1901 – The Mount Garnet coach driver wasn’t so curious about the man he had seen several times sitting outside a tent on the side of the road outside Herberton.
But when he realized he had not seen the man on several of his trips, he decided to investigate further.
Unfortunately it was some time before he could leave his coach and horses to do so. A more urgent curiosity may have saved the man’s life.
On March 31, a Sunday, he was able to stop and sent his friend John Ferris over to the tent.
There was witnessed a “shocking and heart-rending spectacle”.
At the door of the tent, in a position that spoke of an attempt to get outside, was “a human being in a most emaciated condition, with eyes glaring, utterly speechless, and small black ants crawling over him and around his mouth and eyes, and still alive.
Lees took one of his leading horses out of its harness and galloped into town for help, which was faster than taking the coach. A trap was dispatched back to the scene, and the man was lifted from the white-ant riddled bark he was resting on.
The Brisbane Courier described what happened next.
“the hapless being the while, with terribly glaring eyes fixed upon them, emitting unearthly sounds from his throat, was conveyed to the hospital, in which institution he breathed his last half-an-hour later.’’
sunday times
The hospital surgeon opined that the man had died from starvation but was unable to say whether there had been an underlying condition.
A pocketbook with the name “John Doran” in it was the best clue as to the man’s identity. Writing within mentioned that he had travelled through Mareeba and Hughenden.
The newspaper described the man as about 45, with medium build and a “rather active appearance (a bit of a stretch considering he showed severe malnutrition), with dark hair, turned partly gray; ginger moustache, with three weeks’ growth of beard, which was partly gray; blue eyes, large Roman nose, and good even set of teeth; would be of fresh complexion when in full health”.
He was well dressed and other clothes in his tent were in good condition. The tent also contained a towel, a rug, a broad-leafed hat and a brass watch chain with a magnifying glass attached to the end.
There is no reportage to say that anyone came forward to claim the body. A missing person’s notice for a man of that name appears in a Western Australian newspaper in 1904.
Could it have been the same John Doran? It was a relatively common name.
Some one in the Herberton community was good-hearted enough to ensure that Doran was buried with a headstone in the expansive Herberton cemetery in Far North Queensland.
Sources: Friday 19 April 1901, p 6
Sunday Times Sunday 28 February 1904, p7
Way to go Australia 