Ben Hall Country

Sunday 17th February 2013: Drew & I decided to follow some of our well known bushrangers exploits through a couple of areas, one was Forbes which is well known Ben Hall & Frank Gardiner gangs roamed the area. Our first town we visited was Eugowra where Ben Hall held up the local hotel - twice. A visit to the local museum told the story of him and others in the area. Whilst in Eugowra we sighted murals depicting the past. We then travel to Forbes, which is located on the Newell Highway between Parkes and West Wyalong. Forbes with a population of 6,954. We then take up the story at the local museum/tourist information centre which was the old railway station where out the front stands a statue to Ben Hall. In 1860, Ben Hall took up the lease of a property at Sandy Creek, south of Forbes, where he lived with his wife Biddy and baby son Henry. He and his partner, John McGuire, sold cattle to the miners on the diggings at Lambing Flat. But in early 1862 his life was turned upside down when his wife left him for another man, taking their son with her. Ben Hall was devastated by this turn of events. Wrongly accused and devastated by circumstances, Ben Hall took up the gun and cried 'Stand and Deliver' on the highways around the goldfields. He began associating with Frank Gardiner, a bushranger who frequented the area. Soon he was in trouble with the police when he was arrested on charges of highway robbery, but was released after a witness changed his evidence. He then joined Gardiner and a number of other young men to carry out the famed Escort robbery at Eugowra Rocks on June 15th 1862, where the gang got away with more than 14000 pounds in gold and cash. Ben Hall felt he had nothing more to lose when he joined a group of bushrangers including Johnny Gilbert and John O'Meally. Meanwhile, Frank Gardiner had escaped to Queensland, taking with him a large share of the loot from the Escort robbery as well as Biddy's younger sister, Kitty. Over the next 3 years, the Hall-Gilbert gang were involved in hundreds of robberies and there were some sensational episodes. In 1863 they carried out "the raid on Bathurst", when on a Saturday night the gang rode boldly into town, visited a gunshop and a jeweller, bailed up patrons at the Sportsman's Arms, then casually left under cover of darkness, robbing a number of inns and stores as they went. A few days later they bailed up the village of Canowindra, holding a celebration at Robinson's Hotel where all the local residents were held for 3 days. There was considerable drinking, feasting and merry-making, with even the local constable was coerced into joining the entertainment. The five gang members insisted on paying the hotelier for the spree as a display of their honesty and respect for the common man. The prestige and morale of the police was certainly undermined by the bushrangers. But after the killing of a police sergeant during an attack on the Gundagai mail coach, and the murder of Constable Nelson at Collector, the situation became so serious that the New South Wales government enacted special legislation to 'outlaw' the bushrangers, which meant that they could be shot on sight without warning by anyone at any time. By early 1865, there was 1000 pounds reward being offered for the capture of each member of the gang. They met at Billabong Creek near Forbes. This time the police were watching and waiting. At dawn on Friday 5th May, an unsuspecting Ben Hall walked out of the scrub to collect his horses. Eight police opened fire with shotguns and rifles; a few seconds later the bushranger lay dead on the ground with more than thirty bullet wounds. Ben Hall was buried at Forbes cemetery, two days before his 28th birthday. Nearly two hundred people attended his funeral, such was the widespread sympathy for a young man who had fallen so far. Ben was buried in a pauper's grave - unmarked, when overnight a neat picket fence appeared around the grave and in the 1920s a headstone was erected.
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