Allan Cunningham was a famous explorer and botanist who traversed the Gulgong terrain decades before the township was formed.
The Lower Hunter in days gone by was closely associated with the Mudgee district. Many of the farmers' sons made their way across to the Turon diggings and afterwards were in Gulgong and the Log Paddock in those roaring days when gold was won by the thousand, ounces. It was from the Lower Hunter that Cunningham, the famous explorer and botanist, set out and he discovered what are now known as the Liverpool Plains.
He then worked down the river and came to a hut, which the first of the Lawons or the first of the Coxes had established near Wilbetree. He did not know at the time that there had been any settlement there, and the hut came as a great surprise....
The Cox family have been a family of pioneers. They were the first occupiers of
Guntawang, but they had to withdraw their cattle owing to the
hostility of the blacks.
PAGES FROM THE PAST - By W. M. CLARIDGE - ARTICLE 1
Although Gulgong and gold became almost synonymous terms in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, portions of the district had been occupied, and most of it traversed, for practically fifty years when the discovery of 1870 brought the name into prominence as one of the richest gold fields in the history of New South Wales.
As the present town of Gulgong is situated only about 20 miles from Mudgee, it is not surprising that the district was opened up during the early days when Mudgee itself was discovered. The claims of Lieutenant William Lawson as the discoverer of Mudgee have of recent years been discounted in favor of those of James Blackman, but the latter did not travel beyond the site of Mudgee. [Note: The argument over discovery ignores the fact that the land was already inhabited by the
Wiradjuri people]
Lawson's title was founded on his descriptions of trips made northward from Bathurst in search of the Liverpool Plains. The original journey of this explorer are preserved in the Mitchell Library, Sydney and to be properly understood need to be read in conjunction with one another.
It appears that in the early 1820s Lawson made several trips from Bathurst, and two at least seem to have led him across some of the land later famed for the gold production of Gulgong's golden days. In November, 1821, and again in January of the next year, Lawson, with a small party, including some convicts and an aboriginal guide, passed beyond the present position of Mudgee, travelling down the Cudgegong River and leaving, that stream somewhere between its junction with Eurunderee (Pipeclay) Creek and Galambine, moved northwards across the hills between the Cudgegong and Wyaldra (Reedy) Creek. References in the journals of these expeditions point to the party reaching Reedy Creek, where the dogs with the expedition chased a large kangaroo to "a shallow hole of water" some three miles distant. This might easily have been the place known later as The Lagoon, near the junction of Reedy and Slapdash Creeks, and from which the property of Mr. C. Loneragan appears to have taken its name.
From here Lawson headed northwards again crossing over hills, which correspond to Barney's Reef, and then descending to the Talbragar River before returning to Bathurst. That these trips extended so far is confirmed by the records of Mr. Allan Cunningham, who closely followed Lawson in traversing this portion of Australia.
When William Lawson reported his trip after reaching Bathurst, his glowing account of the country through which he had passed stirred the ambition of George and Henry Cox, and these volunteered to join him in taking up the land. It was agreed that Lawson was to take the land on the north of the Cudgegong River near Mudgee, while the Cox brothers were to occupy the southern bank of the river. George Cox made his home at Burrundulla, and had an out station a few miles beyond Mudgee at Menah, or Munnar. It was this out-station that was reached by Cunningham on his return trip from the first exploration of the Liverpool Plains, and a sketch of his route indicates that he must also have traversed the Gulgong terrain, though he came to it from the opposite direction to that which Lawson followed.
This sketch is published in Geographical Memoirs of New South Wales, edited by Barron Field, and the account with it, tells of Cunningham's trip. After reaching the Liverpool Plains, Cunningham's expedition passed down the Coolah Valley to the Talbragar River, which was named Lawson's River by Cunningham. At a point somewhere north of the Gulgong district, the party left the Talbragar and moved southwards and crossed a low range of hills, which again would be the watershed between Reedy Creek and the Talbragar River ??? of which Barney's Reef is the most noticeable feature. From this point. Cunningham's description fits the topography of the district accurately. He mentions uninteresting open forest with some native cypresses and occasional clumps of honeysuckle, then a somewhat improved tract of land, the direction S.S.E., only one creek of any importance and his approach to some elevated lands, observed first from the pine ridge south of the Talbragar River.
This description accords fairly well with the country between Gulgong and Barney's Reef, and that it does belong to that area is confirmed when the remainder of the trip is compared with the land between Gulgong and Mudgee passing roughly along the present railway line. When Cunningham writes that he "prosecuted an irregular route easterly over some rising grounds, and along a ridge of' broken low hills, upon which were scattered large blocks of granite, whose decompositions being washed into the narrow intermediate valleys formed a base over which our horses travelled," he is presenting a picture which can be seen to-day from the top of Flirtation Hill looking towards Canadian, yet he wrote his description in 1823, only one year after the first white men of whom there is any record looked upon this section of the State.
Moreover, he writes that after ten miles he descended a ridge to a wet valley where cattle paths were found, which led the party to the out-station at Menah.
This ridge corresponds to that point on the railway where, between Munua and Warrobil, the line crosses a watershed separating the Cudgegong from Reedy Creek, while the location of the Cox out-station is quite definite, thus showing that the course taken by Cunningham must have led him from the north, as Lawson had come from the South, across the valley through which Reedy Creek passes, and establishing that first Lawson, in 1821 and again in 1822, and then Cunningham, in 1823, were the first wliite men to pass through the Gulgong district.
1834 Map of Gulgong-Mudgee area: all but two placenames are Aboriginal in origin
PAGES FROM THE PAST - By W. M. CLARIDGE - ARTICLE 2
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.
See
ROUSE for the continuation of this article including details of the land Richard Rouse amassed in the district.
