RICHMOND’S focal point for the greater part of the 19th century was the Black Horse Inn.
Two amazing women, Margaret Seymour and Sophia Sly, had charge of the Inn for this time.
They showed what convict families could achieve. Paul Randall arrived on the Admiral Barrington as a convict in 1791. His wife, Mary, arrived two years later.
In 1802 Randall is recorded as growing grain and supporting his wife and family on his first land grant in 1796.
By 1816 William Cox, the District Magistrate, nominated him for 40 acres at Richmond Hill.
Paul Randall was one of the many Hawkesbury residents to sign the Address of Welcome for Governor Macquarie in 1810.
Randall was one of the lowland farmers given a town site away from floods which formed the beginnings of the Black Horse Inn.
It is likely Randall sold liquor from the Black Horse Inn site for some years before the granting of a licence in 1819.
Emily Ashton, born 1819, recalled the availability of liquor and of corroborees at the site before licensing.
The memorial for annual renewal of licence carried the support of prominent citizens – William Cox and Alexander Bell.
In 1821 Randall arranged a memorial to Governor Lachlan Macquarie asking for the deeds for the allotment to transfer to his daughter, Margaret, born in Sydney in 1799.
Margaret appears to have been the only surviving child. In 1820 she married convict doctor, Henry Seymour, and it appears that the Seymours became the innkeepers.
A two-storey building was constructed adjacent to the inn and there can be little doubt that the power at the Inn for the middle fifty years of the 19th century was Margaret Seymour.
She was called on to control an often boisterous patronage. Before the construction of Richmond Court House in 1871 many hearings took place there.
Horse races along Windsor Street finished at the Black Horse Inn. Sophia Westbrook, daughter of convicts James Westbrook and Elizabeth Phipps, probably came to the Inn as a child helper, and the Seymours appeared to adopt her as their child.
In 1844 Sophia married a convict, William Sly. As well as raising her family, Sophia stayed on at the inn for the rest of her life, ran the inn and cared for Mrs Seymour.
When Margaret Seymour died the inn and a number of other properties were bequeathed to Sophia.
Eventually the eldest of the 10 Sly children, William, became the licensee.
After his time the inn was leased to a number of short-term licensees, until in 1926 it was closed down when its licence was transferred to the new Kurrajong Heights Hotel.
Remnants of the Black Horse Inn are concealed behind a fac¸ade on the corner of Windsor Street and Bosworth Street.
Its sign is in the Hawkesbury Regional Museum.
