I went on assignment searching for a lost grave in the Queensland Outback, this is what I found and what’s my next step, and there’s an unexpected Ipswich connection. I told a version of this story live on West Bremer Radio.

Before arriving in Barcaldine, I found related stories about the Muckadilla Bore and Barcaldine Bull Thornton. When I got out there, I caught up with Roko Hunt who is the star player of the back-to-back premiers Barcaldine Sandgoannas.

Roko was recently named the inaugural Matt Scott Medallist for player of the year for Central West Rugby League. Roko was absolutely delighted when I told him that 80 years ago his club had poached the Queensland captain Bull Thornton from Ipswich.

Anyway, I was there in search of the lost grave of Maggie McNeill who went droving from Victoria to Queensland in the 1880s. Family stories included that she and her husband John had been killed by Aboriginals. But what really happened was that in 1890 at a place then called 21 Mile Bore outside of Barcaldine, she drank herself to death, was buried by the publican who then relocated the hotel, and Maggie has been lost ever since.

Finding Maggie is a very personal quest for me because she’s my great-great grandaunt. She went droving after caring for her dying sister Annie, who was my great-great grandmother.

This week I went to a location between Barcaldine and Longreach and searched the area by foot. We found a number of historic artefacts dating from the 1880s to 1920s, stone ruins, and a forgotten town dam (see photo top of page) which made we wonder if Maggie was becoming for me some sort of Lady of the Lake of Arthurian legend.

We also got a lot of information from the locals. This included a report told by a man 100-years-old at the time who died three years ago. His information led directly to me discovering what I believe to be, all in a row, five or six unmarked and unrecorded graves. The locals knew nothing about it.

I also met with people who gave me mud maps drawn from seventy-five year old memories. I now know the likely location of the hotel, post office and telephone exchange, railway gangers house, and where the fettlers lived.

That’s where it gets interesting. You see, my next expedition which I’m planning for next year, will be to follow those maps, and also to research the ganger who arrived in the settlement shortly after Maggie’s death.

His name was Mico Spanner. The place 21 Mile Bore became known as Brixton and it wasn’t a town but just a railway siding. Mico was on the state school committee, and as the senior railway employee there he was effectively the de facto mayor for thirty years. He would have known exactly where Maggie’s grave was.

I’ve started researching Mico hoping that I can find living descendants who may be able to provide more information.

Mico’s father and father-in-law both worked on the railways. Mico’s brother was a school headmaster. One of his daughter’s father-in-law was an insolvent builder and alcoholic who had a twelve-month prohibition order brought against him. Another daughter’s husband Bill Mitchell was a shearer, and before serving on Horn Island and Bougainville during the Second World War, he did his training at Redbank and spent a lot of time in Ipswich.

So even though I’m on a quest to find a lost grave in Outback Queensland, everything, as always, leads straight back to Ipswich.

To quote the Blues Brothers, I’m on a mission from God, and a treasure map means that it’s starting to get interesting.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON WEST BREMER RADIO.

Photo credits:
Brixton town dam 2026 – Harold Peacock 20260808_104611.
Roko Hunt inaugural Matt Scott medallist – Harold Peacock 20260809_122630.
John McNeill Queensland c1910 – Harold Peacock arechives from John McNeill grandniece Cheryl Reed 2010.
Brixton dry stone walls 2026 – Harold Peacock 20260808_120353.
William Henry Mitchell QX54397 – National Archives of Australia repaired with Copilot.