BY 1865, about 1200 residents had settled on the eastern side of the Highlands in the Yarrawa Brush rainforest district.
Surveyor Campbell divided the area into four parishes called by their Aboriginal names: Kangaloon to the north and Yarrawa on the south-east side, bounded by Burrawang at Joe Wilde’s meadow and by Yarrunga to the west.
Burrawang was the Aboriginal word for a native palm that once grew abundantly in the area. A land grant of 237 acres had been taken up there in 1856 by early settler John Staggs, but it was not until 1861 that the Robertson Land Act encouraged settlers to make their way up the Jamberoo Mountain to convert the Yarrawa Brush into good grazing land.
The Act provided for free selection before survey of unreserved Crown Land in blocks from 40 to 320 acres at £1 an acre.
Early selectors in the Burrawang area included Messrs John McGrath, John Hanrahan, William Davis, John Cullen, W.R. Hindmarsh, Thomas Wilson, Edward Moses, John Moore and Peter White, who all registered their selections south of the Wingecarribee Swamp in 1862.
It is recorded that the McGrath and White families lived where Burrawang village now stands. The village was not a government township, but built on private land owned by William Barrett who had bought the 50 acres and subdivided it into blocks with planned streets.
Old Cedar Mountain Road became Wilde’s Meadow Road, later renamed Church Street; Barrett Street ran east of Wilde’s Meadow Road; one street south was Dale Street; and a connecting street was named George Street.
THE VILLAGE BEGAN to develop in 1865 when a post office, known as Mount Pleasant, was established and in July its name was changed to Burrawang.
George W. Creighton obtained a licence for the Sassafras Inn in June 1866. The General Store opened in 1867. In 1868, Michael James Egan held the licence for the Prince Alfred Hotel, which was probably the original inn renamed.
In the 1860s there was no regular means of communication with only one dray-road out, called Old Cedar Mountain Road, which connected to tracks heading to Moss Vale and east to the coast. Goods were carried on pack-horses and a horseback mail ran once a week.
Burrawang had the first printing works in the Berrima district that was owned by P. J. Wallace, who printed The Wombat.
Unfortunately, his house and £50 worth of type were destroyed by fire in July 1871. The Burrawang Herald, one of the earliest newspapers in the area, printed its first number on October 3, 1883.
Barrett, Hayter & Co built a flour mill in 1879 and operated a timber mill that turned out about 3500 feet of timber a day, employing 20 hands.
When settlement had first begun the ground was cleared and potatoes were planted; then English grasses were sown and cows run. Butter manufactured in the district sold at from threepence to fivepence a pound.
Henry Fly Ginger had cleared half of his 200 acre farm by 1879. With 70 head of cattle, including 31 milkers, he started cheese-making rather than producing butter as the low price paid for butter made it unprofitable. For fodder, he grew oats, barley and maize.
By 1880 Burrawang had developed into a prosperous community with a school, three churches, three hotels, an ES&A Bank, a blacksmith and a saddlery.
IN 1878, LOCAL FARMERS formed Burrawang Farmers Club, meeting at the Club Hotel on the Thursday night nearest the full moon. In 1879 it became the Burrawang and West Camden Agricultural Society and held its first agricultural show on April 21 and 22, 1880, on flat land in Dale Street, using the nearby sale yards to hold the stock.
This was the first show held in the Southern Highlands. The 1881 show was in Moss Vale and again at Burrawang in 1882, 1883 and 1884, after which Robertson became the permanent home. The club was an active organisation interested in promoting agriculture.
An occasional dance or concert provided amusement for residents of Burrawang and district. In 1890 the Burrawang Ethiopian Troupe was formed to provide shows for the residents. When the moving picture came to Australia, itinerant showmen visited the town and staged a show in the School of Arts, and in 1929 an enterprising individual began a weekly exhibition of films.
In the Yarrawa Brush, no longer a rough frontier, Burrawang became an attractive village.
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