Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1878 - 1954), Monday 14 November 1938, page 4


QUEENSLAND PIONEERS

NAT BUCHANAN

(By JOHN E. BENNETT.)

NAT BUCHANAN has probably a high

claim to the title of the greatest of all Australian drovers. He was born near Dublin in 1820, and arrived in Aus-tralia with his people six years later. His brothers, Frank and Andrew, answered the lure of the gold of Cali-fornia, but scratched in vain for the yellow metal and were forced to work their passage home again.

In 1850 (the year of separation) Nat joined with Landsborough and explored the Fitzroy and Belyando River in search of suitable properties for graz-ing. As a result of these efforts Bowen Downs, the largest station in Australia, was founded and run by a company comprising Landsborough, Buchanan and others. It fell to Buchanan's lot as an experienced drover to bring the stock up the western rivers and across to Bowen Downs in order to stock it, and these first excursions oc-cupy a large page in the development of the Australian pastoral industry.

In 1871 he married Katherine Gordon, sister of the famous Gordon Brothers, whose careers were so indissolubly asso-ciated with that of Buchanan in after years, Mrs Buchanan deserves to go down In history as one of the great women pioneers of Australia, for she accompanied her husband to the station which was then on the outskirts of settlement, and there lived with him through all the trials of the times.

In 1871, Buchanan took up land on the Bellinger River, in N.S.W., the "beautiful Bellinger." He found, how-ever, that the area was too restricted for one of hia leanings and took up land in the north, once more at Rocklands, ln the interim he had explored much of the Gulf country and had acquired vast holdings, but a sudden drop in values had left him almost penniless. That was prior to his selection on the Bellinger. Towards the end of the 1870's commenced the famous series of long-distance droving feats that has

made him famous.

The first major one was from Travers and Gibson's station at Aramac, across what is now the Northern Territory, to Glencoe station. The party carried 12 months' supplies of food per three drays and 60 horses. Burketown was then a deserted village and from Cloncurry they had to traverse 1000 miles into which white men had never been. Buch-anan, prince of bushmen as Captain Hickey called him, would push ahead to choose each night's camp and to select the best waterholes, or to find the only waterholes where water was scarce. As for himself on these journeys, it was said that he seldom drank water, and could last longer than most men with-out fluid of any kind whatsoever. The Gordon Brothers were members of the outfit.

They crossed the McArthur near where Borroloola now stands. While Buchanan was ahead some miles looking for further supplies, one of the men was killed by the blacks, being decapitated as he stood over the camp fire. Apart from that there were no casualties, and actually more cattle than the party started out with were delivered, be-cause some of the calves born on the road were saved. The Gordons remained on Glencoe, but Buchanan returned to explore the country south-east of Daly

Waters.

In 1881 be performed a remarkable feat by driving 20,000 cattle from Queensland across to Glencoe on behalf of those great pioneers of the cattle industry, C. B. Fisher and Maurice Lyons. Although the cattle were de-livered safely with scarcely the loss of a single beast they went down in their hun-dreds afterwards to something contracted on the property, and, we are told, the survivors never thrived at all For the next three years or so Buchanan was engaged on these long drives with cattle for North Australia. In 1883 he stocked Wave Hill station from Bowen Downs, and in the same year drove a mob of 4000 beasts from Rich-mond, near Hughenden, across to the Ord River in Western Australia.

Looking back over those years we find that he was the first man to stock the Barkly Tableland, the Northern Terri-tory, Victoria River or the Ord River in W.A. An even greater feat was to fol-low. In 1800, he took a trial shipment of bullocks to Singapore in order to test what was thought might be an excellent outlet for the stations of North Aus tralia. The animals brought £8 per head, expenses came to £5 per head, the ring of dealers in Singapore opposed the move and no further trade took place.

Two years later came the big disaster of 1892, when failures on the station were the order of the day. With a mob from the Ord River Buchanan started west for somewhere beyond Hall's Creek. They crossed the lower Fitzroy beyond the King Leopold ranges, which they penetrated, passed along in the vicinity of Ninety-Mile Beach to Marble Bar in W.A. From there they struck across towards the upper waters of the For-tescue, found a track through the Ham mersley and Opthalmia Ranges lying be tween that river and the Ashburton and dominated by Mt Bruce, a 4000 ft peak on to the headwaters of the Ashburton crossing that river to the Gascoyne thence to the Upper Murchison, where the mob was safely handed over after journey of 1800 miles along an unknown way, later called Buchanan's track.

In 1804 Buchanan lost Wave Hill through the financial crash and at nearly 70 years of age, was engaged to find a way for the S.A. Government from Sturt Creek to the Barkly Table-land. His only companion was a

black boy, whom he had to handcuff to a heavy camel saddle to prevent him running away for a portion of the jour-ney. The journey, despite great hard ships, was eventually completed, and Buchanan retired to Tamworth district where he spent the remnants of his sav-ings in purchasing a lucerne farm, which he worked until his death in 1901.

It is of interest to note that Andrew Buchanan as far back as 1882 fash ioned a sheep shearing machine.