Duncan McIntyrePrint Page

A Celtic Cross commemorates Duncan McIntyre, pastoralist and explorer who led a search party for Ludwig Leichhardt. The cross rests on a stone over the grave which also contains a family tribute to Donald McIntyre, his brother. 

In 1864 Duncan in his explorations Duncan reported a find of two blazed trees and two old horse. Duncan was an explorer who led a party financed by the Ladies of Melbourne to search for Ludwig Leichhardt.  Duncan was commissioned by the Ladies of Melbourne to lead another expedition to the Gulf to search for Leichhardt who had now been missing for sixteen years. £4000 was raised for the expedition up Cooper Creek. Lack of water and trouble within his men slowed the expedition. However by March 1866 they reach Dalgonally on their way to the Gulf. At Burketown they heard reports of half casts living with aborigines. The ages of the children matched the time when Leichhardt would have been there. Duncan McIntyre became very ill on his return to Dalgonally, so much so that he died there on the 4th June, 1866. 

Duncan McIntyre is buried at "The Grave Hole" on the banks of McIntyre Waterhole. His second in command Mr Slowman read the burial service. Later a monumental head stone was erected by the Ladies of Melbourne. This bears a beautiful Celtic Cross inscribed in both English and Gaelic above his name. For many years it lay unnoticed on the beach at Thursday Island. It was finally brought in via Normanton and erected over the grave by the Billabong, seven miles away from Dalgonally Station. A tree marked his gravesite with "DM LE " carved into its wood. This tree stump is now housed in the Duncan McIntyre Museum in Julia Creek.

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