1. Moondyne Joe is remembered as a person who had escaped multiple times from prison.
11 Facts About Moondyne Joe
1. 2.
Moondyne Joe was baptised in the Parish Church at Wendron, married at Johnston Memorial Congregational church at Fremantle, and buried in the Anglican section of Fremantle Cemetery.
3.
Moondyne Joe was the third of three children of blacksmith Thomas Johns and his wife Mary Bolitho.
4.
Moondyne Joe's father died some time in 1833, and Johns and his brother took work as copper miners.
5.
Moondyne Joe then settled in the Avon Valley, one of the most rugged and inaccessible places in the Darling Range.
6.
Moondyne Joe was caught the next day but, while on the run, he had killed the horse and cut his brand out of the hide, thus destroying the evidence.
7.
Moondyne Joe then found work on Henry Martin's farm in Kelmscott.
8.
Moondyne Joe was sent to Fremantle Prison, and kept in the yard with his neck chained to the iron bar of a window, while a special "escape-proof" cell was made for him.
9.
Moondyne Joe did not return to any of his old haunts, and he committed no crimes, so the authorities received very little information about him.
10.
Moondyne Joe was returned to prison, sentenced to an additional 12 months, half to be in separate confinement, for absconding.
11.
Moondyne Joe died of senile dementia in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum on 13 August 1900, and was buried in Fremantle Cemetery.