ABSTRACT

The first tenants under the new scheme of 1839 sailed in October of that year and were soon followed by a number of others, tenants crowding in on the second Agent, Gibson, faster than he could accommodate them. It was found that the coast land, once cleared, consisted of a deep rich loam of remarkable fertility and, especially after Strzelecki, the Polish explorer, declared that no finer opportunities existed in the island, there was a rush for the 80-acre blocks at Circular Head and Emu Bay. Ships came round the coast from Hobart with local applicants, and advance agents came even from Neuchatel in Switzerland. By the middle of 1842, therefore, 35 families were settled and, by the end of the year, there was a tenant population of 495 all told.