First Wool Sales in Goulburn in 1845 

18 December 1935 Goulburn Evening Penny Post

"Native” writes -The wool industry at Goulburn goes back   to the foundation of the settlement itself.

Shortly after the Goulburn Plains were discovered in April, 1818, Governor Macquarie promised W.W. Broughton in the September of the same year, 1818, 600 acres on Goulburn Plains, quit rent. He started in 1827.

This may be regarded as the start of the wool industry in the Goulburn district.

From statements in 1848, when the late Mr. Moore, of Pomeroy, made a private survey of the then proposed railway, to Goulburn we, gather that from Athurs-leigh in support of a railway, that the wool, the staple industry, had been carried to Sydney for nearly 30 years by the road.

Further back, in 1838, a traveller who visited Argyle in February of that year, stated he met with 78 dray laden with wool between Cowpastures Bridge and Bungonia in two days which made what was regarded in those days an enormous quantity of 936 bales, an average of 12 bales on each dray. 

The great south road was in a terrible bad state between Sutton Forest, Paddy's River, Bungonia and Marulan.

There were eleven wooden bridges in impassable state. 

One of the earliest sheep sales at Goulburn was in the year 1846, when the late Mr. Dignam sold 626 from two to three-year-olds at 6/- a head. 

He also sold 1182 head at 5/- a head.

The wool was sold at Goulburn from one lot of these sheep at 1/5½ a lb. in 1845.

The old Australian Stores in Goulburn were buying wool. 

From Mummell, in 1836, one settler had 1600 lb of wool, for which he expected to get 1/2 per lb. 

Sir Richard Bourke, in reply to the address presented to him at Goulburn Plains in June, 1832, stated, "I have been grateful beyond my expectations in beholding the beauty and fertility of the district, in witnessing the exertions which the inhabitants are making for the extension of cultivation and the improvement and increase of those valuable flocks upon which so much of the prosperity of this colony depends.

The preservation of that race in its greatest purity, so as to ensure a never failing supply of fine wool for the English market is an object which the colonists should never lose sight of."     

In the Xmas seasons of'1845, the high price of wool put heart into the people of old Goulburn and in, that year, I think, there were a number of bales' of wool sold at one of the stores.

That was the year when the old town was visited by one of the greatest storms ever known since “white" men first settled here and nearly wrecked the township.

The shop fronts had shortly before been remodelled and introduced in that year also. 

The first wool clip of the season passed through from Lithgows', and the Nicholson stations, Lake George, two dray loads.

The hail that fell in the storm at Goulburn in 1845 was 7½ in. to 9 in. in circumference and two inches and more in diameter. 

It was in the Xmas of 1844, shortly before this storm occurred at old Goulburn that a most remarkable fiery meteor appeared and shot over the township of Old Goulburn.

It was somewhat larger than an orange. 

Its extraordinary appearance and  dazzling brightness made some of the early settlers of the town think it was a precursor of no good.