Hartley Court House - 1837 to 1937

HARTLEY AND ITS HISTORIC
COURT-HOUSE
B y W . C. F o s t e r , W . L . H a v a r d , B . T . D o w d .
A E T L E Y V A L L E Y was first seen by white man on May
28, 1813, when the explorers, Blaxland, Lawson and
W entworth, with their four servants, looked down from
Mount York and discovered to their great satisfaction that
what they had considered sandy and barren land below the
mountains was forest land covered with trees and good grass.
They went down into the valley and terminated their journey
at Mount Blaxland. In November of the same year, George
William Evans entered the valley and camped by the Eiver
Lett north-westerly from Mount York. He followed the course
of the river and crossed it just above the site of Hartley. Passing
the locality of Glenroy at the junction of the Eiver Lett and
Cox’s E iver he continued westerly over the Main Divide to the
Bathurst Plains. Evans referred to the valley as a fine part
of the country, some of it resembling the hills to the eastward
of the Cori Linn at Port Dalrymple.
Late in 1814 the first road into the Hartley Valley, at that
time unnamed, was built by William Cox. His primitive
highway crossed the Blue Mountains and descended Mount
Y ork b y a steep and rugged pass. Once in the valley the road
went northerly for a short distance, then south-westerly, running
about m idway between the river and the foot of the Blue
Mountains. It passed close to the site of Hartley Public School
and came in along a ridge to the junction of the two rivers at
Glenroy. Beyond the valley Cox took his road to the Bathurst
Plains.
In April, 1815, Governor and Mrs. Macquarie and suite
set out from Sydney for the newly discovered country to the
westward. A t Mount York, which Macquarie named, the
party stopped to feast their eyes “ with the grand and pleasing
prospect of the fine low country below . . . The “ beautiful
extensive Vale of Five Miles ” the Governor called “ The Vale
Clwydd ” , after a vale in Wales. This name has been supplanted
by the name Hartley Valley. The first tourists descended by
C ox’s Pass, so named by Macquarie, who described it as a