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During the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, there was a dog that remained at the side of one of the pikemen and even followed his dead body to the cemetery. Christopher Crook, who was a correspondent for the Geelong Advertiser, is quoted in Wiliam Wither's A History of Ballarat as saying:
A little terrier sat on the breast of the man I spoke of, and kept a continuous howl; it was removed, but always returned to the same spot, and when the miner's body was huddled, with the other corpses, into the cart, the little dog jumped in after him, and lying on his dead master's breast, began howling again.[1]
The pikeman may have been William Emmerman or Edward Thonen. Eurekapedia references an unpublished diary that refers to Emmermann as the owner of the Pikeman's dog, although Peter Lalor said it may have belonged to Thonen.[2] James Graham's account suggests the dog belonged to Thonen, stating:
Police Constable Coulson, my shipmate, was expelling the faithful little dog and when I remonstrated with him for doing so he said, 'What do you think of your work, Smith?' .... I ... went into the hut where Thonen, the blacksmith, who made the pikes for the insurgents, lay dying with the late Dr Hobbson [sic] moistening the lips of the victim of a short sighted government.[1]
- ^ a b Corfield, Wickham & Gervasoni 2004, p. 428.
- ^ "Pikemen - eurekapedia". www.eurekapedia.org.
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