Often in history, with the passage of time, stories can become a bit sketchy. This is one of them, but I’ve found enough pieces to discover what most likely happened. It involved an alleged “gentleman of the road” or more commonly a bushranger. I told a version of this story on radio 4WK.

A newspaper reported that in December 1862, the mail coach was robbed between Condamine and Dalby. A colossal total of £4,000 worth of gold was stolen by a bushranger named Henry Pickett.

Pickett was said to be a man of remarkable appearance and so it was assumed that he would be picked up fairly quickly. But in fact, Pickett contrived to disappear and escape with the gold that in today’s money was valued at over $4 million.

As the facts unfolded, it seems that giving Pickett the status of bushranger may have been overstating his achievements.

You see, Pickett was actually the driver of the mail coach from Condamine. At first it was reported that the weekly mail did not arrive in Dalby because the packhorse got bogged. Then it was suggested that the mailman got lost in the bush looking after his horses.

But finally, it transpired that the postman Pickett had himself robbed the mail and absconded on his way to Dalby, leaving the rifled bags at Wombo. What was left of the mail was found in a paddock and delivered to Dalby by Constable George Devine.

Devine had a long career in Queensland’s colonial police force, rising to the rank of sergeant and serving in places like Dalby, Jondaryan, Goondiwindi, Leyburn, and St George.

The mail contractor for the Condamine-Dalby run at the time was Goondiwindi’s William Wallace. And despite it being Wallace’s man who took off with the loot, Wallace continued to get contracts to deliver the weekly mail across the western Downs.

In the meantime, it appears that the so-called bushranger Henry Pickett got clean away despite there being warrants for his arrest in place for some time.

In fact, the name Henry Pickett disappeared from the public record. The identity resurfaced in far north Queensland fifteen years later where it is possible the same man was splashing his cash on pubs in Cairns, but he lost the lot and was declared insolvent.

The lawyer running the insolvency case was William Miskin. If you’ve read my book about the Brisbane home Dovercourt, you’d know that Miskin was the prominent Brisbane solicitor who himself would disappear when running off with his pregnant servant who was less than half his age.

In any case, Pickett next appears back down in south Queensland in Brisbane in 1881. That’s when he’s the proud owner of “Jock the terrier dog” that won first prize at the Brisbane show.

Come 1885, Pickett still had the financial resources to take over the license of the Post Office Hotel in Brisbane and hold it for the next fifteen years. An unsavoury side was revealed in 1895 when he was convicted of cruelty to animals. His conviction was bad enough that in default of the fine imposed, Pickett faced two months in gaol.

Pickett took over the Metropolitan Hotel in Brisbane and passed away in 1927.

If this is the same Henry Pickett the bushranger and what parts of the stories are true – including whether Pickett actually stole a fortune in gold, or just some of the mail – we may never know.

But it is possible that the Dalby bushranger who got away, today rests in peace at Brisbane’s Toowong cemetery – and still no one is the wiser about the gold.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THE STORY TOLD ON RADIO 4WK.

Photo credits:
Australian bushranger postcard 1908 – Flickr Public Domain.
Mail coach Goondiwindi c1900 – State Library of New South Wales.
Post Office Hotel Queen Street Brisbane c1873 – Queensland University of Technology.