house would have been decorated with Christmas bush an other native flowers, the dinner would have been festive and well prepared.

The bushrangers were not seen till they were approaching the house.......'

Roope, C., Gregson, P., An Organised Banditti, The Story behind the 'Jewboy' Bushranger Gang, Colin Roope and Patricia Gregson, Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia, 2002.    ISBN 0-9581909-0-9