Hay’s wild west history
Plans for Hay township, 1859, in the time of Henry Leonard’s struggles to establish his businesses.
By Krista Schade
Armed stand-offs over establishing the town of Hay, pulling down buildings as they were being constructed, and shallow graves for the unfortunate are all tales from the town’s early history, when Lang’s Crossing Place was the domain of a few determined people.
The locality where Hay township developed was originally known by Europeans as Lang's CrossingPlace (named after three brothers named Lang who were leaseholders of runs on the southern side of the river). It was the crossing on the Murrumbidgee River of a well-travelled stock-route (known as "the Great North Road") leading to the markets of Victoria.
In 1856-7 Captain Francis Cadell, pioneer of steam-navigation on the Murray River, placed a manager at Lang's Crossing Place with the task of establishing a store (initially in a tent). In December 1857 Thomas Simpson re-located from Deniliquin to establish a blacksmith shop and residence at Lang's Crossing Place. Six months later the Canadian shipwright Henry Leonard arrived; he commenced building a hotel and dwelling-house near Simpson's buildings and launched a punt on the river. Henry Jeffries, the leaseholder of "Illilawa" station (which included Lang's Crossing Place at its western extremity), was vehemently opposed to Henry Leonard's operations; threats against his punt caused Leonard to stand guard with a loaded gun.
An attempt by Jeffries to pull down Leonard's hotel as it was being constructed caused an outcry from those advocating a settlement at the location.
In December 1883 the following story ran in The Riverine Grazier “Recollections of Lang’s Crossing Place.’ The author is credited simply as ‘...an Old Resident.’ “That enterprising go-a-head America, the late Mr Henry Leonard, who was about this time (1857) building a large punt at Moama, soon ''spotted" the good thing, and in early ’58 laid the blocks to build the first punt, and shortly afterwards began to erect the first hotel in Hay. I would here remark that nine tenths of the present inhabitants of Hay can form no idea of the difficulties and annoyances Mr Leonard had to contend against in establishing a public crossing place here ; these where the days before ‘Free Selection,' and the Crown tenants were most particular about any one trespassing on their holdings or runs: no one could go a certain distance of the road without giving, I think, twenty four hours’ notice at the head station, and then could only demand to go on the run once in three months, the penalty being thirty pounds fine. Consequently, this traffic had particularly irritated the owners and manager of the Woolloondool and Illilawa runs, and they were wroth at Mr Leonard daring to settle down and erect buildings, etc., so they tried all they knew to stop the punt from being worked and the hotel being built. I expect it will be hardly credited these days that upon the completion of the punt and its being put into working order, the manager of the station came with the avowed intention of cutting the warp and letting the whole affair adrift, but Mr Leonard was equal to the occasion and stood with a loaded gun and threatened to shoot the man that injured the rope. I afterwards knew Mr Leonard, and can safely say that he was just the man to carry out his threat; but happily, it was not required, the other party apparently thinking better of it. Not so fortunate, however, was he with the hotel, for Mr Perston, manager for Mr Henry Jeffery, the then owner of Illilawa, actually brought down a team of bullocks, hitched them on to one of the verandah posts and pulled it out by the roots; thereby, I suppose, asserting his right to pull down all buildings erected on the run without his permission. I did not see this myself, but I heard Killeen, the driver of the bullocks, say that after fastening the chain to the post he threw down his whip and Mr Perston had to start the bullocks himself. The hotel was eventually finished and opened as a licenced hotel by the sign of the "Punt Hotel" in September, 1858.”
The correspondent goes on to recall how untimely deaths were dealt with, during this frontier time in Hay’s past.
“In December, 1859, a sad accident occurred at this place during the crossing of a mob of cattle. The driver of the cart had crossed the punt … The cattle were backward at taking the water, and he jumped on one of the cart horses to swim across the river to give assistance. The horse threw him in the water, he swam out and caught the other horse upon which he also attempted to swim the river, but it also threw him in the water and was supposed to have kicked him, for he sank and was seen no more until his body was raised some hours afterwards by blacks diving for it. I assisted to dig the grave while the police went in to the town for a coffin, but owing to the delay caused by having to travel about hunting for a pick it was only two feet or so deep when they returned. Mr Benjamin Bradley, the then chief constable, said it would have to do as he could not wait, and the fine young man, some twenty-two or three years of age, was put into the box (coffin I cannot call it) and buried as he was taken out of the river. The shirt and trousers he had on were quite new… One of the blackfellows asked for his boots so they were pulled off and given to him, and the bones now lie in the bend within a few inches of the surface, and will be exposed someday, owing to the floods washing the soil away. This is the only white buried in the bends on the north side of the river that I know of.
“There are aboriginal graves, but they are on the high lands, these people never interned their dead in low flooded ground. There is one blackfellow's grave near the present Pound Yards, and another below the Woolpack Inn. A short time before this accident word was brought in that a man was lying dead at the Nino Mile Box; the police went out and buried the body at the end of the waterhole. The One Tree Plain is very different now to what it was in 1850; there was no house or habitation from one river to the other, and in, dry weather no water. The Nine-mile Box Water hole was a favourite camping place, and held water for a long time, and The site of Leonard’s punt is still visible today; it was located where the riverbank dips in the town reserve now known as Bushy Bend. The current high river shows it was a perfect position for the crossing. Plans for Hay township, 1859, in the time of Henry Leonard’s struggles to establish his businesses. the unfortunate man who died there from thirst must have started from the Lachlan in the hopes of finding water. Arriving there and finding none he must have become delirious, for he had worn a track walking backwards and forwards between two trees. He was buried very shallow, but the earth was heaped up, and shortly afterwards it was found that dogs or something had scratched the earth away and one of the arms was exposed. Policemen went and saw that the body was properly covered, and that was the last of the poor fellow; his bones now lie at the end of the waterhole not far from Mr James Clancy's house.”
Hay Historical Society has undertaken extensive research into Henry Leonard and wife Mary, as one of the town’s pioneers. The Leonard’s left Hay in 1864 and made a home in the Moama and Echuca townships. Henry died in 1873, aged 47 years, en route to New Zealand, and his body was consigned to the sea. Mary Leonard died at her home in Echuca in 1914, aged 87 years.
You can read their full life story at the Hay Historical Society website http://users.tpg.com.au/hayhist/index.html.
Originally published in The Riverine Grazier on February 9, 2023.
