IT STARTED with convict shepherds working for Thomas Kite in the 1820s and a few years later a convict lockup and halfway house between Bathurst and the Wellington convict settlement.
By the early 1840s there were some 62 people living at the second Nubrygyn settlement owned by merchant Charles Warne and army officer Charles Wray Finch.
The place, according to history buff Kate Gadsby, has an amazing story of the local Aborigines at the time, convicts, early pastoralists, bushrangers and all the reprobates who passed through on their way between Bathurst and the Wellington settlement.
"Nubrygyn has a huge story to tell with the people who were involved here when Wellington and even Orange were not recognised townships, and they need their story to be recorded," Kate said about her recently published book, "Convicts, Capitalists and Corruption, Nubrygyn and the Colony's settlement west of the Great Divide".
It took some 20 years to research and complete between her family farming enterprises with husband Allan in the Nyngan, Gulargambone and Euchareena districts, and raising two children, Tom and Edwina, and a strong will during the past four years to complete.
Last Saturday at her Nubrygyn district home, Binnowee, the book of 498 pages of which 80 pages are devoted to appendixes maps and bibliography, was officially launched among 100 friends and supporters by friend Vin Cox, Mudgee, a descendant of William Cox who was in charge of building the Mountain Road with convicts in 1814.
Vin is now the head of Darley and Godolphin Australia, thoroughbred breeding, and the association with Kate rose from her lifetime of breeding racehorses and selling at the Magic Millions and Inglis Bloodstock sales.
Nubrygyn Inn
When living at Nyngan, Kate was involved in setting up the Nyngan History Museum and no doubt learnt much about research during those years.
"I love history and I love learning about pastoral holdings," she said.
"So, when I began researching the history of the Nubrygyn Inn, I realised this district was far bigger than that."
It was a lively settlement for its time in the 1840s and by the 1850s there was a changing of the guard. The focus changed to Brazier's Nubrygyn Inn, boasting the pub, blacksmith and a school - a small village attracting shepherds and other workers on the Brazier's and surrounding properties.
Cobb and Co travelled through with three mail deliveries a week.
Kate is a great-great-grandchild of free settlers William and Caroline (nee Coleman) Brazier, who built the pub during the early 1840s on the eastern side of the Nubrygyn Creek crossing between Molong and Ironbarks (Stuart Town).
History may have by-passed Nubrygyn as nearby Euchareena and Ironbarks expanded if it wasn't for Ben Hall, John Gilbert and John Dunn, the notorious bushrangers of their time who had ventured some distance from their known territories, possibly for booty from the Ironbarks district's gold rush of the 1850s.
On Sunday, April 23, 1865, the trio assisted by an unidentified local rode up to the Inn and boldly held it up overnight before moving on.
Kate took up the challenge and worked tirelessly to have the Inn heritage listed.
In her thorough research Kate found there were actually three Nubrygyns in the district - first owned by Thomas Kite, another by Charles Fredrick Warne with Charles Wray Finch, and then the Braziers.
Warne was a founding member of The Australian Club while Finch was an amazing pioneer of the Bogan River, Duck Creek then Moreton Bay and Emerald in Queensland.,
There were three Finch brothers who married three sisters, all daughters of the first Police Magistrate of the colony, Colonel Henry Croasdaile Wilson, and all well educated (and all living at Nubrygyn) and had a "beautiful" story to tell, according to Kate.
She also talked about Blue Cap the bushranger who rampaged the Wellington country from 1839 to 1840.
"Not to confuse him with another Blue Cap who came 20 years later, the first at times had 15 associates (runaway convicts) and he held up Robert Smith at Neurea five times, and many pastoralists at Bathurst," Kate said. "He escaped the authorities by disappearing at Goulburn in late 1840, never to be seen again."
Kate also mentioned Nubrygyn is the home of the two oldest adobe (mud brick) dwellings in Australia. The launch evening was supported by Cumulus Wines owner Peter Wedgwood, whose vineyard is located on the first property of Thomas Kite, a convict, capitalist and one of the largest pastoralists of his time. Kate also talks of the battles between the early settlers and squatters and the unruly convict labourers and the lawlessness in the County.
Nubrygyn originated from the Wiradjuri Milleewaddaree tribe name Yullubrigen, meaning rainbow.
"I loved putting this book together and preserving the history I've researched. It is for everyone." Find Kate Gadsby by emailing: info@gadsby.net.au or her website www.kategadsby.com
