Living with Moondyne Joe: Points De Repère

for Niall Lucy When the ticket-of-leave convict Joseph Bolitho Johns escaped the Toodyay West lock-up in 1861, his history as ‘Moondyne Joe’ began, though the nickname came later. The location name ‘Moondyne’ probably came from a coloniser/settler re-pronunciation of a Whadjuk Noongar place name. Moondyne is near Julimar Brook where Johns had set up his horse cage in the bush, where he’d originally trapped the ‘clean-skin’ horse and marked it with his own brand that led to his first colonial (re)incarceration and that first escape of 1861. This escape certainly encouraged the building of the Newcastle Gaol (which was to become the Toodyay Gaol), a building of stone, wood and metal which is now a popular tourist destination in Toodyay, often associated with the bushranger probably more than it should be....