DANGAR ISLAND HISTORY
DANGAR ISLAND WAS likely too small to permanently support a resident First Nations population, but shell middens and sandstone rock carvings reveal the local GuriNgai – or Dharug – people visited the island.
In March 1788, a few weeks after dropping anchor in Sydney Cove, Captain Arthur Phillip arrived in the present-day Hawkesbury River region searching for fertile farmland that could be cultivated to feed the fledgling English colony. He visited Dangar on 7 March and named it Mullet Island for the abundance of mullet in the area and the island was now Crown Land. In 1794 it was leased to Andrew Thompson, an ex-convict-turnedChief Magistrate.
Thompson was a shrewd businessman and wealthy landowner who was the richest settler in colonial Australia at the turn of the 19th century. He established a salt-manufacturing plant on the island, but in 1806 relocated the saltworks to Pittwater’s Scotland Island, in Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
The island’s current namesake, Henry Carey Dangar (1830–1917), bought the island in 1864. The wealthy landowner and parliamentarian built a large weatherboard holiday home on the island. In 1886 he leased it to the Union Bridge Company of New York, which was contracted to build a railway bridge to span the Hawkesbury River.
About 300 Americans moved to Dangar Island, which became the headquarters of the project. Houses, offices, shops, a community hall and a school were built to support this population.
Steel spans were assembled on Dangar for the Hawkesbury River Bridge, which was officially opened by the NSW Governor, Lord Robert Charles Carrington, on 1 May 1899. At the time, it was the largest bridge in Australia. It provided the