What I'm doing
Probably I shouldn't include Mrs Davis, because she doesn't play an important part in the story, but you can't expect me to pass on Brady & Co, and she is interesting -- for something it's claimed she didn't do.
This little notice appeared in the Hobart Town Gazette on the 8th July 1825:
Brady and McCabe made their appearance during the week, at the Farm of A.F. Kemp, Esq. up the country. They had previously been robbing some individual;--and it is supposed are harboured by a woman named Davis, who lives in the interior.
About five years after Lt-Gov Sorell managed to suppress his outbreak of bushranging, fourteen men escaped from Macquarie Harbour in a whale boat. Of course, within weeks of their escape, all but two were capture and dealt with. And at the time of that notice, L-Gov Arthur probably thought it just a matter of time until the last two were rounded up. Unfortunately for him, they went on to build up a gang of considerable size that terrorised the colonies for a few months to come.
Although McCabe's time was soon to come. By the end of the year he was in custody and awaiting his execution in January. The Colonial Times reported on his hanging, along with seven others, in some detail. Underneath that was this paragraph:
This morning, immediately before the Execution, the Rev. Mr. Conolly communicated to the High Sheriff, that M'Cabe wished to speak to him. Mr. Fereday went to him instantly. He stated, that it having been reported that Brady and himself had been harboured by a Mrs. Davis, near the Black Marsh, he declared, as a dying man, that such a report was absolutely false. He had never seen Mrs. Davis in his whole life.
(Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser 6 January 1825)
You think he protests too much?
( Cut for length. )
Probably I shouldn't include Mrs Davis, because she doesn't play an important part in the story, but you can't expect me to pass on Brady & Co, and she is interesting -- for something it's claimed she didn't do.
This little notice appeared in the Hobart Town Gazette on the 8th July 1825:
Brady and McCabe made their appearance during the week, at the Farm of A.F. Kemp, Esq. up the country. They had previously been robbing some individual;--and it is supposed are harboured by a woman named Davis, who lives in the interior.
About five years after Lt-Gov Sorell managed to suppress his outbreak of bushranging, fourteen men escaped from Macquarie Harbour in a whale boat. Of course, within weeks of their escape, all but two were capture and dealt with. And at the time of that notice, L-Gov Arthur probably thought it just a matter of time until the last two were rounded up. Unfortunately for him, they went on to build up a gang of considerable size that terrorised the colonies for a few months to come.
Although McCabe's time was soon to come. By the end of the year he was in custody and awaiting his execution in January. The Colonial Times reported on his hanging, along with seven others, in some detail. Underneath that was this paragraph:
This morning, immediately before the Execution, the Rev. Mr. Conolly communicated to the High Sheriff, that M'Cabe wished to speak to him. Mr. Fereday went to him instantly. He stated, that it having been reported that Brady and himself had been harboured by a Mrs. Davis, near the Black Marsh, he declared, as a dying man, that such a report was absolutely false. He had never seen Mrs. Davis in his whole life.
(Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser 6 January 1825)
You think he protests too much?
( Cut for length. )
