F r a n K - PhotosAU Court-House, a monumental relic of the town’s early importance and expectations. GEOGRAPHICAL IN TROD UCTION. On one side of the Hartley Valley is the barren

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F O R E W O R D .

Owe o / the most satisfactory developments in the cultural life of the State is the increasing public interest in and the value attached to the historical background of our nation.

Our national life is, of course, deeply embedded in the historical background of Great Britain and, without that, it would be impossible to appreciate or understand our people. Remembering that, we also have in the early history of Australia indications of the beginnings of our own divergent national characteristics which will in the end make us a people, while closely allied to, someivhat different from the parent stock.

It is well that as much of this early history as possible should be recorded and set down while the material is still available. We are, therefore, indebted to Messrs. W . C. Foster, W. L. Havard and B. T. Dowd for the care and industry devoted to the production of this brochure. The subject chosen is worthy of the effort put into it.

It iw just 100 years since what is now known as the Hartley Court-House was built and opened. What to-day, with the attractive motor road, is a two hours’ trip from Sydney, must have seemed to those early settlers a somewhat arduous journey. They had not long known it— the road having been built in 1814; but it is evidence of their courage and their idea of the permanence of the occupation of the district that so soon thereafter a Court-House, which stands to this day as a monument of beautiful architecture and splendid craftsmanship, should have been erected by them with resources which icere almost as nothing compared with those of to-day.

They did their work icell and passed on their way, leaving this monument to their descendants which, although not noiv used for the purpose originally designed, is and will long remain a feature of the landscape which it adorns— a memorial to their skill and culture.

Sydney,8th September, 1937.

L. O. M A R T IN ,Minister of Justice.

Hartley Court-House, a monumental relic of the town’s early importance and expectations.

GEOGRAPHICAL IN TROD UCTION.

On one side of the Hartley Valley is the barren sandstone plateau of the Blue Mountains; on the other are the stony, scrubby ridges over which the old road to Bathurst climbed. In past ages the sandstone extended ivest of the present cliffs at Mount York right to the Main Divide but the streams, cutting through it, exposed the granite pavement on which the horizontal rocks had been deposited.

This fortunate accident called into existence the gentle slopes by the River Lett and Cox’s River. Much of the granite weathers into a deep soil that forms rounded hills, whilst the massive plateau sandstone either splits off to form perpendicular cliffs, or is fretted into great monuments that mark the country near the railway line. The actual recession o f the cliffs is due to the cutting away of softer rocks from beneath, giving the level valley above Hartley at the same time.

In the granite country of the valley, harder places cause the streams to flow in steep little gorges making the roads edge away from the streams or cross them at right angles, as the Highway does at Hartley. But the gentle slopes were quite sufficient to give an abundance of grass for transport animals and travelling stock. Fodder and water were close at hand to refresh the beasts worn with the westward journey across the Blue Mountains, or to recruit those passing from Bathurst to Sydney before their ascent of the same range from the west. The traveller, also, was no less eager to rest in the pleasant valley surroundings.

On the Blue Mountains themselves, only a few patches o f moderate soil allow the growth of a little grass. Many of these areas are used by modern towns, and in earlier times they formed the sites of inns which alleviated the discomfort of travellers. The crossing of the Blue Mountains was, however, looked upon as a trial.

Further to the west the old Bathurst Road, in its direct line across the ridges to Fish River, had many severe grades, and passed over much lonely and bleak country. Hartley Valley ivas a sort of oasis in the desert. Now the glamour of its early history recalls how significant it was once in the topography and administration of the State.

Fr a n k A . Cr a f t .

HARTLEY AND ITS HISTORIC COURT-HOUSE

B y W . C. F o s t e r , W . L . H a v a r d , B . T . D o w d .

A E T L E Y V A L L E Y was first seen by white man on May28, 1813, when the explorers, Blaxland, Lawson andW entworth, with their four servants, looked down from

Mount York and discovered to their great satisfaction that what they had considered sandy and barren land below the mountains was forest land covered with trees and good grass. They went down into the valley and terminated their journey at Mount Blaxland. In November of the same year, George William Evans entered the valley and camped by the Eiver Lett north-westerly from Mount York. He followed the course of the river and crossed it just above the site of Hartley. Passing the locality of Glenroy at the junction of the Eiver Lett and Cox’s Eiver he continued westerly over the Main Divide to the Bathurst Plains. Evans referred to the valley as a fine part of the country, some of it resembling the hills to the eastward of the Cori Linn at Port Dalrymple.

Late in 1814 the first road into the Hartley Valley, at that time unnamed, was built by William Cox. His primitive highway crossed the Blue Mountains and descended Mount York by a steep and rugged pass. Once in the valley the road went northerly for a short distance, then south-westerly, running about midway between the river and the foot of the Blue Mountains. It passed close to the site of Hartley Public School and came in along a ridge to the junction of the two rivers at Glenroy. Beyond the valley Cox took his road to the Bathurst Plains.

In April, 1815, Governor and Mrs. Macquarie and suite set out from Sydney for the newly discovered country to the westward. A t Mount York, which Macquarie named, the party stopped to feast their eyes “ with the grand and pleasing prospect of the fine low country below . . . The “ beautiful extensive Vale of Five Miles ” the Governor called “ The Vale Clwydd ” , after a vale in Wales. This name has been supplanted by the name Hartley Valley. The first tourists descended by C ox’s Pass, so named by Macquarie, who described it as a

H A R T L E Y A N D I T S C O U R T - H O U S E . 5

valleys about Hartley. The western edge of the Blue Mountains is shown by cliffs of horizontal sandstone ; the valleys and ridges to the west are mainly

granite. 1. Old Bathurst Road. 2. Mitchell’s Road.(Diagram by F . Craft.)

R iv e rof V ic to ria

M t V ic to r ia

Hassans Bow en fe ls W a lls

Mt.York Scale4 i i Miles

“ frightful tremendous Pass They continued to the junction of the River Lett and Cox’s Eiver, where they encamped on the evening of April 29. Here the next day they held the first Divine service west of the Blue Mountains.

The valley’s first white inhabitants were Government stockmen and those of private individuals. Recognising the value of the good pasture country for stock Macquarie lost little time after his tour in establishing a stock station for herds near Mount York, but W . Hassall, the Superintendent of Government Stock, finding that a great number of the herd had died through the severe cold of the winter, m oved the station to Glenroy which was a sunnier situation. The following year, 1816, stockyards and huts were built there. Possibly the

10

usefulness of this good grazing valley for Government stock was instrumental in retarding individual settlement prior to 1821. In that year Pierce Collits of the Nepean had temporary occupation of an area near Mount Blaxland under what was then called a Ticket of Occupation. It was in this year also, the last of his term of office, that Macquarie issued the first Orders for land to individuals in the Yale of Clwydd for permanent settlement. These Orders were issued to Edward Field, sen., of Evan, for eighty acres on Butler’s Creek, and later passed to William Field, John Grant of Liverpool, fifty acres known as “ Moyne Farm ” , near the foot of Mount Victoria, and W illiam Orrell of Sydney, two hundred acres near Blaxland’s Swamp. The areas were in three totally different parts of the valley, the north-eastern, southern and western locations.

Se t t l e m e n t I n t e n s if ie s .

W ith the advent of Governor Brisbane and altered regulations regarding land grants, settlement in the valley showed some activity. W ith a view to preserving land for future Government purposes, action was taken about 1823 to reserve a tract of approximately 4,000 acres extending three miles up the Eiver Lett from a little south of Glenroy. It had a, width of two miles and covered land on both sides of the river. This reserve was not encroached upon for settlement until after Mitchell’s new road down the western side of the Blue Mountains was opened in 1832.

The first of Governor Brisbane’s Orders for land in this locality were issued in 1823 to J. Birt and E. Fellows, each receiving one hundred acres at Blaxland’s Swamp. It was late in the same year that John W ood of Bringelly obtained a Ticket of Occupation for 3,000 acres about the same spot, only a scrubby hill dividing it from Collits on the north. In 1824 promises by Brisbane were honoured by Orders for land to Bobert Martin, sen., of Mulgrave Place, Eobert Martin, jun., o f Eichmond, and John Hall of the Nepean. These were at the Mount York end of the valley. It was during this year that penetration of the country down Cox’s Eiver from the vicinity o f Lowther Creek began and Orders for large areas were given to settlers. These were James, Nathaniel and John Norton. William Eedfern and Thomas Wills. The following year Pierce Collits, wiio had already established his inn at the foot of Mount

6 H A R T L E Y A N D I T S C O U R T - H O U S E . ___________

H A R T L E Y A N D I T S C O U R T - H O U S E . T

York, James Porchmouth, and Samuel Morris of “ Mount Clarence ” farm, were given Orders for land about Mount York and the River Lett. Near Cox’s River came Orders for Thomas Wilsford, Rev. S. Marsden, W . H. Hovell and John W ood o f Lowther. Orders followed for Simeon Lord in 1828, John Maxwell in 1830 and Michael Flanagan in 1831. The latter’s farm was near the foot of Mount Victoria.

In 1831 important changes in the regulations regarding disposal of Crown lands were made. Under these regulations all land applied for was advertised for sale and put up for public auction. This did not affect settlement in the valley until about 1837-1838 when the Town of Hartley was established. The Government Reserve of 4,000 acres was gradually reduced as settlers purchased large areas particularly in the vicinity o f the town and down Cox’s River between 1837 and 1841. Amongst the new land holders were John T. Hughes, Thomas Breillat, William Lawson, sen., William Lawson, jun., Nelson Lawson, John G. Bowman, Robert Granger, James Blackett, Michael Finn, Michael Scott, Thomas Morris, B. Butta, Isaac Titterton and Jeremiah Grant.

In 1829 Governor Darling had proposed to locate some o f the Navy and Military Veterans on good land near the River Lett. The Surveyor-General therefore recommended that a Village Reserve be established between Martin and Porchm outh’s farms and the River Lett and that any part of it would be eligible for the Governor’s purpose. It was not, however, used for the Veterans. This area, in the vicinity of Londonderry Bridge, was surveyed in 1855 and later called the Village of Clwydd. A cottage and office on the reserve at this time had some years previously been used as the residence of the Police Magistrate at Hartley.

T h e W e s t R o a d .

Of the difficulties presented by the old Bathurst Road the most-dreaded was the precipitous descent of Mount York. Attempts to render this section of the road safe for travellers were made, but to such little purpose that by Governor Darling’s order a notice in the Sydney Gazette of August 17, 1827, promised a reward for the discovery of a better route to Bathurst. Hamilton Hum e’s proposal to proceed along the Darling Causeway, through Lithgow’s Valley, was not adopted.

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8 H A R T L E Y A N D I T S C O U R T - H O U S E .

Early in June, 1830, the possibilities o f a descent from the Blue Mountains by the Pass of Victoria were seen by the keen eye of Major Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General. Immediately he set Assistant-Surveyor Philip Elliot to work. Since it was on this occasion that Mount Victoria received its name, the words of the Surveyor-General are interesting: “ The point o f hill, by which this descent may be effected, being parallel to Mounts York and Clarence, I have named, for the sake of distinction Mount Victoria.” On June “ 5 ” Mitchell proceeded with the marking of his new road through the site of the present town of Hartley to the River Lett, and subsequently continued to Bowenfels, past Gould’s Hill, Rydal, Mount Lambie, Honeysuckle Hill, to Bathurst, which was reached on June 20. Mitchell's zest is revealed in his words : “ This is entirely my road, too, that, although I marked it plainly on my sketch submitted nearly three years ago and Major Lockyer was ordered to make it, still no one ever hit upon i t ; and yet it is the only way by which the numerous steep hills at Mount Blaxland, the Pish River, etc., can be avoided. I certainly felt almost as well pleased with my ten days’ exertion and the new line of road as a general could after gaining a victory.”

M it c h e l l Co m b a t s a n d O v e r c o m e s G o v e r n o r D a r l in g ’s O p p o s it io n .

Colonial Secretary M ’Leay’s reply of July 21, to Mitchell’s Report of June 23, 1830, was a strong refusal to permit the construction of the Pass of Victoria, on which Mitchell, without authority, had already set men to work. The Surveyor-General was “ much vexed In an irascible mood he replied on July 27 : “ . . . I trust that the work I have begun, on no vague report of any illiterate clown, but after a general survey by myself and assistants, may be suffered to proceed . . . but if, on the contrary, I am required to abandon what I consider to be a work of permanent utility and importance . . . then I must request that copies of the correspondence with plans and sections of the Roads may be submitted to His Majesty’s Government . . . ”

Mitchell was defiant. He instructed Elliot to labour with vigorous activity on the Pass of Victoria.

M ’Leay’s reply of August 23, 1830, confirmed his refusal to sanction the work in progress, but Mitchell was determined

1

H A R T L E Y A N D I T S C O U R T - H O U S E . ‘J

♦

♦

Governor Darling, who opposed the construction of the Pass of Victoria, and Governor Bourke who opened it on October 23, 1832.

' that the work should be done. He made vigorous personalrepresentation to Governor Darling and emerged from the interview with the satisfaction of having prevailed over an antagonistic Governor and an equally obstinate Colonial Secretary.

T h e P a s s of V ic t o r ia is B u i l t .

In November, 1830, Elliot informed the Surveyor-General that 79 men were employed on the Pass in grubbing and rolling off the timber, 39 in quarrying rock, and 6 masons in building the wall. From January, 1831, Elliot was replaced by Assistant- Surveyor John Lambie, who reported that in February, 1832, there were employed 216 convicts in irons and 60 out of irons on the Pass, 21 in irons and 39 out of irons on Honeysuckle Bange, 43 in irons and 15 out of irons at Stoney Range, while a Bridge Party of 62 in irons and 33 out of irons was stationed at Mount Victoria.

In July, 1832, Surveyor John Nicholson succeeded Lambie. On July 16 he informed Mitchell that “ the side cutting to

( finish the descent and render it practicable for traffic can befinished by three weeks from this with the present force

I f


Pass of Victoria, when opened. The genius of Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell made this gift to the nation. An outstanding engineering achievement, it opened

the gate for a flood of traffic to the west.

However it was not until October 23, 1832, that Governor Sir Richard Bourke opened the Pass of Victoria— “ the crowning glory of m y road ” , as Mitchell called it. A t the present time a monument on Mount Victoria commemorates the opening of this Gateway to the West— a constant reminder of the work of a great nation builder, Major [afterwards Colonel Sir] Thomas 1 jiving,stone Mitchell.

W ith the object of making the West Road one of his greatest contributions to the advancement of the Colony Mitchell persistently urged Nicholson and his successor in March, 1835, Assistant-Surveyor L. V. Dulhunty, to proceed expeditiously with the work. The result of their endeavours was that at the close of 1836 the newr road to Bathurst was ready for traffic. Ironed gangs were retained in subsequent years, however, to make necessary alterations and repairs.

After the completion of Mitchell’s road the trek to the West was by the town of Hartley.

15


Colonel Sir Thom as Livingstone Mitchell, brilliant Scottish military draftsman. After distinguished service in Spain prom ise of exploratory work lured him to New

South Wales where in 1828 he succeeded John Oxley, Surveyor-General.


N e w P o l ic e D is t r ic t o f t h e Y a l e of Cl w y d d .

Before the establishment of the Court-House and Lock-up at Hartley there was between Penrith and Bathurst no place of security for prisoners excepting two military stockades.At the end of 1834 the Surveyor-General, Mitchell, was requested by Governor Bourke to describe the limits of a Police District which would contain the Court-House to be built by the River Lett. The following year a Committee was formed to enquire into and report upon the Police Force in all its branches. In the course of evidence A. K . McKenzie, J.P., stated that a paid magistrate was much wanted at Cox’s River. In accordance 11with the findings of the Committee it was decided to form an intermediate Police District between Penrith and Bathurst, its limits determined by the description already furnished by Mitchell, viz., “ District to extend eastward to the Weatherboard Hut Stream on the Mountain Road ; bounded by that stream to the River Cox, and southward to Mounts Colong, Murrain,Werong, and the dividing Range between Werong and the head of the Fish River, to be bounded on the ivest by the Fish River, D ixon ’s Creek, and the Range which separates the Counties of Roxburgh and Cook ; on the north by the Capertee or Colo River to the junction of Bowen’s Creek, and including the space west of that Creek, Mount Tomah, Mount Hay, and the Weatherboard Hut Inn, as aforesaid As centre in this District, first called Clwydd, the Court-House near the bridge over the River Lett was built.

It was part of the duty of the Police Magistrate of each District to “ make it his duty to become speedily acquainted with the person, character, and general circumstances of every individual within his District, so that he may possess (and be known to possess) the means of at once correcting any terroneous statement, from his own knowledge, and so be better able to carry into effect the Assignment of Servants, and other important duties . . . Moreover he was to be familiar with every part of his District, and every circumstance of local |interest, so that being able at any moment to furnish accurate information upon every point lie might thus act as intermediary between the Government and the inhabitants, enforcing the commands of the one and representing all lawful desires of the «•other. • i

1 7 -

The establishment recommended for the Vale of Clwydd was : one Police Magistrate £250, one Clerk £100, one Chief Constable £75, five Ordinary Constables £205 6s. 3d., and one Scourger £31 18s. 9d. Accordingly in January, 1836, Edward Denny Day was appointed Police Magistrate for the new District of the Vale of Clwydd, and Henry Dal way, Clerk of the Bench. As Day was receiving full pay as an Arm y officer [retired], fifty pounds was deducted from his salary as Police Magistrate.

Pending the building of the Court-House Day suggested that one of the cells at the stockade at Hassan's Walls be used as a Lock-up House and that a shed for the temporary accom modation of the Bench be built near it. Fearing that the regularity of the ironed gang might be affected by the introduction into the stockade of a new class of criminal, Governor Bourke directed that temporary arrangements be made instead at some old huts at Mount Victoria.

T e n d e r s w e r e Ca l l e d f o r B u il d in g t h e C o u r t -H o u s e B e f o r e t h e F in a l S it e w a s Ch o s e n .

It is interesting to notice in the call for tenders for the building of the Court-House that security was required and monthly advances made to the extent of 75% of the value of the work performed. It was Governor Macquarie’s architect, Francis Howard Greenway, who had introduced into the Colony this system of guarantee of good faith. The time of transmitting tenders was postponed from March 1 to March 31,1836, to enable tenderers to visit the locality. On April 14 the tender of E o ss ' Coulter and Eobert Beddie was accepted and they were referred to the Colonial Architect, Mortimer Lewis, to execute a bond for the due observance of their contract and its completion within a limited time. They sent twelve men and four horses to quarry and cart the stone.

Since it was intended immediately to lay out a village at the Eiver Lett, Mitchell gave instructions for a detailed survey of the Village Eeserve there, the site for a Court and W atch-House to be fixed first of all. In July, 1836, when Assistant-Surveyor Butler transmitted his “ Survey of the proposed Scite for a Township at the Eiver Lett ” , Mitchell was in Western Victoria with his third exploring expedition. His deputy, S. A. Perry, considered the situation chosen by

H A B T L E Y A N D I T S C O U R T - H O U S E . _________ 13


On October 3, 1837, the Police Magistrate, J. Blair, reported the contractor’s notice of the completion of the Court-House at Hartley.

(From the original in the Mitchell Library.)


Butler near the Eiver Lett too low and confined for the Court- House. He suggested one in the principal street “ at a very conspicuous point from the approaches to the Town on both sides Day, to whom the Governor referred Perry’s suggestion, found it impracticable owing to the rocky nature of the ground and recommended the adoption of a third site. Meanwhile the contractor who had been quarrying stone since the middle of May, 1836, was impatient to begin the building. It was already September, but within a few days Governor Bourke approved of the site selected by Day. A t the same time ground lying- eastward of the site was approved as a pound and a police paddock. Day was notified in mid-September of the decision and was requested to have the site shown to the contractor and authorise him to begin the work without delay.

Day was now appointed from October la s Police Magistrate at Maitland, being succeeded at the Y aleof Clwyddby JohnKinchela, son of Judge Kinchela. When Kinchela was appointed Police Magistrate for the District of Bathurst from March 1, 1837, his successor at the Yale of Clwydd was James Blair. An Address expressing regret at losing Kinchela and appreciation of his zeal and efficiency was signed by E. J. McDonnell, J.P ., John Maxwell, J.P ., Wm. Hall Palmer, J.P., John W ood, Andrew Brown, William Orrell, H. K . Hughes, Peter Workman, Alexander Binning, Andrew Gardiner, James Morris, Pierce Collits and E. P. Delany.

H a r t l e y C o u r t -H o u s e is B u i l t .

Meanwhile the foundations of the Court-House were laid. About April, 1837, a traveller “ visited the New Court House, now erecting, which is of a splendid character, and does infinite credit in its architectural beauty and design, to the builder. It is of fine cut stone, and is proceeding rapidly.” A t the beginning of July it was expected that the building would “ be completed in about a month Early in September Blair represented the supposed “ insecure state of the Lock-up in the new Court House, owing to a recess having been formed in the wall of the Court room, which adjoins it, merely for uniformity’s sake . . . to correspond with the door of the Magistrate’s room on the opposite side . . . ” . He alleged that the wall had been so weakened that the mere hammering of a carpenter in the adjoining lock-up had thrown down that part


of the division. The damage had been repaired but he considered it would be no stronger than the original wall. As a result of investigation the Colonial Architect received a report from Edward P. Delany, the Clerk of Works, who stated that it was not stone work which had fallen, but plaster, about fourteen inches square, which had broken bond owing to the mason cutting off a header that projected beyond the bond timber in the lock-up. Delany also stated in this report, dated September 16, that the building “ will be completed this week, as the cedar to fit up Privy and some fastnings have come up from Sydney, which caused the delay of completion.” On October 3, 1837, according to Blair’s letter of that date, to the Colonial Secretary, the contractor for erecting the new Court-House had that day given him notice that the building was completed. Blair however declined to receive the key until he had received official instructions. Towards the end of December he was anticipating moving the Police establishment into the new Court-House within a few days. Following the Report of the Board of Survey the Court-House was officially declared to be satisfactorily completed and payment of Coulter and Reddie’s account was sanctioned.

The change of site caused some inconvenience and extra expense to the contractors. In making out their costs before tendering they had calculated the cost of transporting the stone to the site by the River Lett. The final decision regarding the site was not made until September, 1836, and then it was discovered that this entailed carting the stone forty-seven chains beyond the site first intimated. This suggests that the quarry was situated near Bowenfels ; the Court House is sandstone but the local rock is granite. The quarry from which stone was evidently brought across the River Lett must have been somewhere in the sandstone tableland, and at no great distance, for it was the practice of the Police Magistrate, Day, to ride quietly by it. Had the stone been brought from the direction of Mount York it would neither have been taken across the River Lett nor beyond the site first proposed. After completing the building the contractors applied for compensation and were allowed £50 in addition to the contract price of £1,426.

G e n e s is o f t h e T o w n of H a r t l e y .

Official records indicate that the name Hartley came from the office of the Colonial Secretary or the Executive Council

l\

H A R T L E Y A N D I TS C O U R T - H O U S E . 17

but they give no reason for the name. According to Loughead’s Dictionary of Given Names, it is of Teutonic origin and its meaning [dweller by the] lea of the stays.

Hartley owes its establishment to Mitchell’s new line of road. About the end of 1830 he had areas at various places along this line reserved for village purposes. One of these, about 610 acres, was provided at the crossing of the Eiver Lett. Pierce Collits was granted three acres here, on which to erect an inn, in part compensation for the altered position of the Bathurst Eoad which diverted traffic off the road that led by his inn below Mount York.

Early in 1836 Governor Bourke approved of the laying out of a village at the Eiver Lett Bridge and Assistant-Surveyor Butler was instructed to make a preliminary survey of the ground and at the same time fix upon a site for the intended Court and Watch-House. He submitted his plan of the survey in July, 1836, from which 8. A. Perry designed a village with the principal frontages to the Bathurst Eoad through this village reserve. Although Perry made provision for sites for various public purposes, in some instances other sites were found later in more suitable locations.

The village design embraced forty-one sections with sixteen streets. H ow many know of such streets as Court Hill, Dawson, Walker, Lett, Hartley, Wentworth, Windsor, York, Black, Hume, Keate, White, Felix, Virginia, Yittoria and P au l! After a century of official recognition these streets remain unformed and locally unknown.

Perry’s design for the village was approved by A ctin g-' Governor Snodgrass on December 13, 1837, and gazetted under the name of the Township of Hartley on January 1, 1838. Collits’ grant of three acres for an inn was re-surveyed so as to conform more with the layout of the township.

E a r l y L a n d Sa l e s i n H a r t l e y T o w n s h ip .

Following an application by F. Bohun early in 1838 to purchase allotments in the township official notice was given on March 27 of the sale of eleven allotments as soon as measurement could be made. The survey of these areas, whose frontage was on the Bathurst Eoad between the Court-House and the bridge, was made by Assistant-Surveyor Davidson, and owing

18 H A R T L E Y A N D I TS C O U R T - H O U S E .

S. A. Perry, Deputy Surveyor-General, who was responsible for the design of the town of Hartlev. Polish Count Paul Strzelecki who found gold in the Hartley Valley

in 1839.

to considerable delay was not commenced until December, 1839. The first purchases of land in the township were made at their sale by auction on May 14, 1840. The upset price of these allotments of about half an acre each was originally fixed at £2 per acre but prior to the sale was altered by the Governor to £8 per acre. Dougald McPherson bought three lots averaging about £11 each, John Williams two lots averaging- a little over £16 10s. and the following buyers one lot each at the price q u oted : C. W . Eoemer £14, Donald McLennon £13 3s. 3d., Philip Hart £13 16s., Benjamin and Moses £12 13s., and Archibald Campbell £14 6s. The unsold allotment was bought a few months later by M. J. Davies. The highest and lowest prices, £19 13s. 9d. and £10 5s., were given respectively by John Williams and Dougald McPherson. The sale realised nearly £134 and the average price of about £26 per acre shows the faith Hartley’s first land owners had in the township's future.

Buyers at the second auction sale on May 13, 1841, gave an average price of a little less than £8 per lot. They were Archibald Downie, Thomas McVittie, Hugh Gilligan and James Ward. The prices at this sale therefore were considerably lower than those given a year before. Others who bought

23


land at subsequent auctions were James Tindale in 1842, James McCoy in 1844, M. D. Lewis, Sam. Taylor, Michael Finn, Evan Morgan, John Phillips and William Dempsey in 1845, William Blackman and Michael Cussen in 1846, Phillip Tiglie in 1848, Morris Lynch, James Nairn and John Finn in 1849, John Aldridge, Pat and Mary Finn, Patrick Phillips, George W ood, J. G. Jervis and John Blackford in 1853. Prior to 1849 the police paddock was located opposite the present Church of England a few chains back from the road, and the pound and poundkeeper’s paddock between it and the Court- House. Part of this latter ground when auctioned in 1849 was purchased by James McCoy. The pound and police paddock were later placed on the west side of the river.

The building of the Pass of Victoria and the improvement of the Bathurst Eoad encouraged traffic, while the increase of travellers resulted in the erection of comfortable inns along the highway. In 1830 the journey west was laborious and almost impracticable either for a single horse or for a team. B y 1837 a coach and four was a matter of ordinary occurrence. Yet, provisions were extremely difficult to obtain in the Hartley district. There was no regular store and the charge for carriage from Sydney was the same, with few exceptions, as to Bathurst, fifty miles further. The following list shows the average prices for the six months ending June 30, 1837 :

Flour per 100 lbs.£ s. 1 16

d.0

Beef and mutton . . H lb. 5Potatoes 11 cwt. . . 12 0Butter (fresh) 11 lb. 2 0Oaten hay 11 cwt. . . 15 0Maize 11 bushel 10 0Bran 11 bushel 3 6Brandy and gin . . 11 quart . . 10 0Eum 11 quart . . 8 0Beer (colonial) 11 quart . . 1 0Bottled porter 11 b ottle . . 2 6Draught porter 11 quart . . 2 0Draught wine 11 quart . . 6 0Sugar 11 lb. 8 iTea (Hyson skin) 11 lb. 4 0Tobacco (Negrohead) 11 lb. 8 0

Cl e r k s of t h e B e n c h .

Henry I)alway, the first Clerk of the Bench at Hartley, was succeeded at the end of November, 1837, by William Bohun wlio.se career there was short but eventful. He arrived before the Police Magistrate was aware of his appointment and Blair refused to admit him on the establishment before receipt of official notice. Bohun and his family with two assigned convict women occupied the Court-House excepting the constables’ room. Before the Court could sit the Court-Eoom would have to be cleared of the assigned servants, ironing boards, etc. Blair naturally remonstrated. He objected also to the proximity of the assigned women and the constables. Bohun declined permission to reside in the old court-house near Mount Victoria on the grounds that to reside at such a distance, “ about four miles ” , would interfere with his duties as postmaster. As a result of friction between him and the Chief Constable he was reported by Blair for impropriety. Finally he removed his household to a residence near the River Lett Bridge. Here in order to augment his salary he opened wliat was probably Hartley’s first store, and “ erected a sign board near the road, facing it, with the words ‘ Provisions, Groceries, Clothing, Ironmongery, Liquors &c.’ painted in capital letters ” . Bohun was informed that this enterprise was incompatible with his position as Clerk of the Bench. Consequently in July, 1838, he tendered his resignation. In September, during his absence in Sydney, a conviction was found against him for selling liquor without a licence. His stock of liquors worth £80 was confiscated, his assigned servants withdrawn, his property assigned to his creditors, and he himself languished in Bathurst Gaol while his family was left destitute.

Bohun’s successor as Clerk of the Bench was James G. Stuart who resigned at the end of March, 1839. John Arkins, recommended by Sir Maurice O ’Connell, was appointed in May. He applied to be made coroner but no appointment was made at the time and the duty was later undertaken by the Police Magistrate.

Co n s t a b l e s a n d T h e ir D it t y .

Sir John Jamison had stated in 1835 that great difficulty was experienced in securing suitable men to act as constables.


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The early Police Magistrates at Hartley had full proof of this. Many a constable was no sooner engaged than he had to be dismissed for drunkenness, abusive language, or connivance with prisoners. Because of the official hold on them, ticket-of- leave holders were more satisfactory constables than free men. The biography of such men would yield rich reading. For instance one ticket-of-leave man, aged 43, active, intelligent, able to read and write, who was recommended for the position of constable, had been an overseer at Norfolk Island, then constable at Liverpool, after which he was employed driving a horse team between Bathurst and Sydney.

The course of events in 1839 gives some idea of the conditions at the Court-House in its early days. In January the Police Magistrate complained of the insufficient number of constables, there being only two. Although the sheep shearing wTas over it was impossible to induce anyone to enter the service, since work in private service was much less and the pay much higher. The district of Hartley had little to recommend it to a constable for the necessaries of life were at least fifty per cent, dearer than in Sydney and not readily procured. Moreover, although the district duty was weighty, the escort duty was most severe, the police at this station undertaking nearly all the escort duty between Bathurst and Penrith. Arriving at Bathurst with prisoners the constable from Hartley would be given any prisoners for delivery at Penrith under warrant for Sydney or Penrith. The two constables then on the establishment were constantly on the road, one of them having marched seven hundred miles within two months. Such duty incurred great fatigue and more expense than the pay of 2/3 a day would admit. Only the desire to obtain a conditional pardon prevented this ticket-of- leave man from resigning. The Police Magistrate drew attention to the inadequate pay and the inadequacy of the staff. The staff in May, 1839, consisted of a chief constable in receipt of £75 per annum, one ordinary constable receiving 2/9 per day, two ordinary constables receiving 2/3 per day, a watchhouse keeper who received 3 /- per day and a scourger 2/6 a day.

A n I n g e n io u s E s c a p e .

About this time an ingenious escape was made from the Lock-up. A dangerous prisoner was kept on a chain by the

H A R T L E Y A N D I T S C O U R T - H O U S E .

Part of the rear o f Hartley Court-House. Through one of the windows of the Lock-up a prisoner managed to escape in 1839 by soaping his body. The iron cross-bars

were added later.

Police Magistrate’s orders, and liis irons were examined at a late hour by the Lock-up keeper. However he freed himself by using a piece of hardwood as a hand-cuff key. He then removed the window and by soaping his body succeeded in forcing it out between the iron bars. The keeper heard the chain rattling, got up, and went to the door to listen, but the prisoners heard him and raised a shout to warn the man who was out and who, in spite of an immediate search for him. managed to escape owing to the darkness of the night. On examining the window Blair found that some of the woodwork had been loosened before, “ having been very badly put together ” . He ordered strong hardwood lining and iron crossbars for the windows.

Blair applied unsuccessfully for a convict to be assigned as wardsman to the Lock-up. The Lock-up was cleaned and the

22


prisoners served with rations by the keeper. Twice at least the prisoners had planned to rush him as he entered and so escape, but had been detected before being able to carry out the plan. When there was a full complement of constables one was always stationed in the passage to the Lock-up, but such precaution was impossible when there were so few that they were constantly absent on duty.

In July the Police Magistrate reported that although the Mudgee Eoad for about ten miles beyond the boundary of his District was infested with robbers, the district about Hartley continued to be very quiet. The Court-House and Lock-up were in excellent repair.

A t the end of October three mounted bushrangers attacked the dwelling of a resident of the district named Brown. A native called Jack Eccleston from Mr. Irving’s farm near Bathurst not only tracked the bushrangers but pursued one of the most daring, a powerful man who fired at the police and who from his swiftness would have escaped had not Eccleston struck him down with the butt of a gun and kept him at bay until the police came up and secured him. Blair gave him and another black-tracker a blanket each, but considered that something more should be given for such courage and determination in apprehending the bushranger— a circumstance of which he had never before known an instance. Accordingly Governor Gipps ordered a reward not exceeding £3 in value to be given at the discretion of the Police Magistrate at Hartley or Bathurst.

It was the custom in some districts at harvest time to lend convicts from the road gangs to the settlers. In November, 1839, Blair applied to the Governor on behalf of W . H . Palmer, Esq., for a like indulgence. He stated that there was a good deal of land in cultivation in the district and an unusual scarcity of labour. The matter was referred to Major Barney in Sydney who instructed Lieutenant Eussele at Hassan’s Walls to place all disposable men under the orders of the Police Magistrate at Hartley.

In November, 1839, the fire-place in the Lock-up keeper’s room was reported so unsatisfactory that when a Are wTas lighted the wooden lining of the Lock-up became in places too hot to touch. On November 24 a fire in the Post Office burned completely through into the Magistrate’s room, destroyed


part of the wall and cedar skirting, and nearly burned through one side of the ammunition chest which contained in addition to the police ammunition a quantity of powder recently taken from bushrangers. The Colonial Architect gave instructions for the necessary repairs to be made and pointed out that large wood fires for three winters without using dogs had probably nearly burnt through the backs of the fire-places which, if such were the case, would need renewing. He also suggested that a safer place for storing ammunition would be in the Court Room near the entrance.

The equipment of the constabulary at Hartley at the end of December, 1839, was ten cut-down muskets— five being- unserviceable, ten bayonets, nine bayonet scabbards, seven pouches, seven belts, 120 musket cartridges and 137 flints. The number of ordinary constables had diminished from five in September to one.

Ce l l s a t t h e C o u r t -H o u s e .

Tenders for the erection of cells at Hartley were called in 1839. Contrary to popular tradition the cells there were not reserved for prisoners who had received the death sentence at Hartley. Those accused of major offences were merely detained at Hartley Court-House until transferred, according to warrant, for trial at a higher court. It is recorded that during the year ending September 30, 1841, £322 5s. wras spent on building six cells, and the Mounted Police Barracks were commenced.

A correspondent in the Sydney Herald of June 19, 1840, stated that there was sufficient wheat and hay for two years in the district even if no more were grown for that period. The price of wheat was 1 6 /- per bushel and hay £12 per ton. The district was too cold for maize. The farmers were all beginning ploughing and extending the cultivation of their farms. The quietness of the district was attributed to the very active Police Magistrate [Blair]. The Mounted Police stationed there were a very useful body. The Mounted Police, unlike the constables, were not under the control of the Police Magistrate, but formed a branch of the military, all matters regarding those stationed in this district being referred to the local military officer.

H A R T L E Y A N D I T S C O U R T - H O U S E .

In August, 1840, Blair was informed of his appointment to the Police Magistracy of Portland Bay [Victoria]. In September he was succeeded at Hartley by Heyward Atkins.

Early in October Atkins wrote to Lieutenant Eussele : “ Prisoners are in the habit of taking off their irons and com mitting robberies on the highway at night. I deem it my duty to bring the matter under your notice in order that you make such measures as you may deem expedient. I have every reason to believe my informant, but as he is afraid of becoming a ‘ marked man ’ if his name were brought into question, I do not think it prudent that he should be brought forward against those parties.”

There were many cases of stealing between the years 1839-1841, and in almost every instance the accused was a convict. The early bushrangers and petty thieves in the Hartley district were convicts, many of whom had spent long years under a system of harsh brutalisation. The rigours of the climate and the gnawing pains of hunger were incentives that drove them to depredatory acts.

In November, 1840, Atkins applied, as Blair had done without success, for an assigned convict to assist the over-tasked Lock-up keeper. There were “ frequently 35 persons confined in the Lock-up, some of whom [were] Bushrangers of the most desperate character . . . Atkins was threatened with the loss by resignation of a most efficient keeper, whom it would have been difficult to replace. In addition to being active and intelligent and able to read and write in order to make written returns to the Bench and to keep accounts of the rations supplied by the contractors, the Lock-up keeper had to be a man of integrity. Cattle stealers of considerable property were often confined at Hartley in transit to Sydney for trial before the Supreme Court and would no doubt be willing to give a high price for their liberty.

In December, 1840, at trifling remuneration, Thomas Finn, the Chief Constable, was appointed inspector of slaughter houses for the district. This appointment was made at the instance of the PoUce Magistrate, not to assure a wholesome meat supply, but in order to check the slaughter of stolen cattle !

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A t the beginning of 1842 Atkins made a tour of the southern portion of his District, the rich country watered by the Abercrombie Eiver and its tributaries. Here he expected to find runaways employed by the straggling settlers. Although he met with none he found a great many persons in the illegal occupation of Government land some of whom had large herds o f cattle and horses. As this wild unfrequented tract was seldom visited by the police there were grounds for suspicion that some of these people were cattle stealers.

A b o r ig in e s a t H a r t l e y .

According to Blair the aborigines of the district had always been remarkably quiet. After the invasion of their territory by w'hite settlers and the depletion of their natural food supply the tribe died out rapidly. The young men worked on the farms and so managed to subsist, but as they received only food and clothes for their services they were unable to assist the old people who were in a pitiable state from lack of food in the severe winters. In May, 1841, the fifty blankets forwarded b y the Government for distribution were insufficient and in order to prevent dissatisfaction Atkins was obliged to issue some that were supplied for the use of the Lock-up. He therefore requested that eighty blankets be supplied for the next year’s distribution. He suggested that tomahawks also be furnished as the men not only set a very high value on them but they were the most useful article that could be given to them. However Governor Gipps disapproved of the practice of giving a blanket to every aborigine. He directed that they should be given only in return for service and that the number given should gradually be decreased until the practice of giving presents could be entirely abolished. It happened that the Government was not put to the trouble of dispensing with the practice in the Hartley district, for the tribe diminished with startling rapidity. Atkins had anticipated that eighty blankets would be required for 1842. By the middle of 1846 the whole tribe did not number above twenty and the number of blankets supplied was twelve.

E e l ig io u s Se r v ic e s i n t h e Co u r t -H o u s e .

There was another aspect of life in the valley. Eeligion played as important a part in the lives of the pioneers as trade

H A R T L E Y A N D I TS C O U R T - H O U S E .

The Roman Catholic Church at Hartley.

and official business. Before churches were built in Hartley religious services were held in the Court-House. The first to preach in it was the Rev. Cohn Stewart, the Presbyterian minister, who did so in February, 1839, having received permission to preach there until a suitable building should be erected in the district. The Bev. Thomas Hassall of the Church of England preached there on March 24, 1839. As Blair had not had time to send for official sanction for Hassall’s sermon in the Court-House he began to wonder what course to pursue if the visiting Roman Catholic or any other clergyman should also wish to use the Court-House as a place of worship. Accordingly he asked for instructions and was informed that Governor Gipps desired that it should be so used, irrespective o f sect, prior claim being given to the largest congregation.

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M undy’s sketch of Hartley in 1846, illustrating an overwhelming impression made on the traveller of imprisonment by the primeval forests. The Court-House is shown on the left and on the right the Catholic Church.

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Roman Catholics formed a very large proportion of the local community and soon set about building up a fund for the erection of a church. The Eev. Michael Cavanagh was the priest at the time. B y October, 1841, private contributions for this purpose amounted to £300. In February, 1842, the Government approved of an allowance of aid equal to the amount of private contributions not exceeding one thousand pounds. The site for the Roman Catholic Church opposite the Court-House was surveyed in 1842. In 1845 one acre was granted for a Roman Catholic burial ground. A granite tor is conspicuous east across the gully from the church. According to Surveyor Liddell [1877] its name is Kew-y-ahn.

G o v e r n o r a n d L a d y M a r y F it z R o y V is it H a r t l e y .

Governor and Lady Mary FitzRoy visited the country districts in order to acquire a personal knowledge of the wants and capabilities of the part of the country visited. On November 12, 1846, they paused with their suite at Hartley on their way to Bathurst. Lieutenant-Colonel Mundy, a member of the party, describing the landscape from the Pass of Victoria wrote : “ The valley on the left looked dark, desolate, and wholly uninhabited ; on the right lay the smiling Vale of Clywd and the little township of Hartley, upon which the road drops as gently as could possibly be contrived by human art.

“ Ere we reached this highland hamlet we came upon a considerable body of horsemen, who, saluting his Excellency with loud and hearty cheers, so astonished our horses, if not ourselves, as nearly to drive the whole cavalcade over the precipice. In a cloud of dust, and with wild huzzas, they closed round us, and bore us away to the Court-house, where the usual duel of address and reply was instantly and warmly engaged in by the authorities of the place and the Governor. As we drove down the hill, with our loyal and uproarious escort galloping alongside, an individual spurring at my elbow suddenly disappeared, horse and man, over the edge of a rude bridge into a watercourse below. Not one of his townsmen pulled up— no one even looked behind ; my servant however dropped from the carriage and ran to his assistance. The indifference of his companions was at once explained. He was only a negro !

“ The Court-house and Catholic chapel of Hartley are prettily situated. My sketch was taken from a spot just beyond these objects.”


According to the census taken in March, 1846, the number of inhabitants in the Police District of Hartley was 1365, of which 883 were males. In the township itself there were 62 residents, 31 being males. Of the inhabitants of the District, 209 males over 21 years and 159 under 21 years could not read ; 71 males over 21 years and 36 under 21 years could read but not write, while of those females under 21 years, 169 could not read and 39 could read but not write. Most of the inhabitants were engaged in agricultural and pastoral occupations. There were two doctors in the district and only one inhabitant under the head ing: “ Alms-people, Pensioners, Paupers, &c.” . The Police District contained 187 houses, twelve of which were in the township of Hartley.

On January 1,1849, Frederick E obert D ’Arcy was appointed Clerk of Petty Sessions at Hartley.

Near the beginning of 1851, just prior to the discovery of gold in the west, Heyward Atkins was appointed Provincial Inspector of Police for the District of Moreton Bay. The people of Hartley District, among whom he had now been living for over ten years, sincerely regretted his departure. The Court-House was crowded oh January 16, 1851, when a testimonial was presented to the “ universally beloved and respected Mr. Atkins ” . About two weeks later he was presented with a gold watch and appendages, a double-barrelled rifle and a brace of pistols, for the purchase of which £50 had been collected.

Ch u r c h o f St . J o h n t h e E v a n g e l is t i s B u il t .

Although numerically strong the members of the Church of England were behind other religious denominations in the district, who had neat churches and their own clergymen. On July 7, 1850, the Eev. Thomas Sharpe of Bathurst visited Hartley and was obliged to conduct Divine service in the Court-House. In the Sydney Morning Herald of August 5, 1852, was published a long list showing the amounts both of paid and unpaid subscriptions to a church building fund. One acre for a church was surveyed on June 13, 1856. A t last on April 21,1858, the corner stone of the Church of St. John the Evangelist was laid by the Bishop of the Diocese. A collection was made and amounted to £110. The Anglican minister in the district was the Rev. William Lisle. In the jBathurst Free

The Anglican Church of St. John the Evangelist at Hartley.

Press William Rose of Hartley Church advertised for teams to draw forty or fifty tons of stone for a distance of three miles. The first service in the church was held on February 27, 1859, by the Rev. John Troughton. The service of consecration was performed on September 15, 1864, the service being read by the Rev. William Lisle. On that occasion Bishop Barker administered the rite of confirmation to twenty-one young people. After the service a tea-meeting held in the Court-House was provided by the ladies of Hartley to aid the Church fund.

Henry Baylis was appointed Clerk of Petty Sessions at Hartley in August, 1852, a position he retained until his transfer to Wagga Wagga on January 1, 1858. Since the departure of Atkins the office of Police Magistrate had not been filled. Transportation to New South Wales had ceased in 1840, and the official files of the ’fifties are relieved of the many references to the punishment of convicts. However the Magistrates of the Bench were in constant attendance at the Court-House, for the altered aspect of the town consequent upon the rush to the Western goldfields opened up new avenues of judicial administration. On August 16, 1852, the Magistrates, James

H A R T L E Y A N D I T S C O U R T - H O U S E . 31✓

Looking back at Hartley from the River Lett about 1879. The Court-House is left of the pines. Mount York appears inthe distance.

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Walker, Andrew Brown, Thomas Brown and John Oxley Norton, made an earnest request to the Governor for the appointment of a Police Magistrate : “ We have the honour to submit to your consideration that since the discovery of gold, the necessity for the attendance of the Magistrates at the Court House has greatly increased, and their residences being all at a considerable distance from it, we beg very respectfully to solicit that a Police Magistrate be again appointed to this district.” The position was not tilled, however, until Thomas Brown was appointed Police Magistrate on July 20, 1855. Magistrates of the Bench who assisted Brown during his Police Magistracy were Andrew Brown, James Walker, John Oxley Norton, Jeremiah Grant, Thomas Cadell, jun., Robert Barrington Dawson, John Delaney and Dr. Robert Rygate. The last named was the medical practitioner of Hartley and visited Lithgow by way of D octor’s Gap which was named after him.

H a r t l e y ’ s H e y -D a y .

The discovery of gold in the middle west much increased the value of town property in Hartley. The heavier traffic past this posting stage created a demand for labour of every kind, and there was constant work for shoemakers, carpenters, wheelwrights, masons, shepherds and farm labourers. The inns flourished. The town in 1853 appeared “ romantic, clean, English-like ” . An inn by the river had “ a romantic view from it of the river leaping over rocks, with a pretty stone bridge over it. English comforts, wax candles, clean linen, good feeding and an attentive ostler ” . The traveller’s expenses at this inn were ostler Is., supper 2s., breakfast 2s., bed 2s., spirits 6d., horse 8s. The roads at this time had been cut to pieces by heavy drays and herds of beasts. They were “ most dreadful roads. Teams stuck in the mud, broken carts, dead horses and bullocks. . . the mail travelling is awfully unpleasant. Country very like Syria, and trees like olive-trees.”

The Bathurst Royal Mail in 1856 used to leave Market Street, Sydney, just before five in the afternoon. Passengers and luggage proceeded by bus and train to Parramatta where a small open coach, the “ Mountain Plumb ” , received them. Hartley was reached on the evening of the second day’s travel. A t Little Hartley, near the foot of Mount Victoria, were two or three public houses and smithies, and six or seven substantial dwellings.

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Besides catering for travellers tlie inns were centres for meetings concerning elections, Hartley’s annual races and such topics of local interest. At the beginning of the ’sixties the inns were the booking offices for Elliott & W oods’ Royal Express Line of American Covered Coaches, and Boyal Mail Coaches. In 1862 the population of the town of Hartley was 118. In the ’sixties the activity of the valley was increased by mining for kerosene shale. Only a little over a mile from the scene of this industry the western railway then under construction was to cross the Darling Causeway, and have a vital effect on Hartley’s development. In May, 1868, the Great Western Railway to Mount Victoria was declared open, and a platform was opened at Lithgow in 1877.

T h e R a i l w a y a n d t h e D e c l in e o f H a r t l e y .

The years after the gold discoveries and preceding the building of the railway were Hartley’s hey-day. The inns were full and the inn-yards blocked, the farms and homesteads were neat, the roads were pleasant. When the flow of traffic was drained away from the picturesque town there was an immediate effect at the Court-House. Here, the nerve centre of the district, all the main business had been conducted for forty years. The building that had witnessed land sales, the compiling of quarterly returns of farms, live stock and agriculture, recommendations for licences, that had housed bushrangers and cattle-stealers, and that had represented the link between officialdom and the settler, between authority and the individuals to be reprimanded or rewarded, this building found itself part of the rim instead of the hub of things.

On the retirement of Thomas Brown, George Henry Rowley had been appointed in July, 1871, Police Magistrate, Clerk of Petty Sessions and Registrar of the District Court at Hartley. Row ley’s stay at Hartley was brief. In August, 1873, he was succeeded by Thomas Henry Neale. The importance of Hartley was waning fast. In 1876 a movement to transfer the police establishment to Lithgow though unsuccessful was significant. In 1877 Neale visited Wallerawang and Lithgow every alternate week and the following year the police centre was transferred to Lithgow. Concerning Hartley the Department of the Attorney- General records that “ the Court of Petty Sessions at that place was abolished in the year 1887 The Court-House was

36 H A R T L E Y A N D I TS C O U R T - H O U S E .

Looking westerly over Hartley today. On the right smoke is rising from a chimney of the century-old Court-House. B. Mount Blaxland.

later held by individuals under permissive occupancy; in May, 1914, the site was reserved for public recreation under the control of Trustees. In December, 1926, the care, control and management of the present Reserve devolved on the Blaxland Shire Council.

The traffic to Jenolan Caves sustained for Hartley a flicker of importance. Now the horse-drawn coaches and primitive cars have been succeeded by fast, modern transport; but the rapid vehicles that have revitalised the highway have signed with finality the doom of Hartley as a traffic centre. Nevertheless the town is not passed unnoticed. The traveller pauses there awhile and in imagination sees a strange procession in the historic atmosphere of the old Court-House at Hartley.

The writers acknowledge their debt to the Mitchell Library and the Department of Lands, Sydney. They are grateful to Mr. James Jervis for references, and to Mr. M. J. Dunphy, who designed the cover.

B L A X L A N D SHIRE C O U N C I L

V i s i t . . .

HISTORICG L E N R O Y

COX’S RIVERand learn the story of GOVERNOR M A C Q U A R I E ’S C A M P I N G GROUND. The halting-place of Explorers, Surveyors, Scientists, Settlers, Teamsters, Travellers, on THE ORIGINAL WESTERN ROAD and the spot where THE FIRST DIVINE SERVICE W EST OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS was held, April 30, 1815.

BUY

Historic Glenroy, Cox's RiverP R I C E : S I X P E N C E

Admission 6d.OPEN FOR INSPECTION DAILY.

OLD HARTLEY COURT-HOUSE.Visit the “ Old Court-House ” , built in 1837, before you leave Hartley.

»cMXI>

I>zXm

»p2?5z18X•«z-*ri

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Ifiatflrir (SUmrinjCt a x ' s Siupr

l|artlrg

K & M .

ByW. L. HA YARD and B. T. DOWD

Issued by the Blaxland Shire Council

Price: Sixpence

F O R E W O R D .

Soon after the unveiling of the Glenroy Memorial in 1936, it was indicated to the Blaxland Shire Council that many enquiries were received concerning the history of the memorial and the events it perpetuates. The suggestion was made that a booklet be prepared, recording the history of this interesting locality.

The Council, recognizing the need and general demand for such information, was fortunate in securing the services of Mr. W . L . Havard and M r. B . T. Dowd, who willingly consented to ivrite a brief history of the locality and the events connected toith it. The result of their ivorTi is this booklet, a publication unique in Australian historical literature.

The narrative unfolded in “ Historic Glenroy, Cox’s River ” is based on documentary records and papers in the Mitchell Library and State departmental archives. It carries the authority of these records.

The Council has much pleasure in making available this interesting story, confident that the reader will derive from it some pleasure and inspiration. It records appreciative thanks to M r. James Thompson of Glenroy, Hartley, who donated the site upon which the present memorial stands, and to Messrs. W . L . Havard and B. T. Dowd, without whose assistance in having undertaken the whole of the research work and compilation of data the issue of this publication would not have been possible.

W . TH O M A S, President. CHAS. E . W . BROWN,

A.I.C.A., A.L.CJl.,Shire Clerk,

Blaxland Shire Council.

HISTORIC GLENROY, C O X’S RIVER

By W . L . H a v a r d and B. T . D o w d .

JUST as the main tourist road to Jenolan Caves crosses C ox’s Eiver beyond Hartley, New South Wales, it passes an historic camping ground. Here on the flats where above

its junction with the Eiver Lett the stream breaks past granite boulders the spot now long known as Glenroy was a haven for all who travelled on the original road to the Bathurst Plains.

T r o d d e n b y t h e F ir s t W h it e M e n to P a s s t h e B l u e M o u n t a in s .

It was on May 28, 1813, that Blaxland, W entworth and Lawson, with four servants whose names they ungratefully left unrecorded, arrived at Mount York in the course of the first passage of the Blue Mountains, and discovered to their

41

H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ’ S R I V E R .

G. Blaxland, W. C. Wentworth and W. Lawson, the first white men to pass the Blue Mountains, were the first also to visit the locality of Glenroy.

great satisfaction that what they had considered sandy and barren land below the mountains was forest land covered with trees and good grass. In the evening the horses were got down into the valley, where they “ tasted grass for the first time since they left the forest land on the other side of the Mountains . . . This day ’s entry in Lawson’s Journal reads : “ Encamped at five oclock 6n the Edge o f a High Mountain obliged to go about 3 miles for water ” , while Blaxland recorded that “ they found water about two Miles below the foot of the Mountain . . . Thus by going beyond the escarpment and talus slopes at Mount York white man passed for the first time the dissected sandstone platform of the Blue Mountains. Next day, May 29, the horses were “ fetched up ” and the impedimenta then taken down the mountain through a pass in the rocks that had been discovered the day before. Through the valley the party proceeded about two miles north-north-west, most of the way through open meadow land clear of trees and covered with grass two and three feet high. The locality is that o f Mount York Farm, once Collits’ Inn. They encamped beside a fine stream of water— the River Lett— intending to rest themselves and to refresh their horses. They had now entered grazing country, and “ found the climate very different from either the top of the Mountains or the settlement on the other

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H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ’ S R I V E R . 3

/

Mount Blaxland, three miles westward of Glenroy, was the terminal point o f the exploring expedition of 1813.

side . . . After resting a day the party proceeded on May 31 “ through the forest land remarkably well wartered about 6 miles . . . Since they crossed two fine streams of water, one running from the west and the other from the north-east, it appears that the ground at Glenroy was being trodden then for the first time by white man. Aborigines had been here not long before them, for Blaxland said “ they came on some Native’s fires which they had left the day before . . . they appear on this side of the Mountains to have no huts nor to bark or climb the trees like the natives on the other side the only remains of food they had left round their fireplaces was the flower of the Honey suckle tree which grows like a bottle brush and are very full of Honey which they had sucked out . . . ” .

Having thus penetrated the valley for several miles beyond the foot of the Blue Mountains where they had descended, the party encamped by the side of a very fine stream of water— Lowther Creek— a short distance from a high hill in the shape of a sugar loaf— Mount Blaxland. In the afternoon they ascended to its top, the termination of their journey. Blaxland remarked that “ the stones at the bottom of the rivers are very fine large grained dark coloured granite the stones all appeared

of a kind of a granite quite different from the stones of the Mountains or any stones they had ever before seen in the Colony, this day they computed they had travelled rather more than fifty six Miles through the Mountains in brush and scrubby brush land . . . and six Miles in forest land on the other side Computing the Mountain to be half a Mile down where they descended . . . Returning on June 1, 1813, the party proceeded “ back to the foot of the Mountain, at the place where they came down, and encamped The next day they began their homeward journey over the Blue Mountains by ascending to the summit of Mount York and proceeding along their marked track.

G. W . E v a n s m a k e s a n Of f ic ia l Su r v e y .

Five months later, in November, 1813, Governor Macquarie equipped a party under George William Evans, who led his men over the Blue Mountains, through the extensive valley beyond, over the Main Divide and onward to the Bathurst Plains. In Evans’s Journal interesting references are made to the valley beyond Mount York. On November 21 he “ came to the end of the Range from which the Prospect is extensive and gives me sanguine hopes, the descent is rugged and steep . . . we got into a Valley of good feed and appears a fine part of the C ountry; I have no doubt but the points of Ridges or Bluffs to the N .W . and S. (the Country seems to open in the form of this Angle) are the termination of what is called the Blue Mountains and that we are now over th em ; at 1 o ’Clock I stopped on the bank of a Riverlett, which is a rapid stream from the N .E .” . Evans camped by the River Lett, in the same locality as his predecessors, north-westerly from the site of Mount York Farm, and here the party remained the following day that the horses might benefit from the abundance of grass. On November 26 they moved off along the left bank of the stream for two miles when the forest ground began to rise and form a steeper bank. A short distance above the present township of Hartley, Evans crossed the stream and by way of the higher ground skirted by the present Jenolan Caves road beyond the River Lett bridge, below Hartley, came to the locality— Glenroy— where “ at 4 Miles ” , he wrote, “ the stream alters its direction to the South, at which place the main Run joins from the W est forming a considerable rapid Riverlett [Cox’s R iv er ]; the land here gets better and the Country has a

4_________ H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ’ S R I V E R . __________

5 /

M t. York

Low t-her ('k.G L E N R O Y

A/It. BloLxl&LncJ

C cxx's R is / e r

Mt. Victoria*

Glenroy lies in the extensive valley separating the Blue Mountains, terminating, abruptly in the foreground, from the high ground of the Main Divide.

(Diagram by F. Craft.)

fine appearance ; it resembles the hills to the Eastward of the Cori Linn at Port Dalrymple, and put me in mind particularly of that p a r t ; the Trees are thin and light, the flats clear of Timber, a few Honeysuckles on the Banks of the ridges, the Lockett Bird singing, and the seed of the wild Burnett sticking to our legs, neither of the two last are to be seen on the East side of the Mountains ; the soil still continues sandy but the feed is good, and better than any I have seen in New South Wales ; I stopped this evening near the foot of a very handsome Mount, which I take the liberty to call Mount Blaxland, also


6 H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ’ S R I V E R .

G. W. Evans, while surveying in 1813, left an interesting description of the Glenroy locality. William Cox bridged the streams at Glenroy in 1814.

two Peaks rather North of it, and which the Eiverlett separates Wentworths and Lawsons Sugar Loaves

The favourable account Evans gave of the country he explored called forth from Macquarie a Government Order dated February 12, 1811. Part of the Order reads : “ On Saturday, the 20th November last, the party proceeded from Emu Island ; and on the fifth day, having then effected their passage over the Bfue Mountains, arrived at the commencement o f a valley on the western side of them . . . proceeding through this valley, which Mr. Evans describes as beautiful and fertile, with a rapid stream running through it, he arrived at the termination of the tour lately made by Messrs. G. Blaxland, W . C. Wentworth, and Lieutenant Lawson.”

T h e E o a d M e n c o m e w i t h W il l ia m Co x .

Now the road-makers followed the surveyor. In 1814-1815 I William Cox and his men took a primitive highway across theI Blue Mountains, and passing over the ground at Glenroy in the


valley beyond proceeded to the Bathurst Plains. Early in November, 1814, before this road had reached the western escarpment of the conquered barrier, Cox found “ the mountain at the end of the ridge ” much worse than he had expected ; the descent at Mount York was steep, and for two-thirds of the way down was covered with loose rock. On reaching the foot Cox got into “ very pretty forest ground This valley became the scene of kangaroo hunts— not the first held here by white man, for members of Blaxland’s party had hunted the kangaroo in the locality in May, 1813. While road work continued on the mountain the ground and streams in the valley were examined as far as Mount Blaxland “ to find out the best passage across the water, as also to mark the road to it ” . While so engaged on November 20, Cox's assistant, Thomas H obby, was thrown into the swollen stream by his horse stumbling while crossing “ the lower rivulet . . . at the junction ” . Cox himself had a similar experience of immersion the same day in a bog near Mount Blaxland. In this examination they were not successful, and Cox returned to the camp on Mount York completely knocked up from fatigue.

On December 3 Cox wrote that the “ men worked extremely hard on the mountain . . . to admit my caravan to com e down to-morrow ” . As the road was not yet fit for animals to draw on it, at ten o ’clock the following morning, Sunday, Cox’s caravan and a bullock cart— the first wheeled conveyances to pass the Blue Mountains— were taken down by men. Cox “ measured down the mountain to the valley to the 50th mile from the ford ” over the Nepean Eiver at Emu and then began reckoning the mileage afresh, making it five miles ten chains to the first of his bridges at Glenroy— that “ on the east branch of a river running to the east not yet named ” . Cox lost little time in progressing. Without waiting for the passage down Mount York to be finished, which was not for nearly two weeks later, he began the road through the valley on December 5, and the following morning caravan, horse and bullock cart were shifted to the junction of the streams. Although previous examinations had been made here at Glenroy to find the best passage across the water, Cox this day, December 6, “ examined the river and rivulet up and down, and fixed on a spot over each as being less trouble and more convenient than making one bridge over the river ” . Progress on the five miles of valley road from the mountain to the river was such that by the evening


of December 8 it was finished, the thin timber facilitating the work.

B r id g e B u i l d i n g a t G l e n r o y .

Of the early bridges west of the Blue Mountains, those at Glenroy were the first built. December 9, 1814, dawned fine there, with a west wind blowing. All hands were at work before breakfast at the bridge over the River Lett. At nine o ’clock all hands were taken to the second bridge, that over Cox’s River above the junction, and before dinner one of the side pieces, forty-five feet long, was got about one hundred yards down the river and fixed in its place. The other side piece was got by falling a tree across the river, about sixty feet long, and securing it in position. After dinner the men were served with a gill of spirits. Several who seemed “ inclined to give in and shirk work ” were given a “ reproof in earnest ” which Cox thought would make them all well by the morning. Next day the bridge over the east branch was finished. It measured twenty-two feet long by thirteen feet wide, and the “ carpenters, etc., made a good, strong job of it ” . The remains of a bridge, possibly Cox’s, are still to be seen at this point on the River Lett, and the old road may be followed along a ridge leading down to it.

December 11 was a Sunday, and at 6 a.m. six men were sent back to complete the road down the mountain while Cox himself rode forward, making for the Pish River, to examine the ground. Next day men were at work getting timber for the second bridge, and were obliged to bring most of it down the river by their own labour. Six of them who were in the water nearly all day were given a gill o f spirits each. During the succeeding days while men worked well at the bridge and causeway leading to it, the pass at Mount York was nearing completion, and at one o ’clock on December 15 it was reported finished. This marked the completion of the Blue Mountains section of the road made by Cox, and after inspection of the pass six married men were discharged and allowed to return to the Nepean. A t two o ’clock on December 16 the second bridge was finished. Measuring forty-five feet long by fourteen feet wide, it was a good, strong job, with a causeway on each side filled up with stone and covered with earth.

*■ H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y . C O X ’ S R I V E R . 9

i

t

During their visit to the “ New Discovered Country ” in April-May, 1815, Governor and M rs. Macquarie camped twice on the ground at Glenroy.

M a c q u a r ie V is it s t h e “ N e w D is c o v e r e d C o u n t r y ” .

Governor Macquarie took a keen interest in the life and progress of the colony. It was his habit to make tours of inspection of the villages and farms in every part of the settlement, accompanied often by his wife. Therefore when Cox’s

J road was finished the Governor and Mrs. Macquarie set out inApril, 1815, with a party of gentlemen and servants to visit the “ new discovered Country to the Westward of the Blue Mountains ” . Macquarie wrote in his Journal that on April 29 they reached “ the termination of the Blue Mountains ending in a very abrupt descent almost perpendicular. Here we halted for a little while to view this frightful tremendous Pass, as well as to feast our eyes with the grand and pleasing prospect of the fine low country below us . . . The distance from our last stage [Blackheath] . . . and the grand Termination of the Blue


Mountains is 7 f miles ; and this mountain being one of the most prominent and remarkable of the whole Eange, I have named it ’ Mount York ’ . . The “ frightful tremendous Pass ” he named Cox’s Pass, and to the “ beautiful extensive Yale of Five Miles ” beyond its foot he gave the name “ The Vale Clwydd ” after a vale in Wales. The vale terminated “ at a River running South form ed by two smaller ones coming from the Westward and Eastward and which unite at the distance of Five Miles from Mount York ” , Macquarie named the river thus formed Cox’s R iver in honour of William Cox. The Governor’s party arrived at this river at three o ’clock and encamped on the left bank of the western branch of it having there at Glenroy good grass and plenty of fine water for their cattle. “ W e dined at 5, o ’Clock ” , wrote Macquarie, “ and played Cards in the Evening after Dinner till Tea-Time ; retiring early to Bed ” .

F ir s t D i v in e S e r v ic e W e s t o f t h e B l u e M o u n t a in s .

As April 30, 1815, the day following that of Macquarie’s arrival at Cox’s River, was a Sunday, his party halted all day, and here at Glenroy the first Divine service west of the Blue Mountains was held. “ After Breakfast ” , wrote the Governor, “ I had all our Servants and Followers regularly Paraded and Mustered, and had Divine Service performed— the whole of our Party being present.” Henry Colden Antill, who formed one of the party, wrote in his diary as follows : “ This being Sunday, it was made a day of rest for ourselves and cattle— and they indeed required it after the exertion of the last week. Rose early and took a walk over the hills on the other side of the river; the morning delightful and the country looking beautiful— gently rising hills bounded by distant and lofty mountains, clothed with wood and herbage to their summits. Returned about eight to breakfast, which done, the people were collected together and Divine service was performed. The men were attentive and orderly ; and thought no doubt with myself how proper it was thus to acknowledge the blessings we were receiving, and returning thanks for our preservation thus far.”

After the service, while Mrs. Macquarie remained in camp, some of the party rode with the Governor to Mount Blaxland and apparently ascended to the top, “ from whence ” , he wrote, “ we had a tine prospect of the adjacent Hilly Country, and of Wentworth’s and Lawson’s Sugar Loaves in the immediate


When at C ox’s River, Governor Macquarie recorded in his diary the holding there of Divine service on April 30, 1815.

(From the original in the Mitchell Library.)

vicinity of Mount Blaxland Meanwhile Antill and another member of the party “ took a sober walk up the river for about two miles ” to a waterfall extending across it. Although the water was then very low they thought that in the rainy season it must be considerable, for the force of the water had made large excavations in the solid rock— a hard, black granite. They collected seeds and plants along the bed of the river on the way up, and crossing the river by the fall they returned to camp very pleased with their walk. That day the party dined “ at 5, o ’Clock, and retired early to rest ” . The next morning after the heavy baggage had been sent ahead the party breakfasted at eight o ’clock and at nine left Glenroy. The Governor and Mrs. Macquarie got out of their carriage and mounted their horses at the foot of the first high hill near Mount Blaxland. As it was steep and long, Macquarie named this hill “ Fag-Hill ” . The tract of elevated country— the Main Divide— extending towards the Fish Eiver he named “ Clarence’s Hilly


A view of C ox’s River by J. W. Lewin, who was with Macquarie in 1815. On the south bank of the stream a soldier is standing on C ox’s

road. Nearby a beast is grazing.(From the original in the possession of H. H. AntiU, Esq., Jarvisfield, Pirton.)

Eange ” in honour of H .E .H . the Duke of Clarence. He proceeded westward, and on Sunday, May 7, 1815, christened the intended town of Bathurst and again held Divine service.

On their return trip the Governor’s party halted again at the camping ground by Cox’s Eiver, where they arrived on May 13 at § past 3. P.M. “ after a tiresome and fatiguing journey of 16 miles from the Fish Eiver . . . W e encamped in a pretty little Valley on the Left Bank of Cox’s Eiver, the grass near our


last ground here being all burnt during our absence. W e dined at 5, oClock, and spent the Evening as usual.” They remained here at Glenroy the whole of Sunday, May 14. After breakfast that day all the people were assembled near Macquarie’s tent for prayers. According to Antill “ no sermon was read as it was late before we began, and the gentlemen were impatient to ride out ” . While some of the gentlemen explored Cox’s Eiver downwards, Antill again took a walk upstream. He described that night as mild, “ but a high wind made it unpleasant, coming down the va-llies in gusts, and driving the fire and smoke about in every direction ” .

S t o c k y a r d a n d H u t s a t G l e n r o y .

W . Hassall, Superintendent of Government Stock, crossed the Blue Mountains in 1815. That winter was very severe, and Hassall found that about one hundred of the cows and calves in the herds that had been fixed in a station at the beginning of the Vale of Clwydd had died. He therefore removed the herds to a station more exposed to the morning sun. This was “ a very pleasant hill oposite the bridge ” — Glenroy itself— where the Governor had encamped by Cox’s Eiver. Hassall thought this station would make an excellent stand for the oxen, though rather too hilly for the cows and calves. They could feed all through the Vale of Clwydd and on the other side towards Mount Blaxland. “ W e marked out the place for the yard & hutts ” , wrote Hassall, “ & hope it will answer the purpose ” . In a report dated March 27, 1816, he was able to inform the Governor that at this station “ Cronen & his men have built a most excellent Stock-yard, 15 E od by 13 Square with a good marking pen, and also three Huts in a line with the rear of the stock yard, the one next the yard 12 feet by 11 for the Stockmen, the middle hut about the same size for a Store & the one for the Soldiers 20 feet by 10 divided into 2 rooms, one for the Soldiers & the other for the Overseer when he goes to inspect the Stock. The whole of them is built with strong split logs & well shingled with string’y bark shingles, the doors & shutters are all made of broad split stuff, as we could get no sawyers out to saw boards. But considering the materials & the differant disadvantages they laboured under to build the yard & huts I have the Honor to report to your Excellency they are well done.” [See illustration, p. 16.]

6 0

H o s t il e N a t iv e s A t t a c k t h e D e p o t .

When early in 1816 a body of hostile natives “ crossed the Blue or Western Mountains ” , according to Macquarie, “ from this side to the New discovered Country, and attacked and Plundered the Government Provision Depot established in the said Country ” the Government stockmen as well as stockmen o f private individuals were driven from the depot by the marauders. Macquarie therefore instructed Sergeant Jeremiah Murphy, remembered as the first depositor in the Bank of New South Wales, to proceed to Cox’s Eiver with a detachment of the 16th Eegiment, and to remain there for the protection o f Government stockmen and cattle and provision depot, and to keep open communication between the coast and Bathurst. A guard was to be mounted daily, consisting of a lance corporal and three privates, and one sentry both night and day was ordered to be posted over the arms and d e p o t ; moreover a couple of soldiers were to be detailed as convoys to Government stockmen whenever required by the overseer of the Government stock. An escort of three soldiers was to be provided for protection for Government herds or provisions travelling on the road. Murphy was strictly commanded on no account to allow natives nearer than sixty yards to the post, and to send, either handcuffed or with their hands tied with rope, any natives taken prisoner to the depot at Springwood, thence to Parramatta. While the actual outcome of these instructions is not known, it is certain that military protection was established about this time on the ground at Glenroy.

E x p l o r e r s H a l t a t C o x ’s E i v e r .

Under military protection, and with good grass and water, the still popular camping ground at Glenroy first achieved universal favour in the days of Macquarie. It marked the end o f a day’s stage in the journey of travellers on the road, and many references are made to it in the writings of pioneers. On April 11, 1817, O xley’s expedition to the interior pitched tent and camped on the bank of the river for the night. The botanist Allan Cunningham, who was of the party, noticed in the Yale of Clwydd “ the very remarkable change of Country differing from that on the Mountains both in the Vegetable Productions and the nature of the Soil ” . He gathered seeds and specimens of a shrubby aster with bluish white flowers.



On the banks of the river he found Grevillea acanthifolia arid G. asplenifolia in great luxuriance. The afternoon was fine, with light clou ds; there was heavy dew in the night, and a slight frost early next morning. A t this time the depot and store-house were under the charge of a corporal and two privates. Five months later, in September, the returning explorers recrossed Cox’s Eiver and halted near the depot for the night. The horse that carried part of the botanical collection fell in crossing the uneven rocky bottom of the river and gave Cunningham “ abundance of employment in rescuing those of m y plants from destruction that had suffered by the accident ” . While on this journey he remarked that Banksia conifer [!] “ which follows us from Bathurst to the foot of the Pass [Cox’s] is succeeded by Banksia serrata . . . on the summit of Mount York, and continues over the Blue Mountains . . .

In December, 1818, a strange exploring party arrived at Glenroy. Sir John Jamison, of Eegent Ville, near Penrith, sent his collector of natural specimens, Thomas Jones, with three aborigines, to follow the course of Cox’s Eiver. They crossed the Blue Mountains by the usual route, and arrived at the depot “ on the Vale of Clwydd, at the head of the Cox’s River Making this their starting point on December 13, 1818, they journeyed down the river with “ the blue mountains a considerable distance to the eastward ” during the early stages. They identified Cox’s Eiver with the river Warragamba, and after an eventful journey reached Eegent Ville on December 21.

F r e n c h m e n R e a c h t h e D e p o t a t M i d n i g h t .

This newly settled continent held for European scientists an irresistible allure, rich as it was in unique fauna, and guarding a wealth of unclassified botanical, geological, marine and insect specimens. Among the first to realise the possibilities for research in virgin country, the French were encouraged and supported by their Government. In the early part of the 19th century several parties of French scientists sailed into Port Jackson, and as is the case today when world visitors arrive, excursions were made to the Blue Mountains and to the country beyond. In November, 1819, members of Freycinet’s expedition round the world were taken to Bathurst by William Lawson. Their journey was made in three stages from Regent Ville, the first one ending at Springwood, the second at the depot at Cox’s

The military dep6t at C ox ’s River as French visitors saw it in 1819. Notice the granite stepping stones, and at the rightone of the little rapids characteristic of the river.

HIS

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G

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NR

OY

. C

OX

’S R

IVE

R.


River, and the third at Bathurst. W hen these French tourists with Lawson reached Mount York it was long past nightfall, and after negotiating the headlong descent, whose depth and extent were invisible in the darkness, they found themselves at the end of a quarter of an hour in the marshy Yale of Clwydd. The solitudes were wrapped in the utter silence of the mild, still night. Not a word was spoken as they went forward singly, the rhythmic beat of the horses’ feet the only sound that broke the religious calm. The barking of dogs at midnight and the sound of a running stream heralded the approach of the military depot on the banks of Cox’s River. Here they spent the whole of the next day to rest their horses and to wait for their impedimenta. In their exploration of the neighbourhood they soon noticed the change in the geological nature of the country, which was of granite in contrast to the sandstone of the Blue Mountains, whose excessive dryness was succeeded by the agreeable freshness of the valley, watered as it was by several streams. Leaving Bathurst on the morning of December 5, it was again after midnight when these Frenchmen returned to the depot at Cox’s River. Everyone was astir very early the next morning and eager to view in daylight Mount York and the bold pass they had descended on the last night in November.

Co m m is s io n e r B ig g e f r o m L o n d o n S e e k s I n f o r m a t io n a t

C ox ’s R iv e r .John Thomas Bigge, sent to the colony as Commissioner

of Inquiry, visited Bathurst in 1820. Evidence given on October 7, at Cox’s River, byC orporal James Morland, showed that all men returning from Bathurst, whether Government or William Cox’s, were victualled there, the beef coming from Bathurst and the flour from the Nepean, and the carters who brought it were victualled. According to Morland, the huts were very badly put up and were in constant need of repair. The local timber was poor. He stated also that he had taken twenty-five bushrangers in all, including thirteen who had recently attacked the post at Springwood. The detachment, totalling five, was occupied in forwarding letters and guarding Government carts of provisions to Bathurst, one of which arrived every five weeks. The bushrangers were captured by surprise, and the corporal examined every passing traveller he did not happen to know. He said it was a bad cattle river in the winter but good both winter and summer for sheep. Richard Lewis


stated at Bathurst, on October 12, 1820, for the Commissioner’s information, that the bridge at the Cox’s Eiver ford had been carried away, while William Lawson told Bigge there ought to be a bridge.

M a c q u a r ie P a s s e s b y A g a in .

Glenroy saw Macquarie again in 1821, when in December, accompanied by Judge Advocate W ylde, he made a second tour to Bathurst before he left the colony after his long governorship. Cox’s Eiver was reached on the afternoon of December 18, and the old camping ground taken up for the night. A t six o ’clock the following morning the party set out and crossed the river “ at a very bad ford for wheeled carriages Travelling by tandem, they returned this way on Sunday, December 23, and encamped at the foot of Mount York.

“ A T il t e d Ca e t , w i t h M o t h e r , M y s e l f , a n d Se v e n Ch i l d r e n . ”

Officials and scientists were not the only travellers to record descriptions and impressions of the ground at Glen Mrs. Elizabeth Hawkins has left a most interesting account, u mas Fitzherbert Hawkins, R.N ., with his wife and eight children and his wife’s mother, Mrs. Lilly, arrived in Sydney from England in January, 1822, and the whole party set out on April 5 for Bathurst, which they reached safely seventeen days later. The ages of the children ranged from one to twelve and a half years, while Mrs. Lilly was seventy. “ W e had a waggon with six bullocks ” , wrote Mrs. Hawkins, “ a dray with five, another dray with three horses, a cart with two, and last of all, a tilted cart, with mother, myself, and seven children, with two horses. Hawkins and Tom rode on horseback.” A very good journey of five miles beyond the foot of Mount Y ork brought the party to the Eiver Lett, where they descended the steep bank to the bridge. Unlike that over Cox’s Eiver, it was "till standing, although when there was much mountain rain it was impassable owing to water running over it. The Hawkins pi tv got safely over and came to the camping ground.

“ W e had now reached the spot we had looked forward to from the time of leaving Emu as a place of rest ” , wrote Mrs. Hawkins, “ as here it is customary fcr all drivers of attle and luggage to rest for a day or two, as there is good g ' • We

6 ?

" T re * . . f a o f - n f ' A / f f

ifH I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ' S R I V E R . ID

In 1822 Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins spent a day at Cox’s River during an eighteen days’ journey from Sydney to Bathurst.

were all much fatigued. W e pitched our tent in a field in front of the houses which was inhabited by a corporal and his wife. She was both clean and civil. Hearing of our coming, she had procured a bucket of milk, and never was anything more enjoyed.

“ In the evening Mr. Lowe, a Chief Magistrate, arrived, a traveller like ourselves. He commenced his journey in the morning but we remained. I took this opportunity of giving the children all a good washing and change of clothes. This, as the day was extremely sultry, and not a tree to shade us in the tent, made it, instead of a day of rest, one of great fatigue to me. Being all now so completely sick and tired of the journey, we decided on setting off the next morning, more particularly as the weather was showery, and from the season of the year heavy rain might be expected. W e were reinforced by a cart and two horses from Bathurst, accompanied by Mr. Riley, as he had promised.

“ W e again ascended our cart on the twenty-first [April, 1822]. We had been sitting for some time on the banks of the river [Cox’s] seeing the whole cavalcade cross, and when it came

to our turn it was with many fears we entered the water nearly up to the horses’ bellies, and the bottom covered with large pieces of rock and stone, enough to overturn the cart and jolt us to death. A man offered to carry little Neddie over in his arms. W ith anxious eyes I watched him through fear his feet might slip and our darling boy have his head dashed against a stone. With talking, swearing, beating our poor bullocks, we got safe on the bank on the opposite side.”

After a toilsome journey over the hills of Clarence’s Hilly Range and those beyond the Fish River these settlers reached Bathurst on April 22, 1822.

B o t a n is in g w i t h A l l a n Cu n n i n g h a m .

In 1822, while proceeding westward on one of his many botanising excursions, Allan Cunningham stayed again at the camping ground by Cox’s River. He descended Cox’s Pass on October 7 and journeyed through the rich but swampy Yale of Clwydd to the low rocky flats near the junction of the river and the rivulet. As the banks of the river seemed productive of curious plants and also afforded wholesome grass seed to his horses, Cunningham decided to remain here for some days. The two Grevillese he had noticed in 1817 he now saw in full bloom, and as they were unpublished plants he described them. A species Hakea remarkable for its very small fruit and round stiff leaves was also frequent in these situations, and “ proved to be H. microcarpa originally discover’d on the banks of Rivers in Van Diemen's Island After the rising of the dense early morning mist on October 8 the day was fine and warm, and at eight o ’clock the botanist set out by a native path along the right bank of Cox’s River, making in a south-westerly direction for a barren rocky hill seen from the high ground near the tents and which the soldiers of the depot assured him held a considerable variety of flowers. He noticed along the immediate verge of the river specimens of a fine shrubby croton bearing male and female flowers and remarked “ the Swamp Oak (Casuarina paludora) of enormous size . . . At length he ascended a portion of the ridge whose entire absence of timber trees made it conspicuous on the abundantly wooded range. He observed there a most interesting assemblage of fine plants, of which he collected a number. “ Nothing ” , he wrote, “ truly can exceed the Native beauty of the Hill and Dale, towards the Extremity of our D ay ’s Excursion ; the lands are thinly wooded, the soil

20 H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ’ S R I V E R . ___

H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ' S R I V E R . 21

Allan Cunningham, botanist and explorer, spent many happy hours in the vicinity of C ox ’s River. Judge Barron Field thought C ox’s River “ worth going to spend a

few days at, o f itself ” .

generally rich, abundant in good grasses and herbage for grazing Herds, and possessing all the ordinary requisites for the Establishment of the Farmer.” Towards evening clouds began to gather in the west, and about eight o ’clock there was a thunderstorm and a deluge of rain.

The following day Cunningham went upstream. Crossing the river at a fall, he made in the direction of what he termed “ Lawson’s Peak ” — possibly Mount Blaxland— and mounted a portion of “ this conspicuous Conical Hill ” . When he returned to camp the day was rapidly drawing to a close. After a clear, frosty, starlit night, October 10 was sultry and oppressive. Proceeding up the banks of the Biver Lett, the botanist detected no previously unnoticed plants, and returned to the camp early in the afternoon to prepare for the next day’s journey to the Pish Biver. The following morning, October 11, was cloudy with fine weather. Having remunerated the corporal at C ox’s

n


■River for his attention, and particularly for the regular supply of milk to his men, Cunningham set off about eight a.m.

On his return journey Cunningham arrived about noon on December 30 at the “ old resting place at Cox’s River Having encamped here he rode eagerly off to the “ Bald Ridge ” , in the fullest hopes that its variety of curious plants would afford him some packets of ripe seeds. After making his collection he returned along the bank of the river to his camp. In the fair, cool morning of the following day he resumed his journey, and passed up the Yale of- Clwydd to the foot of Cox’s Pass.

“ R ic h in t h e B o t a n ic a l a n d P ic t u r e s q u e . ”

On the very day, October 7, 1822, that Cunningham and his men were descending Cox’s Pass with a young tree for a brake, Barron Field, Supreme Court Judge, and “ Distant Correspondent ” of Charles Lam b’s essay, was assailing the eastern pass up Lapstone Hill, shifting baggage twice during the long, steep ascent. “ Mount York ” , declared Barron Field when he arrived there, “ afforded the first view of the promised land of Australia, after the wilderness of the Blue Mountains.” It was on October 10 that he reached C ox’s River, which he thought was “ worth going to spend a few days at, of itself. It is a pretty stream, and rich in the botanical and picturesque. Here the first granite is seen.” On his return from Bathurst he arrived at Cox’s River on October 22, and found the stream pretty full and rapid from recent rains. He mentioned that there was a corporal’s party of the 48th Regiment stationed there as well as at Spring wood. That night was clear, with heavy dew, hoar-frosted in the beautiful morning. Barron Field rode to a waterfall “ a mile up the river ” , but there was no height, and the fresh was not as great as the hollowed rocks seemed to indicate it sometimes was.

H in t s o f N e w R o a d s .

In October, 1822, Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane visited Bathurst and presumably passed over the ground at Glenroy. He did not return this way, but along an intended line of road from Bathurst to Mount York.

While engaged on a traverse of the road from Emu Plains to Bathurst, Assistant Surveyor James McBrien went forward through the Yale of Clwydd on February 6, 1823, and followed

T 3

H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C OX ^ S R I V E R . 23

the road on to a long ridge, at the end of which he crossed a stream of water— the River Lett— falling into Cox’s River. Travelling north-westerly nine chains beyond the crossing, McBrien ended his run for the day. His position was approximately that of the present memorial at Glenroy. On February 8 he continued his traverse in a west-soutli-west direction and at eight chains was in the centre of Cox’s River. From this position he noted the depot as situated about ten chains to the right up a hill ascending from the river.

In the autumn Allan Cunningham again set out for Bathurst, and on the moist, raw 3rd April, 1823, he and his men reached C ox’s River early in the afternoon. Here they camped for the night, resting their horses for the next day’s fatiguing journey. The following morning was very cloudy, and they left C ox ’s River to face the thick rain falling in the hilly range between them and the Fish River.

There was talk of the projection of a shorter road, and the Sydney Gazette of October 9, 1823, was happy to announce that “ Mr. Archibald Bell, junior, of Richmond Hill, has, after one unsuccessful attempt, at last effected a passage from that part of the country to Cox’s River (on the other side of the Blue Mountains) . . . ” . Robert Hoddle was instructed by the Surveyor-General, Oxley, “ to commence measuring the new road at the Ford over the Hawkesbury River near Richmond and continue along Mr. Bell’s track to the Ford over C ox ’s River . . . ” . In his report of this work, dated November 4, Hoddle wrote : “ Our line run into the road near Collit’s Inn the bottom of Mount York distant 4| miles from Cox’s R iver Ford.” At this time Collits’ Inn was newly established, and no doubt received many of the travellers who otherwise would have camped at C ox ’s River. It was Pierce Collits then who struck the first blow at the popularity of the Cox’s River camping ground.

M o r e F r e n c h m e n a t C o x ’s R i v e r .

W ith a four-wheeled waggon and guides, Dumont d ’Urville and Rene Lesson, members of Duperrey’s expedition, left Sydney for Bathurst on January 29, 1824. On February 2 they drew near Mount York. This eminence Lesson cailed the “ termination of the Blue Mountains ” , for the reason that viewed from the west it appears to be isolated. He described

it as terminating abruptly by a steep slope on the Yale of Clwydd, “ a deep valley ” separating the mountains on the east from those on the west. This vale, European in appearance, with familiar plants growing in a thick green carpet, ended six miles away at Cox’s River. A smiling valley, its surface “ fresh and enamelled ” , it was all the more charming in contrast with the harshness of the poorly timbered and very rocky mountains about it. The crossing of C ox ’s River was made over granite rocks. Here the Frenchmen found both large and small flying phalangers. At the military post were six soldiers and a corporal. Lesson considered the situation delightful and the surroundings picturesque. He mentioned the numerous little rapids “ or kinds of falls ” in the river caused by the granite rocks that obstruct its course. They lunched with the corporal, whom they found very obliging, and who sold Lesson an opossum killed at Wellington Valley. After a two-hour halt they pushed on, being anxious to spend some time the next day catching platypi at the Fish River. On their return from Bathurst they lunched on February 8 at Cox's River, halting there for three or four hours only before crossing the Yale of Clwydd to camp at the foot of Mount York.

G l e n r o y R e v i s i t e d b y Cu n n i n g h a m .

Cunningham camped at C ox ’s River again on December 26, 1824, on the way to Bathurst, and returning pitched his tent there on January 1, 1825. He fully occupied the whole of the next day “ on the interesting Banks of that stream, as also on the summit of Bald Hill distant about 3 miles from our Tent Encamped at Cox’s River on the following October 14, he rested his horses there all the next day, as they had fared badly in respect to green feed on the mountains and there was an abundance of grass at Glenroy. Cunningham himself spent October 15 roaming over his favourite botanising ground. He found the beautiful Grevillese of the rocky sides of the river abundantly in flower and extended his walk down the river to the bare rocky hill often previously visited. He returned to the camp just in time to escape a heavy hailstorm early in the afternoon. The threatening appearance of the weather induced him to remain quiet all day Sunday, October 16, and on the Monday he resumed his journey to country westward of Wellington Valley. He revisited this familiar camping spot so favourably situated for a botanist in 1826, 1829 and 1831.

•24 H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ’ S K I V E R . _____

H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ’ S R I V E R .

M a r t ia l L a w P r o c l a im e d W e s t of t h e B l u e M o u n t a in s .

In 1824 there was a recurrence of the circumstances that led to the posting of a military guard at Glenroy in 1816. As a result of attacks made by aborigines upon settlers and their property in the neighbourhood of Bathurst, Governor Brisbane issued a proclamation dated August 14, 1824, “ placing the Country beyond the blue Mountains, or West of Mount York, under a state of Martial Law ” , His proclamation repealing that of martial law was dated December 11, 1824.

In the mid twenties the military establishment at Cox's River increased, and in April, 1826, instructions were given for the building there of a log hut thirty feet long by fifteen feet wide with a partition for the accommodation of a subaltern officer. It is interesting to notice the rations allowed the troops in the neighbourhood of Cox’s Biver. In an advertisement of October, 1826, for tenders for their provisionment the articles of daily rations were shown as follows : 1 lb. bread or biscuit, or 14 oz. flou r; 1 lb. of fresh or salt beef. W omen one-half and children one-quarter of the above. The bread to be the produce of wheat, from which at least 20 per cent, has been extracted as bran or pollard, and the flour of equal fineness.

“ A n d A w a y W e Ca n t e r e d f o r C o x ’s R i v e r . ”

So wrote a traveller in March, 1827, describing his journey westward after leaving Collits’ Inn. “ Here ” , he continued, “ was the first granite I had seen in the Colony, a granitic sand and small particles of quartz forming the dust of the road . . . Five or six miles brought us to Cox’s River, where we had two most dangerous fords to pass the horses over, owing to the deep holes of the first stream and the loose stones of the main river. The wreck of former bridges was lying on the spot, and apparently very old. The two fords are not a stone’s throw from one another, and between them is the military station or barrack occupied by a non-commissioned officer, and ten or twelve men of the 57th under the command of a subaltern. H alf a dozen men from the staff corps might repair these bridges, I should think, in a fortnight. I observed several soldiers belonging to the station enjoying themselves in perfect repose on benches, outside their neat whitewashed cottage, like so many pensioners at Chelsea, and while they sat looking at us almost breaking our horses legs through the ford, I wished that

26 H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ’ S R I V E R . ___ ____

the active officer in charge of the roads and bridges had been with us, on a hundred guinea horse. This is the last stream that runs towards Sydney, and whose estuary is ascertained, Cox’s River falling into the Warrugamba, the Warrugamba into the Nepean, the Nepean into the Hawkesbury, and the Hawkesbury into the Pacific Ocean at Broken B ay .”

According to the Sydney Monitor of June 26, 1827, the bridge at Cox’s River had been repaired and the rocks impeding the ford had been removed. During 1827 and 1828 Lieutenant Henry Shadforth of the 57th Regiment was quartered at C ox ’s River as Assistant Surveyor of Roads. On January 11, 1829, Jane, the wife of Lieutenant Kirkley of the 39th Regiment, died there after a severe suffering of three days. In May, 1829, Major McPherson, who was military commandant at Bathurst, was instructed to withdraw from the station at Cox’s River the increase of the original c o w ts provided for the use of the military there. In August, 1830, Lieutenant Fitzgerald of the 39th Regiment proceeded to that station. H e was not required to act as a magistrate, but was instructed to inspect the road gangs in the neighbourhood. Early in 1831 orders were given for the repair of the house of the officer quartered at C ox’s River, since he had been evicted by numbers “ of Bugs and other vermin contained in the W ood and Plaster of the Building . .

N ot far from the site of the old military depot at Glenroy is a grave whose lonely headstone tells a poignant story in words of which the following is a running version :

SACRED To The M EM ORY of ELIZA RODD who departed this life September 14the 1831 Aged 8 months and 6 days daughter of J Rodd colour sergant in his MAGESTY 39th Regt foot how can a tender Mothers care cease to love the child she bers how can m y frends discontented be since my Savour has taken me.

T h e O l d O r d e r Ch a n g e t h .

Increasing traffic made it imperative to improve the route between the Blue Mountains and Bathurst, and in 1830 the Surveyor-General, Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, began his famous road. Descending from the Blue Mountains by the Pass of Victoria, Mitchell’s road avoided Mount York and crossed the River Lett— below Hartley— some distance above the


Near the site o f the military depot at C ox ’s River is the grave of the baby daughter of the colour sergeant there in 1831.

junction of the streams at Glenroy. In this way traffic was diverted from the original road to Bathurst via Mount Blaxland.

In August, 1836, Edward Denny Day, Police Magistrate at the Vale of Clwydd [Hartley], applied to purchase three hundred and twenty acres at the confluence of the River Lett and Cox’s River. S. A. Perry, Deputy Surveyor-General, who stated that on this area there was or had been a military station, requested Surveyor J. B. Richards to measure the land and to report as to whether he thought it desirable to reserve the land in question or any portion of it. Richards replied that there still remained in good repair a paddock of about thirty acres and also a cottage and other buildings which had been very much injured by being unoccupied. From the situation of this portion of the land, and the improvements on it, he

28 H I S T O R I C G L E N R O Y , C O X ’ S R I V E R

considered it a desirable reserve, and might be let to advantage to keep it in repair. The official comment on this suggestion w a s : “ Nonsense ! The Government should have nothing to do with such trifling arrangements. I f it is not wanted, sell i t ! ” Accordingly the land was put up for sale on January 11, 1837, James Blacket of Sydney being the purchaser. In April, 1837, James Blair, Police Magistrate, reported that William Kay, a life prisoner, had with another convict been left unsuperintended on the land at Cox’s River, and that he had been brought before the Bench charged with being out at night, without a pass, and with abusive language. Consequently Blacket was informed that unless he kept a ticket-of-leave overseer on his land his assigned servants would be withdrawn. Blacket replied that he had visited the property twice and his free groom once since its recent purchase, that he had engaged free carpenters to build a house there for himself, and finally that a free man should be “ sent to Glenroy, Cox’s River by 1st May On May 1 Blair reported that a qualified person had been duly sent and was then residing on the property. Here is the first known mention of the name “ Glenroy ” for this locality. In the Lithyow Mercury of January 6, 1922, it is stated that “ In Gaelic [?] it means the ‘ Red Valley

In the Bathurst Free Press in the fifties a new' name appeared at Glenroy. In April, 1852, W m. Macdermott, Gian Roy, Hartley, publicly requested all persons indebted to the late John Macdermott to settle their accounts and creditors to send in their claims. In September, 1853, he offered £50 reward for the recovery of a roan entire, stolen or strayed from Glen Roy, near Hartley. On August 21, 1854, William Patrick Macdermott of Glen R oy married Mary, first daughter of Charles O ’Connor of Cox’s River, and at the residence, Glen Roy, on June 18, 1855, a son was born. A fter living at Glenroy for quite a generation the Macdermotts let the farm and settled in Lithgow, where Mr. Macdermott was for a long time district registrar. He died in the nineties, and his widow ’s death occurred at North Sydney on October 3, 1906.

The decision to make a Parish Road from Hartley to Bullock Flats [Oberon] via Binda was announced in the N .S .W . Government Gazette o f November 2, 1866, and it was proposed to take it through McDiarmid’s [Macdermott’s I] property. Under date February 8, 1867, it was announced

t . o


Glenroy Bridge, opened in 1901. The site o f the military depot of M acquarie’s day is out of view to the left.

that as no objections had been raised to the proposed road it was to be opened and made. This road through Glenroy— at a higher level to the right of the present [1937] Jenolan Caves road, and sometimes mistaken for part of the original road to Bathurst— was declared open for public use by notice dated October 11, 1867. On September 4, 1888, notice was given of a proposed deviation in this Hartley-Oberon road from a point within Glenroy crossing Cox’s Biver to another point on the same road. The deviation was opened in November, 1890. It crossed Cox’s Biver by a bridge of which the abutments may still be seen a short distance above the present bridge at Glenroy. This wooden structure, built on six concrete piers, was opened and named Glenroy Bridge on October 19, 1901, by the Hon. E. W . O ’Sullivan, Minister for Works. A later deviation of the Jenolan Caves road, entered after the Biver Lett bridge is crossed below Hartley, was made at a lower level than the old road on its right. This deviation is the road beside the Biver Lett that is travelled today by visitors to Glenroy and the caves.

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Many people attended the com m em orative service at Glenroy on May 2, 1936.(Photo by C. Price Conigrave.)

In August, 1935, the Rev. W . P. F. Dorph, rector of Hartley and Mount Victoria, approached the Hlaxland Shire Council with the suggestion that the holding of the first Divine service west of the Blue Mountains be commemorated. He took as his historical authority the evidence given at that stage by Mr. W . L. Havard in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. X X I , Pt. 1, pp. 68-70. This suggestion met with the approval of the Council, who consequently had a memorial erected on the historic ground at Glenroy. The memorial is of local granite, with a tablet of marble, and stands in an area of about sixteen perches adjoining a north-western side of the Jenolan Caves road as it approaches the Glenroy Bridge. By notice given in the F .S .W . Government Gazette of October 2, 1936, this land was resumed for its preservation as a place of historical interest and vested in the Blaxland Shire Council. Mr. James Thompson, of Glenroy, by the public spirit he showed, facilitated the matter of resumption.

A commemorative service at Glenroy was held on the sunny afternoon of Saturday, May 2, 1936, and was attended

S)


\ The Archbishop of Sydney (Dr. M owll) unveils m em orial at Glenroy.(Photo bp C. Price Conigrave.)

by a large congregation. A t this service the Anglican A rchbishop of Sydney, Dr. H. W . K . Mowll, unveiled and dedicated the memorial inscribed with the words :

T h e F ir s t D i v in e Se r v ic e W e s t of t h e B l u e M o u n t a in s

W a s h e l d h e r e a b o u t .O n A p b il 30, 1815,I n t h e p r e s e n c e of

G o v e r n o r M a c q u a r ie .N e a r b y h e e s t a b l is h e d

A M i l it a r y S t a t io n to g u a r d

T h e O r ig in a l W e s t e r n E o a d W h ic h p a s s e d h e r e

Cr o s s in g t h e R iv e r L e t t a n d C ox ’s R iv e r

B y t h e F ir s t B r id g e s B u il t W e s t of t h e B l u e M o u n t a in s .

B i .a x l a n d S h ir e C o u n c il .


The importance of prayer was emphasized by Dr. Mowll in his address. Beferring to the splendid spirit of the pioneers he stated that everything possible should be done to acquire a knowledge of the country’s early history and that a debt of gratitude was owing to the Blaxland Shire Council for providing the stone of commemoration. In a changing world one should be reminded that pioneers placed the worship of God in its rightful place. Fam ily worship was important, for the hearthstone was the keystone of the Empire.

Messrs. W. L. Havard, F. Walker, W . A. Macdonald and the capable and enthusiastic organizer of the ceremony, Eev. W . P. F. Dorph, also addressed the gathering. There were present, too, the neighbouring rectors, the Eevs. Dixon Hudson, of Leura, W . V. Gurnett, of Blackkeath, L. Daniels and E . W , Hemming, of Lithgow, and F. H. B. Dillon, of Lawson. The Blaxland Shire Council was represented by Crs. L. S. Williams (President), J. L. W . Barton, 0 . A . Commens and J. M orris; the Engineer, Mr. C. E. C. Lundy, and the Shire Clerk, Mr. C. E. W . Brown. Afternoon tea was provided by the ladies of the district.

This ceremony marked the end of one part of the cavalcade past Glenroy, from the coming of the explorers upon the deserted fires of the aborigines, until after the time in 1927 the present King George and Queen Elizabeth m oved swiftly by on a modern highway. The pageant is not yet over, and perhaps the best is still to come.

The writers take this opportunity to acknowledge their debt to the Mitchell Library and the Department of Lands, Sydney, whose resources yielded much that is told in Historic Glenroy, Cox’s River.

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M U N IC IP A L IT Y OF L IT H G O W

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If not, may we invite you to see H A S S A N 'S W A L L S L O O K O U T , the Panoramic Gem o f the Mountains, and many other beautiful and historical scenic attractions, including the old Blue Mountains Z IG Z A G R A I L W A Y construction.

In addition to scenic beauty, LI F H G O W offers many attractions in the form of large modern industrial concerns.

The Begonia House, recently provided adjacent to the T ow n H all, is definitely a real place o f beauty you should not fail to visit. Flowers o f almost any kind have an appeal to everybody, but the wonderful Begonia blooms are rare.

Call at the Municipal Publicity Department at the Town Hall, where every courtesy and assistance will be readily extended to the visitor.

L I T H G O W is most modern in Social Servicing— the people enjoy the benefits o f G A S and E L E C T R IC I T Y , W A T E R and S E W E R A G E , at charges lower than any other country town.

OLD HARTLEY COURT HOUSE.Visit the “ Old Court House ” , built in 1837, before you lea\e Hartley.

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Documents

F r a n K - PhotosAU Court-House, a monumental relic of the town’s early importance and expectations. GEOGRAPHICAL IN TROD UCTION. On one side of the Hartley Valley is the barren