The bizarre tale, beginning with an almost 150-year-old murder and ending with an enduring local legend about a phantom white bull, has been declared “among the weirdest of the Canberra district”.
While perhaps provoking an inclination to be dismissive, the four witnesses were not of a kind to make laughing stocks of themselves by glibly sharing an experience with supernatural overtones.
The events earned renown enough to be retold in newspapers and books, but the first appearance was the official police records of the day.
On the plains towards Yass, there’s a lonely hollow huddled at the base of of picturesque hills, bounded by the mighty Murrumbidgee River. Known as “Washpen” - so called for its purpose in washing the sheep tended in the area - its nearest neighbour, “Yeumberra” station, the almost 1,800 acre merino stud of Charles Hall since 1853.
At the close of June, 1876, police from the largest population hub, Queanbeyan, a good 60 kilometres distant, received a telegram requesting their presence in the isolated spot on fears of foul play.
Sure enough, the end of their sojourn was first greeted with a blood-splattered hat.
Next, lying by the ashes of his campfire, shepherd Jeremiah McCarthy (or Maloney) with “his skull blown off”.
Even worse, as intimately detailed in The Queanbeyan Age of July 20 of that year: "in order to obliterate all traces of his crime, the murderer had removed the shattered portions of his victim's head and face, and scooped out the brains through which were scattered the charge of slugs or shot which formed the contents of the weapon used".
He then spent the night in the deceased man's hut, in full view of where the figure had fallen. Poor young Jerry had only for a short time been engaged to tend the flock of a Mr Ramsay (not the more well-known Mr George Davis of nearby “Gounyan”, Murrumbateman, who’s usually declared the employer). The cattle too, he'd taken into his care. The near headless form, with only his rough woollen blanket as a shroud, was buried in a hasty grave, the boughs of a gunyah tree sheltering his "last earthly home".
The Troopers turned their well-honed tracking skills to the murderer. Hunted back some 40 kilometres to “Springbank” near "Black Hill" (now Mountain). The property that would be partially submerged to make way for a national Lake in 1964 - a small island emerging from the deep its lasting remnant - initially belonged to John MacPherson. The 640 acres granted to the first resident landowner on the then Limestone Plains as reward for assisting in the capture of a bushranger. In the mid-1870s, it was the domain of John Scott.
[NB: John MacPherson junior, possibly the first European boy born in the region, would go on to become the 7th Premier of Victoria and the first a "Currency Lad" - actually born in the Colony.] The perpetrator was unmasked as a known itinerant, harshly depicted as “6ft. 4 of ungainliness, with its large flapping ears, straggly beard, ferocious expression and baboon gait”. He was known by a number of aliases, among them, “Tom the Soldier” or “Waterloo Tom”.
As with others who’d somehow find their way to these parts when still considered “the edge of civilisation” - including its original, though absent, landowner, Lieutenant J.J. Moore, and James Ainslie for whom an outcrop in the capital is named - “Tom” was a veteran of a Battle made popular by pop group Abba: Waterloo (near Belgium) in 1815. There it was said he distinguished himself in the fight against French Emperor Napoleon in his defeat by the English Duke of Wellington. Thought to be about 60, his real name was William Hutton and he'd made the shores of the new British colony in 1822. The former military man apparently boasted of having killed thousands of men in his time. Reputed to carry “a gun with a barrel six feet long, and a sheath-knife made from a scythe-blade”, it would be natural his fellow residents believed it.
In this instance, he initially proclaimed his innocence. By July it became clear that evidence was required for the trial. To obtain it, the unfortunate shepherd’s body would need to be exhumed. Charged with the gruesome task was Senior Sergeant Martin Brennan - a much-respected member of the constabulary who’d go on to become the Superintendent of the Mounted Police Barracks.
[NB: His daughter, Sarah Octavia Brennan, educated by the nuns of St Benedict’s Convent in Queanbeyan, was one of the first women awarded a Bachelor of Science from the University of Sydney. Greatly influenced by her formative years, she eventually became a nun.] Accompanying Sergeant Brennan on this day was Constable James McIntosh and two other policemen from Yass. On arrival, the weather, if not the duty, was more than pleasant: a perfect winter’s turn-out of clear, bright skies with little more than a slight breeze to tickle the foliage of the surrounding oaks. At just the point of reaching the site of the impromptu grave, suddenly, “an extraordinary cumuli stratus cloud, or ‘woolpack’ descended and enveloped the mountains and the Washpen in comparative darkness”. In the misty gloom, the necessary exhumation proceeded. The shovel tip had barely scratched the slab placed over the body when there was a teeth-rattling explosion. The rolling sensation beneath their feet was followed by a deep rumbling noise reverberating out through the darkened valley. Much more than thunder; an earthquake, they shouted to each other questioningly - a phenomena not unknown in the region?
Or could it be something more untoward? Before able to make sense of it, from the hills behind came a bellowing roar. Whirling about, stunned to silence, they watched as before them “a huge bull of immaculate whiteness, a shadowy thing of rage” materialised. Charging in their direction, it seemed to move at an incredible speed for its size and weight.
There could not be heard though, a single hoofbeat. Scurrying for safety behind the trees, trembling hands drew revolvers, trying to hold them at the ready. There’d be no need for a single round to be fired - having reached the open wound in the ground that bore the corpse of the unfortunate soul, the bull drew to a halt. Pawing forcefully at the mounds of dirt piled beside the grave, it then lay down alongside it, moaning piteously.
Incredibly, where only a few moments before it had seemed a muscled ball of life, it heaved a last heavy sigh - and died. Stepping out from their hiding place, shaking in bewilderment, the four men could think of little else save to make sure the massive creature had indeed expired.
Unable to account for the strangeness of what had unfolded before them, the policemen quietly went on with their ghoulish task, if much more quickly than before. Still, it took them long enough that they’d need to remain overnight. Taking no chances, they moved their camp a good distance away from where the bull lay in its final repose and left at first light. Having made their way back to Queanbeyan, inquiries throughout the district to determine ownership of the magnificent creature commenced. No one laid claim; nor did anyone know of such an animal to be found anywhere in the area. Two days later, Constable McIntosh returned to the spot, in order that he might bury the bull. On arriving at the precise spot, he was astonished to see it had vanished. More than that, there was not a single sign of it ever having been present: not a hoofmark or a trace of blood. Sergeant Brennan also made note of the story in his personal memoir, Reminiscences of the Goldfields and elsewhere in NSW. He would declare he was merely describing what four police officers, in full control of their faculties, observed in the middle of an otherwise ordinary day. None could explain precisely what had taken place, but agreed it to be a “psychological phenomenon”.
Hutton stood trial at the Goulburn Assizes - the regular formal court held in such places - in October,1876. Found guilty, he was sentenced to the standard punishment: death. His motive was never made clear. Perhaps something as prosaic as robbery, for there was no suggestion of a grudge against his victim, and who still had within his pocket his latest pay. Given "Soldier Tom's" military service, he'd be saved from the noose. Instead, he'd forego some 10 years of his life to exist behind steel bars and do so with the added burden of hard labour.
[NB: In another curious twist of fate, the man who'd keep him from the gallows was Richard Edward O'Connor. The then still new lawyer went on to have a distinguished legal career including assisting draft what would become the Australian Constitution. Today, close by the site where "Waterloo Tom" was arrested, is the Canberra suburb of O'Connor, named for the accused's defender.] It didn’t though, quite end there.
Already deemed a "maniac", in being subject to long days and lonely nights bound in chains and enclosed in a tiny rock-hewn space, so began his own tortuous screams; screams that he was "being trampled to death by a great white bull". On searching for a potential owner of the animal that was witnessed that day, it emerged there was a local legend attached to the Halls of nearby “Yeumberra”. Within their clan it was held that on the death of a family member, a white bull would always appear.
As it turns out, this in itself has echos of yet another famous example of the unexplained in this region that’s similarly been written up in various books on potential historic hauntings: the Black Horse of Sutton.
What's interesting to note is that if you look into the history and folklore of animal ghosts, themselves stretching back into the mists of time, they fall into two categories. The first focuses on the spirit of poor dead Rover come back to keep you company once more, examples of which are actually not overly common.
The second theory is that to encounter a spectral animal is an omen of ill, foreshadowing tragedy - usually someone’s death. The most well-known of these is the phantom Black Dog or "Hellhound” - the concept of which is most recognised in the highly superstitious Arthur Conan Doyle's work, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Does the capital of a nation then, have its very own harbinger of doom?
For more on the unsolved, unexplained and unknown in the orbit of the Australian Capital, also see my capitalcrimefiles.com.au website which has features my new podcast.