Yagan Memorial Park

Here are the nevilles at the new Yagan Memorial Park which is just up the road, from where the kiddies go to school. The Park was dedicated to the Aboriginal warrior Yagan, who was a bit of a ratbag back in the old days. Unforchantly after some dust-ups with the settlers and the law, he got together with a mob of 50 to 60 Noongar Aboriginals at Bull Creek. During the afternoon they met a party of settlers who were loading carts with provisions, during the attack Yagan killed two settlers, Tom and John Velvick.








After the news hit Perth town about the killings of the Velvicks, the then Lieutenant- Governor Frederick Irwin declared Yagan an outlaw and placed a reward of £30 for Yagan's capture, dead or alive! Crikey he was up shit creek without a paddle.... righty so.


Here's Oscar sitting on one of the large rocks which are inside the Park.


But back to my chat..... On the 11th of July 1833, two teenage brothers named William and James Keates were herding cattle along the Swan River north of Guildford when they came apon a group of Noongar Aboriginal's, Yagan was with them to cut a long story short'ish William Keates shot Yagan, and James shot another native, Heegan, in the act of throwing his spear. The brothers ran away, but William was overtaken and speared to death. James escaped by swimming the river. Shortly afterward he returned with a party of armed settlers from Bull's estate, where apon finding Yagan dead they cut his head from his body and then buried his body a short distance away. Over the next few years the Yagan's head was transported to London, where it sat in a museum for more than a century before being buried in an English cemetery.











Yagan's head was returned to Australia after a delegation of Aboriginal people travelled to the UK to collect it in 1997, the head was finally buried in a private ceremony attended only by invited Noongar elders.... 177 years after Yagan's death.







The kiddies on the Yagan Grave site wall.







Jacko.



To give you an idea of when this Yagan stuff was going on which was in the year of 1833.... Well Bathurst was gazetted as a town, also the town of Mussel Brook (later named Muswellbrook) is proclaimed. There was also the death of the Marine officer Watkin Tench, who was one of the first to sail into Botany Bay with the first fleet back in 1788. And it was also the date when a little ratbag of a fella with a tatoo on his arm, was living in Sydney at the request of His Majesty King William IV. That's right a convict just of the tall ship Planter1 who over the years moved up to the sleepy township of Singleton, and one day would be my Great, Great Great Grand Dad James Poll.





Here's the mob at one of the resting rocks inside the Yagan Memorial Park.