Copyright Nicholas Fletcher, 2017

 JC pub ruins, once part of the township site of Canterbury

http://www.barcoo.qld.gov.au/visit-barcoo/windorah

Article identifier
    http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55350341
JOHN COSTELLO.
"Old 'Timer" writes:-Re yours of
13/2/30 in Mr. F. Ord's account of
"The West," Mr. Michael Costello's
life of John Costello is quite correct.
After John Costello sold Cawarral sta-
tion, he started for the Limmon River
with 1500 heifers from Taldora and
Mulbinyara. I did the trip with him
and his son Michael in 1884. He of-
ten told me how the J.C. originated.
He cut the J.C. in a tree on the bank
of the waterhole while the billy, boiled.

Article identifier
    http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article81465399
QUEENSLAND PIONEERS:
John Costello.
(By John E. Bennett *
John Costello was born in Yass
N.S.W. almost exactly one hundred
years ago. He was the son
of Irish immigrants who came out here at
the height of the gold
rushes.
At the age of twenty-five years John
Costello came to Queensland
as a Western Pioneer taking up land
on the Warroo Springs between the Parco and the
Warrego. Unfortunately, then, as
now, water was scarce in these regions, and
John Costello and
his family trekked northward
s away from the drought and
the troublesome natives. But they went
from bad to
worse. According to Michael
Costello, who has told the story
of those days, "As he and his party went or the co-
untry became dr-
ier and drier. S-
tock got poorer and
poorer, and at last, after
four months of travel had to be turned
back."
When the weather broke they started again, with
nine men and John Costello's wife, family and
parents, with all their cattle
and household goods. They took up land on the Bul-
loo River at the end of that trek
and the eldest girl,
Mary, was the first white child born
on the Bulloo. It was
here that the fortune first favoured them.
Cattle and horses grew
ridiculously fat and the
first mob for overlanding was soon ready, John
Costello,
himself, drove the first mob overland to
Adelaide, South west
through much the same
country as that which
had nearly killed Sturt, without the
loss of a single beast. Despite
the fortune that came
to him in his new prosperity, Costello conti-
nued his exploratory journeys, seeking
always new grazing
lands into which to extend
his activities, and shortly, the urge to trav-
el set them up on land on Cooper's Creek, w-
here the second daughter, Ellen, shared with her
sister the distinction of being a first white
baby born in a distri-
ct. Here they had several brushes with the
natives and once Costello was nearly killed.
In 1868, depression pervaded the State and Cos-
tello took up more land on Cooper's Creek, stock-
ing lightly several stations. Into this district
he was followed by several pioneer families, the
Tullys, Skehans, Hacketts and Mammonds. He
had land on the Diamantina also. Incidentally, a
town in the West, referred to by
Barcroft Boake, the poet, takes its name from Co-
stello, etching called J.C., from the initials
he cut in a tree on an early journey upon the site
on which the town later stood. An innocent story has
it that the tree marks his grave, but that is
not so. The urge to move came upon him again and he
sold his western holdings, determined to trek
overland to Rockhampton, using wagonettes to car-
ry the gear. They travelled this via Adavale
(now Quilpe), Charleville and Roma, whence Co-
stello went ahead to take up two holdings, one
near Gladstone, "Annandale," and one near Rock-
Hampton, "Cawarrai," which they made their home
for some years. Here to their other worries were
added dingoes in thousands, which invaded the
huts at night and were poisoned in
hundreds. Later on he acquired the station known
as "Lake Nash", out beyond Cloncurry, whence Cost-

Article identifier
    http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article131052426
Vale— John Costello.
[Contributed.]
They sleep, many of our pioneers,
the men who have pushed the van-
guard further out and further on,
the men who have opened up this
wonderful bush land and made the
inhabiting of the vast continent a
recognised fact, without any recog-
nition of their real worth. We
must be a strange people— or per-
haps like the remark passed by
King Henry to the messenger who
reported to him the death of Earl
Percy— ' I trust I have within my
realm five hundred such as he.'
There passed away at his resi-
dence, Tocabil, on Sunday, Feb-
ruary 25, in the person of Mr John
Costello, one whose name is worthy
of a place in the annals of this
country, not only as an explorer
and pioneer, but also as a humani-
tarian.
Born on his father's cattle run at
Yass, New South Wales, nearly 85
years ago, Mr Costello started his
early boyhood amongst horses and
cattle Of rough exterior and hard
knuckles, with a strong and hardy
constitution, he was specially fitted
by nature to perform the work that
he undertook, and to do it well.
Starting out in the early sixties to
take up land in the unknown and
unexplored Cooper's Creek country
he camped for a week on the site
where Parkes gold rush afterwards
broke out. He also travelled over
the rich fields of Mt Morgan and
Broken Hill on his overland jour-
neys with cattle many years before
their great mineral wealth became
a reality. To use his own expres-
sion ' I was too lazy to stoop down
and pick it up.'
To give any details of exploits
and adventures, of his exploring
expeditions, once finding a supposed
permanent water hole dry, and
having to push on over a hundred
miles through the bush to the
neasest water on a knocked up
horse, not reaching it till three days
days later, with not a drop to drink
and under a scorching tropical sun ;
of his being five hundred miles from
the nearest dwelling ; his food
supply giving out; having to get
sustenance from reptiles baked in
ashes, or anything else that an
inhospitable bush could provide ;
of his encounters with hostile blacks
carrying the marks to his dying
day (one in particular being a hole
in the top of his head where the
skull was knocked in by a missile
aimed by a savage), would be too
long for an article such as this.
On one of his excursions while the
black boy was boiling the billy for
the midday meal he carved his
initials J C. in the bark of a tree.
Tears afterwards other bushmen
were expioring, thinking they were
the first white men there, dis-
covered the tree, and all kinds of
conjectures arose. It is memorised
in Barcroft Boake's Poetical Works
The following two verses are an
extract :—
Hands white without a blot,
Told us that he was not
One of the ' vulgar.'
What can those cyphers be ?—
Two only, J and C,
Carved in agony
Deep in the mulga.
Now, wind across the grave,
Tuning a sultry stave,
Drearily whistles :
Stirring those branches where
Two silent cyphers stare —
Two letters of a prayer :
God's Son's initials.
At the J. C. there now stands
a flourishing township named Can-
terbury.
The funeral took place on Monday
26th February, and his body now
rests in the R. C. portion of Hill-
ston cemetery. — R I P.