1794: The First Free Settler Murdered in the Colony: Hanged at Sydney for a Parramatta Stabbing
John Hill, a butcher, had spent the day drinking with Simon Burn at Parramatta on 5 October 1794 when he turned on the woman he lived with, beating her until Burn stepped in to stop him. Hill stabbed Burn through the heart; dying within the hour, Burn had just enough strength left to name his killer before witnesses, declaring that the butcher had done it. Burn, a First Fleet convict who had earned his freedom and settled his own farm, was reportedly the first free man in the colony to be murdered by another colonist.
Hill tried to set up an alibi at his trial, but the wound and Burn’s own dying words undid him. He was hanged at Sydney on 16 October 1794, his body handed over for dissection as his sentence required.
