Early History of Bargo
The name Bargo may be derived from the local Aboriginal language name Barago, meaning cripple, thick scrub, or brushwood.
The earliest reference to Barago was noted by George Caley in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks on 25 September 1807. The aborigines called the Bargo area Narregarang, meaning that the soil was not firm – a shaky place. Early explorers and convicts found getting through the Bargo area a difficult experience due to the thick scrub, explorers dubbing the tricky bush the ‘Bargo Brush’. In early Colonial times, ‘Bargo Brush’ became notorious among travellers for harbouring ‘bolters’, convicts who had escaped from captivity and become bushrangers.
Bargo is noted as being where the first recorded sightings of the lyrebird, koala and wombat took place by European settlers. Bargo is also the site of an infamous massacre in 1816 when settlers forced local Aborigines to walk off a big cliff and shot them if they refused. Bargo Police Station, now abandoned, is currently used as a doctors’ surgery. The lock-ups remain behind the building. The patrol area of the Bargo Police Station included Pheasants Nest, Bargo, parts of Tahmoor and Yanderra. (source: Wikipedia)
Bargo Bushrangers History
J. H. Heaton, under the heading ‘Crimes and Criminals, Remarkable’ lists “Desperate conflict between four police and eleven prisoners at Bargo Brush, N.S.W. Constable Raymond shot dead by a prisoner named James Crookwell, April 15, 1866.”
Bowling Club History
TO COME: The foundation and development of the Bowling Club at Bargo.