Paterson

Postcode: 2421

Paterson is a small township in the lower Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia and Dungog Shire. It is situated on a river of the same name and has a population of roughly 340 people.

It is in the middle of what was once dairy and timber country and is now more significantly a feeder town for the nearby mining industry in the Upper Hunter and the city of Newcastle.

It is approximately 15 minutes drive north along either Tocal or Paterson Roads from the nearest major township of Maitland, and has a station on the main North Coast Railway Line between Sydney and Brisbane. Adjoining areas include Duns Creek, Martins Creek and Vacy.

The area was once occupied by the Gringgai clan of the Wanaruah Aboriginal people. The first known European in the area was the man whose name the town was to adopt, Colonel William Paterson, who, in 1801, surveyed the area beside the river that Governor King named in his honour.

As with so many colonial settlements timbercutters, after local supplies of red cedar, followed in the footsteps of the explorers and surveyors. Indeed the Paterson River was then known as the Cedar Arm due to the abundance of timber. By 1818 there were known to be eight farms along the river, six of them belonging to convicts.

The first land grant in the area was made to Captain William Dunn in 1821 on land by the river to the south of the town. Although the townsite was the third to be surveyed in the Hunter Valley, after Newcastle and Maitland, it was not proclaimed until 1833. Paterson soon became an important river port. As such it also became a service centre to the surrounding community. Considerable supplies of tobacco were grown, as well as grains, grapes, wine, citrus fruits and cotton. Shipbuilding also commenced with the development of the river trade.

Many early settlers were Scots and hence a Presbyterian Church preceded an Anglican establishment. Indeed St Ann's, built in the late 1830s, is said to be the oldest Presbyterian Church on mainland Australia. The river trade began to decline in the 1850s as the road to Maitland improved. Timber mills were established by the 1870s. In its heyday Paterson had four stores, five hotels, two shipyards, a sawmill, a tannery, four blacksmiths, two butchers, a bakery and a boarding school for girls.

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