Seaham is a suburb of the Port Stephens local government area in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Williams River which flows into the Hunter River downstream from Seaham village at Raymond Terrace.
It is a rural community supporting a small but expanding population. While the actual village of Seaham, which is located in the north-eastern corner of the suburb, is relatively compact and composed of only a handful of streets, the suburb itself covers an area of approximately . At the 2011 census, Seaham had a population of 1,025. Greater Seaham covers an even larger area and incorporates East Seaham, Brandy Hill, Eagleton and Eskdale Estate.
History
First inhabitants In 1938, Walter John Enright wrote of the district's traditional owners:
On the impacts of colonisation in the Seaham district, Enright says:
On the subject of massacres of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people by settlers following colonisation, Enright writes:
The Seaham district and environs, however, may not have been entirely without such "frightful blots" on its history. In 1877, a massacre at nearby Wallalong was recounted in correspondence published by the Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser:
Reflecting on the massacre, the correspondent goes on to remark that:
While the exact location of the massacre is not provided, an account of floods in 1857 describes how "the first breach it made was at Wallalong, whence the water gradually found its way over a considerable portion of Bowthorne, Hopewell, Barty's Swamps (sic), and all the low lands in that direction". To the east, Wallalong is separated from the "high land" of Brandy Hill, previously known as Ahalton and Warren's Station Paddock, by Barties Swamp. It is possible that the shootings and drownings described as occurring "between the brush and the high land" took place on or about Barties Swamp, below present-day Brandy Hill.
Old Barrack and Government Cottage (c1801–1822)
The first Europeans in the Seaham district were cedar-cutting gangs from the convict settlement at Newcastle. Under military guard, these groups erected a barrack building on the riverbank south of the future village reserve sometime after 1801. This was the first European structure in Seaham and, according to historian Cynthia Hunter, it likely influenced surveyor Henry Dangar to set aside land for a village in that locale.
The writer Alexander Harris (1805-1874) was among those who visited the Seaham district during the era when "cedar-getting was going on at a great rate". He provides this uncanny account of a visit to the locale in his book Settlers and Convicts: The river, on the banks of which we now were, rises and for a long distance winds to and fro among the mountains of the country of Durham: at length it falls into the Hunter [river], not a great way from the mouth of that stream. It is now well settled; but at the time we were there spoiling it of its cedar, only here and there amidst the lonely wilderness was there to be found a settler's farm or stockman's hut. The blacks were occasionally, but not often, troublesome. The stories they used to tell us about the brush thereabouts being haunted by a great tall animal like a man with his feet turned backwards, of much greater, however, than the human stature, and covered with hair, and perpetually making a frightful noise as he wandered about alone, made me sometimes doubt whether they were themselves really terrified, or were merely endeavouring to scare us away; but I very strongly incline to the latter opinion. Be it as it may, there was no such consequence. We were too well used to that lonely tree-guarded silence, broken only by the clink of the rising saw, and to the damp unsunned ground, with its thick brown covering of thousandfold rotting rustling leaves, to have any very important new sensations to acquire hereabouts.The first free settlers arrived in Seaham not long after Newcastle transitioned from being a convict settlement to a free society in 1822/23. This had been the recommendation of both Governor Macquarie and John Thomas Bigge, royal commissioner, with the removal of convicts to Port Macquarie opening the Hunter Valley to agriculturists. Around this time, the commandant at Newcastle Major Morisset also had ‘several small cottages … erected for sundry useful purposes at [his] discretion”. One of these government cottages was situated where the town of Seaham was later formed.Hunter, C 2001, Essays on Seaham, Seaham Public School P&C Association, Seaham, New South Wales.
The government cottage at Seaham was likely built between 1819 and 1822, the year Henry Dangar began surveying the Hunter Valley for settlement. It was “constructed of studs, brick nogged, and plaistered within and stuccoed on the outside, the rooms floored with boards and the verandahs with tiles”. A detached kitchen had burnt down before the superintendent of public works at Newcastle, William Buchanan, visited in April 1830. The cottage was situated “about 1/4 mile from the riverbank” within what would become Section 3 of the Town of Seaham. It is visible on an 1831 map of the district prepared by George Boyle White, adjacent to Alexander Warren’s house (later known as “Brandon”) and the c1801 convict-built barrack building.
It seems the government cottage was seldom used for public purposes. Built for the convenience of Morisset or any “respectable settlers passing up or down the river”, the cottage quickly fell into a state of decay. It was sold in June 1830 for £45 to Edward Carlton Atkinson. By this time the cottage was situated on land reserved for a future township (Seaham), limiting Atkinson’s ability to acquire additional land to form a farm. Town lots surrounding Atkinson would not be offered for sale until 1838.
The fate of the government cottage is unknown. The site of the much earlier barrack building, built by convicts sometime between 1801 and 1822, was identifiable as late as 1939. In that year it was marked as “ruins” on a map prepared by the Australian Section of the War Office using aerial photographs taken by the Royal Australian Air Force. This map is held at the Newcastle City Library.Topographic map of the Seaham region in New South Wales. Relief shown by contours and spot heights. Surveyed in 1939 by the Australian Survey Corps with aid of Air Photos by the Royal Australian Air Force. Includes index. Held at Newcastle City Library. Libraries Australia ID 42083378
Colonisation and Land Grants (1822–1838) From 1791 to 1831, the Governors of New South Wales issued free grants of land on behalf of the Crown to individuals to encourage and advance the settlement of the Colony. In Seaham, the first of these land grants were made after Dangar’s 1822 survey. Some of the prominent settlers from this time included Alexander Warren at “Brandon”, Henry Carmichael at “Porphyry”, Walter Scott at “Eskdale”, and James McClymont at “Ahalton Farm” (now Brandy Hill). On the east bank of the river, near the village reserve, there was also George Mosman, a nephew of Archibald Mosman, at "Burrowel".
In 1825, the Seaham and Paterson districts were terrorised by bushrangers known as "Jacob's Mob". The first organised gang of its kind in the Lower Hunter, the bandits called on James McClymont and his young family at "Ahalton Farm" (now partly within Brandy Hill) in July 1825. The McClymonts were so fearful after this encounter that left the Seaham district two months later and returned to Sydney. As a result of this reign of terror, horse patrols were soon established in the district to deal with the bushranger threat.
As noted by historian Cecily Joan Mitchell, there are not many of the original houses of importance left at Seaham. One exception is "Eskdale", associated with Walter Scott, the nephew of Surgeone Walter Scott who lived nearby at Wallalong. The house is a contemporary of the earliest homesteads in the district and is a single-storey dwelling, built of stone cut from the ground nearby. Mitchell writes that "the cedar joinery is particularly elegant, panels with fine moulding beneath every window" and that the house plan "is the usual symmetrical Georgian type: a very wide hall leads from the flagged front verandah to the back verandah; two large rooms in front and four at the back. Twin chimneys at either end are of stone". The house was later occupied by the Lex McDonald and his family.
The impacts of colonisation on the traditional Worimi people of Seaham is evidenced by the colonial 'blanket lists' of this period. In 1814, eight years before the first free settlers arrived in Seaham, Governor Macquarie had initiated the official distribution of blankets to Aboriginal people. Macquarie hoped the adoption of blankets would encourage 'civilised' habits and cooperation with settlers. In time blankets were usually distributed by magistrates or police annually on 1 May, the Queen's Birthday. From at least 1835, one of these distribution points was on Alexander Warren's "Brandon" estate, south of the Seaham village reserve. Surviving records show a diminishing number of blankets despatched between that year (40 blankets) and 1841 (25 blankets). By 1850, distribution of blankets within the wider Hunter region was almost non-existent.
Town of Seaham and Winemaking (1838–1915) On 26 July 1838 the Government Gazette announced that a site had been fixed upon for a government town at Seaham. The minimum price was £2 sterling per acre. However, despite the colonial government's best efforts, the Town of Seaham did not flourish. An early attempt to build a court house and lock up came to nought. Neighbouring Raymond Terrace and Dungog were preferred for more substantial public buildings. Although Seaham, like other government towns, had been surveyed with streets running north-south and east-west, the early focus of the village became a bend on the Williams River designated Crescent Street. This was a low-lying precinct adjacent to the swamp, prone to regular flooding and characterised by smaller, more irregular shaped town lots. Nevertheless, it was a convenient site for a public pound, and it was around this essential service that a semblance of village life eventually clustered.
John Saward was the village's the first poundkeeper. He had arrived in the colony as a convict in February 1832 and received his ticket of leave in 1838. By the time of his marriage to Elinor Keefe the following year, Saward was living on the Williams River. From as early as 1842 until 1848 he kept the public pound and operated a ferry service across the river to "Burrowel". Described as "very industrious, much esteemed, and respected by all who knew him", Saward "left a wife and four children to deplore their loss" when he fell from a spring cart and died on the road between Seaham and Hinton in November 1848. An inquest found that he "did not appear to have died instantly" after a cartwheel crossed his neck, "his right hand having swept the dust about in a semicircle as if he had vainly tried to release himself".