Kempsey Macleay RSL Euroka Cup Day 2.5.20

Euroka was the location for the first European settlement in the Macleay Valley in 1827. A cedar party was established nearby on the banks of the Macleay River which was named in honour of the Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay. The area abounded in soft wood brushes of cedar and rosewood.

The area abounded in soft wood brushes of cedar and rosewood. This timber attracted two of the earliest settlers in the valley – John Henry Sullivan, a son of the Police Magistrate at Port Macquarie and Enoch William Rudder, a merchant who came with licences to cut cedar. The timber also attracted William Chapman, a merchant.
These three timber merchants all took out grazing licences for cattle stations in the curve of the river with frontages to the river where the brush forest grew. The subdivision of this land in later years brought more farmers to grow maize and develop dairy farms on the well-watered alluvial soil.