Blink and you'll miss it.

Is it a lonely grave on a flower strewn hillside?  It was, once, but the hillside has changed shape, as the railway line was pushed through, and the local roads were widened and built up.

The golden coreopsis flowers arrived after the trains, their seeds carried far and wide across NSW as the iron road pushed further out.

On the right hand side of this picture can be seen the abutments of an older bridge that carried Blaxland's Road across the tracks.  It is significantly lower than the new bridge, which would have been built at the new, higher level required to allow the electrification of the Blue Mountains line.

Part of the crowd commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the arrival of the first train at Wentworth Falls (or Weatherboard, as it was known) held in July 2017

 The plaque attached to the NW corner of the bridge that carries Blaxland's Road across the Main Western Line, just west of Wentworth Falls Station.

The lonely headstone is in memory of James Fergusson, who was struck and killed by lightning 158 years ago, while settling cattle and horses into the yards near the Weatherboard Inn.  Each year, close to the 21st of December, a group of people gather on the remains of the old road, opposite the site, to commemorate James and John, whose story is set out below by local historian Jon Low.

The following research by John Low has been published on the 'Simply Australia' website:
In the 19th century when you travelled the Western Road over the Blue Mountains you were in the bush. For over fifty years following its construction in 1814-15, the road was the conduit between the coastal settlement and the pasture lands of the west. It wound a precarious route along the top of a high ridge with deep, unexplored valleys on either side and its condition was subject to the vagaries of weather, heavy use and irregular maintenance. Travel by whatever means was fraught with difficulties, discomfort and sometimes danger as the sad little tale that follows illustrates.

While thousands journeyed across the Mountains in these early years, few chose to live here and minimal settlement took place until the railway arrived in 1867. Inns, military depots & convict stockades, tollhouses, camps and mounted police stations all hugged closely the edges of the road,while settlers, gold seekers, bullock and horse team drivers and all the restless human cargo of a growing colony drifted past.

Twenty-two year old James Fergusson, a carrier with a team of heavy horses, was a part of that incessant 19th century movement. In the early afternoon of 21st December 1859 he and another man, John Black, were among several teamsters setting up camp about 30 or 40 yards in front of the Weatherboard Inn. Christmas was only several days away and it's a safe bet they were looking forward to some merriment in the inn that evening. But, before they could enjoy themselves their horses had to be unharnessed, fed and watered and settled down for the night.

The story of what happened at the Weatherboard on that summer afternoon in 1859 was described in detail in The Empire, a popular Sydney newspaper of the time founded by Henry Parkes. Young Fergusson and his mate Black, it's journalist wrote, "had just unharnessed the horses, and were about to feed them, when a violent thunderstorm came on, and a flash of lightning of a most terrific character struck the two men, and the whole of the thirteen horses, killing both men and animals instantly. The lightning then passed through the inn without doing any further material damage. The bodies of the men and animals presented a most ghastly spectacle, the former turning almost black in a very short period."

Two other men were struck by "the electric fluid" but escaped serious injury, while several further members of the encampment and a number of horses were completely untouched. John Black, aged 28 and married with three young children, was interred in St. John's Burial Ground at Parramatta. James Fergusson, having no known relatives, was buried near the spot where he was killed. Perhaps it was his employer, Mr. R. Martin of Bowenfels, or maybe even his mates who paid for his burial and for his headstone and footstone, both clearly the work of a skilled tradesman. [Extract by John Low at http://simplyaustralia.net/article-jl-weatherboard.html, 17/08/2011]

Blaxland's Road is named after Gregory Blaxland, of the trio Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth, who set out from the Nepean River in 1813 to find a way for settlers to move cattle across the mountains from the Cumberland Plain to the open lands around Bathurst, and Wentworth Falls was named after, well, I'll leave you to guess.



Reference:  https://www.bluemountainshaveyoursay.com.au/22793/documents/62795