The Mystery of Bermagui – Solved?
An article that appears in – The Brisbane Courier – Tuesday 5 July 1887, page 7 – This appeared as a letter to the Editor.
Sir.—The discovery of certain human bones near Bermagui seems to have revived public interest in the story of the mysterious disap- pearance of Lamont Young and his companions nearly seven years ago. From the first an- nouncement of the discovery a few days since I have been fully convinced that it would lead to nothing. If the bones are those of aboriginals, as stated by Dr. Evershed, Government medical officer at Bega, there is nothing re- markable in the matter. Blacks were very numerous in that part of the country years ago; they gathered at certain seasons for fishing and oystering near the inlets and rivers; and the burial-place theory is delusive, as those who know the habits of the blacks are well aware that their anxiety is to put their dead out of sight and to forget all about it. To hunt up old blacks and question them as to ” burial-grounds” is only a farce. If the remains are these of Euro- peans, they seem, from the telegraphed reports, to be older than bones that might have been buried only six years and eight months. There is a story told of the deaths of certain sailors in the neighbourhood many years ago, the re- mains, after an inquiry, conducted, I believe, by the then land commissioner stationed at Bodalla, having been buried in the sandhills near Bermagui. On this subject Mr. Jauncey, J.P., of Angledale, near Bega, could give the fullest information. He resided there nearby forty years ago, at what is known as Jauncey’s Point, near Bermagui, and was present at the inquest and interment ; and from his perfect recollection of events in the far past of local history, could doubtless show where the graves were made that covered the remains of the unfortunate sailors.
In the year that Lamont Young disappeared I was residing at Bega, and in my position as journalist I visited the scene of the rush – in fact was there on the Saturday prior to Lamont Young’s arrival. On learning of the disap- pearance I made it my business to obtain for my paper, the Bega Standard, as well as for the Herald, for which journal I was telegraph cor- respondent, all the information I could, and it was in my paper that the late Mr. Keight- ley first read the murder theory, which he dis- missed with the remark that it was absurd. My recollection of the affair may be of interest, and that is my excuse for this communication.
Mr. Lamont Young, with his assistant Schneider, arrived at the scene of the Montreal rush on Saturday, the 9th October, 1880. He was about the diggings with Mr. Keightley, and several Bega residents during that afternoon, and informed them of the purpose of his visit to make a geological examination, in the in- terest of the Mines Department, of the country, with a view to help the miners in following up the almost phenomenal finds that the pros- pectors’, M’Gregor’s, and a few other claims were noted for. I myself saw a ” billy” of washdirt taken out from the boulders in M’Gregor’s claim, washed by Mr. John D’Arcy, J.P., of Bega, an old Californian miner, that yielded half its contents of pure gold. I may remark, in passing, that since Montreal died out not a single step has been taken by the Mines Department, although re- peatedly urged to do so, to follow out the work Mr. Young was sent to perform. The only effect of the discovery, beyond the unearth- ing of considerable treasure washed out by nature’s sluices, the waves of the Pacific, has been to lock up a large area of land from selec- tion, and to retard the settlement in the rich country under the shadow of the Great Dromedary Mountain. Mr. Young discussed the prospects of the field, sought information as to previous gold discoveries on the sea bench at Corunna, and expressed his determination to several — Mr. Walker, then manager of the Commercial Bank in Bega, amongst others — of visiting Corunna next day, Sunday, partly as a pleasure, partly as a business trip. This, then, the motive for hiring the boat. The statement I observed in print recently, that he had a con- siderable sum of money in his possession, is not founded on fact, for on the Saturday he changed a small cheque on a Sydney bank with one of tho local storekeepers, Mr. O’Reilly, now of Cobargo, I think — a proceeding that would have been unnecessary if the large sum in gold which “he withdrew from a bank in the neighbourhood of King-street ” had been in his possession when he landed at Bermagui. This upsets the theory of murder for gain. The rush at that time had attracted fully 4000 people, of whom Mr. Hannan in his report says “many were of the worst type of the criminal class.” There may have been ” black sheep” among them; but from a day’s ride from end to end of the rush I judged them to be diggers of a superior class as a rule, a statement that I have heard verified by several who were at the rush all the time it existed, and I think the police reports indicate very little crime, considering that such a large body of men gathered there from all parts of the colonies. Moreover, at
the time I speak of, the 9th October, the claims that had been opened were yielding well, all were hopeful, and few, if any, were desirous of getting away. This, to my mind, upsets Mr. Hannan’s notion that the murder was committed by some persons anxious to ob- tain the means to enable them to leave the field. Mr. Young parted with several gentle- men late in the afternoon, after inquiring from them as to the chance of getting a boat. He also made inquiry at Etherington’s, and was referred to parties at Bermagui township, a few miles further south. That he arranged for the boat that evening is, I believe, well known. He went to his tent, or camp, and after that he disappeared as thoroughly as if he had been a ” materialised spirit.” To unravel the dark deed done that night not far from the locality that the bones were discovered in the other day, but little was done, and what was done was done tardily, stupidly, blunderingly.
On that Sunday morning, about 7 o’clock, several who were down at the sea bathing, saw Towers’s boat under sail, going northwards. The sail prevented my informants, Messrs. T. Rixon and S. Underhill, of Bega, seeing how many men were in the boat – some say three, others four. The same afternoon a man named Johnson, then working at Mr. Forster’s, at Wogonga, riding along the beach, saw, at what has since been known as Mystery Bay, the boat, partly wrecked, the sails gone, and in a position she certainly never could have drifted into. This was reported to the late Mr. Keightley, and certain inquiries were made, which resulted in the discovery that several persons had landed, made a hasty meal, and disappeared. The boat, stove from the inside, had several stones in her, taken from the beach ; in fact, by Mr. John Dawson, of Dromedary Point, and Constable Fox, some of these stones were fitted again into the places they had been taken from. It was clearly the intention of the murderers to sink the boat, but they were pre- vented from doing so by the appearance of Johnson on the scene. If they had succeeded, the missing party would doubtless have been reported as ” lost at sea.” It is here necessary to refer to one cause of failure of the police to elucidate the mystery when all was fresh. Montreal is really in the Bega police district, but by some mistake Mr. Keightley, then police-magistrate at Moruya, was sent there. The Cobargo constable, Fox, was actually under the order of the Bega sergeant ; while Senior-constable Berry, from Nerrigundah, in the Moruya district, was in a sort of divided charge of police matters at the rush. The Bega and Moruya police were engaged in the search, and, report said, did not pull together. Mr. Keightley, who was in general charge, could not be persuaded that anything serious had happened, and thus the search went on in a half-hearted sort of way. Tracks were trampled out before the blacks were got to assist, and nothing ever came of the investigation. That the men were drowned Mr. Keightley believed ; but it was clear the boat had never been upset, Lamont Young’s spectacles and his note-book, found on the seat, showing that if the occupants of the boat had been tilted out those little articles had kept their places. In proof of the assertion that the authorities treated the matter very lightly, it is only necessary to point out that a full month elapsed before any reward was offered, and then a sum of £50, and supplemented by £150 “if any of them,” the missing men, “had
fallen victims to foul play.” This made a total of £200, or £40 per man, the Government Gazette containing that munificent offer having, if I remember rightly, a reward of £50 advertised for information about burning a haystack some- where ; thus showing that each of the five men was accounted of less value than a stack of hay. A substantial reward would have led, may now even lead, to this foul blot on New South Wales being removed.
After a fruitless ill-directed search for some days, Mr. Binney, who I have been told was a connection of the late Mr. Young, was sent from Sydney to take charge of the search. His reports are doubtless in the hands of the authorities. But he accomplished nothing, nor was he likely to achieve much result from the way he went about his work. He had all zeal, but he lacked judgment. One smart detective in digger’s garb, could have un- ravelled the dark deed ; but such an officer was never sent until nearly two years later, when the “scent was cold;” Hannan made some inquiries.
Reference is again made to the two men who crossed the Bermagui River, going south, on that Sunday morning. Their trail was fully followed by Sergeant Church, of Bega, and their movements were fully accounted for. As to Charles Jaggers, a reputable good-living man, one of an old and respectable family in the Bega district, he comes into notice from the fact that he hos- pitably entertained these men. As to the story of
his stating his dogs came home “smelling of human flesh” (if he ever made it), I believe it is traceable to a morbid brooding over the details of the affair in his solitary work in the bush. Jaggers gave the information about the men calling at his place in the full hope, I believe, that it would lead up to the reward. Even £200 to a hard-working, yet needy selec- tor trying to make a home for himself and his family in the wild bush is a vast sum. He thought it within his grasp, was disappointed, and he has since, in my opinion, morbidly turned the affair over and over until the ” human flesh” theory has taken possession of him. Five years ago or more, when smarting under malicious rumours as to his connection with the affair, he told me his story, and it had cer- tainly nothing of the dogs and the human flesh in it. The murderers escaped from that boat twelve or fourteen miles north of Jaggers’s place. They went north from that through Moruya, and the bodies, instead of being eaten by Jaggers’s dogs, were wrapped up in the sail, and sunk in deep water long before they beached the boat. That has always been my belief, and I give the following in support of
that view :—
On that Sunday afternoon there was removed from Mr. John P. Seccombe’s farm, not far from Mystery Bay, on one of the tracks leading from the coast to the main road, an old quiet horse, used by him for years about the place, ridden by his children, as country youngsters often “pack” on an old horse to school — an animal that could hardly be hunted away from his favourite haunts. The diggings having upset all thoughts of school for a few weeks the old horse was not missed, but some weeks later he was found in the lanes in the Bodalla Estate, waiting till some one opened the gate for him to continue his journey homewards. This fact was made known to the police, to Senior-constable Berry, by myself some time, a year or so later, and was generally spoken of in the neighbourhood at the time, but I do not think any attempt was made to inquire on what service that horse
had been absent.
At the time of the Bermagui rush, Mr. Michael Bell, florist and gardener, at Moruya, was engaged finishing tree planting in some re-
serve in that town. As an old prospector he was anxious to get away with the crowd, and only his contract for the work mentioned kept him back. On the Tuesday following the event- ful Sunday he was informed that some parties had arrived from the rush, an unusual event, as all travellers were going the other way. He sought out the men and questioned them generally about the diggings ; he was then not aware of the disappearance of Lamont Young. He observed the men were eager for Sydney papers, and I think he referred them to the local Mechanics’ Institute. As they were leaving he remarked that one of the men was lame, and was told that he had injured his foot with a pick which slipped off a boulder when he was at work. These men went north from Moruya, and, as Mr. Bell informed me, the lame man could never have walked from Ber- magui. Were those the guilty parties, and had Mr. Seccombe’s horse carried the lame or wounded man? Mr. Bell told the foregoing to Mr. Keightley not long after, when the country was ablaze with the story of the sup- posed outrage, but so far as I know no inquiry was over made about these three travellers.
I set aside oceans of talk I heard in and about Bermagui during visits there at various intervals, between 1880 and 1881, and will mention, in conclusion, only one item in sup- port of the theory I have always held. From where the boat embarked her freight — dead as well as living in all probability — to the scrub, there were seen traces — deep footprints in the sand — going sideways, as if tracks of two men carrying a heavy weight between them. This, was not known to the police, so far as I am aware, nor do I know that they know it now.
There was much left undone at the proper time, but it may not be too late, even now, to bring the guilty parties to light. A sub- stantial reward, published in all the colonies as well as in England, might get a prompt answer. There were two at least — probably three or four — con- cerned in the murder, and the silence that has so long been maintained may be broken by the weight of a reward, and so the mystery be at
last cleared up.
I am, &c,
W.N.