Fishers Ghost of Cambpelltown

he story of Fishers Ghost of Cambpelltown, a rural city founded in 1820 and settled with convict farmers, is considered to be the best known ghost story in Australia today.

The story has captured the hearts and imaginations of Australians and Campbelltown residents ever since the story of the ghost first surfaced. But was there really ever a ghost or was it just a wild story?
Take yourself back to the early 1800's. Australia was then a rough, rugged and mostly unsettled wild country. It was then full of convicts who had been shipped to Australia for punishment for crimes such as stealing loaves of bread, murder and any other acts deemed as criminal.

Frederick George James Fisher was a 35 year old ticket-of leave man who originally came to Australia from England as a convict. He left England on a ship named the 'Atlas', and arrived in the colony in 1816. Soon after he acquired his ticket of leave. A ticket-of leave was something convicts, who were particularly well behaved, could gain for themselves to be able to buy themselves land and settle without being imprisoned.

He soon bought 30 acres of land in Campbelltown, the house being close to the spot which the Old Post Office now occupies (left). The farm was located between the main street which is now renamed Queen Street, bounded on the north by the line of Lithgow Street and on the south by a line from Allman Street. His property extended out to and ended at the Bow Bowing creek line.

The Town Hall Theatre is the site of George Worralls Farm Fisher prospered on his land and had purchased himself more land located at Appin, Cabramatta and Nepean. A little known fact about Fisher was that he was also the first man to attempt to make paper in New South Wales.

Fisher's close friend, confidant and neighbour was a man named George Worrall, who was also a ticket-of-leave man. He rented the property next door to Fisher and must have much envied his prosperous neighbour. Worrall rented a cottage 140 yards south of Allan Street, the site occupied by the first Campelltown Town Hall and now contains the local theatre.