The Colony
The Bellinger Valley remained insulated from white colonisation for several decades due to its inaccessibility. The sand bar at the river mouth proved a problem for seafaring vessels and deterred the efforts of early maritime explorers. It was only a matter of time, however, before an overland expedition was organized.
In 1841, Clement Hodgkinson, government survey from the Macleay, led a small exploration party along the banks of the two rivers. They were impressed by the wealth of cedar and the rich alluvial river flats, and returned to Kempsey to signal their discovery. Hodgkinson named the main river the ‘Billingen’ – an aboriginal word meaning ‘clear water’. The smaller of the two rivers he called the ‘Odalberrie” (Kalang). White settlers saw the land as wild and inhospitable. They carried with them however, a new-found sense of freedom and a vision from another land. They pulled on their leather boots, took up their iron tools and, with characteristic colonial determination, sought to transform the land into a more familiar creature.
In 1841 William Miles, a stockman from Kempsey, was the first European to enter the Bellinger Valley. He recognised the rich potential of the cedar, which abounded in the area. The following year the Northumberland crossed the bar at the site of modern day Urunga. It heralded a 'tree rush' with cedar cutters moving into the area, cutting the trees and waiting for the floods to move the trunks down to the river mouth. The cutters were followed by farmers who, recognising the rich potential of the river valley's alluvial soils, grew maize and grazed dairy cattle. Although settlement began in the Macleay valley in the 1830s and the Clarence in the 1840s, land in the Bellinger valley was largely unsettled until the 1860s.
The “Robertson Land (Settlement) Act” of 1863 threw the land open to settlement. Holdings of up to 320 acres were available for “selection” on a conditional lease bases for a few shillings a year. Selectors also had the option of buying land, but the majority could not afford the purchase price of one pound per acre. The floodplain was cleared and burned.
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