OLD MANUSCRIPT

Taranaki Daily News, 25 September 1930, Page 11

OLD MANUSCRIPT

OVER 100 YEARS, AGO. CONVICTS ON ROAD WORK. Mrs. M. A. Cox, of Cabramatta, says a Sydney newspaper, in memory of her late husband, Mr. Sydney Thomas Cox, has presented to the trustees of the Mitchell Library, Sydney, the journal of William Cox’ of Clarendon, recording the progress of the construction of a road from Captain Woodriff’s farm, on the Nepean River, opposite Emu Plains, over the Blue Mountains, in ISI4. The journal is about Sin. by sin., and comprises 70 pages of neat writing, fot tiling a diary of each day’s experiences. The journal sets out that it was at the express wish of Governor Macquarie that Mr. Cox undertook the management and direction of making the road. A call was made on convicts to volunteer for tlie worK, the inducement being held out of emancipation when the work was completed. In a fortnight he had gathered a party of 30 hardy men, who had been some years in the colony, and were accustomed to field labour, such men being deemed to be better able to stand six or twelve months’ hard work in the mountains than those who had been house servants, or were accustomed to light labour. : The superintendent and the guide were men who had previously crossed the mountains with Surveyor Evans. Light soldiers were allotted as a guard. Mr. Cox expresses himself, in one place, as lieing staggered at the immensity of his task* of making a road down what he terms "a Herculean mountain, and iceords difficulties caused by bullocks that were too wild to be harnessed, or too lame or poverty-stricken to be worked. On one occasion Mr. Cox issued to each man a gill of spirits, and on another sent three men to examine all the ridges and gullies to the north-west, offering a reward if they found a better passage down to the forest; then followed the mournful entry/ 1 returned unsuccessful.” A kangaroo which the party killed . weitrhed 1201 b.

Age has caused the black ink to fade to brown. The watermark on the paper 15 ‘-Budgcn and Willmot, 1812,” and the handwriting having been compared with a letter written by Mr. Cox, gives proof of the journal.