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21 Yards of Snuff or Salmon-coloured Kerseymere 11 Yards of Drab ditto 9 and a half Yards of White ditto 10 Pair of Waite cotton Hose 1 Piece of Book-Muslin 22 Yards of Cotton Lining 400 ditto of Riband of different colours 15 Purple and White Common Cotton Shawls 20 Large Shawls of different patterns About 24 Barcelona Silk Handkerchiefs Ditto 14 bird eye ditto 2 Black Plated Hats 3 White with Green-under ditto 5 Diaper Table Cloths 11 ditto Napkins
A reward of ten pounds sterling was offered.68
Unfortunately, this was not the last of Hassall's problems with the store, which became a regular target for robbery and forged promissory notes by the convicts. Once, reported in the Sydney Gazett of May 1807, an intruder trited to enter by the chimey before the family had even gone to bed, and fled when challenged.
One of the activities he was involved with was to sell Old Port Wine in bottles and two casks of Port Wine belonging to Captain William Kent of the Royal Navy - an important transaction in a colony which relied on the bartering of rum as currency.69 He also became an agent and brought and sold properties as well as managing the property of Governor and Mrs King which was done so well that Surgeon Harris wrote to King to say that Hassall and Hayes, his co-manager, were doing well - ''I have every reason to be perfectly satisfied with their conduct and attention to your interest''.70 This support for King caused trouble for him later as William Hayes accused him of acting improperly with the King's affairs. Rowland Hassall was anxious to keep his son Thomas informed of all the matters relating to the Kings and showed how he had paid all that was due to them and deplored Hayes' slander ''which proves him to be one of the most ungrateful of men after having served him to the utmost of my Power''.71 The matter persisted even after Rowland Hassall's death when Hayes took the matter to court. Thomas Hassall wrote to William King in 1822 describing how the action would, if pursued, have carried his mother to the grave. He also commented that his father had always been pleased about the King family's satisfaction with the good management of thier affairs and cited the huge increases in stock and the remittances sent regularly to the King family. If he had done as Hayes wanted, that is buy more farms, there would have been no remittances.
68 Sydney Gazette, 26 February 1804. 69 Ibid., 7 April 1810. 70 Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol VI. 71 Hassall Correspondence, A1677-4, p.107 and pp.217-221.
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Thomas Hassall undertook to pay any debts and stressed that if he was not a clergyman and not concerned for his mother, he would have pursued the matter in court.
Hassall acted as administrator of the estate of Edward Larkham and also managed very effectively the properties of W. Cox, J. Howarth, Captain R. Brooks and Captain C. Kent. In particular he managed Reverend Samuel Marsden's property when he was overseas. In fact Hassall was very disturbed by the departure of Marsden and his family and dreaded the prospect of losing his ''best and dearest friends in the Colony''. When the Marsdens returned Hassall met the ship, Ann. on 27 February 1810, made arrangements for the landing of their luggage and had £34 in cash for their immediate needs. He had spent £6 in repairing their house in Parramatta and their affairs had prospered while he was managing them.72
Even by 1804 Hassall was doing so well that his father, James, in England, who had heard of his progress from a visitor, wrote with wonder that he understood ''that you keep a Carriage, and deal in all sorts of Cloth, Silks, Rum, Brandy, Liquors, and in short everything but Bread...that the weekly return of your buisness amounted to £100. That you was grown very fat - All these things gave me great pleasure to hear of, particularly of your regularity in keeping the Sabbath very strict''.73
In 1804 the Irish convict rebellion touched the lives of many people in the colony. Hassall went to preach at Castle Hill and noted that all seemed quiet but when the rebellion started W. Pascoe Crook and his family and Mr Joyce all sought refuge at the Hassall home. Mrs Hassall remained at the house with the children and the men went to help guard Parramatta Barracks until Major Johnston arrived with his troops.74
The land on which Hassall's house stood was about five acres and on the outskirts of Parramatta, at what is now May's Hill on the Great Western Highway, he owned 70 acres which was called the ''Paddock'' and there the family horses were kept. Near Prospect he aquired ''Burder Park'' of 120 acres.
Hassall began to experiment with the wool growing, again with the assitance of Reverend Samuel Marsden who supplied him with seed and stock. By 1808 he had aquired 1300 acres of land including a grant of 400 acres on the Nepean at Camden, now the site of Camden airport and where Hassall Cottage still exists. In 1905 when Governor King held and enquiry into sheep breeding in the colony, Hassall had under his care 216 male and female sheep including the sheep of other flockmasters such as Edward Lamb and those belonging to Mrs Kilpack, as well as his own, and borrowed a Spanish ram from Marsden to cross with his ewes, because he considered that the cross between the Spanish merino and the Bengal ewe to be the most profitable. He received a lot of help from Samuel Marsden who gave Hassall's daughter, Mary, a small wether ewe which within eighteen months had produced eight sheep, all healthy. His farm management skills were shown when he
72 Yarwood, A.T., Samuel Marsden - The Great Survivor, p.111. 73 Hassall Papers, 15 August, 1804, ML A859, Vol. 1, P.119 as cited in Yarwood, A.T., Samuel Marsden - The Great Survivor, p.73. 74 Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol.5, p.314.
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removed his flock from low lying land near the brickfields at Parramatta and put them to better land at Baulkham Hills where the water was not so brackish.75 It was clear that Hassall had learned a great deal about sheep farming and was using his knowledge and observations to good effect. Some of these activities were frowned on by his former preaching companion, William Pascoe Crook who criticised Hassall for his entrepreneurial interests. He persisted, however, and by 1820 he held 3000 acres around Parramatta, Dundas, Prospect, Mulgrave PLace and which included 400 acres at Cook and 400 acres at Bringelly, called Coventry.76
The 400 acres in Cook was on the Nepean at Camden and which he called Macquarie Grove. His house now called Hassall Cottage, still stands although it has been extended and much of his farm is now the site of Camden airport. Rowland Hassall had expanded into horse breeding by 1807 and had a three year old stallion called Northumberland's Son.
[Picture] Hassall Cottage, May 1998.
In November 1810, the newly appointed Governor Macquarie made his first inspection of the interior of the colony and was accompanied at various times by Hassall, the first time being on a visit to Mrs King's farm at South Creek where Hassall was acting as her agent and looking after her 700 head of horned cattle which Macquarie noted were in ''very high condition''. Six days later Hassall rejoined Macquarie's party at the Hawksbury River and accompanied them on a tour of Seven Hills and Toongabbie while the rest of the party went by carriage back to Parramatta.
75 Historical Records of Australia, Vol. V. p.560. 76 Gunson, Niel, ''Hassall, Rowland (1768-1820)'', Australian Dictionary of Biography 1788-1850, Vol. 1, p.251.
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In February 1813 Hassall applied for the position of Superintendent of Governmemnt Stock, a most unlikely seeming occupation for a man with his background, a fact which he appeared to acknowledge as he said ''I flatter myself I should find no difficulty in paying due attention to...[the positon] by having an active person under my direction, which we can easily find''. It was not until March 1814 that Macquarie appointed him to the post at a salary of £100 per year, and there he remained until 1819, assisted by his son, Samuel. This position put him in control of the Cowpastures, the most extensive run in the colony. He was responsible for the distribution of cattle and for the maintenance of the herds. He accepted cattle in payment for debts owed to the government. He decided which cattle were to be slaughtered and after the establishment of the herds on the Bathurst plains, arranged for those cattle to be brought back over the Blue Mountains. He build stockyards, a mill and a residence for the Principle Overseer at the Cowpastures. He valued the stockyards built at Bathurst by William Cox which the government wished to buy. He fenced areas for the keeping of cattle at Rooty Hill and built there house and offices for the accomodation of the Principle Overseer of Government stock.77
[Picture] Site of Rooty Hill Government Depot. The buildings built under Hassall's supervision later became a private dwelling, know as Thornleigh which was demolished in the early 1960's. From Proudfoot, Helen, Exploring Sydney's West.
In April 1815 Governer Macquarie and his wife took their carriage on a journey pm Cox's mew road over the Blue Mountains to Bathurst. From Parramatta to the first depot after the Nepean River, Rowland Hassall accompanied the Governor. At Emu Plains Macquarie inspected the government herd of yound heifers gathered specially in the government stockyards there by Hassall. During the journey Macquarie visited Hassall's farm on the Nepean, which he described as ''very finely situated and beautiful'' and was delighted that Hassall had called them from the farm Macquarie Grove. While they were there Divine Service was performed on the verandah of the house (now called Hassall Cottage) and it was attended by the whole party and the Hassall family. Macquarie recorded that his favourite greyhound, Oscar, had died there and he ''ordered him to be buried in a part of the farm of Macquarie Grove''. On the way back Macquarie stopped at Mrs King's farm on the Nepean River which was at that stage being managed by Rowland Hassall who provided Macquarie and his party with a ''most excellent dinner''.78
In August 1815 Hassall went to Bathurst to inspect the government herds there. The weather was very cold with stong winds and sleet. While they were sleeping at the Jamieson Valley, the party had a fright when Lieutenant Lawson woke them at 2 a.m. to seek refuge: ''When Mr Lawson entered the Store room where we slept we were nearly all affrighted at his appearance what with his meagre face, being wet, cold, & starved with a
77 Colonial Secretary's Correspondence, various reels. 78 Macquarie, Lachlan, Lachlan Macquarie: Governor of New South Wales: Journals of his Tours in New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, Public Libray of New South Wales, 1956.
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blanket over his shoulders, in the dead time of night & in such a solitary place you cannot imagine what thoughts occupied our minds but the most dismal of all was the dreadful account he gave of the Season and country we had to go thro' he pointed out that the snow a few miles ahead was 2 Inches deep, that the road to Bathurst was so boggy that no one could pass, that it had rained every day & that never in all his life had he gone thro' such labour, hardship and fatigue. That the frost & cold was so intense, that it was unbearable, that thro' the Deadful frost & intense cold a great number of Government Cows & Calves had died, & further that it would be impossible to keep Cattle, over the mountains unless they were supported thought the winter by artificial food. From these and similar observations, Your Excellency will perceive that we must be much discouraged in our futrue journey''.79
Hassall found that Lawson's report was indeed too true for cattle kept in a valley in the Vale of Clwyd and there were many losses. He therefore shifted the remainder of the herd to a warmer site at Glenroy near Mount York. He continued his journey to Bathurst and then set out to examine the Fish River and Campbells River areas for suitable grazing lands. Generally he was pleased with what he saw and was very impressed with William Cox's sheep in the vicinity which were healthy and well.
Even during such a journey, Hassall felt it necessary to stop on Sunday morning at Bathurst and to gather all together in the Soldiers Hut for Divine Service at which he gave an exhortation from the first chapter of Colossians and 28 Verse. ''Our congregation was small, but I thought the Lords Day should not be forgotten altogether...''80
At times the work of Superintendent of Government Stock was fraught with danger and Hassall wrote to Governor Macquarie giving a graphic account of terror during the floods on the Nepean Rive in March 1819. On a day when the flood waters were raging and high, distress guns were heard, so Samuel Hassall, three workmen, Ratcliffe, a stockman, and Salter, a constable, took the government boat down to the river towards Macarthur's wharf. The boat was manovered near them and the men taken on board. As they tried to row to high ground one of the oars fouled and the boat was rushed by the raging torrent into a tree throwing all the occupants into the river. Two who could not swim struggles to trees and climbed into them and there they remained until rescued much later. The others struggled out of their clothes and ''...swam to the high lands, being just saved in their bare skins, and some of them much bruised and hurt, and so weak that they were not able to stand: being thus situated I was thankful that so many lives were spared, and my dear son's in the number...;' Constable Salter did not survive.81
In June 1819 Hassall made his last inspection of the Bathurst area as Superintendent of Government Stock. Once again there were heavy rains and the rivers were all running high. Here he completed a muster of the stock - 4 bulls, 7 working oxen, 209 feeding bullocks, 30 steers, 116
79 Colonial Secretary's Correspondence, Reel 6065,4/1798, pp.1-5. 80 Ibid. 81 Sydney Gazette, 13 March 1819.
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