Atlas Page 19
By Francis Meyers,
F. J. Broomfield and J. P. Dowling

SEVENTY-FIVE miles north of Port Jackson, the Hunter River finds its outlet to the sea. Eighty-nine years ago Lieutenant Shortland, when hunting some runaway convicts, saw the inlet north of Nobby’s, and very cautiously entered. He found no convicts, but he found coal, which was far more important. He called the stream Coal River, and Coal River it remained for some time, though before the close of the eighteenth century the settlement had been formally christened Newcastle, while the main river had received the name of the Hunter, after the Governor.

The only regular communication at that time was by the little schooners "Cumberland" and "Integrity," of twenty-six and fifty-nine tons respectively, which plied for a year or two between the settlement and the port. In those days there were no companies and no grants. In 1801 Governor King declared all coal and timber discovered at the Hunter River to be the exclusive property of the Crown, and no ship was allowed to trade without recognizances of fifty pounds and two sureties of twenty pounds each. The license to dig cost five shillings, and there was also a duty of two shillings and sixpence per ton to be paid on all coal shipped, and that this might be satisfactorily collected it was advised that only one kind of basket should be used, "weighing one hundredweight, to measure the coal in and out of the vessel."

Such was the beginning of the town which now ranks first among the coal ports of the Southern Hemisphere, and which in its appliances for safe and rapid shipment is fully abreast of the needs of the trade. The resources of the port and district are so large and varied that there could be no doubt about their ultimate growth when once enterprise had taken root, though the stringent regulations of the early days made progress slow and not always proportionately sure. Prior to 1804 there had been many accidents owing to "mines having, been dug by individuals in the most shameful manner, without having props." For this sailors were responsible; ships used to put in, and the crews would both cut and ship coal, burrow into the hillside as far as seemed safe, and leave unprotected the excavations they had made. To prevent a recurrence of these accidents, an order was made that in future no sailors should work in the mines, but only Government men under the direction of professional miners. These latter were paid at the rate of three shillings and sixpence per day, and the coal was sold in Sydney at a cost of ten shillings per ton, or, more accurately, a ton of coal was bartered for ten shillings worth of wheat, corn, mutton or pork. In 1821, the last year of the administration of Governor Macquarie, the district was thrown open for settlement, and at that date its history proper begins. We cannot here trace all the steps of its progress, but at once pass from the puny efforts of sixty years ago to the marvellous results of to-day.

The passage from Sydney is effected at present by steamer —two good lines ministering to the wants of Newcastle in this particular — though the north-eastern line of railway from Homebush to Waratah, now in course of completion, will largely supersede ocean transit. The harbour is protected by a breakwater connecting on one side of the entrance the mainland with the rocky hummock known as Nobby’s Head, and stretching beyond it into the open sea, and by a second dyke of great stones on the other side reaching towards Nobby’s from the oyster bank —narrowing the entrance and increasing the scour. Even on a comparatively quiet day a silver line marks the course of this weather-wall, and when the wind blows roughly from the south or east huge white-crested billows may break over it, momentarily disturbing the calm of the port. On a very boisterous day from the hill-top of the peninsula head, it is interesting to note the difference between the rough sea breaking on the coast —causing the big steamer weathering the farthest point to heave and pitch —and the smoothness of the protected haven.

A good comprehensive view of the shipping of Newcastle is to be obtained from a point on the wharf a hundred yards to the eastward of the customs house, though, if a perfect panorama is desired, it is better to climb Nobby’s Head, or up to the summit of Monument Hill. From the latter point a good view of the town also is to be had. It is set in a rather cramped nook, its development resembling that of a fig-tree which has chanced to take root in a little earth patch, with rock all below and beyond. It has grown in whatever direction it could find space; straggled along the harbour front; climbed boldly up the escarpment of the shore. It lies on the seaward face of Monument Hill, with its one important street curving round the hill-foot roughly parallel to the wharves, and the other streets coming straight down the steep slope in a sheer descent, joining this main city artery at right angles. The banks, the hotels, and the newspaper offices are in this busy traffic way, named Hunter Street, and above them dwelling houses, looking out across the hill —the site of the public park and recreation ground —down on the bold coastline, and away to the ocean beyond. In Newcastle, as in Launceston, one’s garden-gate may swing level with the chimney pots of the adjoining houses.

The population of Newcastle and the surrounding colliery district is not less than twenty thousand, but it covers a wide area. There are no suburbs proper to the great northern coaling city, but each colliery has its separate town. Hamilton, Lambton, Waratah, Plattsburg, Wallsend, Stockton, Wickham, Charlestown, Anvil Creek, Greta and Minmi are important mining centres, the homes of miners who toil upon the spot. Each colliery is connected with Newcastle by rail, and around its mouth spread acres of huts, which are deserted every Saturday night when the tired toilers take their weekly holiday in their dusky city. Interspersed among the homes of each colliery are the shops of general dealers, and the churches, schools and other institutions provided by the State or raised by local effort. From the summit of Monument Hill the largest of these may be seen set in clusters along the seaward slopes of the low, bare or sparsely timbered hills, the houses straggling out towards them across dreary flats. As Newcastle progresses, the town will em brace all these outlying posts; the shallow reaches and bays between Bullock Island and the swampy land about the mouth of the Hunter River will be dredged, and, where necessary, excavated; docks will be made, and wharves for the extended commerce will fill all the available areas in the port and continue far up the river; the metals of the north will be brought down to the pit mouths for smelting; manufactories growing and commerce increasing, so that the coal city will divide with Sydney the commerce of New South Wales. This is not an extravagant forecast, as the port and district have extraordinary resources, which the completion of the Homebush and Waratah railway line will greatly develop. The quantity of coal raised last year was over two million tons, and Newcastle is besides increasingly becoming a depot port for wool, the shipment of which for the London market during the wool season of 1885 numbering nearly forty-eight thousand bales.

Stockton, a busy mining and shipbuilding suburb of Newcastle, is situated on the northern side of the harbour. Amongst the various industries that support it, lime burning and steam-sawmilling take an important place. In. connection with the shipbuilding yards is a patent slip constructed with a view of repairing’ ships of the largest tonnage, while the workshops are fully abreast of the latest improvements of the trade. The shears here have been erected to lift a weight of thirty tons. The principal coal seam of the district has been proved to underlie this suburb, and shafts have been sunk to work it. At Stockton begins the northern breakwater, several hundred feet in length, but at present incomplete. When finished it will, in conjunction with the southern dyke, keep the debouchure of the Hunter River within a comparatively narrow channel, and thus increase the scour of the harbour. The population of Stockton is about eight hundred, and communication with Newcastle is kept up by means of half-hourly steamers.

An important suburb of Newcastle, and one which includes the villages of Tighe’s Hill, Port Waratah, Islington and Linwood, is the colliery municipality of Wickham, distant from the city about one mile. It has a population of over two thousand and ratable property valued at nearly three hundred thousand sterling annually. At Wickham, one of the principal industries is the Hunter River Copper Works, with twenty-two, furnaces manipulated by a large number of hands.

The Messrs. Hudson Brothers have here large engineering works, and here, too, are located the Sydney Soap Company’s manufactory, cordial factories, sawmills, and various wool-washing and fellmongering establishments. Wickham includes the Ferndale and the Maryville collieries.

Hamilton, a colliery suburb of Newcastle, is the site of the Australian Agricultural Company’s mining operations. The great shaft was sunk many years ago through a troublesome quicksand, but the seam is of first class quality, its cleanness causing it to be much appreciated for generating gas, as well as for household use. Several bores have been put down at different points of the company’s large estate with a view of attacking the seam at other places. The town has a population of about two thousand inhabitants, the great majority of whom find employment for their labour in coal mining. The Castlemaine brewery has a branch here, and here, too, is the patent fuel factory, which takes the small coal from the different pits and fashions it into oval blocks, turning out about sixty tons of fuel a day. The ratable annual value of the property in this district is estimated at over three hundred thousand sterling.

Waratah is not now so important as a coal mining centre as it was some years ago, the seam on the original estate having been worked out. The Waratah Coal Company has transferred the principal portion of its plant to South Waratah, or Raspberry Gully, adjoining the village of Charlestown, where a new mine has been opened out. But Waratah is not dependent on its coal alone. The clay has been found suitable for pottery and copper and tin smelting works are successfully conducted, while in the vicinity of the town large quantities of oranges, grapes, bananas, and other varieties of fruit are raised. The population of the district, of which Waratah is the centre, is close upon three thousand. Charlestown proper is but a small village of about five hundred inhabitants, but with every prospect of future growth and prosperity. It is situated on the road to Belmont, a little marine village picturesquely planted on the shores of Lake Macquarie, and a prospective watering-place for the Newcastle district.

Lambton, an important suburb of the northern coal city, is distant five miles from Newcastle. The colliery here belongs to the Scottish Australian Mining Company, which has been working on this site for the past thirteen years, and employs the larger number of the inhabitants. The pit is connected with the Great Northern Railway by a private line. Oranges and vines are cultivated in the vicinity of the town, and stone quarrying and steam-sawmilling are thriving industries. One mile distant is the estate of Messrs. Brown and Dibbs, on which is situated the colliery village of New Lambton, the seam here being the same as that worked in the adjoining parent township. In the vicinity are the New Lambton Smelting Works, and but a short distance away are the stone quarries and steam sawmill of Jesmond or Dark Creek.

Of the colliery townships around Newcastle, the most important is undoubtedly Wallsend, the scene of the operations of one of the wealthiest coal mining corporations in Australia, the Newcastle and Wallsend Company, whose colliery employs nearly seven hundred men and boys, and whose output is frequently over three thousand tons of coal a day. The seam dips from the outcrop to a depth of about three hundred feet. There are three pits on the estate, but the greater part of the coal is drawn from a tunnel put in at the outcrop.

In respect to population, Wallsend ranks as more than a mere suburb, three thousand being the estimated number of its inhabitants. It possesses a school of arts and various churches, and property to the ratable value of nearly three hundred thousand pounds per annum. Its importance as a mining centre may be gauged from the fact of its being ranked in the same class as the largest collieries of England.

Adjoining the important coal mining town of Wallsend is another colliery, Plattsburg, the headquarters of the Co-operative Colliery, employing nearly five hundred hands. This town is also renowned for coke-producing, having a large number of ovens erected for the purpose. The State school here is capable of accommodating eight hundred children, and is considered one of the finest institutions of the kind in the district. Plattsburg possesses also a fine building in its school of arts. The seam of coal worked by the Co-operative Colliery is the same as that worked by the Wallsend Company.

The population of Minmi is about two thousand, the greater number being employed in the local collieries, the property of Messrs. J. and A. Brown. Minmi is about six miles from the railway station of Hexham, which again is distant from Newcastle fourteen miles. A private line, however, connects Minmi with the Great Northern route and the shipping shoots at Hexham. At one pit over six hundred hands are employed, and they raise above a thousand tons of coal a day. In the vicinity of the town, oranges are cultivated with considerable success.

Anvil Creek and Greta are adjoining collieries, which, although lying beyond the town, of Maitland, are properly adjuncts of the Newcastle coal trade. The seam at the Anvil Creek colliery, known as Farthings, is over fourteen feet in thickness, while that of the Greta Coal and Shale Company is nearly as thick. The latter mine has two shafts, one of which is over two hundred feet in depth. Its average output is considerably over fifteen hundred tons, raised by nearly three hundred hands. The population of the district is about two thousand.

Up the Hunter River or by the, Great Northern Railway is the approach to the larger areas, whose commerce focuses naturally in the coal port. A somewhat uninteresting river about its ocean estuary is the Hunter; flat as the fen country of Lincolnshire, but with mangroves meeting the low and luxuriant scrub growths of the fresh water country about innumerable reaches and lagoons. And yet it is a country that in places lacks not sentiment or beauty of a peculiar kind. Exquisite pictures may indeed be seen from the railway line, where some mile-broad swamp is set in low wooded knolls, the feathery shea-oaks rising dark above the lower foliage; light grass of a delicate green rustling over the surface, and the water shining beneath. Long-legged cranes may be seen flapping lazy wings, or a little herd of cattle wading knee deep, giving life and warmth to a picture that might otherwise be monotonous. But the ground rises slowly and hardens with every mile. The salt swamp foliage is left behind. The black soil sweetens and takes on a rich coat of lucerne, or a luxurious garment of sorghum, maize, or oats. The broad flats consist of alluvial drift many feet deep, and the lucerne roots, striking down to the water-level, get nourishment from the undersoil without the need of any deep ploughing. Five or six crops are obtained in the year, and year after year, without any fresh tillage. The husbandman’s labour is that of perpetual harvest.

At the head of the river navigation is Morpeth —once the great shipping port, but whose trade has been largely diverted by the railway. It is, however, one of the prettiest towns on the Hunter River, and is reputed to be one of the healthiest. A branch line of railway connects it with the town of East Maitland, and it has daily steamers to and from Sydney. Near it are some coal pits, but the business of the town rests mainly on the fertility of the flats that fringe the river. Morpeth is well laid out, and contains several fine buildings, the Anglican church being one of the most picturesque structures of the kind in the colony. Along the river banks are the wharves of two steamship companies, which connect with the railway, the Hunter being navigable as far as Morpeth to vessels of eight hundred tons burthen. The Government has here a coal staith to accommodate one of the main industries of the district. The population is nearly fifteen hundred, and the ratable property of the municipality close upon one hundred and twelve thousand pounds per annum.

But the town, or rather the double town, for this district is Maitland, divided by the water of Wallis’ Creek. East Maitland, laid out on high and dry ground, is the Government town; but West Maitland, laid out on the alluvial flat by the riverside as a private town, took the public fancy more; and though occasionally liable to floods, has become the principal business place. Expensive works have had to be undertaken to prevent the river from encroaching on the main street, which runs along the rich alluvial flat, and which has on either side many interesting relics of the old order and some good specimens of the new. Patriarchal verandahed hotels look out from their small-paned windows, burdened with many memories, and fine new four-storied buildings of stone, brick and cement have arisen which would not discredit Sydney. Yet there is an indolent air about everything and everybody —an air of contentment and confidence. The richness of the soil seems to impart an infection of trustful laziness. Everything grows with a minimum of toil; a neglected backyard becomes a luxuriant pasturage, and a moss that is green as grass puts a beautiful, if not a healthful coat over many old shingle roofs. The new, however, is fast outgrowing the old. The banks have shown their appreciation of the importance of the place by the superior style of their premises. The Maitland Mercury, the oldest paper in the northern district, has expressed its belief in the future by building substantial premises, and the churches make display of faith by solid and beautiful works. The hospital is a large building on a good site, and the schools, both State and private, are large and handsome, well finished and well furnished. Several factories have taken root, and some hundreds of the inhabitants find regular employment in tanning leather, making boots and shoes, building carriages, sawing timber, manufacturing tobacco, brewing beer and making brooms. But the farmers are the mainstay and support of the place, for the land about Maitland is so rich and easily worked that the freehold of a hundred acres is a fair for tune. Some blocks used solely for lucerne-growing have been sold at upwards of one hundred pounds an acre. The farmers of the district have also developed an aptitude for skilfully and economically managing their own business. They were for a long time taxed by the commissions of middlemen, but in a happy moment adopted the idea of a " Farmers’ Union," of which very member should bind himself to sell his produce at auction. The market or fair was inaugurated. It needed no elaborate building, a space of open ground near the railway station, with a few sheds for perishable articles, being sufficient. To this market-place on Wednesday in each week come the farmers and the townsfolk, and many dealers from the port and the metropolis.

The gathering is large and unique of its kind. Nowhere in Australia, perhaps, could you find a more thoroughly representative assemblage of Australian bred men and women. The settlement is very old, and many of the farming people are natives of the second and third generation. There are clear indications of the distinctive Australian type, the sallow on men’s faces blotting out the russet which their grandfathers brought from England. There is very little superfluous flesh, either amongst the men or the women. But if the people are beginning to vary a little from the English type, the produce they bring to market varies still more. Certainly the pigs of all sizes, with the dressed sheep of an abnormal fatness, would be familiar enough in England, as would also the crates of poultry of all varieties; but somewhat un-English would appear the piled drays of farmers’ produce great green melons and bulky pumpkins stacked in mounds to be sold by the ton; grapes, rich, luscious, heavy as the clusters of Eschol; oranges in their golden glory; tomatoes in boxes; chillies and pomegranates; bundles of green sorghum and maize and great bales of fragrant lucerne hay. It is such produce as the peasants on the Arno, or even farther south on the warm and fertile slopes of Etna, would bring down to the Italian cities for sale. All is bought and sold there with abundance of good-humoured Australian banter, and when all is over the farmers mount their drays or carts, waggons or buggies, and jog along homeward with many a gossiping pause. It is their life from week to week, from year to year —a fairly useful and satisfactory life, with which in all our rich coastal districts we ought to be far more familiar, for we have other breadths of naturally fertile country, though few, perhaps, so rich as Maitland in prosperous agricultural development, and certainly very few that would lend themselves so fairly and kindly to artistic treatment. The rich soil and humid climate afford not only luxurious vegetation and beautiful foliage, but an atmosphere which permits warm lights in the foreground, with soft and mellow distances (even before the eye is brought to rest on the spurs of the Liverpool Range), and a sky of all manner of cloud-shapes, from the faintest, fairest forms of cirrus to the dense strata through which the setting sun scarce breaks, and the rolling masses of cumuli with their lustres and lights of silver and gold.

At Maitland are the waterworks for the district. The water is pumped from the river, filtered in large beds and delivered by gravitation. One feature of the scheme is a great artificial lake to be filled whenever the river is clear, so that in flood or fresh the supply may be had from this reserve store, instead of from the turbid stream.

From Maitland it is but an easy two hours’ journey to the Paterson River and the pretty Paterson village, passing on the way the healthy little settlement of Hinton, lying on the south bank of the Hunter, opposite the junction with the Paterson. In very early days settlers took up the land on the river banks, and within a few years must have set the willow twigs which show such luxurious beauty of form, and yield in summer time such delightful shade. The fruit trees and English oaks on the clearings of the upland have an equal date with the willows, and many an old resident can remember the time when Sydney seemed a month’s journey away, and to travel to Newcastle was to incur unknown risks. Folk live long about the Paterson —perhaps because they live well. Everything favours them; climate is genial, soil rich, nature as beautiful as she is bountiful, and no signs of hurry or bustle anywhere. Sunday is a busy day in the little town, for the Paterson people are fond of their church, or it may be of the pleasant church-going, which to the country settlers is not a dreary pilgrimage along an uncomfortable road or a walk stiff-starched through city streets, but a drive or a gallop of an hour along the bush roads or the river banks, bordered with the fragrant wattles or the shadowy willows. Bright girls and stalwart lads, from the orangeries, vineyards and farms, may be seen on Sunday afternoon, cantering down the village street, tying their horses up to the fence, and, with all the reverence that can be associated with riding habits and spurs, entering the little church.

Northward from Maitland the railway proceeds along the narrowing valley of the Hunter River, through country well fitted to the vine —the vineyards at Lochinvar and Branxton being especially celebrated. Just before the first great bridge of the line is reached, stands Singleton, fifty miles from the coast as the rail runs. Singleton dates as a settlement from 1825, and the town has much of the substantial if not the venerable aspect of age. The rich alluvial flats known as Patrick’s Plains will grow maize, tobacco and grapes, as long as people are found to till them, and the coal industry established at Rix’s Creek, three miles away, shows signs of a large development. Singleton is a prosperous and contented colonial town, putting on the airs and aspect of importance only when the annual agricultural display is made in the really fine pavilion of the local show-ground, at which time excellent stock is to be seen in the adjoining stalls and yards. The next town is Muswellbrook, remarkable for its beautiful church; built by a wealthy local family at a cost of eleven thousand pounds, from the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott. Muswellbrook is the centre of an agricultural and pastoral district, though the character of the country is principally fitted for tillage. Though situated in the valley of the Hunter, it is fairly elevated, being nearly five hundred feet above the sea level. The population of the town is somewhat over a thousand, and that of the entire district nearly four thousand; the chief local industries are the growing of wheat, maize, and tobacco, and the cultivation of the vine. Of its public buildings, besides its fine church, the hospital and the school of arts are the most noteworthy.

From this point branches off the road to the north-west, through an important district, and one which was early settled in. consequence of its convenient access to the sea. This road lies through the towns of Denman, Wybong, Merriwa, Cassilis, Denison Town and Cobborah, and there is no other route from the coast by which the main range is so easily crossed. Denman is situated on the Hunter River, three miles from its junction with the Goulburn. It lies in an agricultural and pastoral district; the flood deposits of rich soil being bounded by ranges of sandstone hills. Standing on the main road to Sydney it forms a watering station for travelling stock. Wybong, the next town in order, is a little to the north-west of Denman, and is really but a small and unimportant village. More to the northward is the agricultural centre of Kayuga, while to the south-west lies Gungal. Of these north-western towns, however, Merriwa undoubtedly occupies the first place. It is situated on the Merriwa River and on the main north-western route to Bourke, and is in a very thriving condition. At Worondi Hill, in its vicinity, gold has been found, and at Portmantle, coal and kerosene shale. Throughout the district iron bark, box, pine, gum, cedar, and stringy bark flourish, and the soil is well suited to the cultivation of wheat, maize, potatoes, and the vine. But the country about Merriwa is neither entirely mineral nor agricultural, pastoral pursuits claiming a fair share of the attention of the settlers. The scenery near the town is exceedingly fine; mountains surround it, and their stern grandeur is softened by the numerous streams that have their rise in the Liverpool Range. A feature of the town is the fine bridge which spans the river near the recreation ground. Merriwa is famous for its merino sheep, and the names of Brindley Park and Collaroy are well known to Australian breeders and wool-brokers. Cassilis, on the Munmurra Creek, to the west of Merriwa, is the chief town of a large pastoral district.

The soil is very rich, being composed of basaltic detritus. Beyond Cassilis is Denison Town, and still further west Cobborah, which belongs properly to the Dubbo district, being reached ‘by coach from the Western Railway. Cobborah is the last town of this north-western route, which stretches through a broad expanse of highly fertile pastoral and agricultural country.

North of Muswellbrook lies Aberdeen, situated on the Hunter River and touched by the main road stretching between Muswellbrook and Scone. Aberdeen is over six hundred feet above sea level. The country around it is both farming and wool-growing, though the latter predominates. This town is also a railway station on the Great Northern line. Eight miles farther on, the railway passes through the old settlement of Scone. Al though the elevation is seven hundred feet above the level of the sea, the climate is genial in winter and warm in summer. The country in the neighbourhood consists of well-wooded plains and gently undulating ground, for the most part occupied as pasture land; but on the Kingdon Ponds, a tributary of the Hunter, wheat is cultivated with success. The ugly cactus bush known as the prickly pear has unfortunately been allowed to overrun many fields, and completely beats the farmer, the cost of clearing being more than the land is worth. From Scone the spurs of the Liverpool Range may be seen in the distance, and about ten miles in a northerly direction is the one burning mountain of the continent —Wingen. Closer to the town is a highly romantic and wildly picturesque bit of scenery known as Flat Rock, a never-failing attraction to northern tourists. Scone has the character of a sanatorium, and its climate is as healthful as the scenery of its mountains is grand. Gold is found near the town, though not in large quantities, the district being more a farming than a mining one. Pastoral and agricultural pursuits are successfully conducted, the main products of tillage being wheat, maize, and tobacco.

Wingen, the next important station on the railway line, is situated on the Kingdon Ponds Creek, at an altitude of a thousand feet above sea level. Kerosene shale and coal of good quality are found in the neighbouring halls, but the village is very small, and is chiefly known from the proximity of the burning hill of the same name, some three miles distant. After leaving Wingen, the railway traveller passes some miles of plain country, till the train plunges once more into a ‘mountainous region, and passing through the mineral village of Blandford, rich in silver, copper and lead, it emerges into the valley of the Page River, at the head of which stands Murrurundi, so called by the blacks, the term signifying great camping-ground. The river, flowing through the town, divides it into two parts. Murrurundi, at the foot of the hills, is over fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is the last town on the Great Northern Railway before the line crosses the Liverpool Range —the boundary of the northern district proper. A fine wooden bridge affords communication with the important village of Haydonton.

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