Mount Larcom

History

Commander Matthew Flinders named Mount Larcom (the mountain) on 4 August 1802, after a Royal Navy colleague Captain Thomas Larcom. The following year, William Young, a Scottish colonist who was previously a storekeeper at Gayndah, established the Mount Larcombe sheep station. Frontier conflict occurred between British colonists and the Aboriginal residents at Mount Larcombe. William Young gave food and clothing to the local Aboriginal people in exchange for their land and their labour shearing his sheep, but also drove them away when they were not needed. He once kicked and pointed a gun at an Aboriginal man for not leaving a hut when told to. Native Police troopers were stationed on the property and in November 1855 they opened fire on a group of Aboriginal people at Mount Larcombe killing one. It was thought that some of the people shot at were involved in an attack a month earlier on the Native Police barracks located at nearby Rannes. In late December 1855, those that survived the shooting mounted a revenge attack on Mount Larcombe, taking sheep and supplies, and killing five station-hands including three men, one woman and an Aboriginal servant. William Young was away at Gladstone at the time reporting the drowning death of his superintendent. He was quickly informed of the killings and a punitive expedition was organised under the command of Lieutenant John Murray of the Native Police. Murray's group set out and later surrounded a camp of sleeping Aboriginal people at Hourigan's Creek. They subsequently killed a large number of people there and then tracked down other groups of Indigenous people in the following weeks as far as the northern banks of the Fitzroy River shooting them as they found them. Mount Larcombe sheep station was subjected to another series…

Geography

The town is in the south-western corner of the locality is at the junction of the Bruce Highway and Gladstone–Mount Larcom Road (State Route 58) approximately south of the city of Rockhampton. The mountain, rising to , is east of the town in the locality of Targinnie, * Curley () * Limestone Hill () The North Coast railway line enters the locality from the south (East End / Aldoga) and passes through the town which is served by Mount Larcom railway station (). The line then forms the south-west boundary of the locality with Machine Creek before exiting to the exits to the west (Ambrose).

Most-observed species

• Rainbow Lorikeet

  Trichoglossus haematodus (Linnaeus, 1771) · Aves
  106
• Brown Honeyeater

  Lichmera indistincta (Vigors & Horsfield, 1827) · Aves
  99
• Torresian Crow

  Corvus orru Bonaparte, 1850 · Aves
  82
• Willie-wagtail

  Rhipidura leucophrys (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  73
• Striated Pardalote

  Pardalotus striatus (Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  65
• Australian Magpie

  Gymnorhina tibicen (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  65
• White-throated Honeyeater

  Melithreptus albogularis Gould, 1848 · Aves
  64
• Peaceful Dove

  Geopelia placida Gould, 1844 · Aves
  63