January 2021 – Edition 190

Above is a view of Hartley Valley from the Mount York Road. The Valley must have looked like the Promised Land to the weary road builders.

This article continues the story of the construction of Cox’s Road over the Blue Mountains, picking up from where we left off at the end of the previous article, where the convicts were searching for a route off the western end of the Mount York plateau.

It must have been a great relief to the workmen to see the open countryside to the west after spending so much time cutting through the sandstone of the Blue Mountains, and also the country held the promise of a variety of edible animals to replace the monotonous diet of mostly salt pork. But first they had to find a route down off the precipitous Mount York.

This is a photo of part of the road down Cox’s Pass (as it was later known), showing the “cut and fill” involved in negotiating the steep mountainside. Although it is not clear from the photo, the track is very steep.

A “bridge” on Cox’s Pass, on the western scarp of the Blue Mountains, involved the use of large tree trunks to form a steep ramp across a gully. It is a mystery to me how they found trees large enough on the plateau and how they manoeuvered the huge logs into position in such dangerous country.

Below this ramp a steep benched track (wide enough to carry drays) wended its way down the side of the mountain, requiring a long distance of “cut and fill”. A large number of boulders had to be levered out or pulled out with block and tackles, keeping the use of blasting powder to a minimum to conserve the supply. In some places large logs of up to 50 foot length were placed as “side pieces” (retaining walls).

This work was started on 6th November and finished on 14th December, by far the biggest project on the road.

Major Henry Antill, who later accompanied Governor Macquarie in 1815 as his Aide-de-Camp, was very impressed by the Pass:

“This pass had been made with great labour down a very steep mountain of upwards of six hundred feet, and the way the road is made traversing the face of it makes it nearly a mile long; it was with much difficulty and exertion that we got the carts down by fixing drag-ropes behind and holding on with the people; it was so perpendicular in places that the cattle could scarcely keep their footing.”

Major Antill was not a person who scared easily. The son of a Major, he was born in England in 1769. Entering His Majesty’s 73rd Highland Regiment in 1796 he served in India and carried the regimental colours at the storming of Seringapatam in 1799, when he was severely wounded (the regimental flag was carried on a pole by a soldier leading the charge, who was accordingly the number one target for the enemy). Promoted to Captain in 1809 he came to Australia with his regiment, which was led by Colonel Governor Lachlan Macquarie, to whom he was Aide de Camp until 1815.

Governor Macquarie negotiated the Pass the following year. The Governor’s Secretary reported on behalf of the Governor:

“The road constructed by Mr Cox down this rugged and tremendous descent, through all its windings….has been executed with such skill and stability as reflects much credit on him… In order to perpetuate the memory of Mr Cox’s services , the Governor deemed it a tribute justly due to him , to give his name to this grand and extraordinary Pass, and he accordingly called it “Cox’s Pass”.

This is a photo of a layer of sandstone which has been laboriously cut through, showing one aspect of the amount of work involved in constructing Cox’s Pass.

As indicated by Major Antill, this Pass was a major obstacle on the road and restricted the use of the road as a whole. Sometimes travellers took a whole day to negotiate the Pass, as happened to the Hawkins family seven years later.

The Hawkins family made the journey to Bathurst in 1822 in what must have been one of the most remarkable journeys on record.

Thomas Hawkins (b1781) had been a purser in the Royal Navy, however, unfortunately he broke his thigh at the Battle of Waterloo and was lame for the rest of his life. He was appointed to the position of Commissariat Storekeeper at Bathurst and was therefore required to make the journey to Bathurst, accompanied by his wife Elizabeth (b1783), their eight children aged from a baby to a 12-year-old, and Mrs Lilly (Mrs Hawkins’ seventy year old mother) and a servant.

Their cavalcade included three drays, nine convicts and 34 cattle. At Cox’s Pass the first dray slid over the side and had to be retrieved by a man lowered on a rope, and the last of the cattle (which had to be brought down in small groups) arrived at the bottom at 9pm at night.

It was often necessary for trees to be cut down, trimmed of most of their branches and towed behind carts and drays so that they would not run out of control. Mrs Hawkins reported that a 48 foot tree was towed behind one of the family’s drays, with three men sitting on the branches at the far end.

Needless to say this played havoc with the road surface!

The Hawkins family took 18 days to complete the trip, which must have been very painful for the lame Mr Hawkins.

After two years Thomas and Eizabeth became prominent settlers by setting up their own farm on a 2000 acre grant, and had three more children! Sadly Thomas died in 1837 at the age of 56 but the indomitable Elizabeth lived until the age of 92.

An alternative route to Cox’s Pass was found the following year, called Lawson’s Long Alley. It turns off the Mount York road in a northerly direction and descends into the Hartley Valley upstream of Cox’s Road. I rode down it on my mountain bike about 25 years ago and found it to be a very easy ride. By contrast I came back up the remains of Cox’s Road and had to carry my bike on some parts.

Fortunately the geology west of the Blue Mountains merely comprised outcropping of basalt and granite rather than the continual sandstone and ironstone capping of the Blue Mountains. More significantly, the countryside was undulating and was intersected by permanent streams.

Work on the road over the mountains commenced on 7th July 1814, work on Cox’s Pass (which was half way to Bathurst) commenced on 7th November and was completed on 15th December, and the road reached Bathurst a month later on 14th January. Progress on the section from the foot of Cox’s Pass to Bathurst was therefore approximately six times faster. This is explained by the easier terrain on the Bathurst section, where the road followed an undulating route across the catchments of several rivers, although there were several long steep gradients on the Cox’s River to Fish River section.

This is a photo of part of the road in open country west of the Blue Mountains, showing how its border was marked with stones (probably granite) in the foreground, leading to a low embankment. It is amazing that these relics still remain after a little over two hundred years.

A total of about twelve bridges were built on this section, representing the majority of the work carried out.

An example of a bridge over a river was the bridge over the Cox’s River (the first crossing after the descent down Cox’s Pass) which was supported by enormous tree trunks 50 feet long and three feet thick (tree trunks three foot thick seem to have been used on all bridges). An immense amount of work would have been involved in cutting down and trimming these trees, which would have been well over 100 feet (30 metres tall) and an age of at least 200 years, and snigging them (using bullocks) to the construction site and manoeuvering them into position.

Probably the biggest bridge crossed the Fish River, further west. On each side was a pier of 25 feet filled up with stone, and a span of 25 feet or more planked with split logs, making an overall length of 75 feet and 16 feet width.

In the early 1960s I followed the route of this road using an old map but could not find any sign of the bridge, which had no doubt been washed away by large floods.

This is a photo of Mount Solitary, near Katoomba on the Blue Mountains.

It is apparent from his diary that Cox was quite remarkable for his time, when overseers could be very cruel. He was firm with the convicts and workmen but in fact looked after them. In his diary he virtually never complains about the men, typified by his diary entry for 29th August: ”The men worked extremely hard and smart today”.

Amazingly he only punished one man, recorded cryptically as “ordered Cryer to labour for his bad management and inattention to the bullocks”. This probably meant that Cryer had to join the road construction gang temporarily.

An example of his care for his flock arose in December when one of his workmen (Tindall) asked for his assistance in having a wheat crop harvested at his farm on the Nepean near the start of the road. Cox’s diary records that “Wrote to Rev M. Cartwright to send two of the gaol gang to cut and house Tindall’s wheat (about three acres) at the Nepean. He has a large family and it is his all.”

Another example arose in the same month when he discharged six married men (including Patrick Hanrahan, the great great grandfather of reader Brian Harrison) and sent a cart with them as far as the Nepean to carry their bedding.

In the same month he reported, in presumably a masterly exercise in understatement, that “Several of the men appear to be inclined to give in and shirk work, the greater part of whom, in my opinion, are quite as well as myself. Gave them a reproof in ernest, which I expect will make them all well by tomorrow.”. Presumably they recovered overnight.

As a magistrate Cox could have had them dealt with them severely and sent them home in disgrace.

In keeping with military tradition Cox was generous with the issuing of rum to the workers, particularly when they had been working in adverse conditions, a popular measure for this being a gill, which was five British fluid ounces or 140 Ml (about a cupful).

Brian Harrison reports that after completing his stint of road building his great great grandfather Patrick received his pardon together with 50 acres of land at Ropes Creek near St Marys on 5th June 1815.

The following year he married Euphemia Young. It is not clear why he had not done so earlier.

Patrick’s subsequent farming, grazing and animal husbandry activities were very successful. He acquired several properties during his lifetime and with the help of his many children and their husbands and wives used the properties to very good effect. His organisational skills were apparently very good. Surprisingly, he appears to have been a well-educated man who wrote a fine hand in his diaries despite the very hard physical labour he had undertaken throughout his life.

It is interesting to surmise as to whether comparable roadworks were carried out in other parts of the world. The Oregon Trail, which crossed the United States, comes to mind. It roughly followed the route taken by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803-5, with some changes to their route over the Rocky Mountains. However this section was not completed for wheeled vehicles until the 1840s.

Although there were a number of trips quickly made to Bathurst by adventurous settlers, the most notable was by Governor Lachlan Macquarie (shown in this painting) three months after the road was opened. Included in his entourage was his redoubtable wife Elizabeth, who accompanied him on some of his expeditions. He took a small carriage on his trips, probably to provide night time accommodation.

Readers will recall that Macquarie visited the Nattai River in Burragorang Valley.

Major General Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824) was a British Army officer from Scotland. He served as the fifth Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821, and had a leading role in the social, economic and architectural development of the colony. He is considered by historians to have had a crucial influence on the transition of New South Wales from a penal colony to a free settlement and therefore to have played a major role in the shaping of Australian society in the early nineteenth century.

Darwin, who was to become one of the most famous naturalists of all time, landed in Sydney on the Beagle in January 1836 at the age of 27. Four days after landing he hired a guide and two saddle horses for his ride to Bathurst. On the first day he reached Penrith and on the second night after a ride of over 40 miles (and climbing over 3000 feet) stayed at Gardener’s Inn at Blackheath, which is still a popular watering hole. This was a very long ride, and is probably a commentary on the quality of the road for horse traffic.

Early the next morning Darwin visited nearby Govetts Leap, no doubt admiring the view shown in my first article about Cox’s Road.

Darwin encountered very hot weather, reaching a reputed 119 degrees.

On the return trip, he stopped for a while at Wentworth Falls, where he particularly noted the high cliffs of King’s Tableland, which he likened to headlands and bays on a coast.

In a later article, I will tell you about later developments on Cox’s Road, including a ghost story.