2010 marks 150 years since the
proclamation of the township of Shepparton. It is a shame
that there is so little remaining in the area to remind us of those
early years.
The Goulburn River was first
“discovered” by the explorers Hume and Hovell in
December, 1824. They first crossed it near where Molesworth
is now located. It was named after Colonial Secretary Mr.
Frederick Goulburn, however when they eventually returned to Sydney
they found there was already a river of that name in the colony, so
they renamed the river Hovell. When Major Mitchell came to
the river in 1836, at Mitchellstown, he wrote in his diary that he
did not like either the names "Goulburn" or "Hovell," but preferred
the name the indigenous people had for it, which he says he
ascertained was "Bayunga" or "Bayungun." In all his subsequent
writings he refers to it as the "Bayungun" River.
When looking at early maps of
Victoria, the river is sometimes shown as the "Hovell River;"
others show it as the "Goulburn." Mitchell's map shows it as
the "Bayungun." While other maps again, apparently in order
to play it safe, show it as the "Hovell, Goulburn or Bayungun
River.”
Similarly, Shepparton also suffered
from an identity crisis in its early years. In pre-European
times the area was known as "Kannygoopna" meaning "the place in the
river where big fish are caught." From the late 1830’s
the land (which includes the area where Shepparton now stands) on
the eastern side of the Goulburn, from the Broken River in the
south and extending to the Broken Creek in the north, formed a huge
sheep run known as the "Tallygaroopna". A young Irishman
called Sherbourne Sheppard squatted on the 172,000 acre run from
1843. He went back to Europe in 1852. Upon his return
to Victoria in 1855 he forcibly resumed control of the run in an
incident known as "The Siege of Tallygaroopna".
In the early 1850's, Patrick Macguire
built a bush inn on the eastern bank of the Goulburn and saw the
advantages of establishing a punt on the river to gain profit from
the miners who saw more prospect in the fields of the North East
rather than those of Central Victoria. At the time when the
gold fever was at its height, the spot became known as "Macguires
Punt". The punt, and its successor built by J.K.Hill in late
1853, were utilized for over 20 years until the railway reached
Shepparton and the first official bridge was built over the
Goulburn.
By 1853, the area around the punt had
begun to be referred to as Sheppard’s Town. By mid
1854, the area become listed as “Shepparton (late Macguires
Punt)” in the Victorian Government Gazette. In 1855,
Surveyor R.M.Wilmot made the first township survey, and entitled
the plan “Shepparton, Macguires Punt.”
Based on that survey, on September 24,
1860 the Governor of Victoria, Sir Henry Barkly, ordered that land
be set aside for the township of Shepparton:
...and the rest, as they say, is
history!
