Ch. 9: The Truth About 'Fisher's Ghost'

Everybody has heard about 'Fisher's Ghost.' It is one of the stock 'yarns' of the world, and reappears now and again in magazines, books like 'The Night Side of Nature,' newspapers, and general conversation. As usually told, the story runs thus: One Fisher, an Australian settler of unknown date, dwelling not far from Sydney, disappeared. His overseer, like himself an ex-convict, gave out that Fisher had returned to England, leaving him as plenipotentiary. One evening a neighbour (one Farley), returning from market, saw Fisher sitting on the fence of his paddock, walked up to speak to him, and marked him leave the fence and retreat into the field, where he was lost to sight. The neighbour reported Fisher's return, and, as Fisher could nowhere be found, made a deposition before magistrates. A native tracker was taken to the fence where the pseudo Fisher sat, discovered 'white man's blood' on it, detected 'white man's fat' on the scum of a pool hard by, and, finally, found 'white man's body' buried in a brake. The overseer was tried, condemned, and hanged after confession.

Such is the yarn: occasionally the ghost of Fisher is said to have been viewed several times on the fence.

Now, if the yarn were true, it would be no proof of a ghost. The person sitting on the fence might be mistaken for Fisher by a confusion of identity, or might be a mere subjective hallucination of a sort recognised even by official science as not uncommon. On the other hand, that such an illusion should perch exactly on the rail where 'white man's blood' was later found, would be a very remarkable coincidence. Finally, the story of the appearance might be explained as an excuse for laying information against the overseer, already suspected on other grounds. But while this motive might act among a Celtic population, naturally credulous of ghosts, and honourably averse to assisting the law (as in Glenclunie in 1749), it is not a probable motive in an English Crown colony, as Sydney then was. Nor did the seer inform against anybody.

The tale is told in 'Tegg's Monthly Magazine' (Sydney, March 1836); in 'Household Words' for 1853; in Mr. John Lang's book, 'Botany Bay' (about 1840), where the yarn is much dressed up; and in Mr. Montgomery Martin's 'History of the British Colonies,' vol. iv. (1835). Nowhere is a date given, but Mr. Martin says that the events occurred while he was in the colony. His most intimate surviving friend has often heard him tell the tale, and discuss it with a legal official, who is said to have been present at the trial of the overseer.* Other living witnesses have heard the story from a gentleman who attended the trial. Mr. Martin's narrative given as a lowest date, the occurrences were before 1835. Moreover, the yarn of the ghost was in circulation before that year, and was accepted by a serious writer on a serious subject. But we have still no date for the murder.

*So the friend informs me in a letter of