A Battle of Opinions

It is interesting to look at the circumstances surrounding the settlement of the Hunter River region. The need for land communication is a matter we have looked at earlier but this requirement and even demand had its origin in the increase in the rate of immigration into the new Colony. This increased immigration during the 1820s and 1830s was not only of convicts but of free settlers. Where could the free settlers be placed was an issue facing Governor Macquarie. He determined that the prison settlement at Newcastle was decreasing in its effectiveness, requiring a move to a more isolated spot. There were too many convicts escaping back into the settled areas around Sydney, probably suing the first land route set up by John Howe to become the Bulga Road which ran from Windsor to Jerry's Plains in the upper Hunter in 1819.

Macquarie wrote to Earl Bathurst in 1819 reporting as follows:
"Extensive plains of rich and fertile land being found at no great distance along the three principal sources of the River Hunter ...(have) ... now become an object of valuable consideration in the necessary increase in population."

The valley was settled rapidly, mainly by newly arrived settlers. By 1825, the bulk of the alluvial and more attractive other land along the Hunter and its tributaries had been taken up, producing petitions which have been mentioned in earlier pages for a road between Sydney and the Hunter Valley. (G. Karskens, Four Essays about the Great North Road, pp.13-14). Heneage Finch had completed a survey for a road by September 1825 but it was not until September 1826 that the new Governor Darling ordered the first gangs to its construction. At this stage, John Oxley was the Surveyor General but Thomas Mitchell was in the wings as his deputy. To start with, Darling and Mitchell had similar visions of roads that were well planned, directed to along straight routes to key points in the Colony. Ultimately they had serious differences over important issues but that was later.

Karskens gives a picture of the initial togetherness and Mitchell's passion for straight roads. This led to a battle of opinions between Mitchell and some of his staff and certainly with settlers in the Hunter valley. His passion for straightness caused him to ignore important issues such as landform, regions of settlement and especially the availability of grass and water for stock. Straightness was so important to him that he was quite capable of ignoring the existence roads that had been constructed at considerable expense by others. He decided that the route to the north off the road between Sydney and Parramatta was too devious so he set up the route through Abbotford, across the Parramatta River at Bedlam Point and thence to Wiseman's Ferry, saving four miles. There were many noses out of joint among the settlers nearby because they had set up their own road on the norath side of the river at Kissing Point.

Next we find Darling inspecting the Finch ascent from the north side of the Hawkesbury River up onto the ridge above. He ruled it out as an impossible ascent, even though work had been going on for some time. He required that some other way up be found. Mitchell determined that it would have to be up Devine's Hill. So work stopped on Finch's Ascent and work began a bit further west. The ferry was moved upstream a mile or so as a result.

Settlers on the middle and lower Hunter raised serious concerns about the lack of grass and water along sections of the route from Devine's Hill and on to Wollombi. Their pleas were ignored for the most part as there were "important" settlers in the upper Hunter who were in a position to get the support of the Governor and Mitchell for the selected route to Wollombi and on through Broke to the upper Hunter valley. The result is going to be fairly obvious to you now but it should have been to these two key men if they were prepared to make an independent and sound judgement. Settlers, in fact, found their way along the MacDonald River and up Mogo Creek or they went along Simpson's track through the Mangrove Creek region where water and feed were plentiful, ignoring the chosen route. The battle of opinions saw the amazing engineering feat of the Great North Road construction essentially ignored ultimately in a later decade or so.