Glenorie Progress Association has a close working relationship with the local environment centre and we are always interested in promoting local history. Pat Shwartz has been researching the following, we are proud to support the project.
We all know now that the Hawkesbury and Nepean River systems are all part of the same river. However in the days of first settlement by Europeans, exploring parties came across the different sections of the River separately. This led to confusion as to whether there were two rivers or just one.
In order to solve this problem Governor Phillip, Collins, Tench and Dawes with aboriginal volunteers Colbee and Boladeree explored the Hawkesbury and Cattai area in 1791. They reached a spot which was named Tench’s Prospect Mount.
Historically there has been confusion as to where Tench’s Mount was situated until Vic Jurskis found the location in 2013. He was researching changes in ecology and vegetation over the last 200 hundred years and decided to research Tench’s Mount because of Tench’s detailed description of that area. However, Jurskis couldn’t find it on any maps and set out to discover where it was.
The exciting news is that Tench’s Prospect Mount is in Glenorie approximately 800 metres west south west of the intersection of Cattai Ridge and Halcrows Roads.
There is little European history in Australia that dates to the 1700’s so it would be wonderful to have a memorial sited somewhere in the vicinity of Tench’s Prospect Mount as a permanent record of this exploration party. (Thank you to Diana Kincaid for her research in bringing this story light)
The giant eucalyptus deanei shown in the photo would probably have been a youngster when Tench was on his exploration journey and is also located in Glenorie and serves as a monument to the great forests that would have once existed throughout the area in the 1700’s.
Many thanks to Pat for the article and photo.
Just a reminder it’s not too late to order your personal pavers and if you are interested to know more of what’s happening in Glenorie you are welcome to join us at 7:15pm 2nd Thursday every month in the downstairs meeting room of Glenorie RSL. For more information contact the [email protected]
