Green Point 1839

(Green Point walkies #5)



Always charge yer bloody camera before going walkies. I bloody well forgot and the bastard died on me one photo in. Nothing worked. No amount resting it, no amount of swearing at and threatening to gouge out its USB port with a rusty knife, nothing worked.

But the sky is blue and the water is a very nice shade. It was a warm day. Spring has not sprung this year and we've gone straight from a mild winter into a red hot summer.

This was taken from a nameless laneway off Avoca Drive between Merindah Avenue and Edgewater Avenue, on the water side of Avoca Drive.


About Green Point

From the history obelisk thingo (Green Point 1789) we know when Green Point was settled by whitefellas and the name of the first one:

"This spot is on the original grant of
640 acres of Crown land
Promised to John H. Edwards
By Sir Ralph Darling in 1829
And granted on 30.9.1839
To Major Henry Smyth who called it
GREEN POINT"


The local history whatsit at the library has some stats:

"1788 - The true extent of the Aboriginal population in the Brisbane Water District is unknown, however it is estimated that several hundred people lived in the area before white settlement.

1823 - James Webb, the first white settler of Brisbane Water, takes up land at The Rip.

1828 - The Census of 1828 records approximately 100 persons in the Brisbane Water Police District, which included Lake Macquarie, Brisbane Water and Lower Portland Head. This figure did not record the number of aboriginal persons, however a census of aboriginals in Brisbane Water taken in the same year records 65 persons between the Hawkesbury River and Wyong. This figure is increasingly believed to underestimate severely the native population, which may have numbered several hundred.

1836 - 621 persons
...
1901 - 7,186 (Census)
...
1947 - 18,700
...
2001 - 161,204 - (Preliminary estimate)"

So 3 years before the major got his land, there was 621 whitefellas and perhaps the same amount of blackfellas living round the whole of Brisbane Water. Not what you'd call a crowd.

On the "1843 Brisbane Water list of Electors" a "Smyth, Henry (Major)" is listed as having "Freehold" on a property at "Broadwater".

Bear in mind that "Broadwater" is not The Broadwater, up between Fagans Bay and Point Frederick on yer 2009 map of Brisbane Water, or even Kincumber Broadwater. It's a vague and confusing term that was applied to pretty much everywhere on Brisbane Water at some point in the past.

In Greville's Official Post Office Directory NSW - 1872 there's no-one listed as living at Green Point but some of the names on the list of locations don't exist anymore (the names not the locations) and some are extremely vague.

In 1882, waterfront land and big fat blocks were being sold at Green Point as "Suitable for Country Residences, Villa Sites and Farms".

In 1911, another land sale has a map of Green Point showing 2 existing waterfront cottages, Green Point Wharf, Green Point Post Office, three un-named streets and Avoca Drive down as "Kincumber Road". Looks like the 1882 land auction made bugger-all impact.

The un-named road leading to the wharf looks like the current Orana Street, just near the Bayside Drive lights.

Have yerself a gander at the Sub-division maps for Green Point and Kincumber, which borders on Green Point in the north.


Nowadays Green Point is a thriving suburb-slash-village of the Greater Gosford/ the Gosford City Council area/ Brisbane Water district. Bustling Downtown Green Point is a supermarket, a bottle-shop (liquor store), a local history marker and a nice park, a teasing hair-dresser, a couple of estate agents and another shop I can't remember for the life of me.


Code Red

Most of New South Wales was on a total fire ban during the week, due to the drought and the wind and stuff.

Then the storms came on Friday and there were fires started here and there by lightning strikes. Nothing here, thank fuck, but summer ain't over yet. Hasn't even officially started.

Are you prepared to survive? - checklists & stuff at the RFS site

I've got me go bag sorted, like they said after Black Saturday. Photos, insurance policy, data back-up, towel, clean underpants. Grab and go.


Local linkage

My trek to Nepal - local bushwalker training for trekking

Kayaking Ettalong to Iron Ladder Beach - good photos, Iron Ladder is just near Box Head and the Palm Beach ferry goes quite near it.

The frog remains the same

(Random walkies in Woy Woy)

Tuesday and Wednesday I spent on the sofa with a blanket feeling sorry for myself. The guts had a brief relapse but they and I are back on deck. Bit of sun this morning and it was over 25 degrees as well, so I wandered down to the hardware via the beach.




Barrenjoey Head & Lion Island from Umina Beach. The clouds piled up over Pittwater and Lion Island this morning.




Box Head from Umina Beach. Beach walkers taking advantage of the sun. It's gone again now and was barely out when I took these.

Going down Trafalgar Avenue to the beach I noticed the old wall rock-and-cement fountain has been taken off the front of that block of 1960s flats called Westcourt. The faded green cement frog is still there though and continues to make a handy whatsit on which to dry a bathmat in the sun.


Sophy's place to Webb's Flat to Woy Woy

I acknowledge that I am blogging from Guringai/Darkinjung land and that the Guringai/Darkinjung are the traditional owners of Woy Woy*.

Michael and Steve commented about the age of the oldest buildings on the Woy Woy Peninsula. (Thanks for the info on those shops, guys.) I haven't blogged much about the beginning of whitefella Woy Woy so here it is.

In March 1788, just a couple of months after the First Fleet arrived in Sydney, Governor Philip and a few of his men came up from Sydney cove for a decko at Broken Bay. They made brief contact with the local people, decided Brisbane Water was of no use to them and went back to Sydney.

Woy Woy was James Webb's farm in the beginning of white inhabitation. Webb arrived in 1823 and by 1834 had bought the land Bustling Downtown Woy Woy stands mostly on.

Webb and Sophy, a Guringai woman, had a daughter. Her name was Charlotte. She was born around 1828, died in 1913 and is buried at Bradys Gully.

For a long time Woy Woy wasn't developed much, just a few houses and ship-yards. Going to the shops meant a vigorous row or a gentle ferry ride up to Gosford. From what I can make out, shops and pubs only started appearing in Woy Woy when the railway came in 1888.

After the railway came there was a population boom then another in the 1940s-1950s, again the 1970s and again now. With populations booms you get building booms and of course those buildings are what forms the visual character of a town.

The Woy Woy pub is 1897 but most of the oldest commercial buildings seem to be long gone, having been wooden and having vanished by the 1940s.

Noonan's is 1914. Looks older but the date is on the front and is confirmed in Strom (excellent local historian).

Ettalong was founded in 1830 according to the sign in Picnic Parade (end of the treed traffic island, facing Blackwall Mountain). I'm hoping to get a firmer date for that pair of old shops in Ettlaong but it's looks like it'll be a tough nut to crack. Haven't found any references yet or seen them in any old photos.


Anyone with old photos of or info about Woy Woy and the Brisbane Water area is more than welcome to post them and it in the comments.


Darkinjung Nation

More local history at the library.



* Hope I got that right. It's part of my post-Sorry efforts. So far I haven't found a lot of info about pre-1788 in the local histories, not even which is the correct name for the Woy Woy people. It's very frustrating.