History's Famous Ghosts #1 - Fisher's Ghost

Hi fellow ATSers.

I've got several weeks off at the moment, and plenty of spare time. I thought I might take a leaf out of Internos' book, and compliment his great work in the UFO forum covering the most famous and well documented sightings. This time, however, I want to address history's great ghosts. To begin, here is a tale that many of you may not know. It is Australia's most famous ghost and one of the most interesting (in my opinion) ghost stories in history.



The legend of Fisher's Ghost is known across all of Australia. A guaranteed segment in any novel, documentary or discussion about Australia's haunted past, the ghost of Fred Fisher has now become an Australian icon.

He now boasts his own festival, radio station and film.

Even the skeptics find alternative explanations hard to come by.

the story of Fisher's ghost has many of the elements that make a tale worth telling-and retelling: an historical basis, intrigue and murder, a quest for justice, and a spine-tingling resolution. Not surprisingly, the "ghost" seems to have taken on a life of its own.

Source

But where did the legend begin? And is there any facts behind the tale?

The Story

Fisher's story begins in the (then) small settlement of Cambelltown in 1826. The town was slowly growing, as it lay on one of the main transport routes into Sydney.

Fred was a local identity, who with his business partner George Worrall, had purchased and developed a large parcel of land in the area. The town was slowly growing, as it lay on one of the main transport routes into Sydney.

On the 17th of June, 1826, Fred, George and a friend were celebrating their success at the local tavern. Fairly early in the evening, Fred decided to call it a night and left on foot for home. This was the last time Fisher was ever seen alive.

Being so well known in the area, his disappearance sparked a deep suspicion of Worrall. The local priest, Reverend Thomas Reddall, approached Worrall and questioned him thoroughly over the dissapearance.

According to George Worrall, Fisher had confessed to a business deal gone bad that night, and had decided to make his way to Sydney to leave the country. The story was not believed by most, but since there was no evidence to suggest foul play, no further action was taken.

Days turned into weeks without any sign of Fisher, and slowly the searches of the area ceased. It wasn't until October when a breakthrough in the case occurred.

A local farmer, William Farley, was on his way home from town one evening in a horse-drawn cart when suddenly the horse shied.

Farley looked up to see what the problem was, and there was Fred Fisher, sitting on a fence post not metres away. Only thing was, Fred was transparent and glowed a dull white.

Fisher looked to Farley, and raised his arm, pointing to a creek on the other side of the track.

Farley panicked, and turned back to town. He went straight to Reverend Reddall and told him what had happened.

They quickly sent word to Sydney, where a team of Aboriginal trackers and police were dispatched. It took them less than a day to find Fisher's body.

Blood was discovered where the ghost had sat. Their only lead being the ghost's pointing to the creek, they descended the embankment. It didn't take the trackers long to find Fishers body, badly decomposed, embedded in the river bank.

The coroner discovered that the cause of death was murder by a series of blows to the head with a blunt object.

George Worrall, the only suspect, managed to incriminate himself further when he attempted to claim Fisher's farm with a forged document. He was arrested, convicted of murder and hung.


The Facts

There is surprisingly a large amount of evidence to support the above tale.

Thanks to Reverend Reddall's meticulous record keeping, every detail of the disappearance and following events are all stored in writing.

There are even several direct quotes from Farley on the night he witnessed the apparition:

'A horse won't pass a dead person, sir - that's why it reared'.

'...Sure as I live sir, I could see that ghost as plainly as I see you'.

Skeptics suggest that it was actually Farley who murdered Fisher, for reasons unknown, and concocted the story over the following months. Why he would have killed Fisher and why, after that much time, he would think to make up such a tale to bring himself into the investigation is unknown.

Farley's story is thrown further into suspicion by newspaper articles from the time:

Frederick Fisher was murdered by George Worrall, his overseer, at Campbelltown on June 16 (or 17), 1826. After that date, as Fisher was missing, Worrall told various tales to account for his absence. The trial of Worrall is reported in the 'Sydney Gazette' of February 5, 1827. Not one word is printed about Fisher's ghost; but the reader will observe that there is a lacuna in the evidence exactly where the ghost, if ghost there were, should have come in. The search for Fisher's body starts, it will be seen, from a spot on Fisher's paddock-fence, and the witness gives no reason why that spot was inspected, or rather no account of how, or by whom, sprinkled blood was detected on the rail. Nobody saw the murder committed. Chief-Justice Forbes said, in summing up (on February 2, 1827), that the evidence was purely circumstantial. We are therefore so far left wholly in the dark as to why the police began their investigations at a rail in a fence.

Source

Australian author Andrew Lang, who did the most in-depth study into the legend to date, comes to the following conclusion:

The case for the ghost, then, stands thus, in my opinion. Despite the silence preserved at the trial, Farley's ghost-story was really told before the discovery of Fisher's body, and led to the finding of the body. Despite Mr. Suttar's theory (of information laid under shelter of a ghost-story), Farley really had experienced an hallucination. Mr. Rusden, who knew his doctor, speaks of his fright, and, according to the version of 1836, he was terrified into an illness. Now, the hallucination indicated the exact spot where Fisher was stricken down, and left traces of his blood, which no evidence shows to have been previously noticed. Was it, then, a fortuitous coincidence that Farley should be casually hallucinated exactly at the one spot--the rail in the fence--where Fisher had been knocked on the head? That is the question, and the state of the odds may be reckoned by the mathematician.

Source

Personally, to me the case is still a mystery. As Lang says, the odds of someone having an hallucination that precise to lead to the discovery of a 4 month old body are nigh on impossible.

The only conclusions I can come to are:

1) Farley was the actual murderer, and for reasons unknown, created the story (perhaps out of guilt) so that the body would be found. He may have had an idea that Worrall was going to make his false claim to Fisher's land and used that self-incrimination to shift the blame from himself.

2) Fisher's ghost really did seek revenge against his killer and refused to rest until justice was served.

What do you think? The following are the sources I used to create this article. If the story interests you, do some further reading and come to your own conclusion.

As far as ghost stories go, this one is a great example. Not only is it a great 'yarn', but it has the historical facts to match.

---Sources---

The Truth About Fisher's Ghost - Andrew Lang

Festival of Fisher's Ghost - Haunted Australia

Fisher's Ghost; Investigative Files - Skeptical Inquirer

Official Fisher's Ghost Festival Page - Campbelltown

Fisher's Ghost Amateur Radio Club

Pinkney, J. Haunted - The Book of Australia's Ghosts, 2005, Five Mile Press

[edit on 28-12-2008 by fooffstarr]

awesome read!!! I think it was worall tho............

Excellent read, star and flagged.

I've always been fascinated by ghost stories and this one has a conspiratorial bent as well. Brilliant..

reply to post by daxman


Yeah his motives seem the most likely to lead someone to murder. Only thing that makes me question that he is the killer is for that to be so, Fisher's ghost had to have been real. The skeptic in me still seeks alternatives, but in this case, they are hard to come by.



reply to post by yizzel


Sure does. Men become friends, men enter business arrangement together, one man does better than the other and becomes an estate owner, friend gets jealous, jealous friend kills man. Sounds like a bad episode of Days of our Lives or something, doesn't it?

Interesting story, I've never heard of it personally.


Cheers for posting it!

I'm still undecided on the next famous ghost I want to research, so suggestions are more than welcome.

My main idea was on the spirits that haunt Alcatraz island. I've been there myself on my last trip to the US, and it is an eerie place. If ghosts are the product of violence, fear and evil then it is certainly a place that would create them.

Any other ideas?

Part 2 of History's Famous Ghosts can now be found on this link:

Monte Cristo - Australia's Most Haunted House

Excellent thread. I've never heard of this story before. I like how you presented the story as it is told then offered both confirming and skeptical arguments concerning the case in an effort to tell the entire even-sided story. Well done and thanks for sharing. Fascinating tale.