History Notes - the Tarpoly Ghost story
History Notes
October used to be the busy month when lots of events were held before Daylight Savings but now it is still busy with lots of events being held in the next few weeks. Next weekend is a busy weekend for the museum as well as the whole town – markets on Saturday in the museum grounds, we hope the rain stays away until next week.
The calendars are selling well. They will be on the Society stall at the markets as well as some different books for people to look at. The main street book has been finished but it is proving difficult to keep up with the orders at present – hopefully, we will manage to get a few into the Museum before Christmas. Members and friend please remember the Annual General Meeting and the street stall coming up on the 20th.
I have not finished going through the O’Brien newspaper cuttings and this week I have a different angle on the Tarpoly Ghost story. This one was in a 1958 newspaper and gives a different angle on the story although the theme is the same.
The writer was travelling from Manilla to Barraba noting the pretty spot where the road crosses over Tarpoly Creek. They note the broken hilly country on the right through which the creek winds its way on to the Manilla River and the gate near some pepper trees on the Barraba side of the bridge. Through this gate and following a track to the top of the ridge there is a dead willow tree (not likely to be still there!) through the fence and just across the railway line there was a beautiful spring flowing from a crack in the rocks. The old hands called this the Ghost Spring and there used to be a little wooden spout leading out of the spring so that travellers could fill a can or similar with water.
Many years before the railway came through and the road was little more than a track there were a few yards and perhaps a humpy for the mail change where the horses were changed for the run into Barraba.
This was apparently the preferred site for drovers and teamsters to camp for the night, with water and grass for the stock. It was also the site of a ghostly apparition which randomly appeared scattering stock and manpower in terror in all directions. It is said that the drovers would saddle up and head for Upper Manilla for safety returning in daylight to re-muster the cattle and always finding they were a few short.
It was soon noted that the cattle were always frightened upstream on Tarpoly Creek and armed with this knowledge two men from Manilla decided to see what happened for themselves. The idea of a ghost was rather ridiculous but what could it be – perhaps a white kangaroo?
The men took up their positions and waited with rifles loaded. The white apparition arrived and the gun was raised but the young man could not work out what it was in front of him – then it disappeared behind a treetop down the hill. He lowered his weapon and waited. The apparition appeared and a shot was fired but failed to hit target, a second shot was loaded but the target was out of range.
The story is not competed in this cutting from the paper but we know from other copies that the second rifleman recognized the ghost and her horse covered in a white woollen outfit and did not shoot. A few days later he visited the home where he thought the young woman lived, finding the outfit hidden in a woolpack in the woolshed. She left the district, never to return, and the Tarpoly Ghost mystery was solved.