Dating Larras Lake

Title from the 1907 Parish Map for Larras Lake.(source: hlrv.nswlrs.com.au). The name continues in use even though most other references to James Larra have been eliminated. That his name survives here is perhaps only because it has been used on Land Title records since 1862.

A search for the first mention of Larras Lake(s) was adopted as the logical way to establish the origins of the name. Fortunately establishing a starting point was simplified by the mention of Larras Lake C on a map of “the Goldfields” prepared by Major Thomas Mitchell in 1851. [Archives Authority of NSW, map XX] This map was prepared by Mitchell to accompany a report on ‘the extent and productiveness of the goldfield …discovered in the County of Bathurst.’ His survey took place over three months from June 1851 and is discussed in more detail in the story of Percy Simpsons Marked Line that appears elsewhere in these pages.

An extract from Mitchell’s 1851 map – showing Larra’s Lake C. The watercourse marked as Nandillion Ponds was absorbed into the length of the Bell River in the 1980s. [NSW State Archives] The red lines mark the route of various roads and tracks as encountered by Mitchell in June, July and August 1851.

Stepping back in time from Mitchell’s 1851 adventures, the name “Larra’s Lake Creek” was found to be in use in 1834, when it was nominated as a boundary for pastoral leases on the east bank of the Bell River, part of which was then referred to as Nandillion Ponds..

Colonial Secretary’s Office, Sydney, July 16, 1834. YEARLY LEASES OF LAND.
AT One o’clock of Friday the nineteenth day of September next, the Collector of Internal Revenue will put up to AUCTION, at the Police Office Sydney, the Lease of each of the undermentioned PORTIONS OF LAND, for one year, commencing 1st October 1834, on the Conditions authorised by Government.
….18. Bathurst, at Molong, on the north bank of the Nandillion Ponds, 640, Six hundred and forty acres ; bounded,on the west by the section lines dividing it from lot 17; on the south by the Nandillion Ponds and Larra’s Lake Creek; on the east by the section line; and on the north by a line west to include the quantity : applied for by Thomas Kite.
…19. Bathurst, at Molong, on the north banks of the Nandillion Ponds, 640, Six hundred and forty acres ; bounded on the south by the section line south of the junction of the Nandillion Ponds and Larra’s Lake Creek; on the west by the Nandillion Ponds ; on the north-west and north by Larra’s Lake Creek ; and on the east by a line south to include the quantity : applied for by Thomas Kite.

(New South Wales Government Gazette Wednesday 16 July 1834 – Page 498)

After a period of additional search a map prepared by Surveyor John Rogers in 1829, five years before the pastoral leases were gazetted, was accepted as containing the earliest formal documentation of Larra’s Lake. An extract from that map, already presented in the introduction to these pages, is repeated below. ¹ Rogers’ map showed the name of each creek he had surveyed, including its denomination – for example Weandra Ck and Nubrigyn Creek. Perhaps significantly, Rogers labelled what was later referred to as Larra’s Lake Creek as Lara’s Lake – suggesting that the entire watercourse – which Rodgers showed as incorporating several small lakes – was called Lara’s Lake. If that is the case, even the suggestion² made in 1832 by the Sydney Gazette , that Larra’s (then referred to as Larry’s) Lake was a body of water on the Bell River is thrown open to question. Larra’s Lake may have been a pretty body of water at the confluence of Larras Lake Creek and the Bell River, or it may have been the name given to a string of three or four small lakes upon a watercourse which flowed into the Bell River, as indicated by the positioning the name adjacent to them on Rogers’ map. A third possibility was that the overall watercourse was Larra’s Lake…

Extract from the map *“Survey of Creeks and east bank Bell River and parts of range between Bell and Macquarie Rivers”* John Rogers, 1829 *(Source: Archives Authority of NSW)*

Having looked reasonably closely at the situation, I am comfortable with the possibility that Rogers positioned the name adjacent to those small lakes quite deliberately to indicate the location of Lara’s Lake – in the possessive form – as then known to him. I am also prepared to suggest that the group of small lakes clearly shown on Roger’s map were originally referred to as Larra’s Lakes – i.e. plural. However, feeling comfortable with a suggestion does not resolve the question… Nor does it suggest the origins of the name.

It may also be useful to note that John Rogers’ map did not show a lake at the confluence of Larra’s Lake and the Bell River, where the ‘pretty body of water’ was supposed to exist in 1832. Certainly there would, in a good season, have been a body of water in the Bell River at that point, but the map prepared by Rogers does not suggest this was significantly more than the normal width of the river. Unfortunately, although a notation on the 1829 map indicates Rogers had already completed a survey that addressed the overall course of the Bell River, it would seem that particular map has not survived. More’s the pity, because it may well have resolved the question once and for all… . Roger’s representation of the confluence (lower left corner) of Larra’s Lake with the Bell River is shown below.

*Rodger’s 1829 representation ( at the lower left ) of the confluence of Larras Lake (Creek) with the Bell River (then named “Nandillion Ponds”)*

At this point a significant contribution was made by another local researcher regarding Larras Lake, in the form of an advertisement for land available for purchase in 1837…

Wellington, 1000 acres more or less, parish unnamed, at Larra’s Lake, commencing at the confluence of Larra’s Lake with the Bell River; price 5s per acre. (Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser Saturday 18 March 1837, page 4)

This item added considerable weight to the possibility that the name “Larra’s Lake” originally referred to the whole watercourse, in the same way that other watercourses in the general vicinity were given names such as “Laidley’s Chain of Ponds” and “Nandillion Ponds”. But, to continue…

Still working back from 1829, documents relating to significant explorations and other activities were reviewed for hints as to who may have been responsible for attributing the name Lara’s Lake to a lake located on the Bell River, or to a small lake, or group of lakes, on a watercourse that flowed into the Bell River, or even to the entire watercourse – some time before 1829. This backwards search was curtailed at 1813, the year Europeans first managed to find a way into the lands west of the Blue Mountains.

The events studied were:

(a) 1813 Assistant Surveyor-General George William Evans traced the Macquarie River about 90 miles downstream of the Bathurst Plains – to Mount Pleasant. His survey did not extend to the vicinity of Larras Lake (Creek) even though his return to Bathurst was by a more inland route than his outward one.

(b) 1815 Assistant Surveyor-General George William Evans explored country south-west of Bathurst and located a very substantial watercourse that he named the Lachlan River. During this journey, at a time when many watercourses had been reduced, presumably by drought, to strings of waterholes, Evans mapped the lower reaches of Larra’s Lake (Creek).

*An extract from George William Evan’s 1815 map showing the route of his explorations that year.*

Evan’s map showed the confluence of what was later named Nandillion Ponds with the first few hundred meters of Larras Lake (circled in red) but with the exception of the Lachlan River (which is not included in the extract used above), there is no indication that he attributed a name to any of the watercourses he encountered. However, it is worth noting that Evans did show the existence of a reasonably large expanse of water on what became Larras Lake Creek, just upstream of the confluence of that watercourse and the future Nandillion Ponds. This pool may have been the original Larra’s Lake – and a very early casualty of the environmental changes introduced when the Three Rivers Government Cattle Station was established and a flow of wheeled traffic hauled by bullock teams commenced.

(c) 1813 to 1819 William Cox, as Commandant of the settlement of Bathurst, made a number of journeys north of Bathurst. The Cox family papers, held by the State Library of NSW, may contain useful information, but research to date into that possibility has not produced anything significant.

(d) 1817 – Surveyor-General John Oxley, accompanied by Asst. Surveyor-General George William Evans, traced the route of the Lachlan River, and located the Wellington Valley on his return journey. He and (Surgeon) John Harris ³ also noted the confluence of the Bell River with the Macquarie but do not appear to have traced its’ course as far upstream as the vicinity of Larras Lake.

(e) 1818 – Surveyor-General John Oxley, again assisted by George William Evans , traced the route of the Macquarie River downstream from the Wellington Valley. William Cox, in his capacity as the first Commandant at Bathurst, was responsible for placing stores and equipment at the Wellington Valley as a prelude to Oxley’s journey. William Lee, then living on his newly bestowed land grant at Bathurst, is said by some biographers to have accompanied Cox on various occasions during this period,. One of these occasions was probably that of accumulating stores at Wellington Valley. George William Evans, who once again accompanied Oxley, may also have been involved with Cox and Lee in the accumulation of stores. Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to consider the possibility that the name was suggested by Evans in conjunction with Cox and Lee. Note, however, that this particular avenue of enquiry is not yet complete.

(f) 1820 – Assistant Surveyor-General James Meehan, after a journey of exploration in company with John Oxley – identified a route from Lake Bathurst to the Wellington Valley via Mount Lachlan (now Mount Canobolas), Nandillion Ponds and the Bell River. The route is shown as “Meehan’s route in 1820” on a map published in 1823 that reflects Oxley’s 1817 and 1818 journeys. Meehan’s field books for the 1820 journey, which took place during the period 27 April 1820 and 31 May 1820 confirm that he traversed the area of interest along the Bell River. ⁴

(g) 1820s Oxley, Campbell and Cox – travelled through the area north and east of Bathurst looking at pastoral opportunities. It is just possible that their wanderings also included areas west of Bathurst, although by this time Government Stock Stations had been established on the Molong Plains and on the Bell River at Three Rivers and Noorai.

(h) “On 30th November 1821 George Cox, son of William Cox, rode out from the Cox family’s Hereford Estate near Bathurst for a first inspection of the country around Mudgee”. He was accompanied by “Richard Lewis, his father’s long term supervisor, a settler named William Lee, and four others”⁵… Of particular interest is the inclusion of William Lee in this group of land prospectors, even though the intended purpose of the ‘inspection’ was of land around Mudgee. This ‘inspection’ was probably one of those already suggested under (e) and (g) above.

(i) In 1823 Percy Simpson, newly appointed Commandant of a colonial outpost he was to create at Wellington Valley, was instructed to identify a shorter route from Bathurst to the valley than the one then in use. The shorter route he identified passed over the upper reaches of Larra’s Lake (creek). Unfortunately, the notes made by Simpson about his journey and submitted by him to Governor Brisbane remain to be located. (For more about that new route, see the page entitled “Percy Simpson’s Marked Line“.) However, William Cox and George William Evans are far more likely than Simpson to have been involved in the naming of Larra’s Lake .

The majority of the surviving journals, field books, maps, personal diaries and official reports associated with these events have been examined for mention of the name Larra being attributed to a lake or a creek. Although no link to James Larra has yet been found, evaluation to date has served to limit the field of possible attributors to Oxley, Cox, Evans, and, especially, Lee. All had traversed the valley that contains the confluence of Larra’s Lake Creek and Nandillion Ponds (now the Bell River). Evans and Cox and, again – Lee, had direct links to James Larra, licensee of the Freemasons Arms at Parramatta, as follows:

Both William Cox and James Larra were involved in providing assistance to children abandoned when one or both of their parents left the Colony. Cox had been an officer in the New South Wales Corps, whose members had fathered a significant proportion of these “orphans” while James Larra had become involved in trying to assist the children of convicts who were likely to also be abandoned. Of particular significance, Larra took in his two young nieces, Elizabeth and Hannah Harris, while Cox later took another member of the same loosely related group – a young man named William Lee – “under his wing”… These relationships are discussed in detail in pages that addresses the background and activities of John Harris – the convict who, it has been suggested, was involved in the genesis of a Night Watch for the town at Port Jackson (now Sydney).
In 1804 George William Evans was Sergeant Major of the Parramatta Loyal Association, one of two militia formed in anticipation of civil unrest involving Irish rebels exiled, apparently without trial, to New South Wales. At the same time James Larra was a Sergeant of the association and William Cox was Commander.

Of the others, Meehan is not obviously linked to Larra, but on the evening of 8^th May 1820 may have seen the “pretty sheet of water” on the Bell River. His field book makes no mention of such an encounter, but the probability that he passed the confluence of Larras Lake (Creek) and the Bell River is very high, considering his route covered the length of the river, including the stretch originally named Nandillion Ponds which contains the confluence of that watercourse with Larra’s Lake. However, his field books suggest Meehan tended to take short-cuts over the top of ridges where it suited his purpose and his method of navigation. ⁶ Under these circumstance he could perhaps have failed to notice a small lake in the river valley he was following, especially if he passed its location in a more thickly wooded part of his route.

George Cox and “the settler named” William Lee are also of particular interest for a quite different reason, but first it is appropriate to introduce James Larra, the complex relationships between he, a convict named John Harris, and three children, two of which (William Smith and Elizabeth Green) were born on Norfolk Island in 1794. The third child, Hannah Green, was born at Port Jackson in 1796.

In summary, research to date has failed to positively identify a date when the name Larra’s Lake was first attributed to the watercourse or its included features. Clearly the date was earlier than 1829 when John Rogers used it on his map of Creeks on the east bank of the Bell River, but no earlier than 1815 when George William Evans showed the watercourse on a map to illustrate his, the initial European, explorations of the vicinity. However, other avenues of enquiry, mainly involving a search of newspapers and government records for the keywords ‘LARRA’ and ‘LARA’ did identify LARRA as the surname of publican who held a license for premises at Parramatta during the earlier part of the period when the watercourse acquired its name. The search, which is best described as ‘ongoing’, identified several competing suggestions for the name’s origin. None of these stand up to serious evaluation. In view of this, detailed research into the life of the publican and the complex relationship between he and several other players has been completed. The outcome, outlined in the several pages that follow, has been to justify serious consideration that it is indeed his name that was attached to Larra’s Lake.

GOTO John Harris >

1
Archives Office of NSW [1392] B.7.772 Survey of Creeks on the east bank of the Bell River and parts of range between Bell and Macquarie Rivers
2
mentioned in the introduction to these pages
3
not the John Harris mentioned elsewhere in these web pages as being connected to James Larra
4
NSW State Archives
5
Richard Cox William Cox, blue mountains road builder ROSENBERG, Dural NSW, 2012 (ISBN 9781921719530), p205
6
Meehan’s navigation involved plotting his route along a particular compass-bearing (usually magnetic north) and adjusting his position from time to time by moving his track a certain, defined, distance west or east of his forward track.