[3] Later in 1823, when the Surveyor General, John Oxley, was commissioned by Governor Brisbane to find sites for further penal settlements, he made a trip to the Moreton Bay area.
If not for a chance meeting with one of Finnegan’s surviving partners, Thomas Pamphlett, and the men telling him of a large freshwater river they had stumbled across some months earlier, Oxley may never have made the exploration that led to the establishment of Brisbane Town some years later.
The natives took them by boat across the passage to Stradbroke Island where they spent approximately six weeks with the Noonucal tribe before heading across to the mainland, pulling in somewhere around the Cleveland area.
An extract from his diary on 19 November 1823 describes his unexpected meeting with Pamphlett:"We rounded the Point Skirmish about 5 o'clock and observed a number of natives running along the beach towards the vessel, the foremost much lighter in colour than the rest.
"At the time of the meeting Finnegan was away on a hunting trip and Parsons had continued north in search of Sydney, an endeavour the other two men had decided to abandon, choosing rather to return to the Bribie Island area to live with the natives.