THE BRIARS & THORNS by Joseph Ashmead. 1922
GLENROWAN.
There being so many places of growing importance,
the Government of Victoria
made a survey of what is called Sydney Road.
It was cleared right through, bridges built, and some of the worst parts of the
road
farmed. (sic) This was the end of the traffic through Kelly's Gap.
The wagons now followed the main road or as near to it as they could,
but there was one place dreaded by both wagoners and coach-drivers --
it was called the Crab-holes, and in recent yesrs (sic) it has been held in
equal
dread by motorists who knew it as the Glue-pot but which now is being made a
good road by
the Government Roads Board.
One of the events of the early days, was to see the gold
escort go through, surrounded by
a bevy of mounted police with their rifles and smart trappings.
I remember when a small boy, seeing the escort badly stuck in the crab-holes;
however, bad
roads were not the worst that they had to contend with. The North East was badly
infested
with bush-rangers, and of (sic) there had not been a strong force, the gold
would have
soon gone, also the lives of the men who were in charge of it.
At the time there were only two buildings in Glenrowan --
a hotel and a store,
both owned and run by Mr. William Liddle. He did business with the carriers and
its few settlers
who were within range of his place of business.
At a short distance -- about a mile from the hotel -- was a
-6-
range called Morgan's Lookout. It was so called through the presence of a
notorious
and blood-thirsty bushranger called Morgan. That was in the neighbourhood of
Glenrowan.
For some time Morgan held the out-back parts of New South Wales in a state of
terror,
on account of his dreaded deeds of robbery, outrage and murder. A squatter
from the Upper
King river was across the border, and one morning, with a friend he came on
Morgan's camp.
The outlaw had gone to catch his horse and was without rifle or revolver when he
drew near the camp.
The squatter called upon him to surrender, but he placed his hand over his
heart. The man thinking he
was going to draw a revolver, fired, but the only damage done was to blow off
the top of his finger, and
he escaped in the scrub, but he had marked his man, and came to Victoria to kill
him, a deed he very
accomplished. He stuck up the station, and had he been content to shoot him,
could have done so, but
he was to have a worse death. The monster tied him to a post and set two
hay-stacks on fire to slowly
roast him to death in the presence of his servants. Startled by the fire, a mob
of horses started to gallop
and the out-law thinking the police were upon him, decamped. It was then easy
for for one of the men to rushin, cut the bands and release the doomed man. Morgan next appeared on the
Sydney road about
three miles on the Wangaratta side of Glenrowan, where he robbed a number of
wagoners. Just at
dusk he stopped a wagoner, I after-wards knew well - - the late Mr. William
Dowell - - and demanded
his money. Dowell said "my boss is coming along the road with the
money," and he went off up the
road. Dowell, seeing the foolish thing he had done, gave the reins to a man he
had with him and ran
off into the bush with a hundred and fifty
pounds......................................