The following account of early Cowra is taken from a publication “Back to Cowra’ which I believe was published in 1929. While later histories of the district and the settlers are much more comprehensive, this is a very informative and interesting account, and is worth a good, short read.
EARLY HISTORY OF Cowra – from “Back to Cowra” 1929.
As compared with the centuries of history and tradition of the Old World, Australia, in common with other new countries, possesses the records of only a few generations. Only from local narratives of the trials and vicissitudes of the early ‘pioneers can the future historian obtain help in compiling his word pictures of those times, and it is with this end in -view that the record of the early history of the town and district of Cowra in undertaken.
There are few or no written records of the earlier settler, whose struggle for existence and a livelihood was probably too engrossing to allow him to pen the story of his daily life. There are in existence the official journal of Surveyor Qxley and the records of grants of land, the dates of which would be some time after actual settlement.
Oxley, in I817, guided by a native, set forth from Bathurst and reached the Lachlan at Nanami-—-30 miles below Cowra — where for years his name was to be seen carved on the trunk of a tree. _ He named the river after Governor Lachlan Macquarie and travelled up and clown its banks. Soldiers’ Flat, I6 miles from Cowra, was so called after the camping place of himself and his soldier escort, whilst down the river he penetrated until he noted in his journal that it was “unfit for white settlement.”
ln l83l Arthur Rankin and James Sloan came from Bathurst with cattle to the Lachlan, guided by compass and blazing their route through the dense timber and settled on the northern side of the river. The former located on the present “Warwick,” calling it after his Scottish native place, “Glen Logan,” whilst the latter, going further north down the river, purchased from the Crown the area which he named “North Logan.” The date of the grant to Arthur Rankin is that of Qctober, I831, whilst that of James Sloan is I836. These two pioneers were probably the first settlers on the Lachlan.
John Grant, born at Mayne, lreland (died I865), had a cattle run in 1830 at Medlow and requiring more grazing country, sent his assigned servant with cattle from the Mountains further west and later followed himself with supplies and took up country on the southern side of the river in I833, calling the run “Merriganowry.“ His route is marked in the earlier maps as “Grant’s Track.” This country embraced the southern side right up to Cowra, and later Grant had a sheep fold where the Catholic Church now stands.
Iin l832 the familiar name of Redfern appears, as Dr. W. Redfern acquired the present “Mulyan,” a native word for eagle or eaglehawk, with which that locality abounded. Dr. Redfern died in IB33, and his nephew, W R Watt, who managed that run, purchased in addition, in I839, “Bumbaldry” Station, with a then area of 47,000 acres.
Other early grants adjacent to the present town were those of H. M. Fulton, of “Mufflon Park“ (afterwards “]erula”) in l839, Jas. Blackett, “Carro’ in I840, and Patrick Broughan (Broughan Street) in l84l, of “Taragala.”
ln common with other surrounding outpost homesteads, that of North Logan (still in existence) was built with the aid of assigned servants, who also acted as shepherds. The aboriginals of the Lachlan were numerous, and old residents can still recollect their corrobories and camps at Taragala, North Logan and the site of the old showground. Still vivid in the memory of one who witnessed it is the setting forth of a party clothed only with opposum skins and armed with spears on a foray against the Macquarie blacks. It is to the blacks that the town owes its name of Cowra or “The Rocks,” doubtless suggested by the grey mottled granite rocks overlooking the present town.
The combined name of “Cowra-Rocks” appear in the early maps of the village. The large areas of land granted and bought by application by the early settlers were devoted to the breeding of cattle, horses and sheep, as it was considered at this time that the district was unsuited for wheat growing, both climatically and also because of the difficulty of clearing the virgin land of the timber. Horses in the early forties were not too plentiful, although later wild horses became a pest. It is mentioned that one holder of a run had to carry on his back; rations out to a distant shepherd on one or two occasions.
Severe drought was experienced in i839, I840 and l841, the Lachlan drying up with the exception of two water holes, which were available for stock between Cowra and Nanima. The river at that period is said to have been ten feet deeper than at present and without sandbars, but reedy. These years of drought were succeeded by a severe flood in Qctober, I844, when 1,100 sheep were swept away from Merringanowry Station, where also three men had a narrow escape from drowning, and had to spend a night in a tree before being rescued by blacks.
The fact that there was a ford or crossing at the foot of such a prominent landmark as “The Rocks“ naturally marked this site out for the position of a future town, and its genesis in l845 was a solitary bark hut on the river bank owned by a poundkeeper named Best, whilst a small sheep yard was erected by John Grant on the present site of the Convent. ln l846 a low-roofed bark hut was erected on the site oi the Australian Hotel, and opened as a hotel by Thomas Kirkpatrick, whilst a little later the first store was opened by Harry Carvel (“Bumble”), who also officiated as a smith. ln those pioneering days, a man had to be a “jack of all trades,“ as shown by the fact that in l849 one man combined the trades of tailor, carpenter .and shoemaker.
The surrounding district was held in large areas by a few station owners, whoeither had purchased from the Crown at a pound an acre downwards. or occupied original grants to the first settlers, and these holdings were devoted to the rearing, at first, of cattle and horses, and then sheep.
The sheep, in nearly all cases before shearing were washed in the rivers or creeks, shorn with hand shears on the floor of a rough shed, and the wool pressed in bales with wooden spades and taken by the owners‘ teams of bullocks on the long journey to Sydney, from whence they would return with station supplies and rock salt for the sheep. At that time scab amongst the sheep caused great mortality and had to be dealt with in a drastic manner by destroying and burning.
It was not until nearly I850 that wheat farming was introduced into this district by the Tindal Bros., who cleared and cultivated a small 20 acre block on the site of the present Chinamen’s gardens above the town, where also tobacco was grown. The resultant grain was given out in its rough state to the shepherds and station hands, who had to roughly pound and grind it up for flour, there being, even in l85l, no mill nearer than Carcoar or Bathurst.
During the fifties the village, then known as Cowra Rocks, was very slowly advancing. ln I852 there were 34 people. which population had increased to I20 by I860. whilst a school had been opened by a Mr Lennox on the flat near the Traffic Bridge. Later a more permanent teacher. in the person of Madame Rigaut, began in I857 to educate one or two generations of young Cowra people. Bark walls and roofs served for all the buildings until a new hotel of sawn timber was erected in 1851 in Kendal Street called “The Green House” (from the colour of EIS walls), and situated below the site of the present Royal Hotel.
In I852 the village was surveyed and a land sale of the blocks was held, the highest prices being paid for those nearest the river, whilst an acre of land at present time partly occupied by the Bank of N.S.W brought £7. By I860 there were about 25 houses in the village, two or three stores and four hotels, the Fitzroy-—built I854—— and the Victoria (now Club House); also-a school and the _ Catholic (I858) and Presbyterian Churches (I860).
During the sixties‘ the outstanding influences affecting the development of the district and the town dependent on it were two, common to the whole colony, and they were the passing of Sir Iohn Robertson’s Act of free selection on station holdings up to 320 acres and the gold discoveries.
From the first discoveries in I852 at the Turon and Qphir, prospectors went further afield, bound for the alluvial fields of Lambing Flat (now Young) in I86I. and Grenfell in I866. There passed through the settlement a constant stream of eager miners, with often a depletion of the scanty supplies of a small township to which Cowra had now grown, bread being known to bring 5/- a loaf and flour I/6 a pint. The ford necessitated a ferryman to enable these to cross the river, and Cleo. Tindal used a hollow log at 2/6 a head for such purpose. Later, in I862, Geo. Lockyer—- afterwards of Holmwood Hotel—procured the improved means of conveying both people and buggies across by a eight foot boat, charging £2 for each buggy.
Later a punt worked by William Sherwin in I867 came into operation, to be succeeded by a bridge completed in i870, situated at the end of the present Bridge Street. This bridge was built nearly entirely of local timber growing along the river, and was con-structed on what was then a new principle known as McCullum’s Truss, which proved so substantial as to withstand in the first six months of its erection the record flood of April 27th, I870, al-though it was severely damaged.
Free selection at £1 an acre (5/- cash and balance spread over a period of years) materially added to the population of the district, with increased prosperity to the town and also gradually opened up the surrounding country. Up to this time the country was almost without fences, and shepherds had to yard their sheep at night in rough yards which had a “watch box” attached for them to keep off the wild dingoes from their charges. Kangaroos were numerous, and in droughty times emus, whilst in the early seventies es. wild horses were roaming about the country, as many as a thousand being shot on one station alone in I872 for the value of their skins, worth in Sydney 7/6, and the horse hair, which brought 2/6.
Transport and communication in those times were infrequent and subject to the condition of the weather. Mails came from Carcoar by horseback, and passenger coaches, till the gold rushes in the early sixties, only travelled to Blayney, whilst the railway was only open to Penrith, and later “The Weatherboard,” whence the bullock waggons brought supplies, taking from a fortnight to a month on the journey. Roads worthy of the name were non-existent, and each driver chose his own by-road through the timber along the route.
To this day amongst the older residents some hills, such as “Burly Jackey,“ still have an unholy memory for their roughness, and teamsters charged a correspondingly high freight. Even when in the seventies the railway came over the mountains as far as Raglan, 7/- a cwt. was not considered extortionate.
On April 27th, I870, Cowra suffered from a disastrous Hood, which reached a record height of 55ft. It carried away houses on the river flats, submerged the bridge, and inundated the main street as high as the Club House Hotel. This experience caused many of the dwellings to be moved further up away from the river flats, and increased the value of the higher portions of the town. Communication was gradually improving, and, with the opening of the railway to Bathurst and Blayney, a daily mail coach was run by Cobb & Co. in I876 between Carcoar, Cowra and Grenfell.
In I877 the telegraph was opened, and the post office, which in turn had been moved from its first position at Harry Carvel’s store, in Kendal St., was again shifted to Brisbane St. (at Miss Sloan’s present residence), where it remained from I878 until I883, when it was opened at the present corner. All such improvements made for the progress of the town, and by I880 the population had become nearly 450. The main buildings were three churches, several stores, a convent, and public school, five hotels, and a branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank.
About I880 a Railway League was formed to secure railway facilities for Cowra and to link up the systems of the West and South. In March, I884, a large local demonstration celebrated the successful achievement of its labors. The line from the south was first opened to West Cowra in May, I886, and the railway bridge tested on August 27th, I887, and trains ran to Cowra Station. This bridge consists of three principal iron spans of I50 feet with four smaller wooden ones of 68ft., and had a height above the river of 70ft. The connecting line from Blayney was completed and opened on 13th of February, I888.
The opening of the railway and also the introduction of a new Land Act in I884 gave a further impetus to the progress of the town and district. The town became a Municipality and the first meeting was held on July 23rd, I888. with Mr. George Campbell as Mayor.
The rabbit first began to become a pest in the district in I883.
There were added two more bank branches of that of the Commercial of Sydney in I882 and the N.S.W. in I885. The town improvements comprised the terracing of the lower portion of Kendal St. between Macquarie St. and Lachlan St. in I883, in which state, a double roadway, it remained until I889, when it was levelled to its present height. A recreation ground on the Young road was laid out as an oval in I887, whilst the Brougham St. Park was reserved in I888. The population by I895 had increased to 2000. In I893 a new bridge continuous with Kendal St. was opened on 16th of September, at a cost of nearly £30.000. Built of steel. Iron, and timber, its length is 440yds.
The district, upon which the prosperity of the town depends so largely. had gradually substituted wheat farming for grazing, owing to the aid given to settlement by the land laws of I864 and I884. In I893 there were under cultivation over 20,000 acres, of which I3,500 were sown for wheat, yielding I6 bushels an acre on the average. Qn April 5th, I900, snow fell in the town to a depth of 7 to 8 inches for the first time in the memory of the inhabitants. and its melting was followed by a flood, which reached to the height of 47ft. 8ins. It did some damage in low lying parts as well as totally destroying a weir just below the town, which had been but recently constructed.
In May. I901, the Grenfell railway was opened, whilst that from Cowra to Canowindra was completed in September, 1910, and, as both towns had previously sent their teams of horses and bullocks to the Cowra railway shed, these railways diverted considerable traffic, and almost abolished locally the picturesque sight of camping teams on the river bank.
The Experiment Farm opened in l904, and was another advantage to the town and district in showing what the climatic conditions of Cowra can produce both in crop growing and sheep raising. Municipal improvements were the erection by the Council of its own Council Chambers in I901 and a water supply to the town in I909. The district was formed into the Waugoola Shire in 1906 under the first Presidency of Mr. I. J. Slan, and the Council erected its shire offices in Kendall St. in 1911.
Bush fires devastated the district on December 15th I909, extending from Warwicl; to Mt. McDonald, a distance of about 20 miles, hardly leaving a fence unburnt, and destroying one or two farmhouses. ln 1916, the highest floods of recent years occurred, when the river, on Qctober 9th, reached a height of 50ft. 6ins., causing great damage to the town and district, with loss of stock, but fortunately not of human life. A yet more recent flood happened on June 23rd, I925, when the river level touched 46ft. 4ins., but did little damage.
The conveniences of town life were added to by the establishment of a telephone exchange in l901, gas works in 1912, and electric light in I924, whilst telephone communication and motor car travel has greatly diminished the former isolation of the dweller in the outlying parts.
From such small beginnings of a solitary poundkeeper’s hut eighty years ago, Cowra has developed into the prosperous and progressive town of to-day.