Site 1: Post and Telegraph Office
Address: Powell Street
Where Ned Kelly ordered the telegraphic machine to be shut down and the cutting down of telegraph poles. Eight poles in total were cut down. Successful in pleading with Ned Kelly to return the horse belonging to the daughter of the Albion Hotel Proprietor, Thomas McDougall, and his own watch that Steve Hart had “acquired” from him.
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Post and Telegraph Office
Henry B Jefferson, Postmaster
James E Rankin, Junior Postal Clerk
At approximately 12.45pm on Monday, 10 February, 1879 the local school teacher, Mr Elliott, called at the post office to collect his, and the school’s, mail. As it was not yet 1.00pm, Mr Elliott decided to cross to the bank and deposit the previous day’s church takings, before returning to the Traveller’s Rest Hotel for his lunch.
At 1.00pm Mr Jefferson left the Post and Telegraph Office for his usual lunch at the Traveller’s Rest Hotel. On completing his lunch, Mr Jefferson remarked that something must have been going on over at the bank, as the school teacher had gone to the bank shortly before 1 o’clock and had not turned up at the hotel for his lunch (as was his custom).
On returning to the post office at 2.00pm, Mr Jefferson was confronted by a ‘policeman’ who brushed by him and went behind the counter to read the telegraphic correspondence that had transpired that day. On admonishing the ‘policeman’ for going behind the counter, Joe Byrne drew his revolver and ordered Mr Jefferson to shut down the telegraphic machine.
Mr Jefferson and Mr Rankin were kept under guard until Ned Kelly arrived. After a brief inspection, Ned walked next door and ordered the bootmaker, Mr J Roe, to fetch his axe from the wood heap and start cutting down the telegraph poles so as to prevent any further communications.
Ned had Mr Roe relieved of wielding a very blunt axe by Mr Martin Murphy, the publican of the Riverina Hotel who had unsuspectingly strolled down to the post office from his hotel to see what was going on. Seeing that not much progress was being made, Ned Kelly then ordered two bystanders, Mr Thomas Brown and Mr Charles Naw to go across to Mr J D Rankin’s store and get a new axe each, and keep cutting down telegraph poles until sundown.
The two gentlemen, Brown and Naw, carried out their orders, cutting down 8 poles for a distance of approximately 500 metres.
By then Ned and Joe Byrne had escorted Mr Jefferson and young Rankin across to the Royal Mail Hotel, and from there to the Police Barracks where they were locked up, along with Senior Constable Devine and Constable Richards. During this time Joe Byrne had taken Mr Jefferson’s watch, which Ned Kelly ordered Joe Byrne to return.
Despite the warnings of Ned Kelly not to attempt to repair the telegraph lines or help others to do so, Jefferson, whilst still confined in the ‘logs’, issued instructions to Messrs. Elliott and Mackie. When released by Mrs Devine (also acting on Ned Kelly’s instruction), Jefferson soon strung temporary lines along fence posts and began communicating to Deniliquin and Wagga Wagga Police Barracks (in particular) on the events that had unfolded during the day.