This week, Roy decided he wanted to head towards the Hunter Valley and investigate the amazing history around the Hunter River. Roy loves the Hunter Valley area, which is full of fantastic scenery, fascinating history and towns and intriguing shops and businesses, but hasn’t spent a lot of time in the Raymond Terrace area. He thought this would be the perfect time to change this. The question was, what to investigate? When he discovered that Raymond Terrace is actually the area where Colonel Paterson first stepped ashore when surveying the Hunter River he decided this was ideal.
If you would like to visit the place where Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson first stepped ashore, it is to be found on the waters edge at the end of Glenelg Street. There is a lovely little park area where you could enjoy a picnic or game, and of course it is ideal for a riverside walk. There is also a beautiful 'rainbow serpent' nearby to admire, as well as interpretive signs about the local fish.
Colonel William Paterson was a Scottish soldier and botanist who first came to Australia in 1791. He was a captain in the New South Wales Corp and spent time not only in New South Wales but also on Norfolk Island and in Tasmania. Today he is best known for leading early settlement in Tasmania, but he was also a political figure, serving as Lieutenant Governor under Governor Philip Gidley King. Paterson was also an important explorer, and in September 1793 he even led an unsuccessful expedition to find a route through the Blue Mountains and named the Grose River.
Paterson was also the man responsible for exploring and making a survey of the Hunter River in 1801. Newcastle had been discovered and settled only a short time earlier after Lieutenant Shortland, who in 1797 was searching for a ship and the escaped convicts who had seized it, had come ashore. It was also during this discovery that the Hunter River was discovered and named after Governor Hunter, but it was not explored. It was Governor King who decided that, with coal and timber plentiful in the area, the Hunter Valley (as it is now known) and the Hunter River needed to be explored and exploited. In 1801 he sent Lieutenant James Grant and Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson to explore the Hunter River. They travelled up the river as far as the area where Singleton now is, but the first place where the party, led by Paterson, stepped ashore was this spot on the riverbank at Raymond Terrace.