The first official map was approved by the Governor on the 1st of October 1829. It shows four residential blocks surrounding a central square, in the style of an English village.

Access was via a ford across the river, leading to Wayo Street.

Large allotments for inns and commercial premises fronted the river flat, where bullock drivers could set up camp. It was the custom to buy goods off the back of the wagon.

The gaol stood in the large reserve on the right-hand side of the map, just north of the current facility. It was the first substantial building in the town, made of random-rubble, eight metres long by three metres wide. It soon tumbled down, probably with the help of the inmates.

It was replaced by a slab prison, known as the “wicker basket”, because it was easy to wriggle through the loose planks. “Garie’s paddock” was nearby.

Geary was an early Constable and occasional Pound Keeper. The paddock was used for impounding stray stock, but later became a horse-paddock for the mounted police. Twelve allotments to the south of it were reserved for pensioners of the New South Wales Veterans Corps, who were probably employed around the gaol and police garrison.

Andrew Allen’s cottage can be seen west of the river. The first residents had already moved in before the township was gazetted. The census of 1828 shows a population of ten. There would have been eleven, but one of the convicts had nicked off.

Some of the names of those pioneers are still familiar: “John Cole, 31, free by servitude, 7 year sentence, Tanner” (Goulburn’s first licensed publican, a prominent businessman and civic leader. Cole Street is named after him).

“Daniel Geary, 31, ticket of leave, Colonial Sentence, District Constable” (His wife Bridget and 4 children resided with him. He became one of Australia’s first police heroes. Geary’s Gap is named after him).

“Matthew Healy, 35, free by servitude, per Guildford 1818 [7 year sentence] Catholic, Pound Keeper at Goulburn Plains” (Matthew was an early inn-keeper and entrepreneur who left many descendants in the district. Healy Street recalls his memory). “Thomas Hogan, 35, free by servitude, per Dorothy 1820, [7 years], protestant, resides at Goulburn Plains” “Joseph Perkins, 30, free by servitude, per Guildford 1822 [7 years] protestant. Shoemaker at township, Goulburn Plains”.

“W. Ratt, 17, Government Servant, per Mangles 1826 [7 years] catholic. Taken to the bush. Was in the service of D. Geary, Goulburn Plains.”

In September 1829, Lachlan Macalister rode into town at the head of the newly formed Southern Division of the Mounted Police.

Fifteen hand-picked volunteers followed him, smartly kitted-out with knee-high boots, dark blue trousers with white stripes, tight blue jackets with red and white facings, and crossed bandoliers. Pillbox caps perched on their heads, sabres rattled at their sides, and muskets swung from the saddles of their prancing horses.

They pulled up at the front of Matt Healy’s shanty, while most of the customers probably scarpered out the back. They hung up their horses, rolled up their sleeves, and built a barrack hut next door. A court house with a whipping post soon followed. The inn was promptly re-named “The Mounted Policeman’s Arms.”

Law and Order had arrived, and the town prospered. Clustered under the protection of the Garrison, people slept soundly at night. Goulburn was the only place between Campbelltown and Bass Strait where a person could feel safe from rampaging gangs of escaped convicts.

The earliest official landholders were William Allan, J. Park, and Matt Healy.

In 1830, a traveller named William Riley described the town; “There are a few Mounted Police here, a gaol, a public house, a poundkeeper and a blacksmith and shoemaker. It is very prettily situated at the bend of the Wollondilly, here about 150 yards wide.”

The best description was recorded by Charles Macalister, in “Old Pioneering Days in the Sunny South”: “After a journey of three weeks, per bullock dray, we reached the Goulburn plains, then the scene of the Chief Police Station in the Southern district, and therefore a place to be religiously avoided by the escaped convicts and desperadoes of the time.

At the time of our arrival [1833] the existing landmarks had nothing of urban beauty or grandeur about them. They were simply a small shingled gaol or lockup of four cells [built in 1830]; a little rough-hewn courthouse, where the chief magistrates of the time sat in stern judgment on the hapless culprits brought before them; and nearby were the bark-roofed quarters of the officers and humpies of the Mounted Police.” By 1834, the population was 229. All but seven were male.

A Quaker missionary wrote that “Goulburn consisted of a Court House of slabs, covered with bark, a lock-up, a few huts occupied by the mounted police and constables, a cottage of roughly-cut timber, a blacksmith’s shop kept by one Ben Goold, and a small inn, affording tolerable accommodation for such a place, kept by Matthew Healey”. He deplored the local practice of selling rum by the five gallon [20 litre] keg.

By that time, Governor Bourke had visited the town on a tour of inspection (in 1832), and declared that the township must be moved! He claimed that the site was flood-prone. (He was probably referring to the river-crossing).

So a new township was surveyed which was more accessible to the proposed route of the Great South Road. This is the Goulburn of today. Parts of the “old township” are still recognisable. Murac and Wayo Streets still exist, but Wayo Street is now chopped off at both ends. Darling Square is a derelict industrial site, covered in weeds.

Half of the western block disappeared under Chantry Street and the Tully Park golf course, and half of the eastern block was resumed for Maude Street and the Goulburn Correctional Centre. The bend in the Crookwell Railway line lopped off the top of the Old Township. “Riversdale” occupies the site where Healey’s inn once stood. Matt Healey’s stone stables are the only remaining relic of “Old Goulburn.