William John Best Gray (1832 - 1911)

Born 18 Sep 1832 in Windsor, New South Wales, Australia

Ancestors

Husband of Mary Ann (Clay) Gray — married 19 Nov 1854 (to 9 Dec 1911) in Queensland, Australia

Descendants

Died 9 Dec 1911 at age 79 in Queensland, Australia

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Joan Gray [send private message], Kerry Gray [send private message], and Holly Greentree [send private message]

Biography

William John Best Gray and Mary Ann Clay were married on the 17/11/1854.

WILLIAM JOHN BEST GRAY 18/09/1832 TO 09/12/1911 Fourth child and only son born to William and Mary GRAY (Wheeler). Both William and Mary are buried on the property which is known as Graysholm, Arlington Cemetery on the Cunningham Highway Queensland. William lived 79yrs and 3mths. Mary Ann passed away 13/05/1924 aged 86yrs 11mths

William JB Gray put pen to paper and recorded the following stories...

• http://www.safeandsoundstorage.com.au/familytree/gray/stories/stories.html
• http://www.safeandsoundstorage.com.au/familytree/gray/stories/downs.html

WILLIAM JOHN BEST GRAY PUT PEN TO PAPER AND RECORDED THE FOLLOWING:-

1. EARLY HISTORY OF THE DOWNS

2. EARLY DAYS

3. PIONEER AND PIONEERING ON THE DARLING DOWNS

4. THE EARLY DAYS OF THE BIG RIVER & McINTYRE & SEVERN

5. DESCRIPTION OF WILLIAM JOHN BEST GRAY by FREDERICK BAUER

EARLY HISTORY OF THE DOWNS. Written in 1903.

Incident on incident crowd on my mind as I write and I unwittingly get away from the question of Early Settlements. No Sheep were introduced to that portion of the Downs for many years after the settlers brought over the first Mob of Cattle.

The stockman then was a different class of man to the Stockman of today and the method of working the cattle was altogether different from the method in vogue at present. The cattle were drafted onto different camps and kept on these camps, and a few cracks of the whips were sufficient to take them to or bring them from their grounds.

A stockman never allowed a day to pass without riding through his herd and personally inspecting each station assisted its Neighbour and a very short time suffice to successfully conduct the muster and no extra expense was incurred. In one of Mr John Campbell letters I notice an assertion that he was the first man to form a camp and depasture cattle on what is now Queensland Territory. This is wrong when the first cattle camp was formed in what is now Queensland Mr Campbell was working at his trade as a Tinsmith in a town in NSW . The first depasture cattle in QLD Territory was a man named Howe of Carrol Station on the Namoi. In the year 1837 accompanied by his 3 sons and 4 brothers named Dight and a Black Boy. Howe proceeded down the Namoi in search of pastures for their stock, but after a months absence returned disappointed. A fresh start was made this time in a Northerly direction and the McIntyre was struck somewhere in the vicinity of Yetman and followed some miles further down.

Well pleased with what they saw Howe took up what is now Merriwa. While the Dights selected Yetman, the party made the inspection of the McIntyre in 1837 and brought their cattle over in 1838. At this time my father was employed by Mr Howe as a stockman on Carrol station an saw his cattle (in charge of two white men and a black boy) (and Messes Dights cattle in charge of three white men) move off to the newly acquired pasture on the McIntyre.

In charge of Mr Howe cattle was a man names Thomas Crampton and it was he who established the first cattle camp (Crampton Corner) in Queensland. Crampton was an ex convict and with his advent to Queensland fresh trouble with the Blacks came about. His camp was on the North side of McIntryre River. I think this may be taken as evidence that Mr Campbell was placing to his credit considerably more than was his due.

Following these pioneers of the cattle industry in Queensland came three brothers Brown from Liverpool Plains. Impressed by what they saw they selected Coppmurranbilla and Boggabilla and sent up cattle to stock the acquired country. Then followed the Doyle's and Jacob and William Lowe who selected Welltown all were cattle men and thus far no sheep had been brought on to the new pastures.

Mr Richard Dines father of the late Mr Geo Dines was the first man to bring sheep on to that country (TOOLOONA)

WILLIAM JOHN BEST GRAY

EARLY DAYS BY WILLIAM JOHN BEST GRAY

Dear sir

I must tell you of some of our old times horses. I have told you about some of the Early Squatters, and their men. I will now tell you something about their horses, and some feats that were performed by them. We had in those days a horse that went by the name of "Deuchar's Billy" and owned by Mr John Deuchar. I think all who knew Mr Deuchar would say he was a man about fourteen stone weight, and a very hard man on horseflesh. Well, he had to go to Maitland on some very particular business concerning the Rosenthal Station, and he performed that feat to Maitland and back to the station with Billy, grass fed, in six days, and lost only one day out of the six in Maitland. I do not know the exact distance it would be, but think it nothing short of five hundred miles. I think that is the longest distance covered in the time by any horse known to Australia.

There was at Glengallon a black horse called Harkeaway, owned by the Campbell Brothers, that carried Mr Archibald Campbell, a man sixteen stone weight, from Glengallon to Brisbane, in eight hours, over Cunningham's Gap. He was run in off the plain and had not had a saddle on him for six months. Mr Campbell's brother was dangerously ill in Brisbane at the time. The horse that performed this feat was the best racehorse we had here for a good many years before, and after accomplishing this journey, the distance he went in the eight hours was always reckoned to be one hundred and eight miles.

I think I have told you all the principal events of the early days of the Darling Downs, and several other places. I will now say a few words about myself and finish writing for this time.

I was married in the old Court House at Warwick in November, Fiftyfour (1854), by the Rev Parson Glennie, and I have never had any cause to complain of that day's work. And I am happy to tell you that my wife is well and hearty for a woman that has seen sixty-six years and reared a family of seven boys and four girls all up to be men and women. Now in my young days on the roads I had to be in all sorts of company, from which I learned a great deal of useful knowledge that came handy to me through my after life, and I also learnt a great deal that I would have been better without. But I have seen sixty years in Queensland and I have never been brought into a Court House for any cause whatever, nor yet has a policeman ever had a hand on me.

THE EARLY DAYS PIONEERS AND PIONEERING ON THE DARLING DOWNS BY WILLIAM JOHN BEST GRAY (BETTER KNOWN IN THOSE DAYS AS YOUNG BILLY GRAY)

I came from Windsor, New South Wales, overland to Brisbane, with my Father, Mother, and four sisters, three of which were young women. The other was some two years younger than myself. I was then just about ten year and a half old. We left Windsor 1842 - November, on or about the middle of the month, and arrived in Brisbane about the first week in March, 1843, so that I think I can claim to be the oldest hand now alive on the Downs. There are several mis- statements made in some of those writings about the early days, and those that I know is not true I will try and correct them as far as I am able.

It has been decided that Allan Cunningham was the first white man to sight the Darling Downs. Now this is not true. Now I will admit that he was the first to make any report in the matter, and through him, and the glowing accounts given by him of the country he saw, the Downs was eagerly sought after by people looking for pastures new for their flocks and herds, and the first to start was Mr Patrick Leslie. The first white man that sighted the Downs was a man named Baker, one of the first convicts sent to Brisbane, from which place he absconded at the very first opportunity, and he made his way up to the Lockyer's Creek, where the Blacks came across him nearly starved to death and quite naked. Now it so happened one of the Tribe had died some short time before, the dead man a brother in the Tribe, and he claimed Baker to be his dead Brother that had come back to join his people. They therefore carried Baker to their camp, and gave him all the most delicate portions of their food, and with careful nursing they soon restored him to health and vigor again, and with them he remained for twenty one years without ever seeing the face of a white man. The Tribe he was with belonged to about Gatton and Laidley, but they transversed the Downs, making war with other Tribes; so that Baker had traversed the whole of the Downs long before any other White man ever seen them. The Blacks congregated about Ipswich to have a fight with the Brisbane and Ipswich Blacks, and it was at the One Mile Creek, little Ipswich, that he saw the first White man in all those years; and when he saw his own colour he longed to join them, but the Blacks would not hear of it. However, after great persuading, they agreed to let him go, but not before he made a faithful promise to return in two days' time, which promise he faithfully kept. After two or three days he got another chance to getaway, and gave himself up to the Authorities in Brisbane. The Blacks stayed around Ipswich for several weeks in hopes they would get him back again, but they never saw Baker again. I do not know whether he was pardoned, or whether his term of sentence had expired; however, he was set free in Brisbane, but you never could induce him to come three miles on this side of Ipswich. The last I saw of him was in Ipswich, where he lived to be a very old man.

Now for Mr. John Campbell, I think he has been a little bit bushed in his remarks about the murder of a young man names Kelly. I came past Mr. Pitt's and Bonifant's station, where the town of Leyburn now stands, and camped there for three days, and never heard a word about any murder being committed. I have travelled from 1843 all over the Downs as a carrier, and I believe I knew every man on the Darling Downs, whether he was a Shearer or Shepherd or Bullock Driver, and their Masters too, and they one and all knew me, but I never once heard of this murder spoken of by either Master or man until I saw Mr. Campbell's Letter in the Warwick "Argus". Surely if a thing had been committed I must have heard something about it.

I have had some good long yarns with both Mr. Pitt and Bonifant about the trouble they had with the Blacks, and other matters, but never a word about Kelly's murder from them or anyone else. There is another place in Mr. Campbell's letter I think he gets a little bit mixed up, as regards the movements of those Bushrangers and Murderers after they separated. According to Mr. Campbell's statement, one of them passed his station Kittah Kittah. Now I should very much like to know how Mr. Campbell became aware of the fact that this man did pass by there, when the station was abandoned, and Mr. Campbell was located at Westbrook. Then I think Mr. Campbell is not giving us the straight thing when he tells about being left in Summerville's camp with about Twenty armed Blacks. The very fact of him saying he spoke to the Blacks that was about to strike him in his own language. I know Mr. Campbell well, and he could no more speak the Black's Language than I could speak French. If they had him in the fix he makes out he was in, they would have very soon put his light out. I see no mention made by anyone about Mr. Cameron and Coulston. Those two were amongst the first that made a rush for the Downs. They settled on the east side of Mary Vale Creek, just where it junctioned with Campbell's Creek, shore their sheep there, and took their wool by way of Cunningham's Gap on slides to the foot of the range, and then loaded it on their Drays and took it to Brisbane. They then went over the range and took up a placed called Tarroom and Fassifern and Dugandan on the head of the Teviot Brook. Mr. Coulston resided there and Mr. Cameron at Tarrom. It is great mistake for people to say that the Squatters got their supplies up to the Downs by way of Cunningham's Gap. There was once and once only that any supplies came up that way, and that had to be taken off the Drays and drew up the range on a slide, two or three bags of flour at a time. It took as many as thirty Bullocks to draw up the empty Drays. They then got a road over the range from the head of Hodgson's Creek and down Flagstone Creek to Helidon, which road received the name of Hell Hole Road, and it was Hell Hole sure enough. Many a good poler had his neck broken at Hell Hole. I forgot to mention that Tarroom and Fassifern are situated on the Ipswich waters, and Dugandan on the Teviot Waters, which flows into the Logan. I am now going to tell you that Drayton was the first town to spring into existence on the Downs. When I passed there in the early part of February, 1843, there was a Public House kept by a Mr. Thomas Alford, also a Blacksmith's shop owned by one Peter Flanaghan, and two or three huts besides. Drayton was then called The Springs. In two or three years later Alford sold out to Mr Stephen Meehan, and kept the hotel for several years, and Thomas Alford built a store. Then came the Fiver, as he was called, and he built the "Bull's Head ". At that time there was not one stick erected in the shape of a building where Warwick now stands. The Horse and Jockey was the first building which was erected by John Collins and Harry Kirby, and I drove the team that drew the first load of Grog to it by way of Spicer's Peak; the next to be erected was the lockup Sergeant Thomas Mc Fvoy was Chief Constable and John Clunes ordinary Constable. A man named George Walker built the first store and the first Blacksmith's shop was built by a man named Dan Emmens. Some of the many readers of the "Argus" wish to know how the place on the Condamine was called "The Jew's Retreat". Some connect it with the Jew boy, the Leader of a gang of Bushrangers in New South Wales, but there is no connection whatever. The Jew boy was shot at a place near the Page township, N.S.W many years before the place known as the "Jew's Retreat" received its name. There was in the employ of Mr Leslie a Jew, and he was stationed at the place known as the "Jew's Retreat". Whether he was a Shepherd or whether he was a hut keeper I am prepared to say, but whatever his occupation was he was one day set upon by the Blacks, but by a lucky slip of the foot he managed to get away unhurt, and ran all the way to the head station, and the place as far as I know has been called the " Jew's Retreat" ever since. There is still another place Known as Lord John's Swamp that like the Jew's Retreat derived its name from a hut keeper by the name of John Ryan (Thomas Hall). He had a fair share of education, and he was for ever telling people that he was the son of an Irish Lord, so they christened him Lord John, and the place Lord John's Swamp. Perhaps some of the readers of the "Argus" would like to know the person was that first introduced that very valuable plant the Bathurst Burr on to our plains. The gentleman's name was either Bottlestone or Bottleson. He brought sheep over from Bathurst and was going to the Wide Bat District. He travelled by Warwick, Glengallan, Allora and King's Creek and Eatonvale, and it was all along the route he travelled that the burr first made its appearance on the Darling Downs. I have read in Mr. Morgan's pamphlet that Alpin had to give up the boiling down, owing to not being able to get teams to cart the stuff away. That little story, whoever circulated it, it is a long way from being true, for at that time there were plenty of carriers on the Downs, but the fact of it is they would not give the carriers a fair price for their labour, so the most of them preferred to go down to Ipswich with empty drays and get a load of rations for some of the stations or stores. Now I have finished about the boiling down, I will tell you something few of our present population ever heard of, and I suppose they will not believe it when they are told that we had, in the early forties, a mail coach running from Brisbane to Gatton to the hotel kept by a Mr Walter Smith. A man by the name of Samuel Owens, an overseer of Mr Thomas Bell's of Bellmount, near Richmond, N,S.W. brought stock of Mr Bell's from the Big River and formed a Station on Laidley Creek and then he started the coach.

A man by the name of Richard Lovell came over with Owens as a Bullock -Driver, and he was the man chosen by Owens to drive the coach. The coach after a short time out a failure, through bad roads or some other cause of which I know nothing about, and Owens left Laidley, where he had resided as overseer for Mr Bell, and he went over the little Liverpool Range and built a public house sixteen miles from Ipswich, at a place then known as the Old Man's Waterhole on the Ipswich Road. In those days it was a sight worth seeing to see a Bank Note or a silver coin. There were only four firms that drew cheques on the Bank, which were Leslie Brothers, Gore and Company Hodson and Elliott, and Hughes and Isaacs. The remainder of them drew orders on some Mercantile firm in Sydney. Those orders were all right as long as the wool was being conveyed to Sydney. Then, when all the wool was down, down went the orders too. They were good only for about three months in the year. Sometimes a Storekeeper or Publican would discount them for you for Twenty Five or Thirty per cent, and they would give you as change as much paper as would fill an ordinary baker's oven. Not with standing the trouble we had to get rid of their paper, they were a fine class of men. Their word could be taken for any amount, with the exception of two. Those two were Sir Arthur Hodson and George Gammie. If you had anything to do with those two worthy gentlemen you required a very substantial agreement, and , if there was the least mistake in the wording of it, your chances of getting your money for whatever work you may have done for them was very small indeed.

I now will try to put Mr. Joseph Rigby a bit right in some remarks I see in his letter in the "Argus". In his letter he says Mr. Andrew Scott, together with the Fraser Family, went and formed the station known as Hornet Bank on the Dawson River, where all the Fraser's, with the exception of two sons, William and West were murdered by the Blacks. William was the eldest of the family; West was some years younger. The father of the Fraser's died in Toowoomba some time before they went to the Dawson. Now I will tell Mr. Rigby that nether Scott nor Fraser had anything to do with the forming of Hornet Bank station. It was a Mr James Marks, together with his two sons, George and William, Those are the parties that formed the station known as Hornet Bank.. There had been doubt in the minds of some people as to where Mr. Leslie crossed the Condamine. Some say he crossed between Takgai and Toolburra. Wherever he crossed his marked line goes down Canal Creek to what is known as the Dog Trap, and Crosses Canal Creek below that Place. Then across what is Known as The Poisoned Swamp and right on to the bank of the river at the place Mr. Leslie was supposed to have crossed; whether he did or not I cannot say. I know I crossed there when I first saw the Darling Downs.

Now for John Donald McLean and the first shearing he had at West Brook and how the shed was conducted. He had all ringers that the Downs could boast of there. Amongst them were the fastest two men then known in Australia. Their names were George Partridge, who could lead every man he met by fifty or sixty sheep in the day. He had done this for a good many years in New South Wales and Queensland. Then came his mate, Jack Siccle. He was declared to be the next best man. Then came the smallest man on the floor in the person of the late Denis Donovan, father of Mr. Charles Donovan, of "The Glen", Inglewood; he was the next best man to those two big gins. Well, they made arrangements with Mr Mclean for him to supply the shed with plenty of Rum, and they, the shearers and rouseabouts, were to keep the shed supplied with either draught ale or porter, which could be got in Drayton. There was always a cask of either ale or porter in the shed. Well I should think the casks would contain about thirty gallons. That was placed in one corner of the shed, with necessary brass tap and a pint pot, and the shearers had to take it in turn to serve it out. When beer was called, if the man that had to serve it out happened to have a sheep half shorn, he had to let it go and attend to his duty; if he failed to attend to his duty he was fined ten sheep. If Mr Mclean failed to supply rum when required, he was fined twenty sheep. Mr. D. Donovan held some very high office amongst them; he was President or Vice President, and a man who was very fond of hearing a good song, if the man called upon failed to comply within the President's request, he was tried for disobeying lawful commands of the President, and the fine of five sheep was inflicted on him. The men in nearly all cases had to count the sheep and to keep their own tallies, while Mr. McLean would be found lying under the wool screen snoring. Some of the men were honest enough not to take advantage of this state of things, and some were not, but shear one and chalk down two. That year I carried the whole of the clip from West Brook to Ipswich, so that I was there at the start and there when the shed was cut out, and that is the way it was conducted from start to finish.

In those days we had some very comical men; it was the same thing with masters as well as their men. You may know a man for years, and then not know what his real name was, for they all had a nickname attached to them, and some very queer names they were. I will give you a few of the names of some of them that have just come into my head. Well to start with, there was Jack the Sand Bear, then we have Tim the Badger, Paddy the Horse and Paddy the Peeler; then comes the Old Super and the Old Convincer; then there was a Mickie the Priest and Mickie the Hiber. Now we come to Old Mickie Dart, then we have Mickie the Duce, and we have the Astonisher and Kill Thousands. Then comes the worthy Greenhide Jack, then Fine Flour makes his appearance, and along with him the Flour of Wheat. Then we have the Flower of Kent and Coulston's Ramrod. I was well acquainted with all these men. And I only knew the proper name of one of them.

Well, I think I will bring this scribble to a close by telling you that I am Seventy One years of age next September; out of that time I have spent sixty years in Queensland and never been out of it. I could give you a great deal more information about old times, which along with my own little doings in that sixty years, when put into print, may interest some of the readers of your paper. What I have written in those pages is the truth as near as anyone can give it to you. I can tell you a lot about the early settlement of The McIntyre and Severn which I have not touched upon in those pages, along with my own trials and troubles during my sixty years' residence in Queensland.

THE EARLY DAYS OF THE BIG RIVER AND McINTYRE AND SEVERN BY W.B.J.GRAY

The first to settle on the Big River were two or three brothers by the name of Hall. They were natives of New South Wales, and they took some country on the Big River at a place called Bingerah, and there they formed a cattle station. Then a Mr. Ogilvie followed with another cattle station some miles lower down the river. The Mr Ogilvie here mentioned was amongst the first who formed a cattle stations on the Clarence River. Mr. Henry Dangar of Myall Creek, he also formed a cattle station on the said creek about twenty miles in a north - easterly direction from Bingerah. Then a Mr. Hely with another cattle station named Ginerroi between Hall and Ogilvie. Those stations were separated about ten miles from each other, for it was the custom to form their homesteads close together for protection for one another from the attacks of the Blacks, which people were very numerous in that part of the country. In those days the squatter never lived on his station; his home would be either at Maitland or Singleton. The station would be left to the care of a stockman, a hutkeeper, and on some occasions there would be a black boy from the Hunter River or Naomi, and in all cases the men entrusted to look after the stock and station were convicts. There were no managers in those days and they never saw their Masters above once in the year; whatever responsibility there was rested on the Stockman. The owner would come up to the station at Branding time, which was only once in the year, and as soon as the Branding was done he took any fat cattle there may be, and the men would see no more of him until Branding time again, Many a good man lost his life by the Blacks while protecting his Master's property. In those days you would hear of someone being either speared or killed nearly every day in the week. Whenever the Blacks committed any Murder or Killed any cattle, there was word passed along from station to station, and the Stockman would collect at some appointed place, and follow up the tracks of the miscreants until they came up with them, and then the Blacks were killed without mercy. On one occasion the Blacks set fire to a hut, and burnt the hutkeeper in it. Well. The Stockman and some of the owners of some of the stations followed them, and came upon them in their camp within about five miles of Bingerrah, and at daylight the next morning they opened fire, and killed every one they could get a shot at, whether man, woman, or child. They let none escape that it was possible to get a shot at. There were twelve men in this party, seven of them were convicts and three were owners of stations. The remaining two were men that had been convicts and had served their sentence and become free. The seven were all taken; the other five escaped and left the Colony, and were never taken. The men that were taken and tried in Maitland for willful Murder - the Squatters procured the best counsel in the Colony at the time for them, and the men were all acquitted. There was a Mr Plunkett conducting the case for the Crown, and when the men were acquitted the Squatters began to jibe him and told him that his Irish law would not do here. "Well", he said "we will see what English law will do". So he had the men re-arrested, and put them on their Trial for the Murder of Babes that were not born, and they were found guilty and hung in Maitland Jail. So the squatters were the cause of those seven men being hung. If they had left Mr Plunkett alone the men would not have been tried the second time.

In about three weeks after Mr. Ogilvie's stock arrived on the station, the men were killing a beast for beef, when up came about twenty Blackfellows all well armed. The men, of which there were four and a Black boy, had their firearms just close to their hand. They presented their guns at the Blacks, when one of them called out in good English: "Don't shoot me , I am a white man like yourself." However, they took this man prisoner and fired a shot or two to frighten the Blacks away. They took him to their hut and secured him with a chain and some padlocks. They got water and soap and washed him until they had removed a great deal of the black from his skin. The next morning the stockman and his hutkeeper started with him to give him up to a Mr Meehan, who was at that time Crown Lands Commissioner, residing on the Peel River, where Tamworth now stands. He had with him five or six troopers that used to patrol that part of the country from station to station in search of runaway prisoners, for some of those men were absconding from their Masters every day. However, to return to this man Sweeney, for that turned out to be his name, and a runaway convict from some parts of New South Wales. His two captors delivered him safely to Mr. Meehan at the Peel River, and he was delighted beyond measure to have him. He said he would use Sweeney to travel about with the Troopers in hopes that by so doing he would be instrumental in quietening the Blacks in all this new country that was being taken up at the time. I have seen Sweeney on two or three occasions with the Troopers, for at that time I was living close to the Peel River at a place called Carroll, in the Namoi, with my Father and Mother. It appears that, when Sweeney made his escape and got away and joined the Blacks, he was under the sentence of Death for some crime he had committed in some part of the Colony, and after he was retaken the Colonial Authorities were undecided whether they should carry out the Death sentence or not. However, they wrote to the Home Government about the matter, and received an answer to the effect that he, Sweeney was to suffer the full penalty of the Law, and word was sent to Mr Meehan to have him escorted down to Maitland. As soon as Mr. Meehan received this news he communicated the fact to Sweeney. That night he ran away from there, and was never heard of again that I ever heard of. Now it is just possible that he made his way back to the Tribe he had been taken from, and during some of the many battles the Blacks and Whites had, that some of the whites recognized him and ended his days with a bullet.

There were no sheep on the Big River for a great number of years it was all cattle, and they were worked in quite a different fashion to what they are today. In those days a stockman was a stockman, but in these days, I consider him nothing more than a rouseabout. At the time I am writing about a man would never miss a day without going through his herd. The cattle could all be put on to camps, and if they wanted any particular mob, two or three cracks of a stock whip would put them on to several camps, and they knew exactly what camp to go to, to get the cattle that they wanted. The stations all assisted one another at mustering time. It was done in this way - my man would go to your station and finish you and then I received the same assistance from you, and the whole lot of the work was done in a very short time, with no extra expense, with the exception of a little extra rations for two or three days, if the cattle were treated in the same way now I think the squatter would save a great deal of expense by way of the number of hands they have to employ and the number of horses it requires to do the work. Less than half the number of both men and horses would do the work, and in a much shorter time, by camping the cattle.

I have noticed in one of Mr. Campbell's letters where he credits himself with being the first man to form a cattle camp, and despasture cattle in what is now Queensland Territory. I must stop Mr. Campbell's credit just now, and pass his account to some other person, for there were cattle in what is now a part of Queensland when Mr. Campbell was in a township called then The Page, working at his trade as a tinsmith. And now I will tell you who were the men that are to be credited with the account which Mr. Campbell has placed to his own credit. There was a Mr. Haw and his three sons owned a station on the Namoi River called Carroll. There also were four brothers by the name of Dight , whose stock also were on the same run, and they all used the one stockyard. About the middle of the year thirty- seven two of the Howe's and Two of the Dights and a Black boy started down the Namoi in search of fresh pastures for a part of their herds, but after being away for about a month they came back, and had discovered nothing to their liking. They therefore had a week's spell and started in a more northerly direction, and struck the McIntyre River somewhere about Yetman, and they explored the river some miles further down. The Howe's took what is known as Meriwa, and Dight Brothers took up Yetman, and brought their stock there in the early part of Thirty-eight. My father was at that time stockman on Carroll for the Howe. Their three men all prisoners sent in charge of Mr. Dight's stock, and two white men and a Black boy with Mr. Howe. The stockman that had charge of Mr Howe's cattle was one Thomas Crampton, He had become a free man, and he was the greatest terror the Blacks ever had in any part of Australia. He was the first man to form a cattle camp on this side of the McIntyre for the Meriwa run occupies both sides of the river, and always did from the time it was taken up. I think that is very clear evidence that Mr Campbell was placing to his credit rather more than was due to him.

After those two young men had taken up those two runs, two or three more brothers by the name of Brown brought stock from their station on Liverpool Plains and took up what is known as Cubbermurambilla and Boggabilla. Then there were the Brothers Jacob and William Low at Weeltoun, and the Doyles; all of those were cattle- men . A Mr. Richard Dines, father of the late Mr. George Dines, was the first man to bring sheep on to that part of the McIntyre. I have told you who were the first setters on that river. I will now tell about the dangers their men had to undergo for a good many years to protect their own lives and the property of their Masters. The Blacks were very numerous and were killing cattle every day, and it was not unusual thing to see the stockman come home with two or three spears in his horse. And he would consider himself lucky to get home at that. I believe Meriwa was the only station did not have one or more men killed on them.

Crampton was the only man on the river that the Blacks were really frightened of. From the time he first went to the river, there never was a Black bold enough to throw a weapon of any sort at him. He used to carry a carbine, a pair of large pistols, and what is known to a man of war's man as a boarding cut lash. And with these arms, he would face the Tribe independent of their number. He used to shoot them where he came on them. On one occasion he left his hut to take his daily ride through his herd as was the custom in those days, but when he had gone a short distance he noticed there were no cattle on one of his principal camps, and he came to the conclusion that there was something wrong. This camp was at a lagoon about three and half miles from the station, and studded with low gum trees on each bank. The lagoon itself was not a very large one, shaped something like an egg. Crampton rode to the lagoon and found that nearly in every tree on both sides of the water there were one or two Blacks waiting for the cattle to come in, so that they may spear them from the trees. Well Crampton took his horse a short distance away, draped the bridle reins on to the ground, and went back and shot every Black that was there. There was one among them that was only wounded; he escaped Crampton's notice, and he made his way back to what was left of the Tribe, and told them what had befallen the others. There were about twenty that were killed that morning by the hands of one man. Now these lines may appear incredible to some people, but they are as true as that there are ink and paper. On another occasion he was going up the river to Yetman, and he did not take any firearms with him, and on the plain near Tucker Tucker he saw a whole Tribe crossing. They were shifting over toward the Severn. As they had all their women and children with them he knew that they were not on the war path; and he charged them with no other arms but a stock whip, and drove one of them before him like he would drive a bullock, and secured him for the night, and next day he drove him about thirty five miles to a station named Crageen. My father was living there at that time as a stockman where he chained the Black up for the night. He was going to take him and deliver him up to Mr. Commissioner Meehan at the Peel River. Before he left our place the next morning my father persuaded Crampton to secure the Black in some way, so they placed a rope around his neck and around the horse's neck that Crampton was riding, and tied his hands together with some strips of hide, and my father insisted on Crampton taking a gun with him. He took him in that way to within about eight miles of the Police Barracks at the Peel River. The hide the Black's hands were tied with was causing them to swell, and cut into the flesh, and Crampton released his hands. After releasing the Black as stated, they had gone about a mile when the Black sprang on to his captor and tried to pull him of his horse. He was a very spirited animal and had a first-class horseman on his back, so the horse bounded ahead, and drew the black flat on to the ground and kicked him about until his scull was all broken. Crampton then took the rope from off the horse's neck, and he went in to the Peel and reported to Mr. Meeehan what had happened, and he sent two of his Troopers with a dray to bring in the black. When they arrived at the place in the road where he had been left by Crampton, he had crawled about two hundred yards away in the bush, and was quite dead. I have told you a great deal about the Big River and the McIntyre, I will now tell you about the Severn or Dumaresque, and who were the first to stock that River.

First came a Mr. Hetherington to Bonshaw. Then came Mr. Sloper Cox to Gunyan; then the McDougalls to Texas and Mr. Hargraves to Bebe, and Mr. John Campbell and his brother-in-law, a Mr. Stevens, to Kitta Kitta. Then came a worthy old gentleman from the Emerald Isle by the name of William Lalor, father of the Hon James Lalor Member of the Legislative Council. He came to Bengalla, and those men had equally the same trouble to protect themselves and their stock as they had on the McIntyre. On those stations nearly every one of them grew as much wheat as supplied the stations with flour, which was ground by hand power. You can see to this day some portions of their old mills lying about on every station where wheat was grown. Now I think I have shown you that wheat was grown on those rivers before it was grown in Queensland, either on the Downs or anywhere else, excepting on those two rivers, the McIntyre and Severn. Mr William Lalor grew splendid wheat in a pure sand bed at Bengalla. A horse would sink halfway to the knee in walking over the paddock where it was grown. In these early days, when all this new country was being taken, there were very few men on any of the holdings but were convicts, and good trustworthy servants they were. I would be a good thing for the squatters and farmers if they could get as good men today, but such servants as they were are a thing of the past, like many other things that have passed from us. Whatever property was entrusted to them was safe in the their hands, and there was little crime committed in those days. A murder was a thing you never heard of, that is of one white man killing one of his own labor, and a female twenty miles away in the bush was as safe from harm as if she were in Newgate Prison.

And now for some more about the Darling Downs and the dangers and hardships that a great many men were subjected to in fulfilling their several duties. The Shepherd and his hutkeeper were always under the sentence of death from their Black brothers. There was on one occasion on Etonvale two shepherds and a hutkeeper at a place called Emu Creek. The hutkeeper went by the name of Joe the Soldier. One day five young Blackfellows came to the hut. The soldier had an old Soldier's musket and a shear blade fastened to the end of a stout pole about six feet long. Three of the Blacks rushed into the hut and struck Joe three or four blows on the head with their Nulla Nullas. However, he got hold of his gun and shot one of them dead and the other two he killed with his shear blade. The two that remained outside of the hut ran away, when they saw the one fall which he had shot, and when the Shepherds came home in the evening with their sheep, they found the Soldier sitting in the front of his hut smoking his pipe and three Blacks lying in front of him quire dead. In four days after this had happened I was walking on the tracks of six of our working bullocks, and I was very hungry for it was then about three o'clock and I had not had anything to eat from supper time the night before. So I left the tracks that I had been following all day, and went about a mile out of my way to the Soldier's hut to get something to eat, and I then heard from old Joe what had happened, and I also saw several large patches of blood, both inside the hut and outside also which old Joe had not properly cleared away. Every day you would hear of some shepherd being killed, and his flock of sheep taken away into the mountains . Then the squatter would go in search of them in company with some of his men. When he fell in with them, they of course chastised them for his misdeeds. But the squatters on the Downs were far more merciful to the Blacks than the stockman were on these three rivers, I believe there were more of them killed on those rivers than in all the other parts of Australia put together.

I am going to tell you now who were the first carriers in what is now the State of Queensland. The first to start the carrying business were Richard Lovell and James Graham. They rented two teams of Bullocks from the Leslie Brothers, and started as a concern. However, they did not agree very well, and they soon parted. Lovell then married one of my sisters and he and my father joined as partners in the carrying business with some bullocks my father had of his own, and some four or five that Lovell had. They made up one team, and rented two teams more from the Campbell Brothers of Glengallon. In those times as well as the necessary bullock drive, there was the off-sider or bullock watchman.

There was one of those men sent with all station teams. Their duty was to collect the bullocks which had to be done on foot. With the carriers the case was different. They could not afford to pay a bullock watchman, so one of the party had to do that, as well as drive his team all day. And when Lovell and my father started that business, I being scarcely twelve years old was considered a very good bushman, and an expert tracker. So I was installed as their bullock watchman. Not a very nice job for a boy or man either at the time, and my father was very particular on those matters. If he sent me in the bush to look for anything, he expected me to find it or not to come back to the camp without whatever I had been sent for. Many a time I have come to the camp minus one or two of the bullocks. Instead of getting my breakfast, which I very much wanted, I would get a good hiding and sent off again. I have many times followed the tracks of a lot of bullocks all day without anything to eat from the night before, and I have kept on their tracks until darkness set in, and I could see the tracks no longer. I have laid myself down on the tracks until morning, and I would likely get back to the camp some time in the midst of the second night. But in no case would I return without whatever I went for. I soon found out that it did not pay. In those early days the bullock watchman was subjected to a great deal of hardship and danger. The grass everywhere used to grow to four and five feet high, and we used to have very heavy dews at night, so that, as soon as you left your bed in the morning and left the road, you would be wet to the skin, and right up to the neck, which wasn't very pleasant on a cold winter's morning. And we did not know one minute from another, but that we would have a few spears driven into us for breakfast. We had no protection in the shape of firearms; there may be two or three very old worthless soldier's muskets amongst six or seven drays, and they were always left in the camp, so the only chance the watchman had was in his legs. Five or six men would start from camp together, and in less than half an hour they would be all separated and would see no more of one another until they came back to the camp. I have been on several occasions quite close to the Blacks when I have been following the track of strayed bullocks, but I did not stay to look at them, but I would take my boots in my hand and make all the haste I could in another direction. I have been walking in these ranges below Etonvale and Drayton many a day, and have had them hunting all around me, and I never was interfered with by any of them, although they must have seen me for I could see them plain enough.

I used to be more afraid of my father than I was of the Blacks, for I knew if they set upon me they would kill me outright, but if Father got at me he would only about half do it. I tell you a bullock watchman's occupation was none of the best; it was like the big hand cart the prisoners used to have to draw in the old penal days- they used to say it was no chop and so say I about the watching business. For those men that were so occupied had to walk through the bush where neither the stockman nor the shepherd were called upon to go. Yet I never knew one of them to be molested by the Blacks, and it was not because they had not got the opportunity, for they had that every day in the week.

I will now tell you of a ruse that was played by some bullock drivers on their masters, and it turned out very successful for them. There were six teams started from Brisbane with loading for their several stations, which were as follows: two of Mr Gammie's, two of Hodson's, and two belonging to King and Sibley. There were six drivers and three watchmen, nine men in all. It was just as the shearing was about to commence, and those teams had the shearing supplies on, which consisted of good deal of Grog, for it was the custom in those days to give the shearers three or four glasses of Grog in the day. However, as soon as these men started from Brisbane, they also started at the Grog, and by the time they reached somewhere about Gatton the Grog was all drunk. Then their trouble was how they were to account for the Grog. At last they hit upon a plan, and it worked out very successfully for them. They went on until they arrived at a place called the Monkey Holes, and there they had to pass through about a mile of scrub, and the road had been cut through it with scarcely room for a dray to pass through and it was always very boggy. There they bogged two or three of the drays, and knocked the heads in of all the casks and rolled them off the drays and set fire to them. They then cut open flour and sugar bags and scatted a great deal of their contents all about the road, and on the drays likewise. In fact every thing on the drays was broken into. They had taken off their boots, and had walked all about in the mud and all over the drays, and they lit small fires all around the drays, and then one and all left the drays and went to the Commissioner at Cambooya and told him that they had been run away from their teams by the Blacks, and if they had not had a couple of old Muskets to cover their retreat they must certainly have been all Murdered. The Commissioner believed what they said to be true, and he and Arthur Hodson, with three Troopers, went down the range to investigate the matter. And after they had seen the way everything was knocked about, as well as the bare foot prints and the small fires which had been lighted , they believed the men had told the truth, and those that are alive today that know anything about the matter believe so too. The men collected their bullocks, took home whatever was left to their several stations, and there was no more about it. I was not there at the time that this little game was played, but I was made aware of the fact very shortly after it happened by five of the men that were in the job. And I have never told anyone the real facts of the case until today, when in those lines you have a true statement of the whole occurrence. I have heard a good deal of talk by one and another. Of course, they were telling the story as it was told to them. I have often thought to myself "You are a long way from the Truth, old man". I had quite forgotten when writing about the bullock - watching business that the bullock bell was a thing that was not known then, nor yet for a good many years after, so the watchman had to do his work with his eyes instead of his ears, as they did when the bells came into general use.

I have told you that my first experience on the roads with carriers was as a bullock watchman for my father and a brother - in - law , and for such service they allowed me fifteen pounds a year; after about six months I got a rise of twenty pounds, and my work also rose on proportion. The man that was driving one of the teams left us, and I had to take his place, so that I had to collect the bullocks every morning and drive a team all day. That was, I thought, a big order for a boy of twelve years old. However, it had to be done and I made up my mind to do my best, and to some day become a first class driver, for every man at that time took a great interest in his work. Whatever his occupation was they all used to strive to reach the top rung of the ladder. And it was so in my case - - I used to hear the old fellows saying that some day I would be the leading light in the bullock - driving profession. Well, according to what every one used to say, I very soon reached to the height of my ambition. At fourteen years of age I was reckoned to be the King of that particular business. It did not give me any very great trouble whether it was dark or daylight, good roads or bad ones, I was always equal to the occasion. In fact, I did not like the roads to be too good. I used to get careless, and did not care how my team was going as long as they were going somewhere, but when I got into the mountains I was just at home, especially with a big load of wool. I never capsized a dray as long as ever I had anything to do with driving one. I drove the first load of wool over Spicer's Peak Road, in fact it was not a road at all; there was just a track made from the top of the range to the bottom, by dragging a log down. The scrub was what they called cleared; there was a tree cut here and there to admit of the bullocks passing between them, and if you were a bit lively and kept your eyes open you may stand a chance of getting the dray after them. I can assure you that it was "Quick's the motion" and attitude was everything there.

DESCRIPTION OF W.J.B.GRAY BY FREDERICK BAUER

W.J.B. spent many years carrying with his bullock teams on the Darling Downs and over the Range by way of Spicer's Gap Road to Ipswich and Brisbane. In those days, bullock teams pulled a two - wheeled dray fitted with a pair of shafts yoked one, two, three or four pairs of bullocks making teams of three, five seven or nine bullocks. This was an awkward arrangement yet amazing loads were moved.

It was not until the opening of the Spicer's Gap Road that the four - wheeled, single- poled wagon was devised. The extremely steep and rough descent made it almost impossible to control a dray with a single animal between the shafts. William Craig (name provided by Robyn Shaw) is credited with making the first wagon with a pair of bullocks, one on either side of a single pole, in order to surmount the Spicer's Gap Road. The four - wheeled wagon came into use to give greater control and soon the old - style dray was superseded.

The difficulties of this road are indicated by the fact that frequently teams of thirty - six bullocks were needed to haul a load up the Gap, while the accepted way of preventing a wagon from "bolting" on the steep Descent was to cut a fair sized tree at the top and drag it behind the wagon to act as a brake on the way down. For many years, Hundreds of such "brake Logs" lay beside the road at the foot of the mountain. Bush fires and natural decay eventually destroyed this interesting facet of history.

It was against this scene that "young Billy Gray" became the undisputed "King Of The Teamsters". Loads of wool to the sailing boats at Ipswich and Brisbane and return loads of Grog, station supplies and building materials - he carried them all, but progress was to overtake him. The spreading network of railways carried far greater loads in a fraction of the time that bullock wagons took. Slow, cumbersome wagons were being superseded.

It became a case of "If you can't beat them, join them". It is ironical that the last several years of his carrying work were to hasten his own demise as a carrier. During these years, contracts to supply sleepers and bridge timbers for the Warwick - Stanhope Railway.

It is against this background of harshness and cruelty that young William John Best Gray grew up. Small wonder that both father and son both conformed with the harsh norms of the time, for neither was noted for gentleness to his family or animals in the years that followed.

https://www.safeandsoundstorage.com.au/familytree/gray/stories/downs.html

Sources

• Gray family historians.
• Death QLD BDM Index 1911 / C4932 William John Best Gray (parents) William Gray & Mary Wheeler.
• https://farmarfamilies.com/p2641.htm