AustLit

Convict, ticket-of-leave man, and murder victim.

Fisher, then operating a farm in Campbelltown, New South Wales, was murdered by his neighbour George Worrall, ostensibly because Worrall coveted Fisher's land. Fisher's body was not discovered for some months, and a subsequent legend has grown up that searchers were alerted by the presence of Fisher's ghost on the railing of the bridge near which he was buried.

Fisher's ghost become one of the most widely retold ghost stories of the ninteenth and early twentieth century, although its popularity waned somewhat after mid century. Campbelltown has celebrated the Fisher's Ghost Festival since 1956.