Alexander Telfer arrived on the convict ship Warrior in 1835. He was born in Belfast and employed as a soldier and weaver before transportation. He was assigned to the estate of Thomas Potter Macqueen at Segenhoe in 1836 and absconded from there in April. After he was apprehended he was sent to the iron gang at Newcastle and from there to the estate of Chief Justice Sir Francis Forbes. He absconded from there in January 1839 and in  company with James Davis and Archibald Taylor, robbed three drays belonging to Robert and Helenus Scott of Glendon in July. The drays were proceeding from Morpeth to Patrick Plains laden with shells, one man accompanying each dray.

The drays were camped near Black Creek on the night of the robbery. When the three bushrangers approached the drays James Maher, an elderly man who was free and had been employed to accompany the drays, walked towards the men when one of them immediately fired a fatal shot.

Maher died four hours later. The other draymen were forced to lay upon their faces and the ruffians robbed the dray of a small quantity of tea and sugar and three or four pounds in money. Hugh Hughes, one of the dray men was able to later positively identified the prisoner Davis.

The bushrangers were pursued into the hills and captured about three weeks later by District Constable Wilson and two young men named Bridge: "they were secreted in the mountains, and were tracked by the blacks; when discovered, ten or twelve shots were fired, by one of which Taylor was wounded, before they surrendered".