Early History
The history of the region begins over 40,000 years ago and is contained in the continuing culture of the Tharawal people. The land still contains reminders of their past lives in rock engravings, cave paintings, axe grinding grooves and shell middens. Their culture also remains in the surviving songs, stories and descendants. The lands of the Tharawal language Nation extended from approximately Botany Bay to Shoalhaven and to the foothills of the mountain ranges. The principal symbol of the Tharawal nation is the lyrebird.
European history began in 1788 shortly after settlement at Sydney Cove, when the colony’s entire herd of cattle (four cows and two bulls) strayed from their enclosure and were lost. In 1795 a greatly enlarged herd of 61 cattle were discovered on the grassy land between the Nepean River and Georges River. This area was promptly named the 'Cowpastures' – and was deemed a restricted area to provide ongoing protection for the herd; this restriction was short-lived as the herd, deemed too aggressive to be tamed, was destroyed. The early settlement of the area was described by Lachlan Macquarie in his journals, which accounts include the description of Elizabeth Macarthur being met in a 'miserable' bark hut, the only accommodation then existing at Camden Park. In 1803, John Macarthur had been granted 5,000 acres (20 km²) at the Cowpastures and began grazing Merino sheep. His sons William and James introduced viticulture and a commercial nursery, and a successful dairy was founded by Emily Stone, James' wife.
The region is steeped in history with statesmen, adventurers, larrikins and villains all having an association with the Macarthur region which makes it a tourist destination.
Read more about this topic: Macarthur (New South Wales)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or history:
“Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)