Beginnings of Goulburn in 1823 

18 December 1935 Goulburn Evening Penny Post 

"Native" writes: "In the year 1823 or just a year before, the Hume-Hovell expedition passed through Goulburn Plains, two houses stood on the present site of the old township of Goulburn.

One of those houses stood opposite the old Church of England Cemetery.

Between where the Passionist Fathers' monastery now stands and the old C. of E. Cemetery stood the homestead in the same year of Lawler and Kearn's stock station. 

"By the year 1932 the settlement had increased to a few wooden buildings.

In that year Sir Richard Bourke laid out the new township of Goulburn.

In that year also stood on the east side of the settlement the first post office erected in Goulburn across the Mulwaree, and Goulburn's first court house was in a paddock which afterwards, I believe, came to be known as Payten's paddock.

Here also, or near at hand, was the first public pound, erected in Goulburn in 1826, and where later on the great Southern Road then passed by. 

"In the year 1841 this locality, with the public pound in the centre, was subdivided into small farms, etc., and it was intended at that time for the town to extend further eastward because the surrounding hills provided what was regarded as excellent building sites. 

"The first Post Office stood on the east side of the settlement, and was illuminated on the occasion of Governor Gipps's visit to Goulburn in 1842. 

"The three cemeteries of the old township of Goulburn contain the remains of many of the early settlers who founded the town, builders and others, some of the earliest of the men who built the first buildings in Goulburn, and whose workmanship put into them I was the object of admiration by early governors and others in their visits to Goulburn. 

"In my opinion these cemeteries were in use by the different denominations long before the Government gave them their deeds of grant.

In fact, the burials in one of those cemeteries go back over a century.   

"As far back as 1843 a strong fence was put around the Presbyterian Cemetery at the old township of Goulburn, as a protection against vandals who were rampant at that time.

In the old Church of England Cemetery ornamental trees were planted many   years ago, and the old Catholic Cemetery contains the remains of one of the first white men born in Argyle."