Henderson's land around the town of Gosford

From the plan of the Town of Gosford from 1890. The
names are those of the original grantees.

I am slowly getting my head around Robert Henderson's complex land dealings. I have already looked at his land in the Pittwater and Budgewoi districts (see earlier posts). 

I have had to accept that the information available on land dealings is less than perfect. Before the Torrens Title system was introduced in the 1880s there was no standardised way to identify a particular parcel of land, other than the description of the original area in the grant documents. Subsequent sales and subdivisions were not necessarily registered.

When Torrens Title was introduced, comprehensive maps were prepared for each Parish and a number assigned to each portion. This became the initial 'Deposited Plan' that has been the basis for subdivisions since.

At the time that Robert Henderson started to buy land, there were no Parishes defined, let alone Parish maps. In some cases it is easy to work out which parcels of land Robert owned, because he was the original name on the land title, so his name is the one used on the early Parish maps. But where the original blocks were subdivided before the first maps were prepared, I have had to rely on the original description when trying to locate a property.

Robert purchased two farms close to the current City of Gosford in 1830 and 1832. There was no town then and not even plans for a town. It would not be named Gosford until 1839! 

The first farm was 320 acres. Robert purchased this farm from Thomas Alison Scott in May 1830 for £150. The paperwork is in the form of a mortgage, so Robert may have borrowed the money, possibly from Scott himself. By the description it was around current-day Point Clare. The sale document can be attributed to our Robert Henderson by his signature. I believe that Thomas Alison Scott is recognised as one of the first settlers of the district and owned large swaths of land. The sale document says that this was the farm where Thomas lived.

The description of the farm is as follows:

'... being in Brisbane Water in the County of Northumberland ... bounded on the south and east by water if Brisbane Water, north and west by unallocated lands, opposite Point Frederick and to the southward of Narara Creek...'

The second farm was 100 acres purchased from Columbus Fitzpatrick in March 1832 for £15. This appears to be an outright sale. This farm is described as follows:

 '...situated in the County of Northumberland, Parish unnamed at Brisbane Water, bounded on the east by Nerara Creek and on the north by a small freshwater creek which is about a quarter of a mile from the southern boundary of W. Heley's three hundred acres ...'

Note the two different spellings of Narara Creek!

I have not found what happened to these two farms, but it is likely that Robert sold them or they were resumed by the Government when the Town of Gosford was established.

In 1841 Robert was granted three allotments in the newly surveyed Town of Gosford. These blocks were each of 2 roods (½ acre) in area (see picture above). They were Lots 16, 17 and 18 in Section 8 of the town plan. The three lots front Baker Street, between Gorgiana Terrace and Donnison Street. Lot 16 cost Robert £22, the other two cost £20 each. Robert held onto these lots and they were included in his estate when he died. I assume he leased them. I don't think the same parcels of land exist in the modern city. They seem to have been combined into larger blocks running all the way between Baker Street and Mann Street.

Next week I will have a look at the land Robert owned in the Parish of Kincumber.