| Port Stephens. Cook, sailing by on Friday, May 11, 1770, noted in his Journal:
'A low rocky point which I named Point Stephens, on the N. side of this point is an inlet which I called Port Stephens, that appeared to me from the Masthead to be shelter'd from all Winds. At the entrance lay 3 Small Islands, 2 of which are of a Tolerable height, and on the main, near the shore, are some high round hills that make at a distance like islands.'
Stephens was one of the secretaries to the Admiralty at that time. North of the port, Cook noticed smoke from Aboriginal campfires on the flat land. This suggested to him that there must be coastal lagoons providing good subsistence for the Aborigines.
Worimi Aborigines lived in the coastal area centred on Port Stephens and stretching from the north bank of the lower Hunter to the northern end of Wallis Lake (present Forster), then inland to the Chichester area and down to Maitland. Their language must have been similar to that spoken by the Awabakal around Lake Macquarie, as Threlkeld who worked there is said to have addressed gatherings of Aborigines at Port Stephens as well, in their own tongue
Escaped Convicts
It seems that the earliest Europeans to live in this area were five escaped convicts, wrecked at Port Stephens in 1790. They were befriended by the Worimi, who took them into the tribe, giving them wives, by whom some had children, and taking them along on their wanderings. Five years later the white men were 'rescued' by Captain Broughton of the Providence, when he entered the Port Stephens to shelter from a gale.
Point Stephens. On the point, or intermittent island, named by Captain Cook, is the Port Stephens Lighthouse built in 1862, and a lighthouse-keepers residence, built about 1861. The lighthouse was designed by then Colonial Architect Alexander Dawson, and is built of Sydney sandstone. The residence, also sandstone, has three separate living units within the single structure. The point was linked to the mainland by a permanent sand spit. In1891 it was washed away in a gale and the spit has become an intermittent landform, covered at high tide.
Soldiers Point
A small garrison of soldiers was established here in about the late 1820s to try to prevent escaped convicts from Port Macquarie crossing the narrow section of Port Stephens en route to settled areas further south.
Tanilba An extravaganza of stone-work welcomes you to Tanilba Bay. The Centenary Gates, designed and erected by Henry F. Halloran in 1931, commemorate the arrival of the first settler, William Caswell. Lieutenant William Caswell RN had served as a midshipman on the Victory at Trafalgar. He settled on his grants at Tanilba, where he built Tanilba House in 1831. He lived here for about ten years before moving to the Williams River, where he built Ballikera. Caswell's daughter married Andrew Lang of Dunmore. He died at sea in 1859. The house faces Port Stephens across Meridian Park, and has extravagant stone landscaping. In the 1940s it was leased as their headquarters by the Gospel Fisherman Mission, before their move to Tahlee on the northern shore of the Port.
Port Stephens Discovery and Exploration.
Port Stephens was discovered by Captain Cook in May 1770, and was named after Sir Phillip Stephens, Secretary of the Admiralty In his log book Captain Cook wrote:
Lieutenant Shortland, in the Alexander transport on his return voyage to England, sailed out of Port Jackson on July, 14th 1788 with the intention to touch at Lord Howe Island, ran into very heavy swell which made it very difficult to keep the ships off shore. On 16th July the rocks off the entrance of Port Stephens bore northwest and Lieutenant Shortland very much regretted that this place had not been surveyed, had it been known to afford safe anchorage, it would have been much more prudent to put in there and wait for a change of wind.
Port Stephens was not entered until late in 1791 when the "Salamander", a convict transport paid a visit, during which an eye-sketch of the harbour and some of its arms was made.
The Salamander was a ship rigged vessel of 320 tons, three decks and 16 foot draught when loaded. It was built on the river Thames in 1776. The Salamander sailed from Plymouth with 160 male convicts - on March 27th, 1791. Five convicts died during the voyage.
In March 1795, Lieutenant-Governor Paterson, wishing to obtain some information which he could depend upon respecting the harbour of Port Stephens, sent Deputy Surveyor Charles Grimes in the Francis to Port Stephens. Charles Grimes described the land as low and sandy and he had seen nothing in the harbour which in his opinion could render a second visit necessary. The natives were so unfriendly that he made few observations of them- He thought they were a taller and stouter race of people than those about Sydney and their language was entirely different. Their huts and canoes were something larger than those which we had seen in Sydney, their weapons were the same. They welcomed him on shore with a dance, joined hand in hand, round a tree to express perhaps their unanimity, but one of them afterwards was on the point of throwing a spear and was prevented by young Wilson.
Below Direction Island, by taking the bearings from the vessel as she lay at anchor off Salamander Point (now Nelson Head and Fly Point). The country to the South and West is a mangrove swamp, on the North side there are a few hills, but the ground is very bad sandy and stoney.
Salamander Bay on Grimes' plans is shown where Nelson Bay is today, and not as applied, east of Soldiers Point, on present day maps. The Point which Grimes refers to as Salamander Point is now Nelson Head. Port Stephens Point, as now known, is shown by Grimes as Mistaken Island.
Captain W.R. Broughton, of H.MAS Providence, during a voyage from England as escort to the Transports Reliance and Supply, after a voyage of six months, was driven by bad weather past Port Jackson and was obliged to run into Port Stephens for shelter on August 23rd, 1795. To Broughton's amazement he found four white men, survivors of a party of 5 convicts who had escaped from Parramatta. The convicts from the time of their arrival in Port Stephens lived with the Aborigines.
On 1st November, 1818, Explorer John Oxley, accompanied by Surgeon John Morris, surveyor Evans and others made way to the coast of Port Stephens at the finish of an exhausting trek of over 5 months in an effort to find the source of the Macquarie River.
Pioneers and Early Settlers of Port Stephens.
In 1824 Captain William Cromarty was allotted a grant of 300 acres "for efficient services rendered to the Government", at Hunters River, but later he decided that land on the northern side of Port Stephens was more valuable and transferred his land grant to a site on the Karuah River. The A.A. Company was anxious to claim the land stretching northward from the shores of Port Stephens and wanted it without the encumbrances of independent settlers.
Surveyor General John Oxley, was sent to Port Stephens and after long negotiations, another land transfer was effected with Captain Cromarty taking up final permanent residence on "300 acres, more or less" at Salamander Bay on a Iong finger of land poking north-east into the harbour. While holding property at Salamander Bay with his wife, 3 daughters and 2 sons, Captain Cromarty was Pilot No. 2 at Newcastle and traded between Port Stephens, Newcastle and Sydney in a small brig named "The Fame".
Captain Cromarty and his eldest son disappeared at sea off One Mile Beach on 1st September, 1838. The grant was authorised by Sir Ralph Darling, but not fulfilled by law until July 1845 as William Cromarty and his eldest son, William Cromarty, died 7 years before and the grant was established in the name of the surviving son Magnus.
Mrs. Cecilia Cromarty was left a widow and remained at the homestead at Salamander Bay where she ran a small store to serve the needs of whalers occasional fishermen and aborigines who lived in the vicinity.
For a time soldiers were stationed on Cromarty land to protect the widow and her family from escaped convicts (from Newcastle in the South and Tahlee on the northern side of Port Stephens). From then on the land was known as Soldiers Point.
Mrs. Cromarty's headstone has been preserved by the Historical Society and remains in it's original position.
Captain William Cromarty's daughter, Cecilia, married a Captain Banks, and afterwards settled a few miles from the Cromarty home on the shores of Port Stephens.
Captain Banks also had a small trading vessel and carried dredged shell from the Port to Newcastle where it was burnt for lime at the Stockton kilns. His wife was a well-known identity in the pioneering days for her bushwife capabilities.
Magnus Cromarty, William Cromarty's younger son, left Port Stephens as a young man, and headed for the Bendigo Goldfields. Four years later he returned with 800 pounds. Using this money Magnus Cromarty bought a portion of land at Bobs Farm. In 1859 he married Christina MacIntosh, an immigrant from the Isle of Skye. They reared 12 children.
On his land Magnus Cromarty grew wheat and arrowroot and kept sheep, pigs and poultry. He brought the first wheeled vehicle to the Port Stephens area - a spring cart that was somehow pulled through miles of virgin and tractless country. |
