On Saturday 5 November 1814, two days before he began the operations ‘for a road down the mount,’ William had ‘Examined the big mountain, and fixed on the spot where to begin on Monday, having given up all thoughts of attempting it elsewhere. J. Manning sprained his ankle in bringing up a keg of water from the rocks below’. These entries in his journal encapsulate the problems William was now facing. Somehow or other the road had to be got down from the ridge to the forest ground below, in spite of the precipitous descent, illnesses and injuries, and miserable weather. When he achieved the objective it was, in Macquarie’s subsequent admiring words, ‘with incredible labour and perseverance [which] does him infinite honor’.1 A tribute indeed.
If you go to Mount York today, near an obelisk commemorating the 1813 explorers and Cox’s achievement, you will see a short section of the road his men made, which has been restored by the Blue Mountains Council. When the track reaches the lip of the mountain it plunges down, twisting between gigantic boulders, which it was impossible to shift, in places swerving past the very edge of cliffs. The descent was only achieved in a series of semi-circular bends, like a sailboat tacking. The Governor’s secretary, John Campbell, in his account of Macquarie’s tour of inspection in May 1815, described this three quarters of a mile as ‘a rugged and tremendous descent in all its windings’.2 Even when it was finished, horses harnessed to carriages had to be taken down backwards because they became terrified. Great logs were attached to the rear of wagons to slow them – and created a pile of discards at the bottom. When Macquarie’s entourage went down in May 1815 their descent took from 11 am to 2 pm – three hours – and when you look down there you can see why.
That was in the future. Now, when William went forward with his 10 men, there were ‘Light rain and heavy fogs’. In the mountains the climate hardly feels like the Australian summer of the plains below, let alone that there was a drought in the country they were striving to reach. The next day he ‘Employed the same hands in the same manner. Light rain as before. The men very wet and uncomfortable, their clothes and bedding being also wet.’ But at least they were still on fairly level ground, grubbing out trees and creating the track that runs near to the monument. Not far back there is a signpost pointing to the various explorers’ routes across the ridge and a slightly confusing map on a noticeboard.
On 9 November, with his team levelling the ground on top of the ridge quite briskly, William ‘removed to the extreme end of the mountain with the whole of the party’, although the road had not reached there yet. He was glad that ‘The rocks here are so lofty and undermined that the men will be able to sleep dry, and keep their little clothing dry also, which is what they have been unable to do this last fortnight’. This was just as well because there was ‘cold rain’ that day, and on the next and on 11 November again, after a fine working day and a starlit evening previously, ‘Rain commenced before daylight and continued the whole day. Wind S and very cold.’
Three men were ill, one man called Raddock (Roddicks) so much so that he had to be sent back to Windsor. The other two who were laid up included a carpenter with ‘a cold and swollen face’. The sick list was going to mount dramatically in the next few days. Food was a problem too. On this same day, 11 November, William sent two carts back to the second depot for a re-supply of provisions, though they were managing to kill a kangaroo a day for meat. Infuriatingly, having brought the bullocks to provide haulage, trouble was the only thing they were providing. All the beasts had achieved in the past two weeks was to bring one (presumably very large) bag of biscuits the 43 miles from the first depot on the Emu Plains. One bullock had gone blind, wandered into a gully and had to be extricated. William ordered them all down to the forest ground, where they could recover ‘until we remove forward to the Fish river’. In just under four months his men had constructed only 43 miles of road. By 12 November, mercifully a ‘very fine day’ though cold, the road had been completed ‘to the beginning of the large mountain [Mount York], which we have to descend to the forest ground … Continued to clear away the timber and rubbish through the large rocks, and to the beginning of the bluff end of the mountain. Two men on the sick list.’
Again Campbell’s account gives a clearer view of what William faced than he was able to describe himself, when in the thick of tackling the descent. The secretary wrote:
The road continues for the space of 17 miles, on the ridge of the mountain which forms one side of the Prince Regent’s Glen, and then it suddenly terminates in nearly a perpendicular precipice of 676ft. high, as ascertained by measurement. The road constructed by Mr Cox down this rugged and tremendous descent, through all its windings, is no less than three-quarters of a mile in length, and has been executed with skill and stability, and 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.
Campbell went on to identify, without apparently intending to, the expensive result of the Blaxland strategy. ‘Although the present pass is the only practicable point yet discovered for descending by, yet the mountain is much higher than those on either side of it … it has the appearance of a very high distinct hill, although it is in fact only the abrupt termination of a ridge.’3
After he began the descent William’s activities became relatively complicated, since with characteristic energy he was both supervising the road building at the top and exploring the potential of the forest ground below. On 13 November he went down there and ‘from thence to the rivulet, and traced it to the river, about five miles’. Having found the river, which Macquarie later named after him, he went one mile down stream, reckoning it must ‘empty itself into the Nepean River’, then ‘came back on the high lands, exploring the best ground for a road’. This may sound easy but it cannot have been at all so, even though they gratifyingly found the timber was only thin and the grass ‘would be very good pasture for sheep’. But within a week William had to admit that he was overdoing the physical exertion, as he had before.
When he got back up to the work site he found that the horse carts had arrived from the second depot, but had only brought ‘very small loads indeed’. He was irritated and ordered two of them to leave next day for the first depot and return ‘on Sunday next, loaded’. As a result of this disappointment he had to cut the rations. Evidently the men were eating in small groups. He ‘Ordered Gorman to issue 4 lbs. biscuits and 3 lbs. flour for each mess, instead of 6 lbs. each, the biscuits running short, and being also too bulky to bring so far, being 90 miles from head-quarters’. The next day he did note, however, that the men were getting fresh kangaroo at least three times a week, which should improve their health. ‘So many men sick,’ he noted. At noon there was thunder, with rain and hail, a cold east wind and rain all evening.
Any relief was short-lived. That next day, 14 November, also brought worse sickness problems, so that the plaudits William later received at not losing a single man on the enterprise were well deserved. The sick list speaks for itself. ‘F. Dwyer, cold, pains in limbs; S. Freeman, cold and swelled face; S. Crook, cold, bad eyes; V. Hanragan, cold, pains in limbs; S. Walters, hurt by bullock. The extreme wet weather we had for a fortnight before we arrived here has given most of the men colds, but as they are now dry lodged … it is to be hoped they will soon recover.’
What is not said in this record is quite as important as what is said. There is no suggestion that any of the sick men were malingering. Nor did William make any complaint about his own condition; and he must have been every bit as wet and cold as his men. Nonetheless, on 14 November they did get on with a bridge at ‘the beginning of the descent off the mountain, and blowing up the rocks that are in the line of our intended road down to the forest. Find is [sic] difficult work and it will cost us much labour.’ This was generally referred to as the first bridge and was on top of the Mount York ridge. On 15 November the men ‘Fixed two trees as side pieces [to the road] … one 45, the other 50ft. long’.
The need to blow up rocks would also have made William glad that he had been so careful to conserve his small supply of gunpowder. Looking at those rocks today makes one realize that he needed skilled quarrymen. On 16 November ‘the rocks cut [were] extremely hard’. On 17 November the men ‘Worked on the front of the mountain. The ground extremely hard, and very large rocks as we dig into it. Some we blow up, but the greater part we turn out with long levers and crowbars. Kept six men cutting and blowing up rocks, two splitting posts and rails, and it is as much as the ‘smith can do to keep their tools in order.’
Happily 18 November saw an inspired piece of innovation. ‘W. Appledon [a former sailor] fixed the blocks and tackle to trees, and got a most capital purchase to turn out an immense large rock at the side of the mountain in the way of our road … two men received slight hurts in doing it by one of the purchases slipping. This rock would have cost me at least 5lb. of powder to have blown it up.’ One can imagine the dislodged monster tumbling down the mountain, crushing undergrowth and small trees on its way to the forest ground below and terrifying any kangaroos that were there.
It was now a full four months since William and his party had set out from the Emu Plains and, if their progress was fast, given the problems, it had a continuing human cost. On 19 November the sick list numbered six and a further six out of the 30 had to be discharged from the mountain work. In the evening they all endured two hours of heavy thunder, hail and rain. Possibly the continuance of the bad weather, the sheer hard work and the constant obstacles tried William’s patience. At all events, on Sunday 20 November he set off early with Hobby, Lewis and Tye to go down the mountain himself. This foray was to leave him soaked to the skin after a near-disaster and uncomfortably aware of his age.
Meanwhile, preparations for bridging the first river on the forest ground below had continued laboriously. The aim was ‘to examine the rivulet, river and ground as far as Blaxland’s mountain, to find out the best passage across the water, as also to mark the road to it’. Evans had described this as a stream going south and joined with one from the west ‘forming a considerable rapid riverlett’, where Campbell recorded that the Governor was ‘much gratified by the appearance of good pasture land and soil fit for cultivation’. Macquarie named it the Vale of Clwyd
in consequence of the strong resemblances it bore to the vale of that name in North Wales … a rivulet of fine water runs along it from the eastward, which unites itself at the western extremity with another rivulet containing still more water. The junction of these two streams forms a very handsome river, now called by the Governor Cox’s River … which empties itself into the River Nepean, near Mulgoa.
Since the Cox River was 56 miles from the Emu ford, according to Campbell, and William had reckoned the top of the mountain was 45½ miles from there, this first bridge down below must have been over the Coxs River, were there are still traces of one today. But, as maps show, there were a number of rivulets. What is now marked as the River Lett appears to be Evans’ ‘riverlett’.
Campbell’s account explains the problems which William encountered, both here and beyond. The combined rivulets were too large to cross when they became one river and the terrain beyond was tricky. On Sunday 20 November, William may well have been swearing under his breath as he tried to establish a route across either the river or the rivulets, although he was probably too self-controlled to swear out loud in front of his men. It was a bad day for him. First of all, after crossing a small swamp, ‘my horse got stuck in a bog, and plunged until he fell. I received no hurt, but got wet through.’ He then did the only sensible thing, given that they were all short of clothing: ‘Pulled off my clothes, wrung them and left them in the sun an hour, when they were tolerably dry’. It was just as well that it wasn’t raining. Evidently he had acquired a saddle horse.
Shortly after this, when crossing the lower rivulet, close to the junction, ‘Mr Hobby’s horse stumbled and threw him into the water, which from the last heavy rains was quite rapid’. After all that, despite finding ‘the sort of grass fit for cattle and sheep’, William was further frustrated by the crossing places on the river being so encumbered with rock, and the sides so steep, that ‘I did not fix on a crossing place on it, but intend having both rivulets well examined the ensuing week’. He was just about done for, himself. ‘Came back at 6 p.m., completely knocked up from fatigue.’ It really was a game for younger men. Evans had been only 33 when he embarked on his expedition. To cap it all, that evening they again experienced violent winds and three or four hours of the interminable rain.
This soaking, dispiriting weather persisted all week. William only noted the days which were Sundays, perhaps in obeisance to what ought to have been times of rest. On 21 November thunder and rain began at 10 am ‘and continued the whole day, at times very heavy. Only four hours work done.’ He issued all hands a gill of spirits each. The next day was a bit better and the men continued despite light rain and heavy fogs. They turned out a great many rocks, blowing up one in descending the mountain. ‘The ground as we dig discovers many more rocks than we expected.’ November 23 brought ‘a very cold wind, east south east’, though the weather did clear up. William tackled his re-supply problems by sending ‘two carts to Emu Plains, with three horses, and the sergeant and two men to bring a load of flour from Martin’s. Sent Gorman with them, and he took six weeks provisions for two of the soldiers that are to be left at the first depot.’
That same day the supervisor Tye was sent with a soldier and a labourer ‘to re-mark the trees from the second rivulet to the Fish River, a distance of 20 miles [32 km] from hence’ to the west and given directions to return by a ridge of high land ‘that bears as we suppose, from within three miles of the Fish River back to Mount Blaxland, it being my wish to make the road on that line, if practicable’. From the river to Mount Blaxland was ten miles. That this relatively minor exploration was not going to be easy is underlined by the men being given a week’s rations.
When they returned on the evening of 27 November they brought rock cod that they had caught with them, but it rained constantly and the river waters were so high that they had been unable to follow the ridge. They had to come back the way they had gone, through hilly country considered unsuitable for a road, although that had to be the route eventually taken, passing just to the south of Blaxland’s mountain. Confusingly, William’s journal entry for 3 December also has Tye and the soldier returning on that day and reporting that ‘we cannot go on either of the ridges pointed out, and that we must cross the valley by Blaxland’s mountain’. Possibly Tye, who made a series of probing expeditions for William, had been sent a second time. They were now at the Great Dividing Range.
During Tye’s absence work had continued on the rocky descent from Mount York, as did the rain. ‘It mizzled,’ William recorded, using an evocative Middle English word for drizzle which has sadly fallen out of use. The men were turning out ‘an immense quantity of rock, which was very handsomely veined, very like marble’. They were issued with more shoes and trousers. The bullocks disappeared and had to be searched for. Although work was progressing further ahead at the river bridge down below, progress on the descent of Mount York was slow.
On 26 November William wrote that: ‘We have been fortunate in turning out very large solid rocks 2ft. thick without breaking them, and we have used but little powder this week’. To add to this annoyance the bullocks had ‘not been seen these 10 days. Sent Lewis after them and found them up a valley three miles away.’ But at least the carpenter had ‘got 100 posts split and 200 rails for fencing the road down the mountain’. William certainly made his free men supervisors work, for which they were well rewarded at the end with grants of land. The next day a team of the errant bullocks was sent off to bring provisions from Emu Plains, after their harnesses had been repaired. A man named Finch, who was very ill, travelled as a passenger in the cart.
The labour force was still divided between the road down the mountain and the first river bridge, with greater progress around the bridge, albeit at the cost of much effort. On 28 November two very welcome 336 pound casks of flour arrived from Emu Ford and a good day’s work was done. The stonemason completed the rock work a little below the bridge. ‘It has cost us 10 blasts of powder and great labour to get rid of it.’ On 29 November the bridge approach was reinforced with a tree trunk so massive that its mere size was a major challenge. ‘Got a tree,’ William wrote, ‘55 ft. long and 9 ft. in circumference by the men in the woods into his [sic] place as a side piece below the bridge … Men stuck very hard picking and grubbing the rocks and forming the road.’ The next day four were on the sick list. On 1 December Hobby and Lewis ‘again examined the river to find a proper place for a [second] bridge that can be got at from the main ridge we discovered about two miles from the valley below. They found two places and marked back the best one.’
A week earlier William had been intensely aggravated when the government teams bringing supplies reached Emu Ford but refused to swim the bullocks across, because of the height of the river, unless they had a written order from himself. One can imagine him fuming, especially when, after searching for a government horse, his men were unable to find one and on 3 December he had to send the long-suffering Gorman on foot for the 50 miles to Emu Ford with the order. That same Saturday he had the men working hard on what he called the ‘second circle’ down the mountain (as explained above, the steepness of the descent forced the road to be made in a serious of half-circles). The sick list included a man with scurvy, probably for fear of which William had earlier given them cabbages.
On 4 December they were close to success with the mountain road. William recorded that his caravan was taken down the mountain ‘by men, the road not being finished sufficient for horses or cattle to draw on it’. Once down there again himself – and doubtless very relieved to have the caravan available – he ‘removed about two miles to where there is water. The bullock cart took the provisions etc forward [how the cart was got there is not explained]. Went on to the river and fixed on the spot to make the first bridge.’ He had noticed ‘a most beautiful ridge, near three miles long, that leads direct to the spot [on the Coxs River]’, although he could not see any timber fit for it. There was also second lesser river, the River Lett, as an obstruction.
The horses ‘were brought back by Sullivan and two others, who were given the promised reward – half a pint of spirits’. William also issued a gill of spirits each to all hands. It rained all night. 5 December was no better with sleet, hail, thunder and lightning. But 6 December dawned clear and he removed after breakfast with the caravan, horse and bullock cart to the junction of the two rivers (where the River Lett flowed into the Cox) and decided that the obstacles to making one bridge were so great that he would make a bridge over each.
So, on 8 December, after dealing briskly with a variety of logistical problems of transport and provisions, William ‘Left 12 men to finish the road down the mountain, under charge of R. Lewis’, while another 12 laboured on the section between the mountain and the river, which they finished that evening. That day William also made a momentous decision in terms of marking his progress. He changed his point of reference for calculating distances, making reconciling them with his account difficult. Presumably he reckoned that he was roughly halfway. ‘Measured down the mountain to the valley to the fiftieth mile from the ford,’ he wrote. ‘Here I drop this reckoning and commence from the 50th mile to [towards] the west.’ His quoted distances are further confused by references both to rivulets and the River Lett. However, Campbell’s observations make it evident that, having got down the mountain at about 45 miles from Emu Ford, the next major bridge was over the Cox River, some 10 miles of track across hill and vale further on, as already mentioned.
The journal’s descriptions of these various rivers, which as yet had no names except for the Fish River, are confusing. The first major bridge was near the top of the mountain, whereas the next bridges and the two rivulets – where William’s horse had become stuck in a bog on 20 November and he got wet through – were below on the forest ground. He ‘fixed on a spot over each [rivulet] as being less trouble and more convenient than making one bridge over the river’. Furthermore the ascent from the possible single bridging place was ‘much steeper and worse ground for a road’. By the time the road was finished 12 bridges had been laboriously constructed.
Again the Governor’s secretary was later able to give the route a perspective denied to William. The route of the road ran past the junction of the River Lett and Coxs River, close to present day Glenroy, then just south of Mount Blaxland and westward to cross the Fish River, eventually turning north to Bathurst. Campbell wrote: ‘A range of very lofty hills and narrow valleys alternately form the tract of country from Cox’s river, for a distance of 16 miles, until the Fish River is arrived at; and the stage between these rivers is consequently very severe and oppressive on the cattle’. This route had been thought unsuitable at first. Macquarie described it as having ‘numerous steep ascents and Descents the whole way’. It ran quite a long way south of the present Great Western Highway and was to be frequently realigned, the first notable change being in 1823, taking it north of Mount Blaxland, with a major change in 1832. But as yet, on 9 December, William had not crossed the river that Macquarie named after him.
During that day of 9 December, the men had laboured intensively before breakfast on a bridge across the River Lett. At 9 am William ‘took all hands to the second bridge, and before dinner got one of the side pieces, 45 ft. long fixed in its place without accident’. The other side piece was created by felling a tree across the river, ‘about 60 ft. long’. Shifting such timber on a river bank would have involved intense effort and several of the men seemed to be inclined to give in and shirk work, ‘the greater part of whom, in my opinion, are quite as well as myself’. William gave them a ‘reproof in earnest’, expecting it to ‘make them all well by tomorrow’. In the army a reproof in earnest meant having a cat-o-nine tails hung outside the offender’s tent, a salutary reminder of possible punishment. No such sanction existed here, but the reproof worked, since the men had their freedom at stake.
The trouble seems to have begun with an act of kindness to a convict. On 5 December William wrote to the Reverend Cartwright on the Emu Plains asking him to ‘send two of the gaol gang to cut and house Tindall’s wheat at the Nepean. He has a large family and it is his all.’ This was the same Tindall who Bigge later claimed had not laboured on the road at all. Now he ‘could not allow himself to go in, as many others would fancy they were entitled to the same indulgence’. Nonetheless it may have caused resentment. Possibly as a result, in the ensuing days William quite frequently dispensed practical rewards in the shape of half pints or else gills of spirits, as when men had been labouring half the day in the water of the river. He often became very fatigued himself, which was hardly surprising. He was like a circus ringmaster trying to control two arenas at the same time: the recalcitrant road down the mountain and the perilous approaches to the river that later bore his name.
On 11 December William sent six men back to complete the mountain road and ten forward to camp at Blaxland’s mountain, while he set out on horseback with Lewis and Hobby ‘to examine the ground for a road’ as far as the Fish River, 16 miles beyond the Coxs River, through which they must have waded. They found that after passing the distinctive sugarloaf hill of Mount Blaxland on their right they had to ascend a high and rising ridge which was ‘very unfavourable for a road’. William then tried to return via Evans’ route and found it ‘impracticable even for a horse’. He noted that ‘the hills to the west, north and south are extremely high and difficult of access’. In the end he was forced to make his road past Blaxland’s hill. He got back at sunset, ‘much fatigued and disappointed’.
Encouragingly, William found the land here was favourable for grazing, but ‘hills to the west, north and south are extremely high and difficult of access’. Along this section to the Fish River Macquarie later named three hills as Mount Blaxland (already called that by Evans), Wentworth’s Sugar Loaf and Lawson’s Sugar Loaf, honouring the hardships of their expedition, ‘the severity of which labour had seriously affected their healths’. It affected William’s too. Those explorations may sound blundering to a modern traveller. But in such a tangle of virgin scrub and timber William often had a job literally to see where he was heading, even with the aid of a compass.
William’s ‘reproof in earnest’ of 9 December was effective. The next day the men had ‘finished the bridge over the east branch [i.e., rivulet], 22 ft. long, 13 ft. wide. Carpenters etc, made a good strong job of it.’ In the days through to 14 December work on the bridges continued, despite thunderstorms and some men having to work standing in the water, for which they were again rewarded with a gill of spirits. At the same time, William was all too aware of the uncompleted job of the road down the mountain. At 6 am on 11 December, another Sunday in the long march of working weekends, his order was carried out for ‘six married men to go back to the mountain to finish the road down it to the valley. When done they are to be discharged.’ The six included Tindall, who had been so anxious about his harvest on the Nepean. Again this demonstrated William’s considerable skills at man management, giving willing workers the immediate reward of discharge, with emancipation sure to follow, and so re-motivating the rest, although he risked causing resentment.
The next two days saw six men working ‘nearly all day’ in the river. William gave the men a gill of spirits each after they had ‘Got a good day’s work done’. In the evening of 12 December there was ‘a violent thunderstorm, with wind, lightning and heavy rain, which lasted until 9 o’clock’. The men can hardly have been much drier in their bark shelters than in the river. The contrast with the dry weather and drought when Macquarie made his tour of inspection barely five months later was extraordinary.
Further efforts were made to bring supplies forward from the mountain, while work was well ahead in working the road around Blaxland’s mountain. Then, on 15 December came the moment William had so long been waiting for. ‘At 1 p.m. one of the party at the mountain came to report they had finished their task. Sent Lewis back to examine it, and found it completed.’ There is no hint of celebration in the diary, even though it had taken since 18 July – all but five months – to get there. William simply noted the fulfilment of his promise: ‘Gave them their discharge (six men), and sent a cart with them as far as the Nepean, to carry their bedding’. The dismissed men’s feelings of relief can be imagined.
With the mountain conquered, the project really could forge ahead. On 16 December a sergeant was sent back to bring the tools used on the mountain, while the bridge across the west branch of the river was finished. Again a massive tree trunk was indispensable as a side piece. It was ‘an oak tree, with a girth of 9 ft. at least 6 ft. above where it was fallen, and was [a] good 50 ft. long. I never saw such a tree of that sort before … The carpenter worked remarkably well while at this job.’ Next day they broke up their quarters at this bridge and moved forward to where Hobby was superintending work on smaller bridges. William ‘selected 14 men to go forward road-making’. There must by now have been a feeling amongst the teams that they were near the end, despite the daily rains and storms.
On the Sunday, 18 December, William enjoyed a pleasant al fresco Sunday lunch with Hobby, Tye and three others, when they ‘caught some fish, and dined on the banks of the river’. Here he fixed on a possible line of road ‘except going up the hill, which must be avoided, if possible’. This was Blaxland’s mountain, on the side of which Hobby’s team had been working. Happily the next day William ‘Found a way to avoid the high hill … and marked the ground for a road’ despite a violent thunderstorm at 3 pm. They returned three hours later to find that Lewis ‘had brought the bullocks forward’. The following day was ‘extremely clear and hot’, with a violent afternoon thunderstorm.
A curious episode now erupted, again perhaps symptomatic of exhaustion, on the Tuesday when William ordered the sergeant (Kelly) to take back a man named J. Allen, who had been very ill for some days. ‘To my surprise he made such frivolous objections as I did not like … said neither his horse or himself had shoes; but if he was ordered he must go.’ It was an unwise underling who refused orders from William. The Parramatta cart was promptly ordered to take the sick man back to the Nepean and the sergeant was sent off at dawn next day to the first depot to relieve a corporal with written instructions ‘for his guidance there’. History does not tell us whether the sergeant was demoted, but it seems likely. William did not take kindly to insubordination.
Christmas was rapidly approaching, and with it more thunderstorms and daily rain, often extremely heavy. It was proving to be an exceptionally wet season, which swelled the waters in a succession of small rivers over which bridges had to be constructed, although there was a drought on the far side of the range. Both bridges (near Glenroy) were completed on 21 December. Two days later William sent a progress report to the Governor, and being without the Parramatta team, had to get timber for the last six bridges cut by the men with him. He recorded ‘we are now at 15½ miles’ – presumably this was from the 50 mile mark – but on 24 December he quoted the total distance as 90 miles and added: ‘Went forward this afternoon to ascertain if I could get my caravan with safety to the Fish River’. He succeeded in doing this on Christmas Day. On 24 December they ‘Finished a very good bridge at 1 o’clock. Went on after dinner half a mile, and began another bridge.’ One can sense the impetus, even in William’s purely factual writing.
On Christmas Day William recorded that they had ‘three bridges to make and five miles of road’. Possibly he had now established the line of road for a total of 90 miles, though his subsequent entry for 27 December suggests that he had not. It being Christmas Day, he ‘issued to the men a gill of spirits and a new shirt each’. He now fixed on a spot to cross the Fish River, though the timber ‘appears to be bad and scarce about here. Cannot find any for sawing.’ Traces of the bridge are still visible.
On 26 December William sent back to Clarendon ‘for a good cart horse, to prevent delay after we cross the river’. The forge was erected ‘to repair the tools, they being much out of order’. The next day, ‘At 9.00 a.m. crossed the river for the first time with Mr. Hobby, J. Tye and a soldier … to ascertain the best place for a road’. William noted that ‘the grass in this valley was the best and thickest on the ground I have yet seen in this colony’. They ‘saw six kangaroos, a flock of 11 emus, wild ducks and pigeons, but for want of dogs killed none. At 6 p.m. returned and reached the river quite tired.’ From this description the land beyond the Fish River was a grazier’s paradise. The Governor’s secretary, Campbell, gave a parallel impression. He wrote that the land beyond the river to the Sidmouth Valley ‘abounds with a great variety of herbs and plants, such as would probably interest and gratify the scientific colonist’.
William was now preoccupied with getting across the Fish River, having already built 10 bridges. The Campbell River would be the final obstacle, and he was pursuing a direct line west towards it. However, he did note on 29 December ‘A fine morning, which the birds seem most to enjoy on the banks of the river. The shrubs and flowers are also extremely fragrant.’ He wrote to the Governor ‘with the proceedings down to this period, but shall not send it away until my return from the western excursion’. This ‘excursion’, though he made it sound as simple as a trip to the seaside, was to be gruelling and the last one he described, in the longest entry of the whole diary.
The next entry was on New Year’s Day 1815, a Thursday. William and his party crossed the Fish River at noon, leaving Gorman in charge. They headed for the Campbell, crossing the Emu Valley and then the Sidmouth Valley, ‘a most beautiful one’, where they found many kangaroos and wild turkeys. On the first evening they crossed the Campbell and camped. The next day, heading north-north-west on their horses, they ‘followed the course of the river about three miles across the O’Connell’s plains to the point where the Macquarie and Campbell rivers unite, at 11.30, where we sat down for the day’. The Macquarie had been named by Evans in November 1813.
They were now into the lands of which Macquarie had such high hopes. William commented that ‘At Sidmouth valley I never saw finer grass, or more on the same quantity of land in a meadow in England’. This was confirmed in the secretary’s account.6 The Governor was highly gratified by the appearance of the country … gently rising grounds and fertile plains. Judging from the height of its banks and its general width, the Campbell River must be in some parts be of considerable magnitude, but the extraordinary drought which has apparently prevailed … as throughout the colony for the last three years … has reduced this river … [to] a chain of ponds. At the time this must have seemed extraordinary, in view of the torrential weather on the mountains. It also underlines that the hazards of farming have not changed in the two centuries since. Campbell noticed great numbers of ‘the water platypus mole’ in the river pools.
Thus over three days William’s group had crossed the Campbell and ridden the whole length from the Macquarie River back to ‘where we are building a bridge in the day’ over the Fish. The Fish is the main tributary of the Macquarie, joined by the Campbell. ‘The whole of the line, about 20 miles due west, would make most excellent grazing farms,’ William wrote, explaining ‘This is the south side of the Fish River I am describing. On the north side I have not yet been.’ He had been on the south side ever since he crossed the river. When they got back he ‘ordered a bullock to be killed for the use of the people, which I had issued to them in lieu of giving them a ration of salt pork … when the men were mustered this morning they were extremely clean, and looked cheerful and hearty’.
On 2 January William sent off letters to the Governor and the Commissary. They were 21 miles beyond the mountain, which by the secretary’s account would have been several miles short of the Fish River, and were faced by yet another difficult hill. On 3 January ‘the men finished filling in the piers at each end of the bridge’. Some of the logs had to be brought three miles (he had originally noted the lack of local timber for sawing). He further explored the south bank, but found gullies and less good land. Quite apart from the road, he constantly had in mind the future farming settlements it would serve. Next day he went with Hobby to mark the line of road from the Emu Valley to the Sidmouth Valley (both run roughly north to south) and in the evening moved the gang of 12 to the Emu. Sending so many men home had depleted his workforce. To his disappointment, the cart of provisions from Parramatta failed to arrive.
Then on 5 January, quite suddenly, the strain of the long and punishing endeavour overtook William and he fell sick himself, the last of the team to do so. ‘About midnight I was taken violently ill with excruciating pains just above my left hip.’ Perhaps he had spent too long in the saddle. ‘In about two hours it became easier, when I got into a perspiration and slept a little. Was in considerable pain until about 9, when I again dozed, and got up at 11 considerably better.’ There was no medical orderly on the expedition, so William had to treat himself. This may be another reason why the diary ended abruptly two days later, after a brief 7 January entry.
Some consolation was that on the day he fell ill the Fish River bridge was completed. No doubt forcing himself to write, William noted that it was ‘strong and well built’ with stone piers of 25 feet at each end. ‘The span across is 25 ft. more, which is planked with split logs. It is altogether 75 ft. long and 16ft. wide.’ On 6 January he ‘crossed the river over the new bridge with the caravan and two carts, as also our horses, and went as far as Sidmouth Valley’. He marked the road ‘from the valley to the next creek, where we have a bridge to build, as also one in the valley’. His final entry, on 7 January, recorded his ordering the men further forward and himself riding to the head of the Sidmouth Valley. ‘Returned by the hills, which are very fine. An emu and a kangaroo passed quietly along.’ These last words conjure up a vivid picture of William in his paradise, riding in the wilderness. But he was quickly back at work at home. On 15 January 1815 he submitted an estimate to government for the construction of two bridges and the road of Bridge Street at Windsor at a cost of £200. This estimate included details of the number of trees that would be needed and how many logs could be fixed in place in a day – on all of which he was now an expert.4
The road was completed at the Bathurst plains on 14 January 1815. When the Governor arrived at these plains on 4 May he ‘remained a week, which time he occupied in making excursions in different directions through the adjoining country on both sides of the river’.5 Macquarie remarked in his own journal on 5 May that the Bathurst plains extended ‘on both sides of the Macquarie River for 11 miles and nearly three miles each side’. He was almost ecstatic about the land, which was beautiful and ‘very fit for Sheep Walks’. This was where William and his sons were to make their fortunes as pastoralists. On 7 May he fixed on a site for the future town of Bathurst ‘in honor of the most noble Earl of that name’.
On several occasions Macquarie met small groups of ‘natives’. He observed one such group, whose members showed ‘great surprise at seeing so many strangers’, to be ‘very inoffensive and cleanly in their persons’. On 10 May he gave three men presents of ‘slops and tomahawks’ and ordered that they should be given plenty to eat from the public stores. These were members of the Wiradjuri who, only 10 years later, were to be protagonists and losers in the ‘Black War’ around Bathurst, resulting from the pressure of white settlement on their ancestral lands.
Secretary Campbell’s account finished: ‘The road constructed by Mr Cox and the party under him commences at Emu Ford … and is thence carried 101½ miles to the flagstaff at Bathurst’. He continued: ‘The Governor cannot conclude this account of his tour without offering his best acknowledgements to William Cox, Esq, for the important service he has rendered to the colony in so short a period of time’ and ‘shall have great pleasure in recommending his meritorious services on this occasion to the favourable consideration of his Majesty’s Ministers’.6 This Macquarie did, but no honour was gazetted, although William was granted 2000 acres at Bathurst, near the junction of the Macquarie and Cudgegong Rivers. This became Hereford farm, very close to the township.
More formally, Macquarie wrote to Bathurst on 24 June saying, ‘The … road is as good as the Nature of the Mountainous hilly Country, thro’ which it is made, Could possibly Admit … [the road] thus constructed by Mr Cox, does him and the Party, who worked under his direction, Infinite Credit’. The Governor went on to say ‘I therefore beg leave to recommend Mr Cox in the Strongest Manner to the favourable Consideration of your Lordship’. He asked authorization to pay William £300 from colonial funds and give him ‘a handsome Grant of Land in the New Country’. He further asked permission to appoint a commandant at Bathurst at a salary of £200 a year and recommended William for the post, ‘he being in My Opinion eminently well qualified … Mr Cox is a Sensible, intelligent Man, of great arrangement, and the best agriculturalist in the colony’. Macquarie envisaged the job as only being necessary for two to three years and indeed William Lawson was appointed as superintendent in 1819.7
Obelisk monument to the 1813 explorers and William Cox on Mount York. The plaque reads: ‘The first road over the Blue Mountains was completed in January 1815. The commission to execute this was entrusted by Governor Macquarie to William Cox Esq. J.P. Lieut 102nd Reg of Clarendon, Windsor, died 15.3.1837’ (Author’s photo)
While Macquarie considered that under a normal contract the road would have taken three years, Evans had suggested three months (though with 50 men). William constructed those 101 miles in under six months and without the loss of a single life. Yet settlement on the Bathurst plains did not begin in any numbers until after Macquarie had left in 1821. The Governor had told Bathurst, in his 24 June 1815 despatch, ‘I shall not make any Grants of Land in the New Discovered Country, Until such time as I shall be honored with your Lordship’s Commands’. He did not want to put the government to the considerable expense of sending settlers there, the only expense at that moment being of six soldiers and six labourers. Other reasons for not settling the area were that he wanted to allocate all the land on the Cumberland Plain first and also feared that convicts sent to Bathurst (as farm workers) would escape. Given Macquarie’s earlier astonishment that no one had previously found a passage across the mountains, and that the 1813 expedition had been prompted by the army worm and exhaustion of the soil on the plain, this restraint made little obvious sense.
However, Macquarie was as good as his word over the road workers’ reward. Three received free pardons, one a ticket of leave and all the rest were emancipated. The superintendents received land grants and cows. William not only made his name and earned a place in the history of the colony – to this day there many Cox roads in New South Wales – he emerged financially a great deal better off. He now had both the £300 reward and the annual £200 salary at Bathurst on top of his existing £50 a year as a magistrate at Windsor. His career as a government adviser acquired a much greater impetus than just as a contractor: he accompanied the Governor on another tour across the mountains in October 1815, was sent to explore the Lachlan River in 1817, and helped provision Oxley’s expedition in 1818.
The price was that for the next three years William’s activity was divided between Bathurst and his home at Clarendon on the Hawkesbury, a minimum of five days apart on horseback, more in a carriage. His full career as a pastoralist did not develop until the 1820s, although he had flocks of sheep at Clarendon and could fairly be described as a landed gentleman there. But his becoming one had to wait on these years spent as an official, which themselves throw light both on William and on the way the colony was run, while the administration of Clarendon is a case study in the management of an estate, of its convict labour and of his wife Rebecca’s role in that enterprise.
Lake Lyell on Coxs River near Lithgow. Damming the river to provide water for a thermal power station has greatly reduced the river’s flow (Author’s photo)