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Coo-ee: The Wooragee Murder

Jun 2, 2022

Historical: The old Beechworth courthouse. Photo by Contributed

In 1872, the Woolshed was a rich goldfield outside Beechworth. Later, it would become infamous after the assassination of Aaron Sherritt by the Kelly gang.

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Just up the road from the Woolshed was the hamlet of Wooragee.

Three men who had been sinking holes for Peter Brady in the Woolshed decided that bushranging held greater promise as a career.

On the evening of October 15, they rode up to the Wooragee post office and store, and collected its takings with a pistol.

Capital punishment: The gallows at the old Beechworth prison. Photo by Contributed

Then they held up a house belonging to the Mitchell family. From there, despite threats, they got no money.

They took away a single-barrelled shotgun with a broken stock. The stock was bound up with cord.

Then the three rode to the nearby hotel and knocked on the back door.

When John Watt, the publican, answered he was confronted by the three.

Their faces were covered. One man carried the shotgun, a second waved a double-barrelled pistol.

One of them yelled “Bail up. Your money or your life.”

Watt attempted to flee back inside. One of the three fired the shotgun.

The blast hit Watt and also Keneday, a poundkeeper from Albury.

The publican staggered back into the kitchen. He fell. He dragged himself to his feet and then fell again, pulling chairs over as he collapsed. The three bushrangers fled.

Keneday escaped serious injury. A doctor was called to attend to Watt. The shotgun blast had done enormous damage.

A man’s clenched fist could have been placed inside the exit wound below Watt’s shoulder blade.

Astonishingly, the publican lived for another nine days.

Four men were quickly apprehended. They were James Smith, Thomas Brady, William Happenstein and John Lewis.

Charges were later dropped against Lewis.

Happenstein turned Queen’s evidence to save his own neck. That left Brady and Smith.

The case against them in Beechworth Supreme Court was conclusive, and damning.

The shotgun was recovered from a hollow log on Mount Pilot in the first week of November.

Mrs Gale and her customer, Jarvis, positively identified two as the men who robbed her post office and store.

Mr and Mrs Mitchell identified the same two as the men who stole their shotgun.

Then Happenstein gave his evidence linking Brady and Smith to the murder of Watt at the Wooragee Hotel.

Worse, before he died, the publican identified Smith as the trigger man.

Under Victorian law, then and now, it matters not who pulled the trigger — an accessory before the fact to murder is treated as if he were a principal.

The jury took 45 minutes to decide. Both Smith and Brady were sentenced to death.

The authorities brought Mr Bamford, a practised executioner, up from Melbourne to undertake their execution.

Before their execution, Smith handed a paper defending the actions of both men to the Sheriff. The Sheriff refused to make the paper public.

On May 11, 1873, Brady and Smith were executed in Beechworth prison at daybreak.

Sixty visitors watched their last moments.

– John Barry