Morgan’s Capture at Pechelba Station, Victoria.

Rare engraving of of the capture of Daniel Morgan the bushranger, nicked named Mad Dog Morgan. Morgan had bailed up the co-owner of ‘Peechelba‘ station Ewan MacPherson and confined him, his wife and household staff, as well as Telford and the other two men, in the parlour of the homestead. The engraving depicts, John Wendlan, the man who shot Morgan, kneeling beside the body of Daniel Morgan at ‘Peechelba’ station.

From the original edition of the Illustrated Sydney News.

After the robbery of the Albury mail Morgan “was next observed about a week afterwards in the neighbourhood of Tumbarumba… and was then noticed to be making rapidly in the direction of the Murray” and thereafter he crossed into Victoria.

Late in the afternoon of 2 April 1865:
Morgan made an appearance at ‘Tallangatta’ station (about 24 miles south-east of Albury) from which many of the personnel were absent.
On the afternoon on April 5:
Morgan arrived at McKinnon’s ‘Tawnga’ station on the Little River, about 25 miles from Yackandandah, and stuck up 10 men, including McKinnon. When he departed he took a man from ‘Tawnga’ with him “to guide him across the country”.
On April 6:
Morgan arrived at the Evans brothers’ ‘Whitfield’ station on the King River, about 25 miles south of Wangaratta.

After his depredations on the road between Benalla and Glenrowan:
On the morning of 8 April 1865:
Morgan left the main road, cutting across the country to the north-west where he reached Warby’s dairy station, after which he proceeded to the head station ‘Taminick’ (about 10 miles due west from Wangaratta). Mr. Warby was absent but Morgan was said to have behaved politely towards Mrs. Warby. On taking his leave at about noon he took a horse from the stables. By evening Morgan had reached a road leading from a swamp past Rutherford and McPherson’s ‘Peechelba’ station, with frontages on the Ovens and Murray rivers about 20 miles north-west of Wangaratta. Here he met Mr. Telford and two other men and compelled them to accompany him to the ‘Peechelba’ homestead.

In the week or so since Daniel Morgan had entered Victoria he had travelled about 200 miles in a wide arc around the population centres of Albury, Beechworth and Wangaratta, and he was now within seven miles of the Murray River.

Morgan bailed up the co-owner of ‘Peechelba’ station Ewan MacPherson and confined him, his wife and household staff, as well as Telford and the other two men, in the parlour of the homestead. However, prior to being confined, one of the housemaids, Alice McDonald, managed to get a message to one of the station-hands “that a stranger was in the house”. The man ran to George Rutherford’s house, located a quarter of a mile from MacPherson’s house. Rutherford was co-owner of ‘Peechelba’ and Morgan was possibly unaware of the other house on the station. Rutherford, not knowing that the ‘stranger’ was Morgan, was in two minds about how to proceed. Meanwhile the household nurse, Alice Keenan, obtained permission to leave the parlour on the pretext of caring for a sick child. She ran over to Rutherford’s house and informed him that the stranger was Daniel Morgan. On this news Rutherford despatched a man to Wangaratta requesting assistance. Inside MacPherson’s parlour “things were proceeding very quietly” with Morgan “chatting familiarly with the inmates”. Early in the evening he asked Miss Rutherford and Miss MacPherson to play the piano. Later Morgan dozed in a chair “with a revolver in one hand, and another on the table in front of him”, though Ewan MacPherson perceived that the bushranger was not actually sleeping.

On receiving Rutherford’s message the Police Magistrate at Wangaratta gathered a group of townsmen to accompany constables Evans and Laverton to ‘Peechelba’ station, arriving at about two in the morning of Sunday, April 9. In the meantime George Rutherford had collected together the trusted station-hands and armed them with any weapons that could be gathered. He gave the best guns to John Wendlan and a young man named McIntosh, who were considered to be the crack shots on the station. When the men arrived from Wanganella it was decided to wait until Morgan made an appearance. The men were positioned behind the house and behind trees and fences in the vicinity.[12] In the morning Morgan went into a bedroom and “spent some time in dressing his beard and long hair, which he arranged in four curls”. MacPherson remarked that “he seemed to bestow much care on it”, to which Morgan answered “that a man must have something to be proud of”. After eating breakfast Morgan told MacPherson be wished to borrow a horse. Fully armed, Morgan marched the men from the parlour onto the verandah and around the garden fence to the stockyard. When Morgan appeared the men waiting in ambush cautiously moved towards him. MacPherson became aware of the planned ambush when he saw men cautiously following. At the haystack where several horses were feeding MacPherson pointed out one of the animals to Morgan. While this was happening John Wendlan had moved up to the garden fence, a short distance ahead of the others. Without pausing Wendlan raised his gun and fired and the bushranger “fell with a heavy thud to the earth”.[53] Two constables then rushed towards the wounded bushranger and disarmed him, upon which Morgan “reproached them for firing without giving him a chance”. Wendlan had shot the bushranger in the back near his shoulder blade, the bullet “shattering the spine in its course [and] had made its exit by the throat”. Gravely wounded, Morgan was taken to the woolshed. Detective William Mainwaring from Beechworth, who had arrived at ‘Peechelba’ during the night, interviewed the dying bushranger and offered him some wine. The District Coroner arrived from Wangaratta just after noon but decided that medical assistance would be ineffective. At one stage Morgan said his right hand was cold and at his request one of the men present in the woolshed rubbed it for him. Daniel Morgan died at about a quarter to two in the afternoon, aged 34 years.