Population of 229 – only 7 were female

Goulburn was now split in two. “Old Town” and “New Town” were separated by a large billabong. The water-hole, which wasn’t filled in for many years, gave its name to Lagoon Street.

The Police Garrison, court house and gaol stayed in the “Old Town” (clustered around the site of the modern gaol). So did the two inns, the shoemaker, tannery and blacksmith. A Post Office had been set up there, and two entrepreneurs, Benjamin and Moses, had established a shop.

A couple of kilometres away, “New Goulburn” waited in vain for a population to arrive, but there was no reason to go there. There wasn’t a decent road, shop, school, pub, post office or church in sight. All that could be seen was the gallows on top of Bradley Street hill.

The only entertainment it had to offer was when everyone came from miles around to cheer and heckle at a hanging.

Probably the first building of note was a weatherboard hospital established in 1834 on the corner of Clifford and Sloane Streets, on the site of the current police station. It was built for practical reasons, so that the gentry did not have to suffer the inconvenience of sending sick convicts to Liverpool for treatment.

The arrival of Dr Patrick Hartnett gave the new township a shot in the arm. In that year, the population of the combined townships grew to 229, seven of whom were female.

The first arrivals slowly trickled in, bringing their own jobs with them. Blacksmiths, wheelwrights, wood-cutters, sawyers, builders, carpenters, fencers, brick-makers, shingle-splitters, carters, ostlers, tinkers, tanners and shoe makers were always in demand.

The pioneer’s adze-cut slab huts slowly gave way to pitsawn-weatherboard cottages, and random-rubble to brick. Bark roofs were replaced by shingles, but shutters still filled the windows, for there wasn’t a single pane of glass in town – it couldn’t survive the journey from Sydney over unmade roads.

For the same reason, china and crockery was rarely seen. Most people ate off tin plates. Others just used their hands.  Even cups and mugs were in short supply. There is an old tale of a bullock-driver, desperate for a tot of rum, drinking it out of a cow-bell. The story goes that every time he took a swig he had to look over his shoulder in case the noise had attracted a randy bull.

Speaking of bullocks, twowheeled drays were the only vehicles that could manage gullies and river crossings. They took a month or six weeks for a round trip to Sydney if the weather was good, and longer if it wasn’t.

A dray carried not much more than a ute, and charged 14 pound a ton for the trouble. That might not sound much, until you find out that the average wage in Goulburn in 1837 was only 20 or 30 pounds per year!

It’s no surprise then that proper furniture was only seen in wealthy homes – and there were precious few of those in early Goulburn.

Comfort did not exist. Most people sat on stumps or stools and slept on the floor.

Plumbing was unheard of and lighting was provided by oil-lamp or candle in affluent households. Everyone else made do with smelly slush lamps – a burning twig floating in mutton fat – or just threw a handful of bark on the fire when required.

The same fire did service for cooking and heating. Flour was made by the tedious ritual of “banging the mill” – a hand operated wheat-grinder that could be found in even the most remote shepherd’s hut. (Wheat was grown in the district from the earliest of times).

“Damper” was the staple food, easily cooked in its most basic form by slapping a flat handful of dough onto a hot rock beside the fire. It was eaten with salted beef or “pork and pease,” and with currants for dessert. Salt, tobacco, tea and sugar were expensive, and often unavailable.

Desperate characters were known to smoke and drink all sorts of inferior substitutes.

At the end of 1835, Duncan Mackellar arrived, and camped under a tree while he built a house. His wife Jane joined him when it was finished. She later said that the only buildings she remembered in central Goulburn in early 1836 were the hospital and the Doctor’s store on the site of the present Commercial Bank; (apparently the Doctor had branched out). “I was many weeks in Goulburn before I saw another white woman, and blacks were my only visitors,” she later recalled.

In 1836 a flour mill was erected, which was a great boost to townsfolk and farmer alike.  1837 was a red-letter year.

Bradley’s Brewery was completed by the installation of a stateof-the-art steam engine. Craig set up his furniture-making business and made coffins on the side, and an Iron Gang completed the first bridge over the Mulwaree River on the road to Sydney.

More allotments were put up for sale, and Keeley’s brickyards churned out bricks as fast as they could make them. “Brick houses are rising like mushrooms” wrote one observer. The Commercial Bank opened its doors on the site it still occupies on the corner of Verner and Auburn Streets, and Goulburn’s first retail emporium, “The Australia Stores,” erected its impressive facade in Auburn Street.

Three hotels came “on tap”; the “Salutation”, the “Royal”, and the “Goulburn”, (later known as Mandelson’s, which still stands in Sloane Street). A crockery shop even opened up for business.

The Presbyterians and Anglicans were holding services in the district, but were yet to build their churches. Just in time too, for after the boom comes the bust. I’ll tell you all about it next week.