A HEROIC MAILMAN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 302, 16 May 1911, Page 8

A HEROIC MAILMAN.

A brief cablegram from Port Darwin on April 29th, announcing that "Henry Pecklmm and three other Europeans were drowned at Campbell's Springs, in the Northern Territory," concealed quite a sensational story of the death of a man who was a personality. Mr. Henry V. Peckham (says the Lyttclton Times) was a native of New Zealand, having been born in Gcraldine, and was known far and wide as one of the most daring mail contractors of Australia's terribltNever Never country. For twenty years lie maintained the mail service between Katherine and Powell's Creek, which arc separated by 320 miles of "shadcless, trackless, sun-baked, crab-holed" plains and downs, and since the end of last year he had been contractor for the Kathcrine-Victoria river service, his journey each way being 280 miles. Each of the journeys was done with a team of pack-horses every six weeks. At any time the long stretches of desert country made travelling dangerous, and in bad season, when flooded streams were added to the other perils, the mailman's lonely ride demanded almost heroic endeavor. Mr. Peckham lost his life in attempting to transport his mails across a flooded river. He had a black boy with him, and the boy was able to save the mails, acting under his master's instructions, but Mr. Peckham would not accept the native's assistance himself, fearing that his precious burden miwut lie lost, and he was swept off his horse and drowned, sacrificing his life to his sense of duty. Mr. Peckham was known to all his friends among the lonelv settlers of the interior as "The I<W.„r, v and under that title he was immortalised in Mrs. Aeneas Gunn's book. "Wo of the Never Never."