Henry Williams story
History Notes
Last week we left Henry Williams and the bullock driver just on the south side of the Peel River with a dray load of wool, bogged down to the axles. They unloaded the dray, pulled the dray out of the bog, reloaded the wool and set out for Murrurundi.
They reached Murrurundi almost four weeks later having been bogged several times, narrowly missed being squashed under the dray when it sank into the mud at night and without food. Henry tried to shoot them a kangaroo without success although he managed to shoot one or two birds and the dray driver got a little food when he did some work for a nearby landowner.
Eventually they reached Currabubula, capsized the dray, and covered the wool on some saplings. They ate some rotten beef for dinner and settled in to wait for help as they were both too weak to reload.
Some men with teams arrived and fed Henry and his mate, reloaded the wool and sent them off to "Weary's Creek''. They finally arrived at Turanville near Scone and delivered the goods to Mr. Dangar.
After a few weeks with Mr. Dangar, Henry heard about the Bingara goldfields and decided to start out on the 200-mile trip to the goldfields. He spent about 8 months on the Top Bingara fields during which time he found gold, had his tent robbed, suffered accidents and illness and lost his most respected partner, (the Hon. Thos Murray). When he recovered some health, he walked back to Tamworth in short stages and then went on to Scone after a few days at Murrurundi with Mr. Innes.
Henry Williams concludes his diary with "what a contrast between my present position and that often years ago." The date was May 1843, when he wanted for nothing and now in 1853 he was penniless, with no job and poor health!
Henry's life from here on improved as he settled in Barraba as Dr. Williams. Although he had no papers to prove he was a Doctor he did medical work apart from maternity and at one stage ran the post office for a while.
He married Mary Innes Gordon in Tamworth on 21st November, 1856, and the couple had ten children - Richard, Charles Gordon, Margaret Mary (Spencer), Jane, Catherine Sinclair (Saunders), Henry Edwin, Alexander, William Peter, Walter and Alfred Percival. Most of the children married and so Dr. Henry Williams left a large family when he died on August 11th, 1887. He is buried in Barraba.