Ben Rixon was an Illawarra identity who turned his hand to many trades including dairy farmer, coach driver, mail contractor and road builder.
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But it was his talents as a white bush tracker for which he became best known.
The son of convicts James Rixon and Amelia Goodwin, Ben was born in the Hawkesbury in 1806, the first baby born of the first white triplets born in Australia. He and his family settled in the Illawarra in 1839, acquiring a land grant at American Creek, near Figtree.
He began delivering mail by horseback between Wollongong and Campbelltown and by 1840 was also carrying passengers.
With his extensive bush skills and using convict labour, Ben was then paid to carve out a mountain pass and coach road from Woonona to Appin which opened in 1848.
In the ensuing years, the Mercury frequently mentioned Ben's name in connection with various road building and construction projects.
In 1856, it was noted Dapto Road had been greatly improved under Ben's efforts. In 1858, he was awarded the £440 contract to build the Cordeaux River Road from "the Fig Tree" to Cordeaux River; then construction of the "English Church at American Creek" in 1860.
But it was Ben's ability to track people in the bush - both those who had become lost and criminals on the run from the law - which made him a household name.
The citizens of Illawarra later acknowledged his service with the presentation of an inscribed silver salver and purse of 100 sovereigns. This was followed by £20 presented by the citizens of Appin.
In accepting the Appin donation, Ben expressed a hope that he "might be spared for many years, in health and strength". But such was not to be.
Hardship hit by September 1877, prompting a Mercury letter writer to call on the public to rally for a public servant's pension on Ben's behalf.
"If the number of persons that he rescued from miserable deaths in the lonely bush were but reckoned up . . . the sum total would be truly astounding . . . He would travel for days and nights in search of them, and rarely ever failed to find the object of his efforts," he wrote.
Despite an inestimable service to the Illawarra, the pension was never granted, and Ben died a pauper in July 1886, buried in an unmarked grave at Bulli cemetery.
"Never was any man treated more unfairly by his country than was the deceased," the Mercury wrote in his obituary.
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