A few stories from the wild days of the gold rush in Adelong.....

John Birkhead's parents, John Alexander and Sybella (aka Sibella, Isabella, Catherine S!) were in Adelong from the 1850s. John was the publican at The Miner's Rest and also an agent for the Sydney Mail.

From "Batlow: The Growing years from Gold to Apples"......

"The most conspicuous personality of the upper Adelong settlement was Abraham Watson, a man of fearless business enterprise. He must have been one of the earliest on the field. In 1858 he was working a rich sluicing claim some way up the Adelong Creek above the suction of the Upper and Lower Adelong Creeks. He employed a number of Chinese and worked in a big way for those days making, it has been said, as much as a pound weight of gold a day.

In 1859 he ran a big store, a hotel called "The Miner's Rest" conducted by J. A. Carter, father of Will Carter who some years later was to be appointed schoolmaster at Batlow. Watson also ran a butchery and a sawmill."

"The majority of bushrangers of the 1850s and 60s operated in gangs. Dan Morgan was an exception. One of the most ruthless and savage with whom indeed Ben Hall and Frank Gardiner could be called gentlemen by comparison" says an early record.

It was the movements of Morgan that perturbed the minds of people at Upper and Middle Adelong, for he was reported to be in the neighbouring ranges and was expected to make a raid on the gold-getters at any time.

Sergeant McGinnity was in charge of the local police and sometimes camped at the junction of Wilson Creek and Cockatoo Creek lower down the diggings. One day the Sergeant called at the "Miner's Rest" Inn and in reported to have said to Mrs Carter:

"That devil of a Morgan is lurking about in the hills, Mrs Carter. I thought I would call and give you timely warning. If I were you I would hide most of your cash in a hole under the floor, from day to day, until we get the villain."

From "The Empire" 1868.....

"Nov.12 Some weeks old, the ago a little child of Mr J.A. Carter, about three years old, strayed away from its home at Middle Adelong. Every effort was made by the parents and the neighbours in the locality to clear up the mysterious circumstances that surrounded the affair, but without success. Intelligence has just been brought to town that the body has been found about three miles away from the father's residence, in an old dry lagoon, where no doubt the unfortunate child strayed when the lagoon was full of water."

From NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages. 

My best guess is that the child's name was Catherine, born 1866.