When Port Macquarie was established in 1821 it was the northernmost colonial settlement in New South Wales and it was believed that sugar might be grown here. In October that year the commandant, Captain Allman, procured 8 joints of sugar cane which he managed to increase to 7000. These were planted in a little over half a hectare of prepared ground in the government garden a little way down the hill below his residence, and were tended by James Williams, a West Indian convict, to produce the first sugar crop grown in Australia.
In late 1824 the Sydney Gazette was able to report that sugar cane flourished luxuriously at Port Macquarie. The two main uses of what Allman called ‘this most essential article of subsistence’ and the Gazette regarded as an ‘important object of national concern’, were to produce rum and molasses. Under ideal conditions one acre of cane could produce up to three tons of sugar from which it was possible to make either 240 gallons of rum or around one ton of molasses.
Sugar growing continued along the Hastings and Wilson Rivers for about fifty years. However, uncertain seasons and winter frosts made commercial production unprofitable, and the New South Wales sugar industry shifted north to the Clarence, Richmond and Tweed river valleys where the climate was more conducive.
