Old Moama is the site of an early settlement. These include the approach or ‘gangway’ leading to the first punt across the Murray River at Moama was located on part of the present Maiden’s Punt Reserve. Huge numbers of stock crossed the river from three stock routes that converged at a point immediately above the punt. The most important of these was from Wilcannia, N.S.W. via Deniliquin, where it was joined by another route via Hay, both carrying stock from as far north as Queensland. During the pastoral era, enormous numbers of cattle and sheep traversed these routes across south-western New South Wales, also drawing stock from other small feeder routes.
Maiden’s Punt was the first commercial punt in the area and provided a vital crossing over the Murray for stock moving over the state border from New South Wales into Victoria, thereby linking inland stock-breeding areas with southern markets. These movements provided meat on the table of miners and southern city dwellers and endorsed the reputation of N.S.W. as the food source for people living south of the Murray. By its presence, Maiden’s Punt facilitated the transferal of animals and drovers across to the Victorian side of the river en route to their destination.
The punt was put across the Murray by James Maiden, who had arrived in Sydney as a convict in 1835. After serving a sentence of seven years, he became an assigned servant working as a stockman for a relative, John Clark (Clarke), who held the lease of Tooringabby and Perricoota runs on the Murray some 30 km west of Moama. About 1840 he drove some of Clark’s cattle across the Yass Plains to Perricoota and Tororingabby (first known as Long Swamp Run) in search of green feed during a prolonged drought. He remained there as superintendent. When Maiden established his punt in 1845 – thereby becoming founder of Moama – it was the only punt on the Murray River for many river miles, the nearest being at Swan Hill and probably Wahgunyah. For some eight years from 1845 to 1853, Maiden’s Punt was the sole means of crossing the Murray in this area for most of the years following the discovery of gold at Bendigo in 1851, when stock crossing numbers were at their peak.
After gold was discovered at Bendigo in 1851 stock numbers crossing the Murray increased dramatically in order to satisfy the diggers’ need for meat and between 1851 and 1856 Moama became the largest cattle mart outside Melbourne. Enormous numbers of stock crossed the Murray River and records show that between June 1856 and June 1857, 34,319 cattle, 110,885 sheep and 1710 horses crossed on Maiden’s and Hopwood’s punts. Local estimates put the number of sheep at 200,000 annually at this time. By 1858/9 the number of sheep had doubled and cattle and horses trebled. Most cattle swam across, with the punt carrying drays, stores and drovers. As a result Maiden prospered and huge deals were conducted in the convivial atmosphere of the bar at his Junction Inn. But things changed when miners began to move away from the diggings as the gold petered out and by 1857 Maiden had been forced to sell all his Moama assets. Where cattle prices had previously been £10 to £12 per head, by 1861 – the year Maiden sold Perricoota – they had collapsed to £3.
These large stock numbers travelled along a network of routes developed in the 1840s, marked on Surveyor Thomas Townsend’s plan of ‘Maiden’s Punt at Moama’ dated April 1851. In 1845 Maiden had moved his punt from Perricoota to a strategic position in Moama where three main stock routes converged, the most important coming from the north from Wilcannia via Deniliquin, with one from the west - ‘Lower Murray’ - and another from the east from around Barmah. Most stock was heading to slaughter yards at Bendigo, some to Melbourne markets.
In 1856 Maiden’s punt sank with a load of bricks destined for use in the re-building of his original inn and was scrapped. A better punt was constructed locally for £700 by Leonard, a builder, who became the owner. It was 100 feet long and was wide enough to carry two drays abreast, thus being able to carry four drays and 600 sheep in one crossing. The punt was launched 'in great style’ in February 1857 and was still in commission in 1865, when a fatal accident occurred on the Victorian side near the punt gangway. It probably ceased to operate after 1870, when Old Moama was wiped out by the worst flood in living memory, resulting in all public buildings being rebuilt on higher ground. This, combined with the ascendancy of Hopwood’s empire over the river at Echuca, led to the terminal decline of Old Moama, the site of Maiden’s former glory.
Then, in 1853, another former convict named Henry Hopwood (founder of Echuca) installed a punt across the Murray from Echuca on the Victorian side, some 3 km downstream from Maiden’s crossing. Traffic was then gradually shared between the two punts, which operated for many years until eventually Maiden’s ageing punt was eclipsed by Hopwood’s newer ferry and grander inn. Following Maiden’s departure from Moama about 1857, the area stagnated for want of a leader, while across in Victoria Hopwood began developing an empire.
For a short period in the 1860s two punts competed at Moama. This was as a result of local politics – Hopwood sought to have a monopoly over all crossings in and out of the Riverina and to this end bought Maiden’s former punt from a coach company in 1862. Watt, who bought the Junction Inn shortly afterwards, resented Hopwood’s entry into Moama and his purchase of a punt that had always been associated with the inn. He therefore set up a ‘free punt’ a short distance from Maiden’s which ran for a few years. By 1865 Henry Leonard owned both punts, but by then only one was in use.
It is believed that Maiden/Leonard's punt operated until the 1870 flood, although by that time traffic at Moama had declined and most travellers used Hopwood's crossing until a substantial bridge was built at Echuca in 1878.
It is unclear if the wreck was ever removed after it sank.
