EARLY SETTLEMENT: Mudgee's Greatest Myth: Who Designed Mudgee?, P.9

MARRIAGE

Before coming to Australia Robert Hoddle had married Mary Staton, by whom he had one daughter (the mother of Robert Hoddle Driberg White, MLC, once a resident of Mudgee). After Mary’s death in 1862, he married in July 1863 Fanny Agnes Baxter, aged 18 (he was 69) and they had three daughters and one son.
 
The family lived in a fine house in Melbourne he built in 1842 where he spent long years of retirement tending his trees and gardens, enjoying the books and pictures he had collected, playing the organ and flute, making translations from the Spanish, and perhaps reflecting on the many difficulties of his personal relationships.

FACTS

There is no evidence to support the folklore theory that during Hoddle’s brief encounter with the Mudgee district he had in any way designed the street layout of Mudgee. So who was responsible for the design?
 
Richard Lewis, who followed Hoddle, cast about for a place for a village (actual date unknown) and decided on the low lying ground (close to where 2MG now stands) beside the Cudgegong River. Luckily, he listened to Michael Lahy, a Cox overseer at Menah, who pointed out the dangers of flood and Lewis made a saner second choice—the present site of the town.
 
Surveyor Lewis fixed the position of the town marking a point to the north side of the river, then again due west and again due north (each measurement being 80 chains) with this river bank being the north boundary of the town reserve.
 
In 1836 William Blackman wanted to build a store, so the  area had to be surveyed again so that a village could be planned. The man instructed to do this was Assistant-Surveyor, Peter Grant Olgivie, who found some of Lewis’ measurement in error. He made a detailed survey which he sent on June 20, 1837 to the Colonial Secretary with a map showing the buildings already erected by William Blackman and a Dr Toogood.
 
A final design based on this map was drawn by N.H.Lewis, Jun. and submitted to the Governor, and it was left to the Acting Governor, Lt Col

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