THOMAS Adam is a truly forgotten Newcastle district pioneer.
He was a man of action, but also a thinker, quick to seize a business opportunity and civic-minded. He was in many ways ahead of his time. Often outspoken, he had an astonishing, often controversial, career, especially in local politics.
Adam (1819-1904) may have passed under the radar for many of us these days, but he was an integral part of Newcastle's growth just after its early days as a convict settlement had passed.
He seems to have been a real go-getter, a self-starter, smart and ambitious, who developed from modest beginnings to become a man of influence, determined to see the region prosper.
Why else would he have the Newcastle suburb of Adamstown named after him, despite his link with it really being very fleeting?
Adam though certainly deserves to be better known, especially considering his many brushes with fame. These included, Lake Macquarie bushrangers, famed explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, and geologist Sir Edgeworth David, who discovered the Hunter region's rich Greta coal seam.
The enterprising Thomas Adam also wore many hats, from building contractor to ship builder, timber merchant, land speculator, coal exporter, local politician and salvage expert. During the 1880s, Thomas Adam also served as an alderman and mayor of Raymond Terrace, and it was here he finally died, well respected by his peers, aged 85.
He came to Newcastle in late 1845 with his family determined to succeed.
Born in Scotland, Adam migrated to Australia in 1837 and soon found work as a carpenter and cabinet maker. Initially settling in the Brisbane Water (Gosford) area, he soon became involved in timber milling.
Here he was described as being the first to navigate the sand-choked entrance to Lake Macquarie and was involved in a holdup by the notorious Jewboy Gang of bushrangers.
In 1848, while in business in Newcastle and seeing the area's potential, he bought his first land parcel. He then went on to buy and sell land for the next 40 years while establishing a sawmill on Bullock Island (Carrington) between 1857 and 1861.
Adam was said to have been the first person to buy land on Bullock Island and work there. A son was also reported to be the first white child born at Carrington.
Oh, and did I mention he owned the land on which modern Eleebana, in Lake Macquarie, was created?
So, it's a wonder no one has really written about Thomas Adam until now. Or have they?
I was largely ignorant about Adam until recently when reader Peter Coughlan, of Marmong Point, alerted me to his achievements.
Coughlan said he had a very distant relative who had once written a book on Thomas Adam some time ago.
"She has given me two copies of the second edition of her book which she updated for university purposes last year. I'm thinking it can't hurt you to have a look, if you're interested," he said.
"There was certainly a lot of new material for me, particularly regarding Newcastle and Lake Macquarie in the 1840s to 1880s covered in 210 pages of narrative, pictures and 25 pages of references."
Incidentally, Coughlan said that on his father's side of the family he could trace bloodlines to both Thomas Adam and Benjamin Singleton in the Upper Hunter, and asked how common it was to have that link to two towns/suburbs named after locals.
The book outlining the career of Hunter Valley pioneer Thomas Adam is called Uncommon Endeavour, and was quietly published first in 1998.
It's a superb book, liberally illustrated with colour plates and valuable maps of his era. For anyone interested in local history, it might be an eye-opening guide into how Newcastle and the Lower Hunter developed, and the many personalities involved.
It's written by an historian and a great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Adam. And, just to confuse the issue, her name is Elizabeth Adams.
As she writes: "While Thomas's greatest claim to fame may be the fact that Adamstown, Newcastle, was named after him, it was not his greatest achievement.
"He expressed the desire to leave the world a better place than the one into which he had been born and there is no doubt he achieved that."
Adam bought 54 acres of Crown land south of Glebe Road (later Adamstown) in April 1869 for 54 pounds. He then sold it five months after he bought it. The site was then quickly resold three times.
For although it was a remote area to Newcastle itself, scattered mining settlements were slowly developing as dormitory towns for the pits.
The land was finally surveyed and subdivided, with the developer A.S Huntley naming the suburb Adam's Town, in honour of Thomas Adam due to his services as a Newcastle alderman.
Land finally went on sale in 1875, and by 1880 the area's population was 400.
About the same time, in June 1869, Adam bought 194 acres of waterfront land on the eastern side of Lake Macquarie, alongside portions chosen by mine manager Thomas Croudace.
Adam sold the land in June 1871, but it wasn't until the 1970s that Eleebana's streets were developed and named. The point was originally given a Welsh name, Landraff Point. It is now Rocky Point.
Adam's diverse interests are too broad to fully cover on this page today, so I'll mention a few highlights.
While on Bullock Island, Adam built 200 barges for the transport of coal downriver to Newcastle. These were based on the design of barges used on London waterways.
The first road on the island, Young Street, was constructed through his land in 1867, but it would be 11 years before a road bridge was erected.
In 1849, he finished building a punt to be used to cross the Hunter River at Morpeth.
Many Newcastle buildings, which would now be considered historic had they survived, were built by him between 1846 and 1874, including a mansion named after a Crimean war battle.
Adam even bought the famous 'Cawarra' wreck in 1866 after it sank near Nobbys in a gale with the loss of 62 lives. He and his business partners were trying to recover the wreck's valuable engines, but ultimately lost money on the venture.
The busy entrepreneur also played an important role in persuading the Board of National Education to build premises for a permanent National School. Adam became one of the first aldermen on Newcastle Council, serving from 1859 to 1872, and even had an unsuccessful tilt as a candidate for the NSW Legislative Assembly.
The final word on Thomas Adam should now come from his biographer Elizabeth Adams.
"Despite his achievements and recognition, Thomas was not a saint . . . but he was more than ready to speak his mind when he saw injustice and hypocrisy," she wrote.
"If he had not dabbled in quite so many economic ventures or had halved the time he spent on good causes, he may have been as rich or powerful a man as some of his colleagues. "
She said his ideology and philosophy provided a conscience for his time and personal gain was always a secondary motive.
"There was a little Don Quixote in him, and that is endearing," she wrote.
