PAGES FROM THE PAST - By W. M. CLARIDGE - ARTICLE 2
ARTICLE 1 is about exploration of the Gulgong area before Rouse's land grant.
It is not revealed whether settlement resulted directly from these early explorations, but the decision of Lawson and the Coxs to settle, along the Cudgegong opened up the Mudgee district, and soon holdings began to be taken up along the Cudgegong below Mudgee...
However, we do know that the first lands legally occupied in the Gulgong district were granted, apparently for his services, to Richard Rouse, who came to Australia in 1801 as overseer of works in New South Wales on behalf of the Imperial Government. On his retirement from that position, Rouse took up the land on the Cudgegong known as Guntawang and Biraganbil, but before this some of the land he occupied was visited by Cunningham, who, on another trip, followed the Cudgegong back from the Wellington Valley.
He writes in his journal (now in the Mitchell Library) that on December 1, 1825, "we came in again upon the bank of the Cugeegang opposite to a fine open or very thinly timbered tract named Gunterwong by the aboriginals." The aboriginal meaning of 'Gunterwang' now spelled 'Guntawang,' is 'meeting place,' from which it appears that the site approximates the junction of the Cudgegong River and Wyaldra Creek. Cunningham's position as he writes of Guntawang opposite would place him on the Biraganbil estate, which occupied the south bank of the river as Guntawang did the north.
The first promise of land to Rouse was made as early as 1825 by Governor Brisbane, but this area of 1200 acres was not actually taken up till 1833, for Rouse first received the 4000-acre block which formed the original Guntawang property. This was granted in 1828 and is the first recorded holding settled in the Gulgong district. During the next twelve years Rouse took up additional areas, and the position of these indicates that this first settler sought the best portions of land, especially those monopolising good river frontages.
Government Gazettes show the following portions having been occupied by Rouse in those years:
- 16/5/1828, 4000 acres,- Guntawang, grant.
- 6/7/1833, 1200 acres, below and adjoining Guntawang, grant.
- 29/3/1836, 722 acres above Guntawang, purchase, £180/10/.
- 20/5/1837, 784 acres between and uniting the 4000 and 722-acre blocks, purchase, £196.
- 19/7/1838, 1081 acres left bank Cooyal (Reedy) Creek - near junction with Slapdash Creek, purchase, £270/5/.
- 29/6/1839, 851 acres Cooyal Creek near Cumbandry, purchase, £212 15/.
- 18/2/1840, 1118 acres adjoining the 851 acres higher up Cooyal Creek, purchase, £978/5/.
Before all these portions had been taken up, however, we find the first reference to the name Gulgong. Commenced by Oxley, a systematic survey was finished by Sir Thomas Mitchell of the original nineteen counties, the official limit of settlement in those days. From this trigonometrical survey, Mitchell made the first map of the colony in 1831, and a reprint of this, dated 1834, is still preserved in the Mitchell Library in Sydney.
On this map the name Gulgong is shown on Cooyal Creek. Whether Mitchell merely placed the name there because of its native association (in the aboriginal dialect it means 'deep waterhole'), or because the name had already been transferred to the surrounding country, is not apparent, but it appears again at the same spot in 1839, when, on April 27, A. J. Liddington purchased 440 acres at 5/ an acre on the left bank of Cooyal Creek, opposite the present site of Home Rule. This purchase grant is described as being situated at Gulgong in the County of Phillip, parish unnamed.
