Dawson River, Mount McConnel at the junction of the Suttor and Burdekin rivers, and Conway (which adjoined Mount McConnel) at the head of Sellheim Creek. By 1861 he and his brother Arthur had stocked them with sheep and cattle driven from southern Queensland properties. But Henry was never satisfied. His desire for new land and adventure was fed by the reports of Frederick Walker and William Landsborough who returned from their separate searches for Burke and Wills in 1862 with promising reports of the Flinders River country. Henry wanted to view this new country himself and set out from Mount McConnell on 24 November 1863 with a Mr Devlin and his favourite aboriginal boy, Dick. On the Flinders River he took up land which he named Hughenden Station after his mother's childhood home in England, Hughenden Manor. The township of Hughenden was laid out in the same area in 1876. Loss of Stations Henry and his "faithful Dick" returned from the Flinders to Mount McConnel in March 1864, and sometime later that year Henry went into Bowen to attend to the sale of some of his properties to cover his increasing debts. In a letter to his mother, Henry called it "rashness and too-eager ambition" to acquire four properties in as many years and attempt to stock and improve them. He was more than £13,000 in debt. Baroondah was the first station to be sold, probably during 1864. Conway was sold the same year, but the buyers alleged misrepresentation. The £8000 they paid remained lodged in a Rockhampton bank until a court could decide the outcome. In the meantime, Henry's creditors were circling. Henry wrote to his father asking for a £4,500 loan. His father provided £5,000 – but with the condition that Conway and Hughenden were first sold. The difficulties dragged on until the end of 1865 by which time Hughenden had been sold to Henry's cousin, Robert Gray, and all of Henry's remaining assets were consigned, on his father's advice, to his creditors in exchange for his debts. Henry was chastened by his failure and openly admitted his failings in a letter to his mother dated 23 November 1865. In that letter, Henry again accepts blame, but he also expresses optimism "for fresh exertions with a less aspiring, though steadier and more calculating, zeal. I am not daunted, but rather urged on by misfortune, which creates in me