27 February 1936

MYSTERIOUS MURDER AT SALT CREEK

Servant Girls' Body Found In Wombat Hole In Coorong Scrub

The old saying that "murder will out" was never more strikingly exemplified than in what was known as the Salt Creek mystery, just over 70 years ago.

Ever since the overland route between Adelaide and Melbourne via the Coorong has been used, Salt Creek, between Meningie and Kingston, has been a much frequented stopping place. In pre-motor car days most persons travelling by road between Adelaide and Mount Gambier spent a night at the lodging house there; but after the murder of Jane Macmenimen early in 1862 the place acquired such a sinister reputation that travellers preferred to camp in the open rather than take advantage of the shelter the house afforded.

Malachi Martin, who kept the lodging house, his wife, and their servant girl, Jane Macmenimen, were well known to travellers on that road, for their house was the only one in the long stretch of almost uninhabited country bordering the Coorong. Jane was a thrifty girl, and was known to have saved a fair sum of money, which she had left with a man named Carter at Meningie. She had become engaged to a man named William Wilsen, who also had been employed by Martin.

Peter Nicholls, who carried the mail between Lacepede Bay and Wellington, saw Jane at Martin's lodging house when he called there on February 2, 1862, but six days later when he was on the return journey, he saw Wilsen leaving the house, and passed him about a quarter of a mile from. it. Martin did not open the door immediately Nicholls arrived, but eventually let him in. Mrs. Martin was away, and Nicholls helped Martin prepare the evening meal. They were joined by a man named Stockdale, and had the meal together.

Malachi told them that Jane had left him and had run away in a covered waggon to Mount Gambier. On his journey to Martin's, Nicholls remembered having seen a covered waggon at Rankine's station, between Salt Creek and Mount Gambier, and although he had spoken to the occupants of it, he had not seen or heard anything of Jane. People who had known Jane in the two years she had been at Malachi Martin's could not understand why she had not gone to Mr. Carter at Meningie and obtained her money, which amounted to more than £50. Most of her friends were in that township, too, but Martin maintained that she had gone to Mount Gambier.

During the following three months nothing occurred to arouse any serious suspicions, though people who compared notes noticed discrepancies in the description of the vehicle in which Martin had said that Jane had gone away. People wondered, too, why Jane's fiance, Wilsen, had made no concerned enquiries about her whereabouts.

The theory was advanced that she might have been murdered on the road, but the case took a sudden turn when blacks reported that they had found a body in thick scrub about half a mile from Martin's house. Mickey and Jockey, two aborigines, were out in the scrub when they noticed crows circling. Becoming interested, Mickey went to discover the cause, and found a woman's body in a hole about 5 ft. long, 2 ft. wide, and 7 ft. deep. He went to the publican at Wood's Well, a Mr. Allen, and told him about it.

Next day Allen, his brother, and Mounted Constable Rolleson went to see Martin and took him to the hole, where they found the body of a strangled woman covered with boughs. Rolleson wanted to get a pick to aid him in removing the body, but Martin told him that such a course was not necessary as the soil was sandy. Asked how he knew, Martin said that he had made the hole to dig out a wombat for a friend who had never seen one.

Martin was arrested on a charge of murder. Martin tried to place the blame for the murder on the blacks of the neighborhood, but when it was found that he had not paid Jane a penny of the two years' wages which were due to her, this story was discredited. The blacks hated Martin, for they swore that he had killed a blackboy.

It was subsequently established that Martin had given certain articles to the blacks, and the discovery of a pair of Jane's shoes which had been left behind a door made it seem that her leaving could not have been in other than unusual circumstances. Besides that, Mrs. Martin, when she returned, was seen to be wearing two rings which had been Jane's. Martin kept a diary, and under February 6 was the entry, "Jane left for Mount Gambier;" but this apparently bone-fide entry was nullified by the finding of Jane's needlework in the kitchen, obviously just as she had left it. This was not one of the things that a thrifty girl like Jane would have left behind.

Circumstantial evidence pointed strongly to Martin as the murderer, and this impression was heightened when his history was known. As Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Martin had lived at the Salt Creek lodging house for many years, until her husband had been mysteriously murdered in the scrub. Martin, who was a frequent visitor to the Robinsons' home, was charged with the crime, but in the absence of definite evidence, he was acquitted of the murder.

To everybody's surprise, he married Mrs. Robinson, and continued to carry on the widow's business. It was strongly suspected that Jane Macmenimen had found out something about this previous tragedy, and that Malachi considered that she was too dangerous a person to be allowed to live.

Wilsen's role in the tragedy was more mystifying. He was engaged to the girl, and apparently was in love with her. Evidence was given at the trial that Wilsen had confided to William Butcher, the publican at Wellington, that he suspected that Martin had murdered Jane, but had asked that nothing should be mentioned to the authorities to link him with the informant, because he was afraid that Martin would "finish" him.

Constable Rolleson stated at the trial that when he arrived at Martin's with the Allens he gave Wilsen his horse to hold. Wilsen had subsequently told him that he was so frightened that he would be arrested that he suspected that Martin had run off into the scrub and was hiding. When Wilsen accompanied him and the Allens to the hole, after Martin's arrest, he had found a scarf and under-clothing in a nearby wombat hole.

Wilsen told the court that on the day Jane disappeared he had gone to Stephen Hack's station for a saddle, and on his return had been told Jane had left with friends for Mount Gambier. He had not been suspicious at first, as Jane had sometimes talked of going to Mount Gambier to get the higher wages offering there.

Martin had afterwards told him that Jane had been murdered by him. He further admitted that he had seen Jane's body after death, but, owing to a fear of Martin, had not told anyone until he had confided in Butcher, the publican at Wellington. The jury accepted this version. Martin was condemned to death for the crime and executed in December, 1862, Wilsen receiving four years' imprisonment as an accessory. — H.

See also: An Almost Forgotten Crime

The Breaking-In Process

I shall begin at the end instead of the beginning, to correct any impression that these incidents from a new chum's career are intended to reflect on the quiet, capable, and skilled stockman to whom they refer in the making. The end is simply that a married man with two bonny children is farming successfully on the West Coast and has little to learn from his neighbors.

He arrived some years ago under a cloud. His previous employer simply endorsed him as "a willing enough youngster, but knows nothing, and can learn nothing. Typical pommy." As I had an idea that my informant knew a lot but could teach nothing, I took the lad on. His name was Jim Ferrier. His faults were chiefly those of complete ignorance of anything to do with bush conditions.

There was a drought the year he arrived, and the cows commenced to dry off rapidly, leaving Jim more leisure than usual in the middle of the day. He promptly made an offer to fill in his time. "The grass is looking a bit yellow these days," he said. "If you like to dig up a couple of petrol tins, I would not mind hauling a bit of water from the creek after I finish separating, and watering the flat until it's time to bring the cows in."

It was just about this period of Jim's evolution that he decided he might as well get rid of the cap, gaiters and breeches he had brought from England under the impression that they were orthodox farming clothes. He planted them up a hollow log, but reckoned without his host, in the form of grandfather.

Grand-father's hobby was pottering round with a firestick, and his creed was to waste nothing. Greatly shocked, he came upon the offending garments three times running, and returned them to their anything but proud owner, with strict Instructions not to waste good clothes when thousands were short of them. Jim finally took a leaf out of grandpa's own book. He rammed the finery up another log and shoved a match in it.

By this time he was becoming a capable horseman, so I decided to introduce him to the grazing side of the business, which always makes a welcome break to boys, once the monotonous side of dairying begins to take the edge off their dreams of adventure.

Jim had all the excitement he craved for a few days, as the squatter above us seldom troubled to repair his fences, reasoning that he had more to gain from his innumerable bullocks straying on to other people's property than he had to lose from the prospect of their few stores eating him out.

It took the best part of a week to round up the strays from his run and mend the fences behind them. Just as we were settling back to our proper job of branding and earmarking, an old bullock turned up. It had evidently eluded both its owner's stockmen and ours for years, going by the date portion of its brand, and the fact that the station practice was to keep nothing over four years old. We went straight after him, to avoid giving any opportunity for a display of cunning that must have been above the ordinary.

The ancient borderer led us into a deep washaway in a creek, where all attempts to dislodge him with a whip only led to the loss of the lash in the gum trees which surrounded it. I dismounted and commenced to drive him out with a volley of stones, leaving my horse with the reins hanging on his neck. In a few seconds the ruse succeeded, and the beast charged. I turned for my horse, only to recall too late, that he had been horned before, under similar circumstances. He turned tail and made for the homestead hut.

"Ride down and let me up behind you," I yelled to Jim, but instead of obeying, he wheeled round and made off after the horse. Luckily, I managed to shin up a sapling before the enraged bullock reached me, and stayed there half an hour. It was one of those springy saplings which bend over lower the higher you climb, finally threatening to deposit you on the back of the animal you are trying to dodge, so there was plenty of time to reflect in discomfort on Jim's shortcoming and blatant cowardice in clearing out.

Somehow it did not seem like Jim, and as a matter of fact it was not. He misunderstood my instructions, and in his ignorance had failed to realise how futile the altered version would have been under the circumstances. At last Jim hove in sight, leading my missing horse by the bridle. He set a dog on the bullock, and met me as I descended.

"I got the horse all right, as you said to," he explained, "but I couldn't catch him until he got to the slip-rails." Then he sat back and waited for praise!—"Alpha."

Nearly Drowned In Central Australia

Over forty years ago I was prospecting the country around Glen Annie, in the northern Macdonnell Ranges. This gorge, by the way, was named by the late David Lindsay after my elder sister. The Hale River runs through the glen, and along its bed in good seasons there are some fine pools of water. I had been out to examine some dry country beyond the ranges, where water was very scarce, and on my return the sight of the first pool was irresistible. I tied my horse to a sapling and scrambled down to the pool, shedding my clothes which had not been washed for over three weeks as I went, and dived straight into the water.

Ah aborigine had been watching me from the hillside above; and when he saw me in the pool he gave a shout and came bounding down to join me in my "bogey," as the natives call a bath. I was treading water in the centre of the pool, and it never occurred to me that he thought I was standing on the bottom. He ran out on a rock, leaped far but, and vanished under the surface with a tremendous splash.

A moment later his head broke water, with eyes staring in terror, and vanished again with a gurgle. Even then it did not dawn on me that he was drowning; I thought he had hurt himself when he dived in, and swam to help him. An instant later a pair of sinewy brown arms were flung around my neck and I was dragged under. There was nobody within miles to come to my help, and within half a minute I was almost frantic with terror, for I could not raise my head to get a breath. Finally I managed to free my right arm and punched him in the face; he released his stranglehold from my neck and I was able to swim free.

When I had drawn a few breaths I got behind the native, grabbed him by the hair, and towed him to the bank, where he recovered after being violently sick. When he was able to talk I discovered that he had thought the pool to be shallow, seeing that I appeared to be walking about in it. He was not only unable to swim, but had never even heard of human beings doing such a thing. The Australian aborigines who lived along the sea-coast or the banks of the big rivers were really splendid swimmers, being like seals in the water; but many of the Central Australian tribes knew nothing whatever of swimming. Tribes like the Arunta or Luridja only knew water in rock-holes or springs, except in the rare cases when flood rains fell, and were unable to swim a stroke. That fact nearly cost me my life.— G.S.L.

Marked For Promotion

Some years ago a young man joined the Railways Department as a porter, and soon became noted for the punctiliousness with which he performed his allotted task of walking through trains and collecting tickets.

One morning in the course of his duties he noticed an elderly man in a first-class carriage engrossed in a newspaper. The porter called out in a loud tone, "All tickets, please!" but the reader of the paper took no notice, obviously under the impression that the collector knew his identity. (He happened to be the Railways Commissioner.)

Not to be outdone, the youthful porter wrote down a full description of the man in his notebook, and when the train reached Adelaide he reported the matter, to the stationmaster. "Could you identify the man again?" asked that official. "Yes," replied the porter. "Why, here he comes now— the man with the walk-tag stick." The incident was afterwards related to the Commissioner, who marked the lad for promotion, and he now occupies a high position in the service.— A.D.

Real Life Stories Of South Australia (1936, February 27). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 16. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92336956