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Hassall then attended Reverend Robert Forrest's school at Campbelltown with two of the Nortons, two Oxlets and G.F. Macarthur. Reverend Forrest had retired from the headmastership of the King's School and had been appointed to the incumbency of Campbelltown and Narellan where his stipend was very low and as he had to rent a parsonage he took in six boys as resident pupils. For two years after he formally left School, James Hassal rode to Reverend Forrest's house three days a week to prepare himself to enter the ministry.

He seemed to be a happy childhood where his family entertained frequently and there were many visits to and from members of his extended family as well as many significant people in t he colony. There were many journeys undertaken with his father who spent long hours in the saddle. These journeys gace him an uneviable knowledge of the land and the people of the colony 0 firm bases for his later writings. When he was eight years old he accompanied his father on horseback to Bathurst over the Blue Mountains, a long journey of over 250 kms, in very wet conditions staying overnight in the poor homes of small settlers and trying out the road over Mount Victoria which was under construction and very hazardous. He also went during one of the school holidays with his father, the headmaster, Reverend Mr Forrest, the housemaster, Mr Woolls, and George Macarthur on a long trip to Illawarra. Another trip was overland to Port Stephens in about. 1839 which took them across Wiseman's Ferry, to Wollombi, Maitland, Morpeth and finally to Port Stephens where they stayed with Captain King, a descendent of Governer King and amager of the Australian Agricultural Company's property there. It was on this journey that he met the North family, friends who were to be very close later when the Hassalls moved to Queensland and the Norths were at Wivenhoe.

It was while he was at school at Campbelltown that Hassall made his first acquaintance