[I have written to Julie off List. She asked about two Darling River captains and their boats. I wrote to her about an explorer of the land to the far, far north west of NSW - even for me that was going off on some tangent!! The reason behind this was to offer an alternative topic (I know what these school projects are like) if she was unable to get sufficient information on the captains. Gow's 1860/61 exploratory expeditions started at Julie's Kallara Station, Gow took along the manager of Kallara, and the distances travelled on his expedition were all measured from Kallara. At approximately the same time as Burke and Wills went off across the country, it was surprisingly busy way out there. People pop up in the account who you wouldn't expect to find in this setting - the new owner of Kallara was the Melbourne City Coroner; McHattie the son of a well-known Bathurst doctor; Rotten the son of a Member of NSW Parliament. Plus the very casual reference, just once, that there were "30 blacks" in the party. Having copied the report, I chickened out of sending such an obscure reply to the List, and so just sent it to Julie. However this explains why I start this email with:- ] Hi AGAIN Julie, Except for the 1926 photo of the boat the William Davies, I said that I could not think of anything to help you - though the name Captain Johnston sounded familiar. Is there any chance that the man you are after is Captain JOHNSON of the steamer Moolgawanke which in 1860 took on board the Burke and Wills' Exploratory Expedition at Tarcoola and took them up to Menindie? The name of the boat appears under lots of different spellings, but newspaper reports of the time all spell his name as I have written it. I don't know his Christian name. Regards ..............Rusheen. >> From: "Justin & Julie McClure" <jj_jamcclure@bigpond.com> >> >> Hi, >> >> We live at Tilpa on Glenroy and Kallara Station. Our children are doing a >> project called Special Forever through School of the Air - Broken Hill. >> >> We have Captain Thomas Johnston buried on our family's property on the >> banks of the Darling River and would like to obtain a copy (prefer digital >> image) of Captain Thomas Johnston and the Paddle Steamer he captained (I'm >> not sure what it was called or who owned it). Our family also is closely >> connected with Captain Davies of Murtee Station at Wilcannia, we would >> like a photo of him and his steamer/s if someone has any information we >> could use for our project. >> >> If you would like a photograph of Captain Thomas Johnstons Grave stone I >> would be only too happy to send via e-mail. >> >> Thankyou, >> Julie McClure >