-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(small)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This cache is but a short walk from major rail and bus interchanges, and parking is easy. The challenge for the cacher is muggles. Starbrand muggle rating 4/5. Sat reception was indifferent, and the coords are the mode of 15 once a minute observations.
Richard Hayes Harnett was regarded as the greatest real estate developer on the lower North Shore of Sydney in the 19th century. Coming from a family of shipbuilders, he emigrated from Cork, Ireland, in 1840, aged 21. He bought up tracts of unwanted bushland, subdivided them, and over around 40 years some of the residential suburbs he created are Mosman, Neutral Bay, North Sydney, Willoughby, Lane Cove, Longueville, Riverview and Chatswood.
His major developments took place before the Milson’s Point to Hornsby Railway was opened in 1890, and so he did not make a mega fortune out of the thousands of acres he acquired. The loan interest and the rates he had to pay on land that he could not sell quickly enough were a constant drain. In 1860, and again in 1888, he became insolvent and had to make arrangements with his creditors. He also had an expensive hobby - yacht racing and design. In 1857 he had the yacht “Australian” built which was for 35 years one of the fastest racing yachts on Sydney Harbour, and whose revolutionary hull shape influenced yacht design world wide. Richard and his close friend & racing rival, James Milson (of Milson’s Point) were foundation members of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron at Kirribilli in 1862.
In 1868, his wife Margaret Sheehy died, leaving him with eight small children, the youngest only two years old. In 1869, Richard was lucky enough to be accepted by Charlotte MacKenzie of Portland, Victoria. Richard's pet name for his young wife was “Char"(which sounded like "Shah", the same as the pronunciation of the French word for "Cat" - which is spelt "Chat") So it was a play on words and perhaps Chatswood really should have been Char's Wood? Anyway, by all accounts Char's favourite pastime was very cat-like, walking the gardens, orchards and woods of his 700 acre estate in then North Willoughby - such a contrast to the windswept coastal mallee and heath of Cape Nelson where she had grown up.
In 1876 Hartnett named the estate - “Chatswood” - and when the post office was built in 1879, the suburb took the name of the area’s most significant property. Richard was, after all, the mayor of Willoughby! In 1902, he died in his house in Orchard Road, Chatswood (pretty close to where the cache is) and was buried in St. Thomas’s Cemetery, North Sydney, the site of the cache GC3C65 “No rest for the wicked” “Chat”, his four sons and his nine daughters survived him.
The cache is a mini 120 cc “sistema” box containing just a log; there is room for a TB or three, provided they are not attached to toys. Bring a pen. Please report DNFs.
First To Find may get $50,000 - we’ve left a “scratchie” for you. Please replace the cache precisely as you found it - otherwise it will get muggled. Because of the damp, ensure the log bag is sealed inside its zip bag.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)